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Creating a personal technology improvement plan for teachers of the gifted.

Article Excerpt
There is a high incidence of today's gifted students independently interacting with their global community through technology tools. Teachers of the gifted (GT teachers) must possess an understanding of technology processes and concepts in order to engage their students through instructionally meaningful and appropriate lessons (Bybee & Loucks-Horsley, 2000). Although many educators would like to use technology tools as an instructional medium, two obstacles prevent GT teachers from integrating technology into the curriculum: access to resources and continuous professional development.

The first obstacle to technology integration is access to resources (Minkel, 2004; Wilson & Notar, 2003). During the past decade, United States school systems have spent more than $19 billion on developing technology systems for local schools. Furthermore, national groups have set standards aimed at improving teachers' use of technology as an instructional tool (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education [NCATE], 2003; No Child Left Behind Act [NCLB], 2001; Preparing Tomorrow's Teacher's to Use Technology [P[T.sup.3]], 2005; International Society for Technology Education [ISTE], 2005). The goal of these efforts is to increase the amount of needed resources so that educators can more frequently and efficiency integrate technology into curricula.

Yet, despite the allocation of funds and creation of standards, there has been only modest technology integration into 21st-century classrooms (Minkel, 2004; Wilson, Notar, & Yunker, 2003). Minkel (2004) conducted a study to determine students' (ages 6-17) satisfaction with computer and Internet access at school. The results showed that almost half of the students (49%) were dissatisfied with the amount of time spent online. According to Minkel, "this represents a doubling of dissatisfaction on the part of children since 2000" (p. 26). Interestingly, even with the increased spending on resources, students are not satisfied with amount of computer integration into instruction. Perhaps the solution to inadequate integration of technology can be found in teacher training.

The second obstacle to more frequent technology integration is strategic planning that provides continuous professional development and allows GT teachers to learn how to integrate technology resources as an instructional tool. According to Shaunessy (2003), 81% of GT teachers report receiving fewer than 10 hours of staff development in technology integration. Staff development content generally is outlined by district and school administrators and designed for an entire faculty (school and/or district). Unfortunately, many professional development opportunities unsuccessfully meet the technology needs of GT teachers and gifted students (Karnes & Shaunessy, 2004).

As a result of the one-size-fits-all aspect of technology-focused professional development opportunities, GT teachers cannot afford to wait for districtwide staff development sessions to teach them how to integrate computer resources. Rather, they must independently seek professional development opportunities that meet their specific instructional technology (IT) needs. A Personal Technology Improvement Plan (PTIP) facilitates this by allowing GT teachers to create an individualized professional development plan (Karnes & Shaunessy, 2004; see Appendix A).

Based on research conducted by Dettmer and Landrum (1998), a PTIP is a personalized, strategic professional development plan used to help GT teachers analyze and identify their professional technology needs and create a plan that allows them to meet those needs. PTIPs serve three purposes. First, they provide GT teachers with a continuous...