By: Sheri | In: NECC2007 |
After repeated visits to the district Accountability and Research Department for answers on how to evaluate technology initiatives, I realized that the only language they speak is TAKS, and they speak it very well. However, I need methods for measuring technology initiatives that have nothing to do with TAKS testing and scores. The ACTIVclassroom initiative is sandwiched in between two TAKS tested grades and it is actually a grade with the Writing TAKS test; however, I question using TAKS as the sole data point for measurement. So I began researching methods of evaluating technology initiatives that would use a variety of data points and would help me to determine exactly what benchmarks should be evaluated. I did not know where to start.
At NECC in Atlanta, I attended a workshop entitled Creating Formative Evaluation Questions and Indicators for Technology Initiatives. The presentor was Jeff Sun of Sun Associates. Jeff talked about many of the same things I had already done when writing the Long Range Technology Plan and the Five-Year Educational Plan; i.e., establishing a vision, setting goals, objectives, actions, and measures. Then he started explaining the purpose of indicator statements, data, and analysis–that these must be tied back to the goals rather than the vision and that the data points most often are not quantitative rather observations, surveys, and focus groups. This was music to my ears! I learned that evaluation of technology initiatives is based on a logic map which identifies goals, which lead to evaluation questions that lead to indicators. It is the indicators that are linked to data collection and annual progress toward meeting the project goals measured by benchmarked indicators. Too often we use checklists as a form of measurement, but they do not effectively tell you whether or not your goal has been met. The measureent instrument must reference the goal not the steps taken to meet the goal. Indicator statements describe what the goal looks like when the goals has been achieved. Decide what data you jeed to collect to measure the indicator statement. The analysis process looks at how the data supports successful implementation of the indicator statements that tie back to the goals that tie back to the vision.
I feel confident I am not the only person struggling with this. We live in the age of making data-driven decisions. However, not all initiatives are tested providing the most obvious source of data. This method will require more thought and work, but if done appropriately the evaluation of technology initiatives can effectively “break down your vision into increasingly observable and measurable pieces” and provide the evidence needed to make the data-driven decisions.
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