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**Welcome to the Midway Technology Integration Home Page!**

Midway ISD is located in a suburb of Waco, Texas. We have one high school, one middle school, one intermediate school (soon to be 2) and 6 elementary schools. Midway has a group of six Instructional Technologists who assist teachers with integrating technology into their curriculum as well as a variety of other responsiblities. The technologists are Cathleen Petroff (Midway High School), Sandra Hansen (Midway Middle School), Rhonda Yezak (Midway Intermediate School), Donna Shillinglaw (Speegleville Elementary and Castleman Creek Elementary), Mary Adamcik (South Bosque Elementary and Woodway Elementary) and Robyn Jacobs (Hewitt Elementary and Spring Valley Elementary).

The purpose of this online learning community is to share ideas among the instructional technologists at each campus for ideas to improve technology use and integration within the district. In order to make sure we are working toward these goals in the correct way, we need to compare our district goals to the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology (2006-2020) located at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/technology/lrpt/LRPTCompleteDec06.pdf.

Since we just reevaluated our student Technology Application (TEKS) requirements for Kindergarten through 8th grade, I feel that the skills required of the students are aligned with the TEKS. (//Try taking the Technology Application Inventory to see where your strengths and weaknesses are in the four strands of the Technology Application TEKS - http://www.tea.state.tx.us/technology/techapp/assess/teksurv.pdf).// However, our application of technology integration and progress toward meeting the Long-Range Technology Plan goals is evaluated using the Texas STaR Chart. The campus data from the STaR Chart for my elementary campuses shows weaknesses in the "Teaching & Learning" and "Educator Preparation & Development" areas with scores that place them both in the Developing Tech area. This data mirrors the Campus Statewide Summary from 2006-2007 which showed the majority of Texas schools are also in the Developing Tech range. [Teaching & Learning (73.6%); Educator Preparation & Development (54.9%). ([|//http://starchart.esc12.net//]// - Texas Campus STaR Chart>Statewide Summary Data).//

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Infrastructure for Technology received the highest perctage (53.3%) in the Advanced Tech category for all Texas schools. My elementary campuses also scored consistently in the Advanced Tech category for Infrastructure. The only domain I haven't discussed yet is the Leadership, Administration, & Instructional Support area of the Texas STaR Chart. My campuses have moved slowly from Developing Tech into Advanced Tech in the past few years. However, the state summary showed the highest majority (54.9%) still in Developing Tech for this area.

It's interesting to take a look at the data that is available to assist with integrating technology in the classroom. If you utilize the Long-Range Technology Plan, your personal Technolgy Inventory, and the Texas STaR Chart summary, it helps to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses that we can use to focus on professional development, strategies, and our approach to technology integration.

What are the strengths and weaknesses at your campus? Let's see if we can come up with some common areas of improvement needed for the district. Feel free to add questions or click "Discussion" to enter your comments.