Demographics The demographics of the Krakatoa Elementary School are as follows: Grades: K-6 Administration: 1 Administrative staff: 3 Faculty:

25 full time teachers Classroom support staff: 6 Technology Support staff: 1 Krakatoa elementary school is located in an upper-middle class suburban setting. The school is approximately 37 years old but with many improvements over the years including a Cat 5 wiring upgrade and 802.11g wireless access that provides approximately 50 Mbps to all classrooms in the building. Krakatoa serves approximately 750 students with half-day kindergarten. Krakatoa is part of a new school district that began 3 years ago as the result of a district split. What was once part of the largest district in the state has now become a new district with a much smaller geographical footprint. The majority of the new district is middle-class to upper-middle class. The average years of service among the faculty is 15 years with the most tenured teacher at 32 years and 1 teacher starting their first year in the fall. There is one technology specialist who is assigned to Krakatoa in additional to two other elementary schools. They are in the building approximately 1 to 1.5 days a week. Administrative Policy: Emergent/Islands Administration considers technology use when applying policy but is often limited by resources and therefore is often implemented as a suggestion and if it is required it is rarely enforced. There is one laptop cart of 30 computers that is shared by first and second grade, 1 cart for third and fourth. Fifth and sixth grade have a cart each for their grade. Grade level teams are left to work out details on technology use when it involves the computers. Technology policies are usually suggested and left to be worked out at grade level. Planning: Emergent/Islands This category is kind of broken down into two parts. The district is in the process of adopting the Common core. In the subjects that have adopted the common care, such as math, formal planning was involved in using technology and the technology components of the new curriculum were purchased but are not enforced as mandatory to use. For subjects that have not moved to the common core, there is no formal planning or directives for use from the school or district administration. Budget: Emergent/Islands Administrators are cognizant of budgetary needs for technology but those decisions are made at the school level and at the discretion of the local Principal. Funds have been scarce during the latest budgetary cuts so teachers have had to make a pretty extensive case for the purchase of most technology or go after grants to supply their own needs. This past year, the administration used a major fundraising effort by the local PTA to secure an additional laptop cart. The local administrator is open to technology and supportive but is also very conservative with funding for it. They are also somewhat slow to adopt new technology, even if it can prove to be significantly less expensive, such as iPads instead of laptops. Administrative Information: integrated A basic student data system is available district wide and is widely used at its most basic form at this school. The system does have some advanced grading features that are not widely used however and minimal training has been provided to encourage advanced use. Most teachers use the attendance feature and submitting trimester grades. Although final grades are required in the system, the majority of the teachers maintain their grades either by hand or in another program and export final grades into the district system. New mandates for the 2012-2013 year are going to require more documentation in the district data system. Hopefully training will be provided during the fall in-service days. Curricular Electronic Information: Islands Resources are becoming available for new curriculum initiatives that are adopting the common core. Math technology is readily available and Language Arts will be implemented this year. All other subjects are at the discretion of the teacher as to what technology resources are acquired. Teachers are allotted an

amount of funding from the legislature to purchase classroom supplies and many of the more progressive teachers use this money to purchase technology for their classrooms such as a subscription to SpellingCity, an on-line spelling resource. If a case if made for whole school value, the administrations may fund a software or subscription purchase from time to time but it is usually presented as a suggestion for use. Assessment: Islands Technology is used for most of the standardized tests that are utilized by the State and district and assessment data is available for the teachers use. These tests are administered either for each grading term or once at the end of the year. None of that data is readily available to students or parents except at parent/teacher conferences or by request. There is some very basic assessment tools available with the common core math curriculum but it is not mandatory that it be used. I would estimate that the teachers at this school utilized it less than 50% of the time. Curriculum Integration: Emergent /Islands As I have stated previously, In the subjects where the common core has been implemented and new curriculum has been purchased, technology components have also been purchased for use and are available but not mandatory. This includes math and Language Arts but not any other subjects. Teacher use: Islands All teachers are issued a laptop and the common core material is readily available to all the teachers and students but is not mandatory. I would break down the teachers into two basic groups. The teachers who are not particularly flexible to change tend to not use the new resources or minimally. The second group of teachers have adopted the technology tools but are often limited by access to hardware as they have to share resources and therefore must plan carefully to have access to shared laptops. Student Use: Islands Students to have access to the common core curriculum technology but most access it at home and not on a daily basis at school due to resource limitation. Teachers can assign units on the web access sites and several do. The majority of the students at this school do have access to broadband internet at home and are able to access on-line assignments. A few teachers are trying to use Google docs but it requires an email address to access. The school does not provide that for the students so it is voluntary with the parents to maintain.

Support Stakeholder Involvement: Emergent/Islands The school uses a BLT (Building Leadership Team) to plan and implement technology decisions. The BLT member are chosen by the Principal so information and input from and to the staff is inconsistent at best. Some BLT members are very good at communicating with the rest of the staff but others aren't. Information and feedback is sometimes sought at staff meetings but not consistently. Administrative Support: Islands Formalized training and support is usually provided for district wide initiatives via in-service training. There is also a help-desk that is provided by the district. At a local level, most technology initiatives are rolled out at after-school voluntary training that you are not required to attend. Implementation is also voluntary. Training: Islands This school is assigned one technology support staff member but they support 3 schools total and are only on site 1 to 1.5 days a week. They conduct many after school training sessions that are attended by 2-8 faculty members on average. The training is voluntary and usually focuses on Apple OS or software and

sometimes on free third-party applications that are available. These trainings are available about 2 times a week. She is also available for one-on one support if it is scheduled ahead of time. Technical/Infrastructure Support: Islands The district does provide a full time help-desk support that can be accessed via telephone or email. It is used pretty consistently. There is also a district technical support person who supports our school as well as many others. They are usually on site about 3 times a month. The staff and faculty lean on each other quite a bit for support. There are about 3 members of the faculty who are pretty technically advanced and they often provide building support in an informal capacity. Connectivity Local Area Network: Island/Integrated Wireless Broadband access is available in all areas of the school. A data network that allows students to keep files was created last year that allowed students to access work from multiple access points but it is limited to internal network access only and not remotely or via the web. Use is mostly limited by access to hardware. District Area Networking: Islands/Integrated Wireless broadband is available in all district facilities and network storage is available as well in internet access. Data applications are available and have some advanced functionality but the majority of the staff are content with pretty basic use like storing documents, keeping student records and projecting applications and media. Internet Access: Integrated/Intelligent Wireless broadband is available and used pretty extensively. It is pretty locked down for students however and access to new media and technology is slow to evolve. Social media sites are all blocked by the district is a good example of a useful tools that is not being utilized in any capacity. Communication Systems: Island/Integrated Email is available to most of the staff and is used to communicate extensively. In fact, it is the primary form of communication in the school. Email is not available to any students however. Email can be used to communicate with parents but it is voluntary on their part. I would estimate that less than 10% of the parents chose paper or the telephone as their primary form of communication with the school. Email would be a great way for teachers to communicate with students if it were available but it is not.

Innovation New Technologies: Islands New technologies is usually supported informally but teachers are usually on their own. Many of the teachers have used legislative money to purchase projectors or document cameras and now many are purchasing iPads. The district does come along after enough adoption has happened and put something in place. This year, they are starting an endorsement course in education technology. Teachers enrolled in that course received iPads from the district. One teacher did secure a grant to purchase a classroom set of iPads for use in the next school year. New applications and software can be tricky as sites are often blocked by the district security policies. Social Media is an example of a technology that is blocked. Comprehensive Technologies: Islands Most classrooms now have an AV system and a document camera. Most use their computers to project media in their classroom. About 3 teachers utilize a Smart board. The biggest challenge is that there is very little interaction with the technology from the learners standpoint. It tends to still be presentation based. The lack of hands on computer or tablet access limits the ability of the students to experience the technology for themselves. Summary

I would rate this school at the islands level but with a desire to move into the integrated and even the intelligent categories. Like many institutions they tend to lock onto one technology and then become so invested in that they feel they cannot move forward when something new comes along. I use the iPad vs. laptop argument a lot but it really applies here. The school just spent $48,000 on a laptop mobile cart outfitted with 30 Macbook laptops. The primary reason for the purchase was to improve student access to applications and the internet. For that same amount of money, they could have purchased two and a half iPad carts and more than doubled the amount of student participation but the school was locked into what they already knew instead of what was possible. This is certainly not an anti-technology philosophy but it is an antiquated one. One set of computers for 4-8 classes of students does not even begin to address their access needs. As I stated in the demographics section, this school belongs to a new district and one of the goals of this district is to move its schools into a more technically relevant education. This was one of the primary reasons for the split. The old district was just too large and slow to innovate. However, as much as this school and district is committed, there is just so much to do and so little money these days. I think with time and continued commitment, this school and this district will get to a higher level of technology use. They could go a lot faster though if they were willing to think outside the box a little more.