Actions are the specific things that you will do to accomplish your objectives and ultimately your goals. In their specificity and high level of detail, actions create the roadmap that you will follow throughout the course of your plan.

Creating individual Action Steps for each goal can become quite complicated since you need to determine what it is exactly that you need to do to support that goal, who will be responsible for carrying out the action, when an activity needs to be completed, what resources are required, and where the activity will take place. Furthermore, some activities will depend on the completion of another activity. It may be helpful to create a flowchart or diagram to show how all of the Action Steps relate to each other, to each of the goals, and to the vision statement.

As you can see, the Template asks you to specify a name and description for the Action Step. You also need to indicate the timeframe for completing the Action as well as an individual who will be responsible for overseeing its completion. Another important part of Action Step creation is the assignment of “budget categories” to each Step. Follow the pull-down template to assign budget categories and descriptions of sources of funds to each Step. Likewise, this is a place where you can indicate that an Action Step is connected to your E-Rate funding. Connecting an Action Step to E-Rate will also make it appear under the E-Rate tab/page on your template.

Good activities within your action plan should allow you to answer “yes” to each of the following questions:

Does this activity directly relate to at least one of your goals?
Remember that you cannot have goals that do not support your vision and you cannot have activities that do not support goals.

Is this activity critically important to accomplish or fulfill the goal it supports?
If you do not perform this activity, you would not be able to accomplish your goal? It is important to choose activities which have a clear relationship to the goal and which create sustained and measurable impact in terms of the goal.

Is the activity “do-able”?
Do you have the resources — financial, human, or time — to accomplish this activity by the end of the time period you have specified? Have you accounted for all of the resources — time, hardware/software, staff development, funding — that you need to accomplish this activity?

Does the activity link to related activities in following years?
Is there anything about this activity which would prevent you from performing other related activities beyond year one of your plan? For example, is this activity so expensive that you would deplete all of the funds that might be designated for such activities? Is it an activity that needs to be ongoing?

Does this activity build upon other activities and initiatives undertaken within the system?
Certain activities -- particularly those related to professional development, curriculum revision, and infrastructure development -- should be linked to system initiatives much broader than those discussed directly in this technology plan. Examples might include building renovations, system reform plans, and professional development plans. It is to your benefit to be knowledgeable of, and build upon, those other system initiatives.

Is this a measurable activity?
How will you evaluate this activity? Is there data you can identify and collect which will allow you to document your progress and/or success in accomplishing the activity?

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Last updated,4/4/07