Allen's+Notes

=Instituting Teacher Web Pages at Pequea Valley School District Needs Assessment= Pequea Valley School District is a rural district in eastern Lancaster County Pennsylvania. They have a newly accepted technology plan for the district that includes a requirement for teachers to create and maintain a web page(s) on the school district's website. This is just one way that they are requiring teachers to use technology in their classroom in an attempt to stay current and relevant with the student learning environments and to prepare the Pequea Valley graduates for real world experiences. = = = = = = The school district's mission is to create an environment that inspires each individual to excel. They wish to create students that are resourceful, continuous learners whose values demonstrate the knowledge, skills and character needed to succeed in a global community. Training for the faculty would include: • Introduction to software for web pages (as used by our district website) • Encouragement to include relevant and up-to-date information and techniques for their classes • Timeline and support through in-service and coaching for those with limited computer confidence and training. • Modeling of real world experience for our classes, to understand how integral the web is to their future jobs and lives. = = =Section 1 - Need Analysis Report=

Executive Summary
The Pequea Valley School District is a rural district in eastern Lancaster County Pennsylvania with two elementary schools (K-5), one middle school (6-8) and one high school (9-12). The school district's mission is to create an environment that inspires each individual to excel. They wish to create students that are resourceful, continuous learners whose values demonstrate the knowledge, skills and character needed to succeed in a global community.

A recently adopted district wide technology plan includes a requirement for all teachers to create and maintain a web page(s) on the school district website. These pages are expected from the staff at all levels: elementary, middle school and high school.

Business Need
The purpose of this project is to have faculty district wide create and maintain a website that can be used to present materials to students and their parents. The training that will be provided will increase the number of faculty who are using Schoolwires - Centricity version 4.2 from 10 to all in 2 years.

The goal would be to increase the number of teachers using Schoolwires to 100% from K - 12 by June 2011.

Learning Opportunity
Multiple training options will be available for the faculty of Pequea Valley School District over the next year. They will include: Synchronous - Large group instruction for each building Asynchronous - Handouts/Company produced User Guide Tutorial Videos Face to Face training for building technology facilitators Face to Face for inexperienced computer users

Expected Benefits
The benefit to the students of the Pequea Valley School District would include, but not be limited to the following: • Teacher Pages created will be useful and meaningful to the student’s educational experience • Access to important classroom information from any location or time through the Internet. • Teachers would be able to increase student’s use of the technology available to global society

Audience Analysis
The Pequea Valley School District faculty is 143 members from K - 12, ranging from new educators, to those with 30 plus years of experience. The individual computer aptitude of this faculty is spread across the spectrum from basic to advanced, with many at the upper levels (specifically high school and middle school) already using some simple communication through Teacher Pages from Schoolwires. The secondary levels (6 – 12) have, in the past, used Moodle, Blackboard and Edline’s teacher page section to create similar pages. For the elementary level, this is uncharted waters, so careful attention needs to be given to the training being very direct and specific for them.

The secondary audience of this project will be the students of the school district themselves and their families. If the teacher’s individual pages are not created to provided additional support and resources for the classroom information presented, then the project will do no more than create a nice looking website, that does not continue to educate and meet the district’s goal to excel.

Project Design
This project will utilize a variety of training solutions. The first step in training will be a large group presentation, to teachers by building, for an introduction to Teacher Web Pages by Schoolwires. This will be delivered in lecture format at a predetemined time by the building administrators. Next the technology facitiltors will then be given a half day in-service on the finer points of Teacher Pages such as text editing, importing pictures, adding text, links, managing calendars, uploading PDF, Word and other test files. This is necessary to allow them chance to get answers to questions, so that they can more comfortably assist and support the teachers in their individual buildings. Teachers who are familiar with the basics may choose additional help options as they need via handouts, company produced user guides, videos and tutorials in a JIT format. Finally, face-to-face instruction and support will be offered to those who are identified by the technology facilitaors as in need of additonal help and encouragement.

Project Success Measures
The Teacher Pages training will be measured by the number of teachers with active websites, including but not limited too: • basic home page information • a picture • homework posts • calendar • 3 or 4 active links

Out of Scope
This project is not designed to be an entry point to computer usage in the classroom. This project will not be teaching HTML writing.

Estimated Project Costs
Class Tuition - $1800 - direct cost. Analysis - no direct cost, included in class tuition Design - no direct cost, included in class tuition Development - no direct cost, included in class tuition. Implementation - $325 - cost of half day subs for 5 building tech leaders. Evaluation - no direct cost, included in class tuition

Total cost - $2125 Project will be completed by June 2010.

=Section 2 - Performance Analysis=