Technology Assesments

Measuring performance requires that there’s a documented amount of data that you can relate to when measuring progress or even worse regression. Administrators are required to make many data-driven decisions that can affect an entire school or district. The Texas STaR chart presents a wonderful opportunity to administrators and other constituents about how a school is doing in terms of technology usage and proficiency. The results of assessments such as this can help make better-informed decisions about immediate changes that need to be made in order to meet the required goals, such as the Long-Range Plan. The assessments also serve as a valuable tool to administrators as well because they can be used to make other decisions about how resources are allocated. Most people would agree that these assessment tools are beneficial and could possibly do no harm. Could that be entirely true?

Well, lets think about how the assessment and how it turned out in my campus. My campus scores have been fairly consistent over the last 3 years. We scored “Developing Tech” in all areas except Infrastructure and Technology. This is the only area we were classified as “Advanced Tech”. The reason for this was because every single classroom was recently equipped with a brand new projector, new computers, 2 complete mobile cart labs, new printers, and other gadgets such as smart boards, tablets, document cameras and new software programs. We phased out any old Dell Optiplex GX270 (yes we still had those) and replaced them with new Dell machines. As a result, the network seemed to work faster and teachers were extremely happy to accomplish their administrative duties on a fast machine. Now shifting back to the other key areas, what caused our scores to have no improvement? One of the benefits of having this assessment is that it serves as a “rude awakening” for our campus and how it stacks up against national standards and personally it makes teachers aware of what they should be doing in the classroom to lend their part of a shared vision. I started questioning the validity of the answers provided by teachers. As a technology coordinator, I’ve had the opportunity to go into many classrooms during class time and witness different styles of teaching, classroom management and most importantly what tools the teachers is using to deliver content knowledge. I can honestly say that less than 10 percent of the teacher population at our campus actually uses technology in the classroom to direct instruction. Even worse students hardly have the opportunity to use technology to solve problems or seek new knowledge. If ever, it is used for games as a reward for finishing their work early. So does that make teacher’s liars? Well not necessarily, maybe they choose the safe answer to avoid getting into trouble or maybe they are so overwhelmed with work that they complete the survey so quickly that they don’t truly read the question. If I had to assess my school from my perspective, I’d score Teaching & Learning, Educator Preparation and Administration & Support as “Early Tech”. So yes, this assessment is causing harm to our school because it isn’t painting the right picture to make the right decisions. I’d agree that assessments for both teachers and students are great tools however if it is inaccurate it can also be hindering your ability to take action.

The assessment for students can also help teachers make better decisions about planning and delivering the curriculum. Individualized instruction is extremely important to ensure each and every single students success. Assessing the skills of students is important because NLCB states that they “must” be technology literate by the end of 8^th grade. How can we say they are or not if we do not assess their skills. By knowing each students skills, we can increase the technology use with that student to help him be considered literate with technology. On the other hand, what harm can assessing a student do? One of my biggest concerns is that it can place a label on the student that perhaps is doing excellent in school and has no problem learning without technology. Could that type of label harm a student? Well that’s probably up for debate, but in my opinion it won’t be harmful to the student if we knew more about their technology skills whether or not they score high. After all we test students on just about everything else don’t we?