Tech Plan Evaluation Rubric.docx (1).doc

7/27/2019 Tech Plan Evaluation Rubric.docx (1).doc

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Technology Evaluation Plan

Administration of Technology Resources

Cynthia Campbell, Terry Gough, Aaron Parker

Georgia Southern University

April 1, 2013


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TECHNOLOGY PLAN RUBRIC by Cynthia Campbell, Timothy Gough, and Aaron Parker

CRITERIA 1 2 3

Goals and

Strategies forUsing

Telecommunications and

Information

Technology

Learning goals are not clear

or are absent. Goals address

equipment only. Means ofachieving goals are not

articulated or are unrealistic.

Goals are broad and

comprehensive but may not

be completely clear. Thestrategies are derived from

the goals, but the steps toachieve them may be too

vague or not measurable.

Benchmarks for goal

attainment or evaluationmethods are absent or too

vague.

Goals are concise, comprehensive,

attainable, and measurable. They

include strategies derived from thegoals that outline the steps needed

to achieve the goals and they areclearly stated. Goals cover

equipment and instructional needs.

Benchmarks are defined and

evaluation specifications arestated.

Professional

DevelopmentStrategy

A Staff development plan is

absent or mentioned only in

terms of who will deliver it.No outlined plan of exact

needs or means of delivery.

Staff development is

mentioned, but is not

clearlyarticulated as to how it will

be accomplished, or

evaluated.

Provides an imprecise

overview of needs.

Describes some strategiesand recommendations.

Staff development is addressed

succinctly and completely. Current

needs are outlined and a variety ofstrategies for attaining the skill

level required to accomplish

instructional goals are clearly

enumerated. Resources that existand resources that will be

established are stated and are

clearly suited to the task they willserve to accomplish

Assessment

ofTelecommunication

Services,

Hardware,

Software,and Other

Services

Needed

Needs Assessment is

absent or vague. Broadstatements are made aboutthe needs of the school. No

inventory of equipment is

provided.

Technology has been

assessed and analyzed, butmay not include summariesof information from all

elements in the technology

surveys.

Equipment inventory is notcomprehensive.

Needs assessment is

comprehensive and containsdetailed information regardinghardware resources, staff

development needs, and surveys.

Equipment inventory is detailed

and comprehensive.

Budget

Resources

Funding resources are not

mentioned or are vague andmeaningless. Few specific

figures are described. No

timeline is provided.

Provides most, but not all,

ofthe project, timelines, and

budget estimate

information. Appears to begenerally consistent with

plan goals

Current and future funding sources

are specified. A prioritized list ofmajor tech plan projects, tasks and

timelines is included. Budgetary

summary estimates of capitalexpenses is provided. Identifies

possible alternative funding

resources.

Ongoing

evaluationprocess

No formal evaluation is

described.

An evaluation process and

instrument is described indetail, but lacks complete

comprehensiveness. The

link to goals and objectivesis not apparent.

An evaluation process and

instrument are described in detail,and is comprehensive in nature.

Assessment is timely, and tied to

the objectives.


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Introductory Paragraph:

We are evaluating Effingham Countys technology plan. Effingham Countys 2009-2012 Technology Plan

was rewritten in early 2012 by a group of technology specialists and county administrators. A new 2012-2015

plan was constructed and revised in May of 2012 by a group of technology specialists, teachers, county

administrators, and parents. To the best of my knowledge, Effingham Countys technology plan is followed, in

what I would call an average to close range. However, all the plan goals are, to my knowledge, honest and

accurate as to what is being implemented, what is ongoing, and what is being reassessed. The plan itself seems

to be a little choppy and lacks cohesiveness.

Goals and Realistic Strategy for Using Telecommunications and Information Technology.

The Effingham County Technology Plan was awarded a score of two out of three possible on the rubric for

its development of Goals and Realistic Strategy for Using Telecommunications and Information Technology.

Six goals are included in the Plan with strategies for accomplishing those goals. Benchmarks are included to

monitor the progress and a method of evaluating the strategies is included. The goals also designate the person

or persons responsible for the execution of the strategies and the funding means and sources. All in all, the six

goals that are included cover the equipment and instructional needs of the county, and many of the strategies,

benchmarks and evaluations are specific and clear, but several are too general or simplistic or unrealistic. For

example, one strategy for the goal of providing multiple means of communication between schools and home is

to provide Auto Dialer Service to communicate with parents and the evaluation of that strategy states only that

the service will be used to communicate with parents. A different strategy for that same goal states that web

sites will be provided for schools and teachers and the evaluation piece for that is that schools and teachers will

have web pages. Not only is that evaluation simplistic, it might also be a bit unrealistic to state that all teacher in

the county will have web pages especially considering that in the Professional Development section of the

plan it states that the webmaster provides training for teacher web pages as requested by teachers, and not that

it is a mandatory training for all. Benchmark measurability varies greatly from strategy to strategy. Under the

goal of utilizing technology more efficiently to instruct students one clearly stated benchmark indicates that


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weekly training session will be offered on Thursdays every week that school is in session. Another

benchmark addressing that same goal states only that Instructional Specialists will respond to requests for

training, not addressing how those requests are to be made or even what it means to respond to requests.

One goal is presented as Increase interactive technologies within classrooms to enhance student achievement.

This goal is vague, difficult to measure and the strategies that mention the installment of and training on 21st

Century Classroom enhancements do not add much clarity to the meaning. Assuming that the intent is most

likely that 21st Century technologies will increase student achievement, this goal could have been better stated

as, 21st Century Technologies will be installed and teachers will be trained in their use with the purpose of

utilizing them to enrich instruction to achieve learning goals. Then the specific technologies could be outlined

in the strategies for that goal. The strategies in the Effingham plan do mention specific technologies that they

would like to include. The benchmark for this strategy is stated as New equipment is provided within

budgetary constraints. Although it is understood that budgetary constraints are ubiquitous these days, the

benchmark is rather meaningless.

Throughout the section that outlines the goals of the technology plan there is a stated person or persons

responsible for each particular strategy. Of the twenty-five separate strategies, the Information Technology

Coordinator is named as the person responsible on nineteen of them, the Information Technology Specialists are

named on eight, a Network Administrator is named on five, a Network Specialist is named on three, a Web Site

Specialist is named on two, and the Assistant Superintendent, Teachers, and Building Technology Team are

each named on one. This appears to describe an inequitable distribution of responsibility and accountability to

get this plan accomplished. Teachers in particular are notably absent from responsibility in the goals that

address student achievement and the utilization of resources to instruct students more efficiently.

Overall the goals cover the general equipment and instructional needs of the county and the strategies are in

line with the goals. The plan would benefit from a basic rewording of several of the goals, strategies, and

benchmarks in order to enhance then and to make them more clear and measureable. It is not possible to

comment on the funding section of the goals plan, but the section that addresses who is responsible for each


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strategy could be improved upon by adding more people to be ultimately responsible for the success of the goals

and objectives of the plan. Ideally, students would also be included, especially in the section that addresses their

instruction. These adjustments could be made without compromising or changing much of the stated intent of

each entry. The table format that the plan utilizes in its goals and strategies section is well organized and easy

to read.

Professional development strategy

The professional development strategy for the Effingham County Technology Plan scored a two out of a

possible three on the rubric created for this evaluation process. A short section entitled Professional

Development outlines the plan in less than 300 words and consists mostly of generalized statements regarding

practices that are currently in place. The plan acknowledges that technology is an area in which high quality

professional development is essential and yet provides no focused step by step plan to accomplish it. It does list

the ways that they feel that they have addressed this need in the hiring of an Instructional Technology

Specialist, a hosted web application training (as requested,) and an online learning environment in which staff

can investigate professional development opportunities independently. But the specific technologies are vague

as in 21st Century Classroom and Renaissance Learning. Although the term 21st Century Classroom is

ubiquitous these days and can be useful in describing a general idea of current technology, it does not give a

clear picture of what exactly the classroom will include. Additionally, the term Renaissance Learning

references a company that deals with several products; hardware, software and web-based, and the mere

mention of the product brand does nothing to inform the reader what will be accomplished from its inclusion in

the plan. In the section of the technology plan that references the goals there are four mentions of staff

development as part of the strategies to fulfill the goal, but the wording is vague and says that training will be

done as requested or as needed. In the Needs Assessment section of the plan in which individual schools

submitted an action plan created by their respective School Improvement Teams that listed a series of actions

that were to be accomplished at their sites to improve test scores on the high stakes testing such as the CRCT

and the EOCT and the GHSGT- staff development is barely referred to and then usually only in the form of the


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name of a staff member who will be charged with it. With something as important as professional development,

a plan that clearly maps out a path for continued skills acquisition in order to better utilize technology to

positively impact student learning is critical. The Effingham County Technology Plan is in need of a plan that

would carefully enumerate the training required to meet what they have set as their students' learning goals. It

would also benefit the technology plan in general to have a more consistent idea about staff development

throughout its pages.

Assessment of telecommunication services, hardware, software, and other services needed

The Effingham County Technology plan was given a score of 2 out of a possible 3 points on the rubric for

the assessment of telecommunication services, hardware, software, and other services needed. The Executive

Summary of the plan gives the reader a sense of direction by detailing eight categories of concentration and in

what order they will be addressed by the school district. Included and explained in the summary are; access to

technology, technology use of teachers, student technology use, system readiness which includes faculty, staff

and administration training in technology use, system support, administrative technology, parent and

community involvement, and finally technology integration. The access to technology category briefly details a

later and more detailed explanation of the districts movement to increase the number of modern computers and

other hardware, as well as to increase the amount of instructional classrooms which are web accessible. An

increase in student involvement in technology is thought to be obtained through the modeling of technology use

by the systems teachers and this is briefly covered in the technology use by the teachers category. Student

technology use is addressed in the plan by stating that technology will be used as a learning tool and will be

integrated into the curriculum. The plan states in the system support portion that school personnel need to feel

confident in technology and that it will be fixed in the event of its eventual breakdown. Although stated that the

systems technology will be repaired, no specific information was given with regards to funding for this. The

importance of parent and community involvement and in keeping both informed was taken into consideration

and addressed by the use of school and district web pages, phone systems with voice-mail, as well as email and

other mechanisms to enhance information.


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The technology plan does give an extensive and comprehensive equipment inventory however, though

overall informative, the technology plan does present some specificity issues due to its vagueness in many of

the aforementioned categories as well as in presenting detailed information about surveys, and in technology

training received and desired. Improvements could be made by simply being more specific in these categories

as well as detail as to how funds for stated improvements will be procured.

Budget resources

The budget resources section of the Effingham County Technology Plan barely scored a one on the rubric

included in this evaluation. Funding sources are mentioned, but they are vague and limited to general funding

sources with no specific plan or exact figures for any purchases. In fact, there is no specific section dedicated to

the funding and budget resources, but only mention made in the Goals and Benchmarks section of the plan. In

the Goals and Benchmarks section funding examples include; Title IIA, Title I, General Fund, Professional

Learning Funds, and SPLOST. Attached to these funding sources are either no figures, or very generalized

figures of all the funds that the county expects to receive from those sources. There are no project plans with

specific monetary figures aimed toward any purchase. Some of the funding source citations are coupled with

caveats such as; as available, contingent upon approval, and to be determined. Due to a near complete lack of

any budgetary resource information available in this plan, it scored the lowest of all scores on the rubric. The

technology plan needs to be fleshed out in the form of specific project plans with timelines and detailed

budgetary expenses outlined.

Ongoing evaluation process

The Effingham County Technology Plan was awarded a score of two out of three possible on the rubric for

its ongoing evaluation process. The only reason for us giving this plan a two out of three is that it seems to only

be evaluated every two or three years. If this plan were to appear to be evaluated yearly then it would have

easily been given a three out of three. All of the goals strategies and benchmarks were honestly evaluated and

reviewed. We found that most of the three year goals were either implemented and ongoing or completed.

Some goals, such as student internet accounts and I-Safe trainings, were to be reassessed or have been slightly


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neglected. Improvements could be made in the area of evaluating the plan annually or maybe even bi-annually

and better attention to the training of employees and students on the safe use of internet. Another reason for the

less than perfect score is due to the fact that there is not a clearly delineated section that focuses on the

evaluation. Nor were there any evaluation instruments describe anywhere in the plan. There is also no direct

link to any type of evaluation in the contents.

Summary Paragraph

After a thorough review of Effingham Countys Technology Plan, we have come to the conclusion that it

seems to have been broken up into numerous small portions and then pieced together to make one single plan.

The reason for this thought is that the plan lacks cohesiveness; it just does not seem to flow from one section to

the next and tends to contradict itself from section to section. However, it does seem to be accurate to what the

county is doing from year to year. There are several distinctly good ideas within the plan for implementation of

technology that will assist in reaching the goals that the county has set for itself. One of those unique ideas

about Effingham Countys Technology Plan is the plan to give all high school students their own email address,

for school use only, to help with after school communication with students and teachers. In the eyes of our

group, this is a positive step in the direction of preparation for post-secondary education. So, although there are

several commendable ideas for technology integration, overall the plan could be vastly improved by adding

more specific details to add clarity, giving some components of the plan separate sections within the plan

instead of including them in with others, evaluating the plan more frequently, and finally, creating a better sense

of continuity within the plan so that it stands as one cohesive document.

Tech Plan Evaluation Rubric.docx (1).doc

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