District Technology Assessment

The latest annual follow-up report was issued in May, 2002 and is available here.

Earlier updates

Following is the Executive Summary of the 2000/2001 District Technology Assessment, released on May 14, 2001. This is the first annual follow-up to an independent evaluation of technology that was conducted by Sun Associates (www.sun-associates.com) in February 2000. To download either entire document, select one of the following:

• 1999-2000 document (Adobe Acrobat document)
• 2000-2001 document (Adobe Acrobat document)

Executive Summary

Last year, the Fayette County Public Schools undertook a process to answer several basic evaluation questions related to instructional technology implementation. They are:

How have students been impacted by technology integration? Are our teachers using technology in ways that match both our district goals for technology use and the potential that exists for technology as an instructional tool? Have we adequately allocated district technology resources so that students and teachers can realize the resources’ potential? That process resulted in a district technology assessment that was presented to the Board of Education on February 14, 2000. The Board requested that the assessment be repeated yearly to gauge progress. The present report is the first of those follow-ups.

The chart below provides an overview of results from the 00/01 District Technology Assessment (DTA). The three research questions above are represented on the chart by (a) student impact, (b) the next four areas which generally deal with teacher impact, and (c) infrastructure allocation. Within each area, the first bar represents district-wide performance in 99/00, the second bar represents 00/01, and the third bar represents the goal for improvement that was established in the district’s two-year consolidated plan.

Figure 1. Overall DTA Results

Based on the above data, the district is making significant progress in student impact, teacher fluency, teacher use with students, and administrator support. In fact, the district has already met or exceeded the consolidated plan goals for those areas after just one year. Teacher productivity declined somewhat, but that decline is thought to be due to adjustments in data rather than any actual decline. Infrastructure allocation lags behind other areas and this report provides suggestions for how to improve in that area. New in this year’s DTA, there are additional data on specific uses of technology that impact student achievement. Those additional data are explained in more detail in the report, and they indicate that technology is having a positive impact on student achievement. The report concludes with a set of recommendations that are summarized below.

1. Continue increasing the use of classroom computers, while maintaining the functionality of computer labs. 
2. In PD, continue emphasizing that technology is a tool that supports all instruction, rather than a “skill” in and of itself. 
3. The Kentucky Department of Education is expected to release a set of technology standards for administrators in the near future. Once those standards are released, the district should adopt them. 
4. Continue the innovative PD practices that have been added within the past two years. Those include, but are not limited to (a) imbedded PD in which TRTs work directly in classrooms with teachers. (b) PET Project, (c) Online PD, (d) Individualized PD for teachers, and (e) increasing the number and quality of PD offerings in the Ambrose lab. 
5. Discontinue the practice of teachers “dropping students off in the computer lab.” 
6. Continue addressing SBDM councils about their schools’ use of technology. 
7. Continue working on improvements to the infrastructure. This may be the single most important recommendation, because it drives everything that schools do with technology. As discussed in the section on “technology resource allocation”, schools have consistently requested an increase in TRTs and technicians. Now there is evidence that the investments the district and individual schools have already made in those personnel are improving student achievement.

Technology Home

Last update: 2/20/2004 4:01:09 PM