Sign up for newsletter

Feb. 15, 2001

Feature

How Well is it Working?
Customizing Your Technology Assessment

How do you determine if your technology program is on track? Find out how schools and districts are creating their own systems to evaluate what's working and what isn't.

By: Jeffrey Branzburg

Over the past decade, schools have spent many millions of dollars on instructional technology with the goal of improving teaching and learning. Everyone-from the grant agency funding new teacher training to parents eyeing standardized test scores-wants to know: Is it working? Is the technology doing what we wanted and expected it to do?

Never has the focus on assessment been so intense or so politically charged. With recent headline-grabbing reports questioning the effectiveness of computers in schools, educators are being called on to provide convincing evidence that technology is making an impact. At the same time, the national obsession with accountability has made it essential for educators to track everything they're doing, technology included.

But evaluation is far more than information gathering for the purpose of defending your school against critics. Taking a defensive and after-the-fact approach to assessment misses its more important purpose-to help you shape your programs so they benefit all involved. When approached thoughtfully and with clear goals in mind, evaluative data gathering allows educators to catch problems early and refine their programs as needed.

How are educational institutions going about this very important challenge? Some schools contract with a university or professional research organization to conduct a full-scale evaluation study. This type of assessment, which generally involves training and paying third-party observers to study classrooms, can cost up to $50,000. As a result, many schools opt to do a certain amount of the work themselves, only relying on the professionals for advice, guidance, and technical assistance such as designing surveys.

Read how three districts developed and carried out their own technology assessment, and some important lessons they learned along the way.

• South Huntington School District combined outsourced assessment design with resources from within to target key areas for evaluation.
• North Lawrence Community School Corporation created a benchmark-specific design for assessment through collaboration and communication.
• Kyrene School District drew from in-house expertise to build their assessment program from within.

Jeffrey Branzburg, contributing editor to T&L, is the supervisor of instructional technology for Lawrence Public Schools in New York.

A special thanks to John Stryker and Suzi Mast for their time, as well as Jeff Sun (Sun Associates) and Al Simon (Metis Associates) for their help identifying assessment tips.

Read other articles from the February Issue

Send a letter to the Editor in response to this article.