Empowered Learning Environment
An empowered learning environment inspires students to take control of their learning through flexible and equitable access to education anytime and anywhere. Technology in this environment provides the digital tools and content as well as learning technologies that increase engagement and personalize learning.
Goal: Cultivate and support a constantly accessible learning environment supported by innovative technology that encourages all students to be active, creative, knowledgeable, and ethical participants in our globally connected society.
Strategies
- Increase the district’s digital footprint to provide continuous access to devices, internet, and a virtual learning environment both during and beyond the school day.
- Ensure students, educators, and parents have continuous access to digital content and resources aligned to district’s curriculum.
- Enhance the interoperability of systems (SIS, LMS, Assessment) to more efficiently facilitate the integration of 21st Century skills into the teaching and learning.
- Implement a digital citizenship and literacy program that focuses on acquiring 21st century skills, online safety, and student rights and responsibilities to privacy.
- Expand access to a variety of virtual learning opportunities for students (per Senate Bill 289) that promote academic excellence, acceleration, and rigor.
- Develop technology integration exemplars that demonstrate how 21st Century skills can be integrated throughout the district’s curriculum and into each of the content areas.
- Implement district technology integration strategies to ensure teachers cultivate an empowered learning environment.
- Leverage student participation to inform a student-centered technology-rich learning environment.
Infrastructure Enhancements
Continuous evaluation and support of the infrastructure and technology components ensures the consistency and reliability necessary for equitable access to DCSD’s virtual learning environment and superior performance of business enterprise systems.
Goals:
- Enhance secure, efficient and reliable connectivity to the DCSD technology infrastructure.
- Ensure seamless and intuitive integration of systems that support the core business operations of DCSD.
Strategies
- Increase network and endpoint security.
- Increase district bandwidth to support wireless and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) access.
- Assess and revise district data privacy and Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) policies.
- Upgrade software and hardware to monitor WAN/LAN for optimum network access by students and staff.
- Enhance processes for tracking, measuring, and refining network performance.
- Continue to implement and enhance the DCSD Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity (BCP) Plans.
- Improve cloud-based user access for instructional and administrative purposes.
- Continue to support the needs of high speed interactive devices (e.g., eBooks, tablets).
- Upgrade and integrate district’s business and student systems to support electronic data sharing.
- Implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that will streamline business functions across all departments.
- Enhance business intelligence tools for analyzing and reporting data to help make smarter operational and instructional decisions.
Data Governance
Data Governance addresses how data is used to make decisions that support student success as well as the overall management of availability, usability, security, integrity, and destruction of data in an organization.
Goal: Create an information-centric and informed organizational culture that effectively and appropriately utilizes data to support teaching and learning as well as business enterprise and management.
Strategies
- Review and update district policies on data governance to reflect current federal laws on privacy and security of student data.
- Establish protocol and processes that inform the collection, storage, analysis, reporting, exchange, or archive of data by any district employee.
- Continue enhancing the integration of information systems and data across instructional, administrative, and business systems.
- Implement a series of data literacy learning opportunities that focus on legal and ethical responsibility in ensuring data is accurate, private, and secure.
Professional Development
According to the International Society for Technology in Education, educators must be leaders who “advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content, and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students”.
Goal: Develop collaborative, job-embedded, differentiated, and data-driven professional development experiences for all staff that ensures consistent and effective integration of technology in all environments.
Strategies
- Enhance current professional development plan that addresses classroom-focused technology competencies and literacies for integration and expansion.
- Expand professional development plan to address learning needs of district and local school administrators and support personnel.
- Leverage the virtual learning environment to provide diverse and differentiated learning opportunities as well as a tiered monitoring system to assess growth.
- Develop local-school technology integration strategies that support identified learning goals and provide relevant job-embedded experiences.
- Identify and train technology integration advocates for each building to further support and model 21st Century teaching, learning and assessment.
- Create an online professional learning community for teachers to share strategies using technology in the classroom available any time and any place.
Community Partnership
Through the power of technology, families and school staff can collaborate with community members to support students’ learning and development while expanding learning opportunities, community services, and civic participation.
Goal: Engage in ongoing collaboration and partnerships with parents, community organizations, and business partners to support students’ learning and development while expanding learning opportunities, community services, and civic participation.
Strategies
- Update and communicate common vision for 21st Century learning in DCSD.
- Increase partnerships with community organizations and business partners to extend access to the DCSD virtual learning environment and exposure to authentic learning opportunities beyond school hours.
- Develop digital citizenship and literacy learning opportunities for the parents and the community to address the DCSD virtual learning environment.
- Implement a parent portal option that facilities robust digital communication and collaboration between parents, teachers, administrators, and students.