Tech. Coordinator Chapter 2, Teaching and Learning

It was interesting to read about the different functions of a technology coordinator. I saw some similarities with the way my district runs things and some great ideas as well. Our district utilizes technology training district wide during the first week of inservices right before school starts. This year we got to choose six sessions out of about 12 potential. We actually had some interesting things to choose from that I felt were more appropriate for classroom integration. In the past, there have been sessions that I attended where I walked away feeling that I got nothing out of it because I did not learn anything new. Last year the entire district was required to attend a session about new web pages and we did not even start using the program until February. We had to re-learn what we had forgotten from August.
At the Elem. campus, we have grade level teachers that are responsible for making sure their fellow grade level members keep the updates regular and virus scans run on the classroom computers. The 'tech' person on our campus is the teacher that runs the computer lab. Each student has 30 minutes of computer time at least 3 days a week. They use a reading, math, and typing program on a rotating basis. This teacher has not had any experience teaching in 'regular' classroom.
Our district coordinator is housed at the high school campus and I sometimes feel that things that are planned are geared more towards upper level instead of elementary level. She has had classroom experience at the high school level.
I also can understand where a database of educational software might be extremely helpful to teachers and administrators in choosing the right software. I am not aware that my district has this.
Overall, I guess my district does the best they can considering we are a small district without any major industry to increase our tax base. We are trying to improve and I see little things here and there and teachers that are trying to do things as well.