T&L Advisor Guest post — Carl Hooker, Director of Instructional Technology, Eanes Independent School District: I have been participating in #TLTechLive events since 2007 (back when it was called “Tech Forum”). I go for the connections with like-minded colleagues and engaging vendors that are all trying to improve on our practice. This year, I’ll be moderating a panel with Gail Marlin (@gbmarlin) and Brian Smith (@1to1brian) on digital citizenship and the many “learning opportunities” that social media provides us in schools (Look no further than this year’s presidential election). I’m also really excited about data. I know--that sounds insincere, but I actually mean it. During the “anything goes” breakout, I will be leading an interactive roundtable problem-solving session about the ways we gather data on app-usage in our districts. Too often, we just assume the students are using these expensive digital subscriptions and have to dig to find their usage statistics. We need this usage data to help make wiser purchasing decisions and to help guide our training decisions. One company I’ve discovered that is doing this right is CatchOn and their “App Intelligence” engine. They have some beautiful data analytics (yes, I said beautiful) that could really help districts in the future. I’m excited to share an exclusive inside look of their product and to see what others are doing in this area when it comes to ROI on application usage. See you in Big D!
