Journal # 8 Technology and Teacher Retention

Technology and Teacher Retention
By Robert Kadel Learning & Leading with Technology May 2007 Pgs. 27-28.

This article focuses on how technology can help the administration in the area of teacher retention. The author Robert Kadel did some research and proposed some good ideas in this article to benefit both teachers and administrators. The proposed plan is called TSE which is called Technology Supportive Environment. Simply having technology in school is not enough but the school must provide training and support to teachers so it can be utilized in the classrooms to enhance the lesson plans. The author proposed the following guidelines that could be used in implementing these technology support procedures to teachers.
1. Providing pre-service support by gathering information about other campuses and technology available.
2. Provide positive support in the use of technology.
3. Provide insevice meetings and training to teachers during the year so they can learn and will be able to teach the students.
4. Be proactive in the organization of new technology.
5. School leaders making use of technology a priority.
6. Provide technology solutions tailored to the specific needs of the school and the district.
There are three major areas that need to be addressed when discussing this topic. They are the responsibility of the administrators of schools. Proactive can be very helpful to teacher retention. Staying focused by the administration is also helpful to retain teacher retention. Intensive training and monitoring of technology use in the classroom and support is very important to teacher retention.

QUESTIONS:
1. How can you measure the teacher retention in Schools?
We can measure the teacher retention by using the simple formula that is proposed in the article. This can be measured by dividing the number of teachers who are still teaching at the same school at the start of a new school year by the number of teachers who were teaching at that school at the start of the previous school year which gives a simple percentage.
2. What are other uses of TSE (Technology Supportive Technology) in the schools?
We can also measure student absenteeism, student achievement in math, reading, science or any other subject or any other school related survey we need to accomplish in our schools. We can get more information through these resources:
http://www.iste.org/LL