Technology will target critical thinking which require students to analyze problems by separating a whole entity into its meaningful parts in a spreadsheet or database and add meaning to the interrelationships among those parts. Experience with computer-generated concept maps as a tool to represent and organize knowledge and train students to analyze large, complex problems.

Online Resources to Support Learning

Online tools provide more extensive learning opportunities with current, diverse information resources. Distance learning solutions, such as Web-based Instruction allows learners to process information in an active, meaningful manner.

To utilize the Internet, learners must consciously reflect and assess what they know and what they need to know then create a goal-directed, intentional search. To assess the content for validity, students must independently search their knowledge structure for connections to current knowledge and elaboration. This may also bring conflict of personal knowledge that will cause dissonance for the student to continue to pursue more evidence before elaboration can occur. All new learning is cumulative, and builds on prior learning.

Expanding Learning Opportunities

With the help of technology resources, students can be given more personalized learning opportunities. The classroom becomes more student centered, driven by the personal interest of the students and their style of learning.

The construction of personal learning through discerning information for currency, opinion verses fact, and validity will promote and develop higher-order thinking skills that foster life-long learning. Opportunities for creative thinking that involve imaging outcomes/possibilities and elaborating on information, or adding personal meaning to information is multiplied when technology is used as a tool for learning. The ability to convert data to graphical representations of ideas in a multimedia creation allows for student's style, opinion and interest.

Improved Teaching

Today's learning environments must allow for individual student needs while infusing technology in order to lessen the differences in student achievement related to inequity. These learning environments must provide equal distribution of modern, connected technology that supports learning, communication and administrative needs with adequate technical support.

Classroom instruction must include higher-level application of technology to core academic areas. The learning context must require the use of contemporary tools to research issues, solve problems, and communicate the results. Students need sufficient access to productivity tools, online services, multimedia instructional tools, and primary sources of data.

Equal Opportunities to Learn

In order to bridge the digital divide opportunities must be made to ensure full-time access to technology for all through connections and equipment with access to computer labs and libraries beyond the school day, and connections with public libraries and community centers. Classroom instruction must be impacted by technology in all classrooms. Teachers will be expected to use technology as a tool to present content and also empower students to discover learning.

The use of computer labs outside the school day with district provided busing has allowed students without computers at home to use the school computers to carry out research, create multimedia project, and utilize productivity tools to complete classroom assignments. Technology is distributed across the district in an equal manner, focused on student to computer ratios. Online services are equally available to all students within the district in the manner of a LEARNet project sponsored by the district's library funds and the statewide P.O.W.E.R. Library initiative.

Students with disabilities will be provided with appropriate equipment to utilize technology fully. Homebound students will be given opportunities to have access to district computers and peripherals designed for communication with classmates and completion technology related assignments.

Technology Supporting Thematic Learning

Technology will support the discovery of information for a theme or problem, using online field trips, reference tools and organization of information. On-line field trips allow students to become part of the content they are studying and perhaps visit a place that extends the classroom walls beyond physical boundaries. The Internet, subscription resource sites, and multimedia software flood students with a variety of information and data to synthesize and solve problems. Software, multimedia presentations and spreadsheets allow students to present what they know in a personal way, accommodating learning styles for assessment. Remediation and enrichment will also be addressed using intelligent computer systems that personalize instruction for each student.

Sharing Best Practices

Teacher-created multimedia presentations posted on the District web site will provide examples of technology-related projects, along with content presentation to be downloaded and used as a presentation tool for others. Web pages will be featured that encourage the use of technology in learning and e-mail and user groups will be utilized to share ideas for good teaching. Team meetings will also be a forum to discuss and share both positive and negative experiences with technology and other emerging teaching tools.

New Models of Staff Development

All staff members of East Stroudsburg Area School District will be provided with staff development in a variety of modes. Alternative Professional Development days will be used as opportunities for staff to create a 5-hour program that individualizes learning opportunities. Opportunities for Distance Learning courses from area colleges, other government agencies, and approved professional development providers will be pursued to allow teachers from our schools to communicate and interact with teachers in many different parts of the country and world.

Tutorials will be provided as a means to present policy materials. On-line curricular resources will be developed. Support groups will be formed to use Intranet Chat Rooms an/or ListServs to support the development and advancement of on-line learning opportunities for all staff members. Online courses will provide differentiated instruction and fulfill the needs of each staff member.

Staff will be involved in Train the Trainer programs that allow District personnel to communicate information to building level trainers. Building level trainers are expected to transfer the content from the District's philosophy and mold a program that accommodates the individual needs of their building staff, with regards to technology skill, student population, and building resources.

Decision Support and Organizational Efficiency

Technology is a tool that can be used to provide students, teachers, administrators, and parents with pertinent information on student progress and district business. This can be done in the following ways. The development of a comprehensive district web page can disseminate important information to students, parents and community members. Budget information, policies, hiring practices, curriculum specifics, test scores, student achievement, special events, lunch menus and any other non-confidential information can be publicly available. Links to individual teacher web pages and team web pages will allow parents to track assignments and long term projects. This will give teachers the opportunity to showcase their classroom activities, display student work and communicate their expectations of students to the community. These pages will allow parents to become more knowledgable and certainly more interested in their student"s classwork and school activities. This makes the working triangle between parent, teacher and student more efficient and should ultimately benefit all three.

Online newsletters will update parents on activities and events of interest in each school.

These newsletters can be Emailed home monthly to all households wishing to subscribe to an automatic list. Providing community member's access to school technology through Technology Nights, Parent Universities, and open computer lab times will enhance communication with and prompt involvement in technology for parents. To ensure that the District will have enhanced communication between all employees listservs can be created and available for all employees to receive any vital District information. This will ensure "up to the minute" information and avoid redundant or outdated information.

Comprehensive and current address lists will can available for all Email correspondence between parents and teachers. This will enable the fulltime working parents to communicate with teachers when it is most convenient for both and eliminate the problem of conflicting schedules and endless "phone tag". Modern knowledge management techniques can improve decision making for all employees. All employees should have the opportunity to contribute to a central database to share "best practices" with others. When all employees have the ability to search a database and eliminate the "trial and error" inherent in new experiences they will be more productive and have more time to spend on their core competencies. This also eliminates the inherent loss of knowledge that occurs when employees leave the district.

Finally all District's student systems can be linked to the same database to eliminate redundant data entering and conflicting information. District staff should only have to enter student information once and that data should be reflected on all systems and be accurate and current. The District should be Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) compliant in all of it's systems. This new standard will be the model for all school computer system vendors to follow and will hopefully improve central administration functions for all.

Other Benefits

As technology pervades our lives at work, at school and at home, it has become vitally important to ensure that each person has a working knowledge of computers and their varied applications. School districts are at the forefront of this "quest for fire," as it were, and are in a unique position not only to educate individuals in the information age, but to provide this instruction to youngsters and adults alike. To this end, the East Stroudsburg Area School District is now positioning itself to provide this fascinating and necessary instruction to its community members in an expeditious and thorough manner. The Technology Infrastructure Committee has delineated three areas through which it feels this goal can be realized-Community Development, Life-long Learning, and Linkages and Partnerships.

The goal for Community Development is to help the community by opening up the lines of communication among "stakeholders," or those involved in the education process-teachers, parents and students. East Stroudsburg Area School District has begun this process through Parent Outreach technology sessions designed to close the "digital divide" by working to lessen the fear of the unknown and creating an interest among parents for technology through education. This instruction should cover various computer advances in both hardware and software, hence initiating the spark to introduce technology to individual homes, which may prompt them to purchase the hardware, and encourage them to continue their education in software applications.

The second area the Committee will address is Life-long Learning. East Stroudsburg Area School District is already exploring this arena through distance learning. Great benefit can already be seen in using technology to instruct single-course material to students at different sites. Distance learning can also be used to help adults initiate and/or continue their education within the world of technology. Change is often difficult. One of the major obstacles to the acceptance of technology is the apprehension of adults to learn and to embrace a new form of communication. We can provide the tools necessary through distance learning to acclimate adults to computers and their wondrous possibilities, making the leap to computers much less mystifying. As community members become more receptive to technology, they will in turn see it as a useful tool for most, if not all, of their activities, from education to entertainment to financial planning. Whether intentionally or as a matter of course, this enhanced comfort level will become a mechanism by which the computer can serve as an important learning tool for life.

While the endeavor to provide an opportunity to fulfill this promise is a noble one, it can also be overwhelming. Therefore, enormous benefit can be found in forming partnerships with other entities, allowing a greater knowledge and resource base upon which to draw to better provide for technology instruction. These linkages would be formed with area businesses, many of which also have a keen interest in the education of individuals in the forum of technology. We envision this dual involvement to include assistance and support for the school in matters related to instruction; in return, the school will provide the training necessary to produce skilled individuals ready to give back to the community. A healthy triangle is thus formed among the school, the business sector, and the community, aimed at bringing each person successfully through the weave of technology.

East Stroudsburg Area School District currently strives to reach and develop high-tech programs for students and adults, meanwhile looking toward the enhancement of such programs by way of support and internships provided by various companies. Students will thus be prepared to use the knowledge gained to choose between entering the workforce immediately upon graduation or entering an institution of higher learning. East Stroudsburg Area School District can also utilize the Web to advertise the fact that its graduates possess the training and skills necessary to meet the technical needs which are of the highest priority in today's business world. With the growth in the economy that this allows, there comes with it the advantage of more and better jobs, and ultimately a higher standard of living.

With a specific plan put in place for the future of technology instruction and integration, East Stroudsburg Area School District can both provide for and profit from Community Development, Life-long Learning, and Linkages and Partnerships. There is certainly a need, an interest, and a desire for technical knowledge, and with a cooperative and concerted effort among stakeholders, everybody wins .... the students, the school and the community.