Administration of Technology Resources

Tiana C. Tibbs

215 Oxford Lane

Warner Robins, GA 31088

Article Summaries Submitted to:

Dr. Charles Hodges of Georgia Southern University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
FRIT 8132 – Y01

Fall 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Statesboro, Georgia
Citation

Lin, F., & Chiou, G. (2008). Support-seeking and support-giving relationships

of school technology coordinators. British Journal of Educational

Technology, 39(5), 922-927. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00784.x.

Summary

This article focuses on the relationships between the school technology

coordinators and their colleagues. Previous research has shown that workers

rely on their colleagues for guidance and/or support. This relationship in a

work setting is the factor for making a work place successful. The authors

wanted to see how the school technology coordinators support-seeking and

support-giving behaviors and work relationships correlate with relational

variables. They used the term support-seeking and support-giving to

describe the relationships on which school technology coordinators rely on to

seek out help or provide help in daily work. They found that even though the

school technology coordinators only have a small personal relationship

networks in the schools, they still seek out work knowledge support and

technical knowledge from technicians of their schools and school district

office

Critique

I think it is very important to have some type of relationship with your

colleagues, especially the ones that do a similar job as you. So I feel a

technology coordinator should work hand and hand with the technicians and
seek out support and give support. If this is not done, I feel like the

technology in the schools will not be used in a way to facilitate learning. You

cannot expect one person to know everything and do everything. There are

some things that you cannot do by yourself either so seeking out support

and giving support to others is the way to be successful.

Citation

Rivero, V. (2009). Facing the challenge: Despite tight times, districts move

forward with innovation and creativity. American School Board Journal,

June, 26-28. Retrieved September 24, 2010 from GALILEO database.

Summary

This article is about looking at different ways to maintain the level of

technology usage in the schools due to educational budget cuts. School

districts are looking at sources such as grants and the special local option

sales tax (SPLOST) to help with the school district’s needs. Also, another

option that was stated was using thin clients in the place of desktop

computers which will help on savings dealing with hardware maintenance

and software purchases.

Critique

As a teacher, you see firsthand how budgets being cut affect the schools and

the school district as a whole. As many times as I put in a trouble shooting

ticket for the computers in my room that is not working, they never get

looked at. Out of the six desktop computers in my room, only two are

functioning correctly with one of those desktops being the “teacher’s

computer”. All the other computers, something is wrong or missing such as

mouses or keyboards. Even with my 21st century technology cart, my Activ

slate that I used all the time, is not working as many times as I complained

about it. It really does take an effect on student learning because I cannot

do what I really want to do as far as incorporating technology in the

curriculum. I believe the school district that I work in should take some of

these ideas, especially the one using a thin client, to help with the

equipment in the schools and also in turn, will help save them money.

Citation

Strudler, N. (2010). Perspectives on Technology and Educational Change.

Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(3), 221-229.

Retrieved October 10, 2010 from GALILEO database.

Summary

This article is about the different perspectives on technology and educational

change. Most of the article follows the perspective of the author but he also

uses some other people’s perspectives. When computer implementation in

schools was still relatively new, there wasn’t much pertaining to computer

coordinators, as they were called then. In the 80s, it was believed that

computer coordinators would “work themselves out of a job,” based on the

notion that they would “train” the existing teachers and the primary need for

their work would eventually subside. Obviously, that did not happen.

Another perspective that was looked at was by Ertmer and Ottenbreit-

Leftwich’s work studying implementation in addressing the landscape of key

variables for effective teacher technology change. They cited that “when

technology is used, it typically is not used to support the kinds of instruction

believed to be most powerful for facilitating student learning”. They believe

that good teaching should include the use of appropriate learning

technologies as meaningful pedagogical tools.

Critique

This article was pretty interesting when it was talking about the perspectives

of many people in the 1980s on their thoughts regarding technology and

computer coordinators. It is amazing after all these years, the changes you

see are more jobs that became available with the emergence of technology

and teachers still not ready to accept trying to learn the new technology to

integrate in their lessons. I wonder if the teachers who are not willing to

learn the new technology will be willing to if it was the deciding factor of if a

teacher should stay or go. Computer coordinators will not go away because

regardless of how much a teacher is “trained” with implementing technology

in his/her curriculum, people feed ideas off each other and it would just be

doing a disservice to the students.

Citation

Sugar, W., & Holloman, H. (2009). Technology Leaders Wanted:

Acknowledging the Leadership Role of a Technology Coordinator.

TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 53(6),

66-75. doi:10.1007/s11528-009-0346-y.

Summary
This article is about the many different responsibilities a technology

coordinator has. The authors broke down the responsibilities of a technology

coordinator into four different categories: instructional, technical, analysis,

and leadership.

In the instruction category, the technology coordinator serves as an

instruction expert by providing advice on when and how to incorporate

appropriate technology into a lesson. He/she can accomplish this

integration and professional development by modeling best practices in staff

development sessions and by establishing professional development learning

communities.

Not only is a technology coordinator the instruction expert, but has to also be

the technical expert as well. In the technical category, the technology

coordinator should be able to maintain technology equipment and materials

and also recommend and purchase specific technology hardware. He/she

also reviews, evaluates, and informs teachers of recent technology products.

In the analysis category, the technology coordinator offers direction for

technology planning processes and implementation of specific technology

policies in their school district. By developing a technology plan, it helps a

school district clarify its goals and focus its efforts so that it uses technology

to increase student achievement.

In the leadership category, the technology coordinator not only supervises

employees who may work with him/her, but must also exhibit specific

leadership skills such as being visionary and collaborative. However,

according to this article, the leadership category is ambiguous. The question

is should providing technology leadership should be given to just one person

or should it be shared? Later on in the article, the authors decided to

investigate the leadership characteristics a technology coordinator should

have by doing a mixed methods approach. The results that the authors

came up with is that technology coordinators are basically the leaders of

their school or school district when it is dealing with technology and they

also have other leadership skills such as being a problem solver and a

facilitator.

Critique

I liked how this article broke down the job of a technology coordinator into

four different categories and explained in detail what each part of that job

details. What was interesting was the leadership category. That is what

most of the paper was about, trying to figure out what type of leadership

skills should a technology coordinator entails. I believe that the technology

coordinator should encompass all of those skills that were mentioned but

also should share some of the leadership. That was another question that

was looked at, should the leadership be shared or just given to one person?

With so many emerging technologies and other job roles that the technology

coordinator entails, I believe he/she can still be the leader but share some of

the responsibilities with others.

Citation
Vanderlinde, R., van Braak, J., & Hermans, R. (2009). Educational technology

on a turning point: curriculum implementation in Flanders and

challenges for schools. Education Technology Research &

Development, 57, 573-584. Retrieved September 15, 2010 from

GALILEO database.

Summary

This article is about how the national technology curricula plan impacts the

local school systems and individual schools. The author states that

technology becomes more an end rather than a means to an end with the

implementation of national set of technology standards. This will help with

preparing students for the technological society after they graduate. Also,

the individual schools would also have the ability to adopt and implement

standards that are appropriate to the students that they served to go along

with the national standards. The technology coordinator’s role in this would

to make sure that teachers develop a curriculum integrating technology that

best fits their students.

Critique

I really like this article because I think it is important for students to have the

basic technology skills that will prepare them for other courses that are on a

higher level. I feel like schools and school districts are not preparing our

students properly for the technological society. For example, many students

at the school I teach at are not offered the basic keyboarding class because

we only have one keyboarding teacher. The high schools do not offer a basic
keyboarding class because of budgets. Even though we have all of the great

technology equipment in the schools, if students don’t know how to do the

basics like type or copy and paste, then it becomes useless. If the national

standards were implemented, all students will be given the opportunity that

they deserve.