Effective Strategies for Tech Integrators
to Improve Productivity
T he challenge for technology integrators is to connect students’ academic needs, staff development requirements, and hardware
and software resources. Implementing effective
strategies as an integrator is vital for making a
difference in schools. Here’s what I encourage
my staff to do:
Develop goals and make them SMART. Align
your goals with your school improvement targets
and your own professional growth. The SMART
(specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and
time dependent) method will define a clear di-rection to enable you to focus on opportunities
for school success and professional growth.
Establish timeframes to meet your objectives.
Planning your time is the key. Timeframes can
be an amalgamation of short, medium, and long
terms to meet the school and district goals. Here
are three timeframes to consider in planning,
implementing, and evaluating the process:
1. Long term (up to two years) means striving
for small steps to achieve a large return.
2. Medium term (one year) means striving for
reasonable steps to achieve a practical return.
3. Short term (six months) means striving for
immediate steps to achieve a direct, yet ef-fective, return.
Manage your workflow. Once the school year
begins and you have planned goals and time-frames, some tasks and activities may become a
challenge. Make sure to prioritize. Remember,
everything that comes your way is not a high-priority goal. Steven Covey, author of The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People, states that every
activity we do during the day can be put in one
Quadrant I. Not urgent
and important
Quadrant II. Urgent
and important
Quadrant III. Urgent
and not important
Quadrant IV. Not urgent
and not important
of four quadrants. Take the time to list tasks and
activities and observe where you have placed
them. If you placed the majority of the tasks and
activities in Quadrant I, you could be diminish-ing your effectiveness.
To successfully juggle various projects and dai-ly activities, use tools such as Microsoft Outlook,
Microsoft Project, or Officer Organizer. Schedule
classroom integrations, trainings, and school-related activities to help pace your workflow.
Be flexible. There will be unexpected tasks to
integrate into your day. Also, for every classroom
integration or modeling, schedule planning time.
Maintain a balance of classroom integrations,
staff trainings, and technical support. And don’t
forget to carve out some time for record keep-ing, which you need for data analysis. Schedule
professional growth and learning time for classes,
workshops, online learning, and conferences to
improve your knowledge base.
Know your strengths and skills. Focus on your
greatest assets, skills, and knowledge. Marcus
Buckingham, a leading expert on personal
strength and author of Go Put Your Strengths to
Work
, emphasizes the importance of concen-trating on your talents, skills, and knowledge to
elevate your effectiveness on the job. He contends
that you must stay clear, make the most of your
strengths, ignite opportunities from needs, speak
up, and build strong practices.
as i see “it”
By Fred Scott
Fred Scott is the instructional technology
integration manager
for Chesterfield County
Public Schools in
Virginia. Scott has been
a teacher, technology
trainer, and staff developer for more than 25
years and has presented
at local, state, and
national conferences.
