Strategic+Planning

This page sets out a process for developing a strategic plan for ICT development in schools. it is important to remember that ICT is all about learning, and that values and beliefs about learning are the basis for sound strategic planning. Therefoer the process could be:

Establish your values and beliefs about learning - what skills and attributes do you and your staff believe will be of value to the students in your school today, in preparing them for their life ahead. This should be a whole staff activity, and needs to look at the future that students will grow into. Think about the changes that have occurred int he last 15,10,5 years. Consider this in relation to e.g. shopping, banking, entertainment, transport, travel etc. Now what changes might we expect in the next 5,10,15 years and what does this mean for the skills and attributes our students will need to develop?

This was touched on in the workshop but still requires much deeper thinking - here is the diagram that we developed while beginning this process:



Now begin finding out how well your school is performing in developing these skills and attributes - remember we are talking evidential data here - not just what you believe to be happening. To gather this information you can use: Discuss the findings and make a statement about where the school is at - the good, the bad and the ugly. Be specific.
 * teacher interviews - record this as a sound file or podcast (cheap microphones are available from Dick Smith Electronics and the Warehouse if you don't have an inbuilt one) - just use a Word document and go Insert - Sound - Record sound - the rest is easy.
 * student interviews - ask them how their learning is changing, what they understand about the learning process, what skills they believe they need to develop for the future, to give some examples of some good learnig they believe they have undertaken and to explain why that was good.
 * Work samples - not produced for the purpose of data collection, but things that have been done recently that show the types of learning occurring (get into the habit of digitising work for future reference - a digital camera is great for this - take photos of wall displays etc that have been developed as part of the learning process.
 * Classroom observations - no shame, no blame classroom visits (involve a small team visiting all classrooms in the school for the purpose of observing teacher practice and gathering anonymous specific data and anecdotal evidence school wide - share the things that are happening across the school without reference to individuals - but try and establish how widespread (or otherwise) this is. The purpose is to establish what really is the case, not to show off what people think is happening. Honesty and reality are key here.

In the light of this reality, as a staff, set goals for future growth.