Instructional Technology and the AACPS Strategic Plan

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 By Kerri Lambert, Academic Specialist, Instructional Technology

In the fall of the 2024, after a year of input from stakeholders, Anne Arundel County Public Schools unveiled its new 5 year Strategic Plan. This living document serves as the guiding force for all work in the school system. While technology is specifically called out in the core belief of innovation and priority #5 (Building and Sustaining our Future), instructional technology can significantly enhance all areas of the plan, ensuring our students meet the portrait of a graduate as envisioned in the early pages of the document. Let’s explore how instructional technology aligns to the five identified priorities. 

1. Achieving Academic Excellence: Ensuring that all students are exposed to high academic expectations, rigorous curriculum, and an engaging learning environment to meet individual needs and continue to grow.
Priority #1: Achieving Academic Excellence

Integrating instructional technology into instruction allows for differentiation, engagement, and a more inclusive learning environment. Obviously students love technology, so any time you give them the opportunity to engage with the Chromebooks, you immediately have their attention; however, engagement also comes from what you have the students interacting with. For example, virtual field trips, simulations, and creative assessment options (i.e. video creation, digital portfolios, multimedia posters) all increase engagement while emphasizing real world skills. Additionally, utilizing accessibility features such as read aloud, speech to text, translation, closed captioning, and audio recording tools allows all students to access rigorous curriculum and showcase their learning by removing barriers. As a result, teachers are able to truly pinpoint where students struggle and can direct their efforts appropriately to reach the specific proficiency goals as outlined in the priority. Students need a class not offered at their home school? That’s no longer a barrier thanks to online courses and distance learning opportunities. 

2. Future Readiness and Transitional Preparedness Ensuring that all AACPS students are prepared to grow and prosper as they move through the system and successfully transition from the school system to adulthood.
Priority #2: Future Readiness and Transitional Preparedness

How are we making sure our students leave AACPS prepared for life after public school? Well, in our increasingly digital world, colleges and work places rely heavily on technology. College students are expected to be able to navigate a Learning Management System (LMS), type documents, create presentations, and collaborate on cloud based systems. In the workplace, creating videos, digital publications, even completing forms and responding to email, are common place and expected skills for workers. Read through the Maryland Common Core standards and starting in PreK instructional technology is embedded throughout for just this reason. With a heavy emphasis on research, communication, and speaking and listening skills, Maryland common core recognizes that in order to be future-ready, students must demonstrate mastery of technology skills. 

3. Investing in our staff: Ensuring a diverse and highly effective staff at all levels and positions.
Priority #3: Investing in Staff

Our school system is only as good as the people who work for it. With priority three, AACPS has made the commitment “ensuring a diverse and highly effective staff at all levels and positions.” Part of this is helping maintain healthy home/work balance. After all, teachers work HARD. Always have, always will. But staff can utilize technology to work smarter and improve work flows. Don’t spend time waiting at the copier to make dozens upon dozens of worksheet copies; instead take advantage of the LMS to push out documents and assignments to students! Grading with rubrics and leaving feedback digitally (yay for comment banks and audio recordings!) is another way to save teachers time, allowing them to focus on effective instruction, their own professional learning, and maintaining their sanity. This is just the tip of the iceberg of how instructional technology can help meet the goals of having a diverse, highly effective staff. 

4. Supporting the whole child: Ensuring the social, emotional, mental, physical, and behavioral health and well-being of all students.
Priority #4: Supporting the Whole Child

At first glance, it may seem that instructional technology can’t play a large role in supporting the social, emotional, mental, physical, and behavioral health and well being of students, but upon closer examination, it has a lot to offer this priority. Just look at how large a role technology plays in connecting people to one another; this was never as evident as it was during the COVID 19 pandemic. In AACPS, students were still able to collaborate and foster relationships with staff and peers using Google Meet, helping with the social-emotional needs when everyone craved personal connections. Here in AACPS we’ve also had a great deal of success having students who can’t physically attend school, attend virtually using telepresence robots. This makes homebound students feel connected with their peers in a way traditional home-and-hospital teaching cannot, and offers a semblance of normalcy at a time where they may need that stability. Additionally, virtual meetings with counselors, online tutoring, even online workouts are available to students which has a positive impact on their well-being.  Have a student who struggles with organization and getting work done on time? Teach them to take advantage of digital calendars, to-do lists, and notifications to help keep them on track. Absenteeism a problem? Technology to the rescue with better data collection, tools to communicate with parents, and making school more engaging so students WANT to attend. 

5. Building and sustaining our future: Ensuring the safety, security, and upkeep of all district facilities and the efficient and equitable management/allocation of district resources.
Priority #5: Building and Sustaining our Future

Priority #5 is the only priority to specifically call out technology (Goal B: “have the technology and other resources necessary to support modern learning environments”), and it’s the most straight forward. Our classrooms need the technology resources- hardware, software, and training- in order to meet all the other priorities. If you don’t have the tools you need, it makes it that much harder to reach your goals. 

Instructional technology is a powerful catalyst for transforming education, and its integration across AACPS’s Strategic Plan demonstrates its potential to enrich every aspect of teaching and learning. From enhancing academic achievement and future readiness to supporting staff and the whole child, technology aligns seamlessly with the plan’s five priorities. As we continue to invest in modern tools and innovative practices, AACPS is well-positioned to empower students, educators, and the broader community to thrive in an ever-evolving world.


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