School Evaluation Summary

Since the beginning of this course, I have been thinking a great deal about the technological status of the school I work in and asking myself a lot of questions.  Does it have adequate technology?  Are staff using technology appropriately?  Where do we need improvement?  Having the opportunity to formally evaluate my school's technological maturity has allowed me to look into this further and I found it very interesting.  I work in a very large high school where departments rarely interact with each other so the opportunity to investigate the status of technology in the entire school was fascinating.

I was pleased to learn that most areas of the school have very good access to technology and that the technological infrastructure was very strong and reliable.  It was encouraging to learn about the long term commitment to technology at the school and district level as well.  Our recent move to the Google platform has allowed technology to move to the  forefront of the collective consciousness of the staff and students which is creating a real tech culture in the building.

I had always assumed that there was a technology plan but had never seen one.  I was a bit surprised at how informal the planning process was at the school level.  In fact, the vice principal responsible for technology had not actually written a plan until I inquired about it.  This might explain why the plan focuses on hardware acquisition and neglects any professional development.  In reality, the purchasing of computers is a part of the school budget plan which happens on a regular basis and is constantly reviewed.  I was asked what I thought should be included in the technology plan so I made some suggestions from our in-class readings. I am happy to report that Ed Tech 501 is having a positive impact on my school.

For the most part, I confirmed  few of my assumptions about my school.  We have some islands of teachers doing great things with technology and we have some islands of tech resisters.  There is need for professional  development with a technological focus in order to bring these two islands closer together.  Above all, I confirmed that we are doing an admirable job at my school and we are moving in the right direction.  If we continue our commitment to technology I think we will achieve intelligent technological maturity and move  from our current status of integrated.

Here is the link to my Maturity Benchmark Survey and my School Evaluation Summary.