Technology Standards for School Administrators
Welcome to my World... The Principal
Visioning the Not-Too-Distant Future
Upon arriving at school, Ms. Linda Thompson keys her code into the door
security pad and heads to her office to begin the day. The first order
of business is to check her email. After logging on, she reads and responds
to a number of messages, reviews the school improvement plan on the district
Web site, and pulls up her presentation for the morning staff meeting
to make a few enhancements she thought of on the way to school. Yesterday,
Ms. Thompson developed graphs to be used in her presentation utilizing
data from the state department, central office, and building-level surveys.
Ms. Thompson's secretary arrives at work and pops in to remind her about
the 11:30 a.m. student council luncheon. Ms. Thompson pulls out her personal
digital assistant (PDA) to verify the appointment before heading to the
7:30 a.m. staff meeting.
During the meeting, Ms. Thompson encourages staff to post comments on
two topics through the school Web site. The school improvement team is
requesting feedback on the draft of the new school improvement plan, and
the school's technology planning team has requested comments on and a
prioritization of strategies for implementing the district vision for
technology use. Ms. Thompson returns to her office and her email. In response
to a message from the superintendent asking for data on SAT scores, she
forwards the message to the counseling department and asks that they send
to the superintendent an updated spreadsheet containing SAT information
from the last five years.
Later that morning, Mr. Paul, who teaches Freshman English, comes in
and closes the door behind him. He presents the Principal with a paper
he believes was downloaded from a Web site. Ms. Thompson asks the teacher
to work with the campus technology facilitator and library/media specialist
to verify a violation of the district's acceptable use policy and intellectual
code of conduct. Receiving verification of a violation using school computers,
Ms. Thompson emails the district technology coordinator requesting the
site be blocked using filtering software, and schedules a conference with
the student and parents to outline the consequences spelled out in school
policies. After reading an email from the student council president asking
her to approve a live band for the homecoming dance next month, she replies
with a request for music samples and more information to assist in her
review of the band and their repertoire of music.
After lunch, Ms. Thompson grabs her laptop and goes to Mr. Garcia's room
to do a classroom observation. Through the district's new wireless network,
she downloads Mr. Garcia's lesson plan from the school file server as
she observes the class. Ms. Thompson is excited to see that Mr. Garcia
has incorporated technology use into his lesson. Using exciting new software
supporting sophisticated mathematical reasoning, students are engaged
as pairs, with each pair sharing a wireless laptop. Mr. Garcia moves from
group to group offering support as students prepare to publish their solutions
to a class Web page and to project their contribution for whole-class
review and discussion. Ms. Thompson writes up a rough draft of the evaluation,
thanks and applauds Mr. Garcia for his efforts, and heads back to the
office to finish the observation report. In completing her report, she
reviews Mr. Garcia's professional goals and last year's summative evaluation
in his electronic portfolio on the secure district file server. After
the final draft is completed, Ms. Thompson uploads the report to the evaluation
folder on the district file server and emails Mr. Garcia complimenting
his effective lesson design and use of technology and suggesting a time
for his follow-up conference.
Before Ms. Thompson leaves for the day, she makes one final check of
her email. She sees that her secretary has added a few dates to her calendar,
and the assistant superintendent has forwarded a first draft of next year's
budget. She synchs to her PDA to update her calendar and drops the budget
information into her planning folder. She turns out the lights and heads
for the door. After dinner, Ms. Thompson connects to the Internet to do
some leisurely research on motivating reluctant learners through student
use of digital photography and digital video.
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