Is your educational technology moving the needle in the classroom?

As part of a Race to the Top District grant, Clarksdale Municipal School District expanded its use of technology, launching a one-to-one computing initiative that provided devices to all students in all of its schools. This led to the use of a variety of technology-based resources and applications. Wanting to better understand whether specific applications improved student outcomes, district officials used routinely collected data and the RCE Coach to produce more concrete evidence. They needed to determine whether the technologies piloted with RTT-D grant funds merited long-term investment. Clarksdale Municipal School District: How to Make Sense of Mixed Results?

Like many districts in the United States, North Carolina’s Wake County Public School System has recently invested in the expansion of instructional technology and now offers a range of digital resources in its schools. In 2015, the director of data strategy and analytics became interested in evaluating district-wide technology initiatives. Evaluating individual ed-tech applications sometimes fell outside of his department’s primary research agenda, but the Ed Tech Rapid Cycle Evaluation Coach made it possible for him to conduct a quick-turnaround, low-cost evaluation. Please read Wake County Public School System: Are We Measuring the Right Outcome?

As part of St. Vrain Valley School’s initiatives to personalize learning, teachers and staff have implemented educational technologies that help provide differentiated instruction to students. District staff relied on information from educational technology developers about the effects of their software applications on student outcomes. Developers reported on outcomes for students using the technology with fidelity, but the staff wanted to understand the outcomes of all students with access to the technology. Please read St. Vrain Valley Schools: How Do We Interpret Developers’ Claims? to learn more.

At the Dakota State University College of Education, Assistant Professor Kevin Smith teaches graduate students in the Master of Science in Educational Technology program. The majority of Smith’s students are full-time classroom teachers who aspire to transition into new roles as technology coordinators or technology integration specialists within schools. He has incorporated using the Coach into his curriculum to make evaluation accessible and relevant to educators and inform their decisions on the use of educational technology in their schools. Please read Dakota State University: How Do We Make Evaluation More Relevant to Educators? to learn more.

Uplift Education decided to try using the Coach to conduct more robust analyses of effectiveness of both technological and non-technological programs. They have used findings from the Coach to determine whether they will continue offering costly programs. Every data analyst at Uplift has used the Coach to evaluate a program or practice. The Uplift data team noted that the Coach has helped them generate more support for rigorous evaluation districtwide. Please read Uplift Education: How Can We Use the Coach to Evaluate Non-Tech Initiatives in our Schools? to learn more.