Posted by:
Sheila Cory
University
Chapel Hill, NC

Topic:
Input and Output

Message:

There are two issues that must be addressed in response to this question. The first has to do with input and the second with output (or impact.)

Input. Sometimes we judge the impact of technology without having a clear understanding how the technology was used in the teaching and learning process. To understand the impact, we must first document how the technology is actually being used -- how often, for what purposes, under what conditions, etc. There are a growing number of tools, some on-line, that are designed to help school administrators understand the current status of technology use in a school. Participants in our programs use a tool we developed for this purpose. TAGLIT (Taking a Good Look at Instructional Technology), available at http://www.peptaglit.org/taglit/default.htm, includes surveys for teachers, students, and the principal. The teacher and student instruments ask subjective questions about technology skills and the application of technology in the classroom. The teachers' instrument also asks about professional development, the technology plan, the adequacy of hardware and software to meet the school's goals, etc. The Principal's TAGLIT asks objective questions about the technology plan, the budget, personnel, professional development, etc. The survey responses are presented as a data summary, and the principal is given the opportunity to develop a narrative analysis of the data that is then included in the final TAGLIT report.

Output. Once we understand what hardware and software are available, how the technology is being used, the levels of teacher and student skills the technology planning efforts, etc. it is appropriate to look at the impact -- but always in light of input. The most powerful uses of technology tend to be for project-based learning, where students are conducting research on a subject they are interested in, often in collaboration with others. The project usually involves some product. The quality of both the collaboration and the product are most often evaluated with a rubric that was made known to the students as the lesson was presented.

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