Journal #7

"Technology and Teacher Retention" by Robert Kadel

Robert Kadel bring up the relationship between technology and those that implement it in the classroom , mostly teachers. He begins his article with the question of "what effect does technology have on teacher retention?" He then gives three examples of school districts each with a different level of technology ingrained within their curriculum. The first district is the ideal being rich in technological resources and therefore attracting the most amount of teachers especially the newer teachers fresh out of an environment also rich in technological resources (college). The second two districts are not quiet as ideal. One has technological resources but no teachers that can utilize them and no support to teach these teachers how to do it. The second a district that does not have such technological resources. Kadel asks if these last two scenarios would attract as many teachers and/or keep as many teachers.
Kadel cites Banister and Vannatta as describing what is necessary to create an atmosphere where teachers are trained to understand technology. There are four main points to focus on. they consist of making technology a priority, having a technological infrastructure, focusing on development and having opportunities to train. the article ends with the three phases of a course over the span of 2and a 1/2 years and consist of a planning phase, implementation phase and transfer phase.

Question 1: Does the reward outweigh the cost to implement programs to educate our educators in the importance and use of technology? Yes. Once the importance of technology is accepted by all or most of the educating profession a strong desire on how to implement should arise. For most of the younger teachers this should have been addresses as part of their education to be a teacher. For older generation teachers this is not the case. Workshops or something of the sort should be established in order to educate all those willing to learn.

Question 2: How should such programs be funded? This is difficult. Should money come from the state or federal and how should it be distributed? Because each district has a different set of needs there is no way to equally distribute money. Some sort of system would have to be created (which would cost money) to figure out who deserves what. There would have to be certain ways this money could be spent as well.