July 2004 — SETDA
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Texas: Klein ISD Moves From Learning to Use Technology to Using Technology to Learn
More than 35,000 K-12 students on 31 campuses constitute the Klein Independent School District, a rapidly growing suburban district in northwest Harris County, Texas (just north of Houston), which employs more than 2,500 teachers. Two new elementary schools are scheduled to open in the district this fall.
When the Texas Education Agency announced the Technology Applications Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TA TEKS) as a required curriculum for students in grades K-12, Klein ISD faced the challenge of assuring that all students in the district would have the opportunity to master the TA TEKS.
The district recognized that the TA TEKS were basic literacy skills for the digital, information-driven society that is taking over the world. As such, the district decided the TA TEKS should be taught by regular classroom teachers as an integrated component of core content instruction and not by instructional technology specialists. The challenges were to assure that all teachers would receive the training and expertise to master the technology skills themselves, that they would use technology as a tool for improving instruction, and that all students would ultimately master the TA TEKS.
True Digital Literacy
In 1997, Klein ISD established the expectation that, at a minimum, teachers would be required to have the same technology skills that were required of eighth-grade students in the TA TEKS. With that goal in mind, the district established a plan for technology professional development for all teachers and administrators. The core of Klein's professional development plan was the creation of a community of learners among the district's teachers and administrators that would result in teachers' mastery of technology skills at a level that would make them capable of teaching those skills to their students. At the center of that learning community were teachers from each campus known as Technology Integration Mentors (TIMs) - full-time teachers who received an additional stipend for their efforts to learn about technology and share that knowledge with others. The TIM program created a network of teachers from each grade level and core content area who joined together to focus on how best to integrate the TA TEKS into core content teaching and learning. As the TIMs learned new skills, they shared those skills with their colleagues. TIMs' classrooms served as learning labs for all teachers at each campus. The mantra for the district became: "Moving from learning to use technology … to using technology to learn."
True digital literacy is exemplified when students create their own content using a variety of software applications. Toward that end, Klein ISD established a districtwide standard software package for all teacher and student workstations. The standard software load includes tools for word processing, spreadsheets, databases, draw and paint applications, electronic presentations, Web page creation, as well as tools for concept mapping and critical thinking.
Klein ISD's success in integrating technology tools into teaching and learning for all students is based on a strategic combination of:
- The TA TEKS as the standard;
- Common software applications as the tools; and
- The establishment of a community of learners among the teachers, with the TIMs as the leaders in the community.
