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Web Sites (all sites will open in a new window)
Assessment and Evaluation of Technology in Schools from the National School Boards Association, 1996. This site is intended as a way to initiate discussion in your school or school district about how to evaluate the use of technology in the classroom. It focuses on writing an evaluation plan and identifies the top 9 toughest goals to evaluate and lists the possible indicators for measuring success for each one.
Center for the Improvement of Student Learning Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Olympia, Washington. Washington State's Center for the Improvement of Student Learning is a clearinghouse of information about educational improvement. Its web site has a "Digital Education" section.
Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program from North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1999. Comprehensive school reform focuses on reorganizing and revitalizing entire schools, rather than on implementing programs. The CSRD Program at NCREL has three major components: helping states, districts, and schools understand the program; developing an infrastructure to support the comprehensive school reform program; and helping states and local education agencies develop and implement evaluation plans.
An Educator's Guide to Evaluating the Use of Technology in Schools and Classrooms from Sherri Quinones and Rita Kirshstein, American Institutes for Research, US Department of Education, 1998. "The superintendent wants to know if teachers are using technology in their instruction and whether the technology is affecting student work and motivation; parents want to know if the new technology is improving standardized test scores; and the district professional development coordinator want to know the effect of training on teacher and student technology skills. This guide is designed to help you through the evaluation process. . . . Primarily geared to educators or administrators with little or no experience, it is intended for use at the district or school level."
Fiscal Planning for Technology Budgets Spreadsheet template available from ITEG. The template includes the ability to ask fiscal "what if" questions and project probable results.
Getting America's Students Ready for the 21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge A Report to the Nation on Technology and Education, 1996, US Department of Education. This document lays out the federal Department of Education's thinking and goals on educational technology in chapters such as "Technology Literacy: A National Priority," "Benefits of Technology Use," "Reaching the Technology Goals," and "Role of the Federal Government."
Guidebook for Developing an Effective Instructional Technology Plan from Larry Anderson's National Center for Technology Planning, 1996. This detailed and comprehensive manual for creating a technology plan is the outcome of the critiquing of hundreds of technology plans by graduate students at Mississippi State University. "The purpose of technology planning is not just to produce a document, but to produce continuous action that creates and maintains a technology-rich environment."
Leader's Guide to Educational Technology from EDvancenet, c/o National School Boards Association, 1998. This PFD document contains an extensive overview on the benefits of educational technology. It presents research, analysis and recommendations for policymakers and school leaders on such topics as student achievement, educational equity, workplace preparedness, and keys for success.
Learning Through Technology: A Planning and Implementation Guide from the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. The guide helps educators and community members develop a comprehensive learning and technology plan.
Making It Happen: Issue 2, Staff Development from the Secretary's Conference on Educational Technology, 1995. This conference summary focuses on professional development and its relation to implementing educational technology in schools. The key issues identified are the need for significant professional development and technical support, technology's potential to improve and expand the delivery of professional development, identifying the characteristics of effective professional development, and the necessity of using technology in pre-service teacher education to produce new teachers that can use technology effectively.
National Center for Technology Planning hosted by Larry Anderson includes links to articles on technology planning, as well as to state and school district technology plans.
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory includes links to articles and resources related to increasing educational technology capacity.
Plugging In: Choosing and Using EducationalTechnology
from the Council for Educational Development and Research at the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. This site is useful for help in developing mission statements and an effective vision. The " Plugging In" document, published in 1995, "introduces what we know about effective learning and effective technology, and puts it together in a planning framework for educators and policy makers."
Taking TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) to the Classroom:
A School Administrator's Guide to Planning for the Total Cost of New Technology from the Consortium for School Networking, 1999. This guide in PDF format is designed to assist school leaders and technology directors to better estimate the total cost of building a network of computers and wiring classrooms to the internet--a concept known in the business world as Total Cost of Ownership. Costs often neglected or underestimated in budgets are those associated with retrofitting (upgrading electrical capacity; improving heating, cooling and ventilation systems), beefing up security systems, removing asbestos or lead from older buildings, professional development (including substitute costs if training done during school time), software (including network management software, productivity software, software for special users), staff support (including staff to maintain the network), replacement costs (computers have a short life cycle), and connectivity (to other schools or the internet).
Teacher Survey for Technology Planning from WestEd is a survey in PDF format which allows teachers to express their opinions regarding the relevance of various information technology uses to themselves and to their students.
Technology Connections for School Improvement: Planners Handbook and Teachers' Guide by Mary L. McNabb, Gilbert Valdez, Jeri Nowakowski, and Mark Hawkes, 1999. These companion documents provide a comprehensive approach to developing a school or district technology plan. They feature research findings and case scenarios of best practices, internet-based resources, suggested action steps and planning tools. The " Teacher's Guide" is designed to assist classroom teachers who are just beginning to integrate technology into their daily practices.
Washington State Technology Plan for K-12 Common Schools: Legislative Charge 1993-95. This 8-page state technology plan is based on 5 basics principles, 7 essential learnings for technology, and the vision statement "In a society increasingly dependent on information, a critical component of education is equitable and universal access to technology, media and information resources."
What Is Your School District's Total Cost of Ownership Type? from the Consortium for School Networking, 1999. This one-page table sets forth the benefits of taking a "TCO-Savvy" approach and illustrates the consequences of not being TCO-Savvy. One side of the table lists the major categories involved in budgeting for school technology. The other side describes how each budget category would be addressed by 3 types of districts: The "TCO-Savvy" District, The "Doing the Best We Can" District, and The "Worry About It Tomorrow" District.
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Books
The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World by Peter Schwartz, 1996. What increasingly affects all of us, whether professional planners or individuals preparing for a better future, is not the tangibles of life (e.g., bottom-line numbers) but the intangibles--our hopes and fears, our beliefs and dreams. Only stories (scenarios) and our ability to visualize different kinds of futures adequately capture these intangibles. In The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz outlines the "scenario" approach, giving you the tools for developing a strategic vision within your organization or your life.
The Change Handbook: Group Methods for Shaping the Future by Peggy Holman and Tom Devane, 1999. The most comprehensive guide available to methods of organization and community change. It's designed for quick and easy access to information about high leverage change from today's foremost practitioners. Change methods that systematically involve groups of people create more productive, more personally enriching organizations and communities. While a high-involvement, systemic approach to change sounds appealing, it is tough to achieve. The Change Handbook presents proven change methods together in one volume so that readers can learn about the diverse array of approaches being successfully employed today and choose the method that will work best for them.
The Dance of Change: The Challenge to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations by Peter Senge, et al, 1999. Companies that establish change initiatives discover, after initial success, that even the most promising efforts to transform or revitalize organizations can fail to sustain themselves over time. That's because organizations have complex, well-developed immune systems aimed at preserving the status quo. The authors show how to accelerate success and avoid the obstacles that can stall momentum. The book reveals how leaders can work together to anticipate the challenges that profound change will ultimately force the organization to face and provides strategies to build the personal and organizational capabilities needed to meet those challenges. It is filled with individual and team exercises, in-depth accounts of sustaining learning initiatives by managers and leaders in the field, and well-tested practical advice.
Diffusion of Innovations, Fourth Edition, 1995. Everett Rogers's name has become "virtually synonymous with the study of diffusion of innovations." In this fourth edition, Rogers presents the culmination of more than thirty years of research that will set a new standard for analysis and inquiry. This edition takes a critical stance in its review and synthesis of 5,000 diffusion publications. Rogers analyzes the limitations of previous diffusion studies, showing, for example, that the convergence model, by which participants create and share information to reach a mutual understanding, more accurately describes diffusion in most cases than the linear model. This all-inclusive work will be essential reading for scholars and students in a variety of fields for generations to come.
Getting It Done: How to Lead When You're Not in Charge by Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp, 1998. The authors tackle the inertia that afflicts most organizations. They advance the idea of lateral leadership as a means of breaking apart the logjams that inhibit effective collaboration in organizations. Lateral leadership consists of five elements: clarifying the purpose of what you're trying to accomplish; understanding how to harness the power of organized thought; learning how to integrate thinking with doing; getting yourself and your team engaged; and, finally, learning how to give feedback on what's been accomplished.
Real Time Strategic Change: How To Involve an Entire Organization in Fast and Far Reaching Change by Robert W. Jacobs, 1994. Real Time Strategic Change advocates a fundamental redesign of the way organizations change. The result is a powerful approach that involves an entire organization in fast and far-reaching change. Interactive large group meetings form the foundation for this proven approach, enabling hundreds, even thousands of people to collaborate in crafting their collective future.
Results: The Key to Continuous School Improvement by Mike Schmoker, 1996. This terrific book establishes that tangible, measurable results are the key to school improvement. Under the right conditions, schools can bring about incremental, even dramatic results. The author examines these conditions and the theory behind them, using examples from schools to show that virtually any school can begin to successfully replicate the conditions. Meaningful teamwork, when combined with setting clear, measurable goals and regularly collecting and analyzing a wide variety of contextualized qualitative and/or quantitative performance data, constitutes the foundation for results. Schmoker emphasizes the importance of principals and practices that are simple, supported by research, and relatively few in number.
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