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Spotsylvania County has a great Instructional Technology website. TPACK is emphasized in their professional development. Under the Resources tab, go to Professional Learning and there is a booklet called Technology Triage. It starts with a explanation of TPACK and then gives teachers help with implementation. Under the resources section there are also handouts from Instructional Technology conferences from the last three years. Most of these speak to TPACK framework.

Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has a site filled with resources that include: Steps to developing a plan. Guiding Questions to use in developing the plans. Links to relevant resources. Downloadable Action Plan sample and templates. Tech Plan Scoring Guide to use in evaluation of the plan.

LOTS of links on digital learning

"Effective technology plans are short term, not long term. Five year plans are too long. Technology is changing so fast that it is almost impossible to plan what type of technology will be available for use five years from now..." Along with this worthy advice that shows how up-to-date we must be as educators, the author mentions very important aspects to have in mind in a technology plan, like: *Effective technology plans focus on applications, not technology. *Effective technology plans go beyond enhancing the curriculum. *Effective technology plans define technology as more than computers. *Effective technology plan stress integration of technology into the curriculum. *Effective technology plans are tied to staff development plans. Norma Acero.

An excellant resource for development of a step-by-step school technology plan.

It is interesting to see that your plan states that 5 years is too long for a plan. Several plans suggest that 5 years is the length of time appropriate for these plans. I agree that 5 years is too long as technology changes so quickly.

This website displays a series of audio-visual resources regarding the history of technology from different perspectives. There are some that are more relevant for our purpose and others that could just be informative. Here I list the ones, that in my opinion are worth to see, and a brief description of each one. * Old compact computer advert: If you just want hear a quick joke about how and old computer is compared to fish, you should watch * Peter Hirshberg: the web and TV a sibling rivalry: A more elaborate talk in a conference in 2007. The speaker describes in 31 minutes how TV and technology have been connected in the past 60 years. He addresses the issue from various perspectives (entertainment and financially) and how computers were developed for a specific purpose after War World II. Additionally, he describes briefly the evolution of computers and TVs in the past years. * Internet in 1994: It displays some uses of Internet as a resourceful tool for marketing, shopping, accessing information, interact and much more. * The next generation: It is a simple, sort of power point, presentation with captions regarding some important event in the history of computers. * Museum of Technology in Berlin * Early technology TV programs. * The Microsoft Way: information regarding the history of this company.

Alittle piece of the summer!! A blog entry exploring how Henrico County Schools System has adopted the TPACK model for staff development and 21st century learning. Provides examples of how to integrate technology and provides resource examples.

I found this too and thought it was interesting to see Henrico's take on TPACK in action. Good examples of integration and resource examples

Interesting information about Henrico County's integration of TPACK

This learning journey is just beginning for me.  I encourage you to tap into the resources at your fingertips.  Use social media to become a connected learner.  Thank you to ALL those who have helped me on my learning journey.

It is incredible how social media can connect otherwise unconnectable professionals. I have experienced numerous school decisions that parents did not support and which could have benefitted from examples carried out in other schools.

The Web offers a trove of just-in-time resources that administrators may find helpful, such as podcasts, online classes, and social networks that can match up administrators across the country, he said. Read the whole series on Virtual PD!

Some good pros and cons raised in the article and I agree that face-face and online courses have a place for both teachers and administrators. Attitudes towards webinars need to be addressed too - numerous times the webinar is on in the background whilst the teacher works... how much is being absorbed during this? Yes it can cut down travel times etc. but participants need to focus without distraction - is that always possible in school?

In reading this article I thought about the same Viv... I have the feeling that on trying to be more effective and save time, the school districts are actually making PD sessions unreachable for many teachers... There can be wonderful opportunities out there but if enough time is not provided to take advantage of them or to have enriching discussions afterwards, teachers are not going to internalize and process how to apply the new knowledge to the classroom.

Editor's Note: Today's guest blogger is Shelly Blake-Plock a high school classroom teacher from Maryland, who blogs at teachpaperless.com. Drool in the textbook. That's one of my most lasting impressions of high school. I can't tell you the number of times that I fell asleep -- face down in my textbook -- during various history and foreign language classes.

Audacity WebPage

Here is a teacher / admin survey that is free for use and editing. They just ask that you leave a description of how you intend to use it so they can track it. It was last updated in 2009. I feel like I've seen parts of it before...hmm.

Here's some more literature on the TPACKing model. Skim through to find some more valuable information.

This is a video that goes through the different phases of technology use in Education. It is an advertisement for Smart equipment, but it's still an interesting short video

I noticed that the commonality over time was the users ingenuity in how he interfaced with the given resources.

Nice find. Interesting how they showed the digital age in 1995 with people connecting all over the world, but then back in the classroom in 2000 with smartboards not really used to connect with others. In the video, it doesn't look like the smartboard is changing the classroom dynamic of teacher-centered learning.

Matthew Koehler's site that has a variety of TPACK resources and research.

This article is a description of all the aspects of TPACK. There are a few interesting points made in this about the importance of flexibility when considering the TPACK model. I also liked the BNIE activity structure.

This isn't directly related to this week but I thought it would be interesting to post. This was the headlining article on CNN today. The Penn State report is obviously big news because of how big of a deal the scandal at Penn State was. The fact that CNN decided that the aspect of this report that was most important was the reaction on social media is what I find interesting. It really says something about the importance of social media in our culture. I think anyone expecting to be a leader within a school district is going to have to pay attention to and put resources into social media. I wonder if we'll see positions being created in school districts just to deal with social media in the future.

This article presents some reasons to the question: "Why wikis for school leaders?" It also reviews the book "Wikis for School Leaders" in case you want to dig deeper.

Thought you might find interesting what this course offers school leaders in terms of technology and leadership: ""While the program is geared toward technology issues, it's more than that - it's about leadership,"

A blog for school leaders, aspiring school leaders and teachers where all those questions we have been asking ourselves and each other are openly discussed. Since we have been walking the walk ourselves, you'll find it enjoyable!