Environmental
Scan of Educational Technology at Medina ISD in Medina, Texas
Medina
ISD is located in Medina, Texas. This is in the Texas Hill Country northwest of
San Antonio. Although it is listed as having a humid subtropical climate, Medina
is noticeably less humid than nearby San Antonio. The area has a substantial
history of drought, with occasional torrential rainfall that causes flooding. The
town of Medina is unincorporated. This is a rural area with a small population.
The population is in the hundreds, probably close to 500. This is a ranching
community with a variety of livestock including cattle, goats, and sheep. Residents
who do not participate in ranching commute to other nearby towns and cities to
work: Bandera, Kerrville, Comfort, San Antonio and its nearby communities. Most
of the people of the community are English speakers, with a minority of Spanish
speakers.
The school district is very small.
It is listed as 1A by UIL, and its football team competes in the 6-man
division. Most of the children of Medina attend Medina ISD, but there are a few
students who are home-schooled. There are no magnet schools in the community. The
Texas Education Agency recently scored Medina ISD a “C” in all three measured
domains: Student Achievement (78 of 100), School Progress (76 of 100), and
Closing the Gaps (72 of 100).
On Monday, 8/21/23, I began an
assignment to take an environmental survey of educational technology at Medina
ISD. First, I tried to access the STaR Chart results that had been taken at
Medina ISD in previous years. I was unsuccessful at getting that information
through either email or phone call to the TEA office. I also emailed the school
superintendent and asked for the results of their most recent STaR Chart. I
never got any response to that either.
On
8/22, I decided to create my own survey to send to teachers at Medina ISD.
After researching various options, I decided to go with Jotform.com. At
Jotform.com I created the survey and ran a test using my own email address to
see how it worked. That stage of the process went fine. I had never used
Jotform.com before, so I was happy with the results. It was a time-consuming
process typing the survey questions, but I think overall it went well.
On
8/23, I emailed the Medina ISD superintendent, Mrs. Lindsey Kunz, to ask for
permission to conduct this survey. She emailed me back on the morning of
Thursday the 24th with permission to conduct the survey. Next, I
contacted the two district principals (elementary and secondary) and their
secretaries to give them all a heads-up so they would know what was in the
works, in case any of their teachers came to them with questions about the
survey.
On
8/24, I went to the school website and began the process of entering teacher
email addresses into the Jotform.com webpage to send out the survey. This took
a long time, but I couldn’t think of a more efficient way to do it. After
entering 10 addresses, Jotform.com informed me that I would have to upgrade my
account to add more addresses. The cheapest rate would be over $350/year. I’m
not going to do that, so I’m back to square one.
I
decided to use Google Forms to create my survey. It went well, and on 8/25, I
was able to email the survey to all the district teachers and the district
librarian. I told everyone that it was a “voluntary” survey. I remember when I
was a classroom teacher. The last thing I ever wanted was to have someone
assume that I had the time to fill out surveys for people. I got enough of that
from my administration. Anyway, after reassuring everyone that it was a
voluntary survey, I asked that, if they chose to do it, to try to have it back
to me by September 1. That would give everyone a week to get it done and returned
to me.
On
Friday, September 1, I checked the incoming results of my survey. I was somewhat disappointed by the percentage
of respondents. As of 9/1/23, a week after I had emailed out the survey, I only
had 11 respondents. I decided to wait until after the Labor Day holiday to see
if anyone else had responded. Nada. So, on 9/5, out of the 28 classroom
teachers that Medina ISD employs, I was only able to get 11 respondents, less
than 40% of the potential respondents.
Technology Availability Pros
(out of 11 respondents)
1. Medina
ISD is a 1-to-1 Chromebook school. Every student has been issued a Chromebook
to use at school and to take home for homework. So, every student has access to
a Chromebook 24/7. (100%)
2. Nine
teachers had access to a computer lab (81.8 %)
3. Eight
teachers had access to an LCD projector. (72.7%)
4. Seven
teachers had Elmo Projectors (63.6%)
Technology Availability Cons
(out of 11 respondents)
1. Only
four teachers had access to an interactive whiteboard. (36.4%)
2. Only
two teachers had tablets or e-readers available for their students. (18.2%)
3. None
of the teachers had digital cameras available in their classrooms. (0%)
Teachers had students use
digital devices to perform the following educational tasks.
1.
Taking assignments online – nine teachers
(81.8%)
2.
Watching videos from outside sources for
educational purposes – seven teachers (63.6%)
3.
Accessing information through a school
portal – six teachers (54.5%)
4.
Creating Presentations – six teachers
(54.5%)
5.
Using Online Textbooks – five teachers
(45.5%)
Teachers used the
following apps to enhance classroom instruction.
1.
Google Apps – eight teachers (88.9%)
2.
Kahoot – six teachers (66.7%)
3.
Prodigy – five teachers (55.6%)
4.
Canva – three teachers (33.3%)
5.
Quizlet – two teachers (22.2%)
6.
Microsoft Apps – one teacher (11.1%)
7.
Class Dojo – one teacher (11.1%)
8.
Remind – one teacher (11.1%)
9.
The following apps were not used by any of
the Medina ISD teacher respondents:
a. ChatGPT
b. Duolingo
c. Seesaw
Websites that the
teachers surveyed use to find teaching resources (out of 11 respondents)
1.
Teachers Pay Teachers – ten teachers
(90.9%)
2.
YouTube – nine teachers (81.8%)
3.
Pinterest – six teachers (54.5%)
4.
BrainPOP – five teachers (45.5%)
5.
Khan Academy - five teachers (45.5%)
6.
Discovery Education – four teachers
(36.4%)
7.
Edutopia – two teachers (18.2%)
8.
Starfall - two teachers (18.2%)
9.
Newsela – one teacher (9.1 %)
10.
Smart Exchange – one teacher (9.1 %)
11.
The following resources had no teachers
using them:
a. Flocabulary
b. Membeam
c. Noredink
d. Cicero
e. PE
Central
f. Spark
g. Option
15
Teachers used the
following social media sites for assistance with curriculum development and/or
for classroom instructional purposes:
1. Facebook
/ Meta – seven teachers (63.6%)
2. Pinterest
– five teachers (45.5%)
3. Twitter
/ X – two teachers (18.2%)
4. Instagram
– two teachers (18.2%)
5. WhatsApp
– one teacher (9.1%)
6. TikTok
– one teacher (9.1%)
7. Medina
ISD teacher respondents did not use any of the following social media for
educational purposes:
a. Truth
Social
b. Parler
c. Tumblr
d. Snapchat
Regarding technology-related professional development, only 50% of the respondents said that they had received any technology-related professional development. Furthermore, 80% of the respondents said that they felt that they could benefit from additional technology-related professional development. One respondent said that they would like to learn how to upload tests into Google Classroom, have students submit their answers, and then retrieve the graded work from Google Classroom.
References
Texas
Education Agency. (2018, June 29). School Technology and Readiness Chart.
Texas Education Agency. https://tea.texas.gov/academics/learning-support-and-programs/technology-resources/school-technology-and-readiness-chart
Medina,
Texas Koppen climate classification (Weatherbase). Weatherbase. (n.d.). https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather-summary.php3?s=70937&cityname=Medina%2C%2BTexas%2C%2BUnited%2BStates%2Bof%2BAmerica&units=
Hello!
ReplyDeleteI love that you did your own survey of staff members in the school district to find the information you needed to gather! It's always interesting to see how other teachers and districts manage technology in and out of the classroom, particularly with regards to the Covid experience.
I hadn't thought to ask about technology-related PD. My site provides technology-related PD frequently, but unfortunately it isn't always directly relevant in a way that we use it on our campus. I find it surprising that only 50% have received tech training, especially with all of the highly beneficial technology programs available in the world today!
I hope we get the opportunity to provide some of that training and/or receive that training so that we can benefit our students who are living in a global society.
Thank you so much for your thoughts!
Hello! Your hands-on process for gathering information made me smile. I work for a small district (five elementary schools), so I appreciated your effort to contact the superintendent and principals directly. Receiving a timely, and positive response is a small district luxury! I have not used Jotform, but I am familiar with Google Forms. Even with the best of intentions, you are at the mercy of the recipients to respond. Thank you for sharing your data, it was an interesting read!
ReplyDeleteThis was so interesting! I can see how this type of data gathering would be an amazing way to keep on top of teacher needs. Thanks for sharing this! You also have access to Qualtrics survey software while you are a student at Sam. That's a great tool as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Gilbert! I love how you created your own survey to find out what teachers are really using! It was really fascinating to see your results. I’d love to do something like that in my own district. One thing I like about Google forms is how you can see the results in a pie chart format after. That could be a great way to share that data in an infographic too! Nice work!
ReplyDelete