Technology Assessments for Students and Teachers

I believe that it is invaluable to know the skills and technology leadership knowledge of your teachers to establish and build upon an effective technology plan for any district. You have to be able to determine what your teachers already know, what they still need to learn, before you can implement a district-wide plan. You must determine what the gaps are between where you are and where you need to be. A simple survey like the School Technology and Readiness Chart (STaR Chart) is a good baseline. It isn’t the final assessment tool that needs to be used though. The STaR Chart can help determine growth in an area over time, but it isn’t a good measure of what a teacher really knows. Short of giving teachers an annual skills test, the best way to determine what they know is by observation. Having personnel on campus that know the teachers, work with them on a regular basis and are able to do on the job training and assistance is essential.

It is also imperative to know what your student body knows as well. You need to determine the gaps in their knowledge and the goals they have for their learning, so you will know what needs to be taught. Then, train the teachers in those areas so they can instruct the students. The same personnel on the campus who works with the teachers can also assist the students in their learning.

Tech assessments can be tricky. If you use a self-assessment tool you can get inconstant data. Where one teacher thinks that because she knows how to create a basic PowerPoint and show it on her classroom projector she is highly skilled, another teacher may think that because she doesn’t use her MOBI Interwrite Slate for 90% of her instruction or she doesn’t know how to create an interactive online lesson in Prezi she is lacking the skills she needs to be an effective technology teacher. Although the latter teacher has a greater skill set in the area of technology than the first, she may score herself lower in some areas because she feels she can do more. The assessment in general is a good idea, it’s just fining the right method, or even methods, that need to be used. I think a good effective assessment would combine all of the above tools, self-assessment, observation by technology leadership personnel, and district-wide results of the STaR Chart, to determine where the gaps in learning are.