After our original brainstorming for relevant topics that could be addressed in one semester, I went in search of material related to:
From this point I decided to look at school districts with World Wide Web (WWW) pages to examine what they had in common. The assumption being that there was a certain degree of emphasis on developing the use of technology if a district had a WWW page, and that successful implementation would depend on integration of several basic topics or values. I used the Yahoo index for several reasons, it should remain stable over time so growth and change can be tracked, it is an index rather than a set of search parameters that would be arbitrary and subject to inclusion and exclusion based on district page changes, it is relatively popular and well known so it should attract a broad range of districts. I scanned through several district pages to determine what commonalities they might contain, then started to examine each district in the Yahoo directory to document specifics. At the beginning of the semester there were 93 districts listed, as of today (Tuesday, November 14, 1995) there are 102 listed. Hopefully, this will provide a set of commonalities that are indicative of successfully integrated technologies in classrooms. It will also provide a base point to determine if any of these areas are indicative of continuity. As pages are added and forgotten, next year the year after, comparisons can be made to the existing documents for commonalities indicative of continuity versus fadism.
The initial scan of district pages led me to look for references or connections to schools, a technology department or staff, a vision or mission statement, references to reform or restructuring, curriculum software, HTML guidelines or software, cooperation with business or community on the WWW, and school board members. Links or lists of schools is presumed to be indicative of the depth of technology integration within the district, lists being least and links to school designed pages greatest. A technology department or staff should indicate a commitment to integration of technology. A vision or mission statement should be indicative of planning and forethought. Reform or restructuring should indicate a belief in a need to change as well as a willingness to attempt change. Links or references for curriculum or HTML resources should be indicative of at least some exploration or experimentation in integrating technology. A cooperative should indicate an investment of support beyond the district level. Links or lists of school board members may be indicative of high level investment or recruitment, presuming a linked board member has some investment while a list of members may be an attempt to involve board members.
Using the November 14 index each of the 102 listings were examined for the references or connections outlined above. A table containing their contents was created. In retrospect I would further split curriculum software into actual software and WWW curriculum links. Also the HTML would be split into specific HTML and general information WWW links such as search engines and state department of education links. The cooperative references would be split into specific cooperative programs and links to community projects. I would also add administative, faculty, and student links in further analysis.
There are several areas that I think will affect the success of both these sites and integration of technology in general. Some of these pages appear to be designed by a single author, perhaps as either a primary author or in some cases a single project to become familiar with HTML. Although I believe curriculum software or links will be a necessary component of a successfully integrated WWW district page, I do not believe the sites containing only curriculum, HTML, and general WWW links will be particularly useful. It will be interesting to see whether vision statements with a , references to , recruiting school boards, and cooperative ventures have a lasting effect on successful sites. I think sites with lists of schools will develop links if technology integration is successful in the district, but I'll have to wait and see. I don't believe there will be a single formula for universal success in professional development for integrating technology into classrooms. However, I hope this may create some insight into critical areas and possible areas for expansion and exploration.