Excerpt from Essay :

¶ … Planning Process

Explain in detail how you will address each of the needs identified in part 2 include changes necessary for environment, engagement, application, and tools. Make sure to include a list of technology resources currently available and those that must be purchased.

State Goals and Objectives with Local Strategies and Measures

Environment The changes necessary for the environment involve going from one based on the physical environment to one that is predicated on a cloud-based environment. In this regard, the change is mostly one of architecture. Virtually all applications and requisite software the students and instructors will use will be accessed through the cloud.

Engagement The means of engagement will be the Bring Your Own Device phenomenon, in which students utilize their own mobile devices for the purpose of working in the classroom. Those without such devices will be provided the most accessible ones (a smart phone) via the school, district, and state funding. Most of these devices (both those that belong to students and those that the district can access) are available.

Application

Tools All of the application tools will be cloud based. These include Navisite's Enterprise Mobility Management System, which ensure that the aforementioned devices are strictly used for classroom purposes during school hours. Navisite has expressed a willingness to license this program free of charge since it will be used in a public school environment. Moreover, there is a diversity of content related to education that students can access via cloud-based software and mobile applications. These include Microsoft word, Study Blue, Socrative Student, PhotoMath, and numerous others. Moreover, a number of these applications are free and therefore more attractive to this particular implementation plan.

Results The result is that students will be able to utilize some of the most cutting-edge resources in information technology -- mobile apps and cloud computing -- to enhance their learning experiences. Additionally, the Bring Your Own Device methodology and the cloud services that the school will utilize to leverage this phenomenon are extremely cost-savvy, and can potentially save the school considerable funds while improving the education of its students.

Interview:

Q: I'm faced with a situation in which there are numerous students at a school that need to utilize a low cost approach to leveraging information technology for learning purposes. What concrete action can I take to implement this plan for technology?

A: Firstly, you'll want to take advantage of either the Bring Your Own Device phenomenon or the Choose Your Own Device Phenomenon. The latter limits the mobile devices that students can use for the purposes of schoolwork, the former permits any of them. Typically, these mobile devices include a variety of mobile phones, tablets, phablets, or laptop computers.

Q: How can we ensure that these devices are solely utilized for the purposes of education while students are in school?

A: Do you have an information technology team? Or can you possibly access one for set-up purposes?

Me: I've spoken with district representatives that said they are willing to help in this situation. I know they have an IT team.

A: If so, there are a number of cloud resources that you can utilize for the purpose of workspace management -- which ensures that students are utilizing their devices only for the purposes of classroom instructions and applications. I recommend utilizing NaviSite's Enterprise Mobility Management solution. Best of all, this company might be willing to enable your school district to license this product and some of its features free of cost, since doing so will provide positive publicity for it. In either case, it leverages the cloud to provide a host of workspace management applications such a containerization -- which partitions area on the device strictly for classroom use. There's a software development application that creates and imports apps tailor --made for that workspace, and there's a mobile content management system that offers storage space and a way to share information between other users in the workspace. Once an IT has gone through the onboarding process that mandates the restrictions for end users (the students) while using the service, there is real-time monitoring of end device use. NaviSite can provide this additional service for a fee that they might be willing to wave, or any sort of IT professionals from the school can do so as well.

Q: Is there anything else we can do?

A: In general, I would highly recommend...

Even something as basic as Microsoft Word can be obtained through the cloud. The benefits are a reduced physical infrastructure, less technological savvy, and an attractive pricing system in which users only pay for the length of time they are using the service.

TIP 4: Implementation

Budget and Timetable for Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Measures

Budgetary concerns include the procurement of NaviSite's solution -- which the vendor has decided to donate for free to assist this public school system. The school already has a finite amount of mobile devices that it can employ for those students who do not already have their own devices to bring. Moreover, the school district is already employing its own information technology team which will be responsible for facilitating the onboarding process with NaviSite and learning, and subsequently training school representatives in the monitoring process. Thus, the school must budget the provisioning of cloud-based resources for students and teachers. The school should budget approximately $5,000 for this purpose, and engage in fundraising activities to help offset those costs.

The school will need a month's time to determine what sort of applications and software (via the cloud) are necessary to achieve curriculum objectives. This process will involve meeting with its IT department to understand logistical requirements, and meetings between teachers and administrators.

The onboarding process facilitated by the district IT should take approximately one month. A large part of that process will involve school officials meeting with NaviSite to determine what sort of requirements are necessary for students to only utilize class-based applications on their devices during school hours. Following that process, the district's IT team is required for an additional week to train administrators and teachers in the use of this solution. Teachers and administrators will conduct ongoing training sessions at regular intervals from that point on.

Professional Development Plan

The professional development plan will primarily involve the educators and administrators at this school that are attempting to utilize this Technology Implementation Plan. As previously indicated, most of the educators at this particular location are fairly technologically savvy and have come from education programs that utilized modern technology. Additionally, most of them are also involved in continuing education programs. Thus, they will require some training -- but not a substantial amount -- in utilizing cloud-based resources and both designing and facilitating curriculum to fit the content specific needs of particular end point devices. However, they will need training about the utilization of NaviSite's Enterprise Mobility Management System. This sort of training should be conducted on an ongoing basis. Additionally, it should involve various administrators. When this system is initially implemented, the district's IT department will be responsible for monitoring the content of the devices to ensure they meet the restrictions ordained by the school. The most pivotal aspect of this professional development plan is to train the teachers to monitor the content of their students using NaviSite's platform. This training should ideally require a teacher workday session, and be updated on an ongoing basis to ensure that there is compliance and to address any further issues with students. Initially, that training should involve It and administrators. After that, administrators can train teachers.

Lesson Plan 1 This lesson plan will directly address cultural and economic diversity while providing students with instruction in the language arts. It will begin with a relatively brief lecture in which the instructor educates students about the values of diversity. One of the principle values that the instructor will emphasize is the fact that people from different cultures and different socio-economic backgrounds are able to foster different skills and values because of them. When those skills, values, and experiences are synthesized in a professional setting (or even in a classroom learning environment) they can enhance the profession and educational experiences, respectively, of all parties involved. Students will then be randomly assigned reading content that is indicative of different cultures and socio-economic experiences. One of these will be about Native Americans, displaced from their native lands and left on reservations with few economic opportunities. Another one will be about snobbish European-Americans contently enjoying Christmas in a comfortable, affluent, suburban environment (such as Ebenezer Scrooge). The final one will be about middle class Asian immigrants attempting to earn funds for their American born daughter to go to college. After reading these materials, the students will then compose expository essays about the advantages and disadvantages of each of the situations that they read about. Then, they will share these documents with one another via NaviSite and correct them…