Madera Unified Education Technology Support
A Progressive Model
-Joanne Glantz
Madera Unified School District has a very progressive technology support structure. Four years ago the technology department was split into two. Infrastructure and hardware/software installation and support are covered by the Technology Support Department and instructional technology support is covered by the Educational Technology Department. The Ed Tech department is made up of fifteen (15) credentialed teachers that are pulled out of the classroom. We are commonly referred to as TOSA’s (Teachers On Special Assignment).
We collaborate together mostly by elementary group and secondary group. The secondary group was chosen based on subject areas of expertise. We have an English, Math, Social Science, and CTE teacher. We are lacking a Science person but there are plans to hire and this would be the criteria.
This model supports the effective practices mentioned in the video¹, having the true expert next door matching needs and expertise together. We don’t just support the “how to do” the tech, we work with the teachers to integrate it and pull from our collaborative strengths.
One of the areas I see lacking in our department is a more structured approach to our support delivery. We are assigned to school sites and support based on teacher needs. We are extremely busy every day but it seems to be “as needed” rather than planned. To sustain the much-needed integration of technology mentioned in both the video and the articles, we need to structure our support to include integration prior to lesson implementation on a regular basis with modeling, collaborative instruction delivery, and teacher follow-up.
¹[Sunnylands] (2014, Oct. 6),Professional Development - 2014 Educational Technology Summit, [Video file], retreived from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrAq2KnUbUQ
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