evaluation_nagyb

7/30/2019 Evaluation_NagyB

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School Technology Evaluation

Mountain Town High School Brian Nagy

Boise State University

Demographics:


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Mountain Town High School is the senior school of a school district that covers over 130 squaremiles in the Catskills ski region of New York. It encompasses several towns and sections of three different counties. The school is characterized as a low-income rural school with 33% of high school students eligible for free or reduced lunch assistance. Industry in the area is lacking.Much of the surrounding land is agricultural.

Official demographics for schools inNew York are released by the StateEducation Department annually, witha two-year delay. The most up-to-datenumbers available are from the 2010-2011 school year.

Total enrollment of Mountain TownHigh School is 517 with a slow trend

of fewer students per 9th grade eachyear. In the 2010-2011 school year,the population of the school waslacking in racial diversity, a trend which continues to this time. Please see the graph for racialbreak-down.

As with many rural schools that serve students of lower socio-economic status, graduation ratesat Mountain Town is a concern. State-wide goals are for 80% of a cohort group to graduate infour years. The 2010-11 graduating cohort consists of the 133 students who entered 9th gradetogether in the 2007-8 school year. Of those, 78% graduated. When focusing only on students

designated as being economically disadvantaged (46 of the 133, or 34.5%), the graduation ratedrops to only 65%. Of those not graduating, 15dropped out and 4 entered a GED program. Theremainder continued on in the school or movedout of the district.

The staff of Mountain Town High School includes43 teachers, two guidance counselors, oneprincipal and an assistant principal who is sharedwith the attached Middle School. According to

state documents, more than 214 differentclasses ran in the 2010-11 school year.

Technology Maturity Assessment

Administrative Filter

The Administrative Filter deals primarily with those areas that students would think of as behindthe scenes but are required for functional use of technology in a school setting


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Curricular Filter:

The Curricular Filter involves the use of technology in student learning: providing content as wellas assessing student learning.

Electronic Information: Behavioral: Integrated Resources/Infrastructure: Integrated In particular, staff make regular use of the internet for planning and instruction. Studentshave ample ability for accessing e-resources. Access to online resources is nearlyubiquitous for all staff and students. The school hosts a wiki environment for teacher pages as well as Google-hosted Google Drive for students and staff to create their ownsites. Every classroom has at least one computer. In the high school, there is a stand-alone computer lab with room for 25 students. There is also a 25-student lab in the MediaCenter (Library) in addition to two mobile labs: 20 - and 25-laptop carts setup for printingand charging. Wireless internet access is available in all areas of the campus for ease of

use of mobile devices.

Assessment: Behavioral: Emergent Resource/Infrastructure: Islands

Assessment is still paper-based at Mountain Town High School. New technology waspurchased this year for student assessment to coincide with new teacher evaluationsystems that require integration of student scores. Most teachers use this technology (e-Doctrina) to create multiple-choice bubble sheets similar to what would be seen on stateassessments. Tests created in this system are not tied to curricular goals as they couldbe. Often, the actual questions arent even uploaded to the e -Doctrina system. Thissystem allows for online, paperless assessments and item-analysis linked to learningstandards, but these are largely ignored. PowerSchools grade book also provides tie -insto a teachers curriculum map, but it isnt being leveraged to this end.

Curriculum Integration: Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated

As new resources become available, the teachers of Mountain Town High School havebeen slowly integrating them into their instruction. There seems to be a divide thoughthere is no objective distinction between groups that are very willing to try newtechnologies in the classroom and those who are resistant. That being said, there aresome who rely heavily on technology for instruction, including webquests, interactive

whiteboard activities, and online simulations. Those teachers who are enthusiastic abouttechnology use sometimes have difficulty seamlessly integrating into instruction andrather use it as reinforcement instead of direct instruction.

Some of the technology is not universally available for all teachers. Many currently onlymath, science and social studies classrooms now have document cameras hooked upto their overhead LCD projectors. These cameras have been leveraged in several ways:replacements for old overhead projectors, used for demonstrations, showing of studentexemplars, experiments, etc. Only four classrooms of 26 have interactive white boards


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and two of them are permanently attached to the wall and therefore are unavailable for use by other teachers.

Teacher Use: Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated

As previously mentioned, teacher use falls on a continuum that is heavily skewed to theextremes: either frequently or almost never. There is a population of teachers who onlybegrudgingly utilize technology for the requisite purposes of attendance, grade reportingand email. Others use it often some, to the point of being lost in the event that thingsdont work. Staff members are given ample access to computers and technology. For planning purposes, classroom computers can be used as well as a bank of sixcomputers in the teachers work room. In addition, many in -class resources are mobile(on carts) and can be easily brought to most classrooms.

Student Use: Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated

Student computer use for learning also falls on a continuum. It can range from researchand typing a paper to more in-depth and engaging instructional purposes. Their use for educational purposes is sporadic and relies greatly on having teachers who arecomfortable with the technology themselves. In addition to class-time use, the MediaCenter lab is available during most times of the day for students to use during their freeperiods. This time is not always used to the most productive ends as roughly 50% of those observed spent some to most of their time using Google to conduct searchesunrelated to their work or to play games online.

Support Filter:

The Support Filter deals with the access to help and training in the technologies used byteachers throughout the instructional day.

Stakeholder Involvement: Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Emergent

The major stakeholders in the technology environment of Mountain Town SchoolDistrict the teachers and students have little to do with implemented changes. Thisisnt because they dont have the opportunity, but rather choose not to take part in theprocess. The System Administrator (one of only two full-time professionals in the districtwho work with the computer systems) makes every effort to inform teachers of theimplementation and planning of new technology, but his communications go largelyignored and teachers lose out the opportunity for providing feedback.


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There is Technology Committee that meets sporadically. Regular attendees include theHigh School principal, the System Administrator, the principal of one of the elementaryschools and a rotating cast of teachers whose ranks rarely include elementary or middleschool teachers.

Administrative Support: Behavioral: Islands Resources/Infrastructure: Integrated

The school principal is generally supportive of technology integration and supportsteachers who want to add to their teaching repertoire. That being the case, the hit-and-miss nature of resources, as well as the duties of his position make follow throughinconsistent. The principal of the high school is, however, a regular attendee of theTechnology Committee, so he does keep the pulse of the few interested parties.

Training: Behavioral: Islands Resources/Infrastructure: Islands

As new systems and resources and implemented in the district, teachers get some levelof training. Sometimes it is limited to an overview by someone with more training (anofficial trainer or a staff member who is acting as a turn-key trainer) during a large-groupsession with later opportunities for smaller-group training. Other time, trainings are builtinto mandatory meetings or professional development days. There is also a generalecosystem of one-on-one training on an as-needed basis from someone the tech supportteam (System Administrator, Hardware Administrator and FrontLine staff).

Technical & Infrastructure Support: Behavioral: Islands Resources/Infrastructure:Intelligent

The tech support team has a rich ecosystem for receiving, recording and commenting onhelp tickets. Teachers and administrators create help tickets by sending an email to thesystem. As changes are made, the system gets updated to keep all interested parties up-to-date on the status of the issue. Each school in the district has a FrontLine staff member a teacher who receives a stipend to help out with tech support much like atriage nurse: fix the easy problems, pass on the harder ones to the appropriate specialist.There are only two full-time computer professionals for a 4 school, 3-campus district, sotheir time is split and they are not always available. Because of this and the fact thatFrontLine staff are fellow teachers, the help system is not always used to its full potentialby other teachers. They prefer the more immediate and face to face interaction of askingfor help in person

Connectivity Filter:

The Connectivity Filter deals with the ability of the institution to successfully communicate withinand without the building. The average user would simply refer to this filter as the internetconnection.

Local Area Networking: Behavioral: Intelligent Resource/Infrastructure: Integrated


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The High School was rewired for more efficient networking over the last two summers.Each classroom and office now has a voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone for in-house phone calls. This network connects to a landline POTS system for outgoing calls.The high-speed connection of over 1 Gbps allows for resource-reliant services like VOIPthrough Google Voice as well as video creation and streaming. The internet connectiondoes not go to every site. A free filtering service known as DansGuardian cuts outinappropriate content and non-instructional sites (specifically social networking andgaming sites) are blacklisted.

District Area Networking: Behavioral: Intelligent Resource/Infrastructure: Intelligent

The districts three campuses run roughly in a st raight line with the High School/MiddleSchool campus in the center. All traffic from the other schools is routed through highspeed fiber-optic cables from the elementary schools to the high school where all serversfor the district are located. Support staff have shared servers in the high school with no

loss of service regardless of what site they are accessing from. All teacher and studentaccounts are stored in the high schools servers.

Internet Access: Behavioral: Integrated Resource/Infrastructure: Intelligent

All computers in the district have access to the internet. Internet resources are used bystaff and students regularly for research and instruction. For staff, email communication,grade recording and even attendance require an internet connection.

Communication Systems: Behavioral: Intelligent Resource/Infrastructure: Intelligent

Email has been widely used in the district for more than ten years. In the past four years,all email services have been ported to G- mail (much like Boise States own Bro ncoMail Ishosted on Googles servers). This provides more general stability and universal accessas well as making it easier to access email with mobile technology. All faculty, staff andstudents are provided with an email address.

Innovation Filter:

The Innovation Filter deals with the turnover for integrating new technologies and making themkey parts of the environment.

New Technologies: Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure: Islands

The opportunity to test new technology is limited. Decision makers in the district do notgenerally push adoption of new technology just because it is new, but rather because itwould enhance the learning experience for Mountain Town students. When there is anopportunity, the Systems Administrator tends to pick Test Teachers from a list of usualsuspects to pilot the technology and provide feedback. When other teachers seesomething new in use and get to talk about it with a fellow teacher, they are more


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responsive than if It was just thrown at them. There are, as always, certain staff members who are resistant to anything new.

Comprehensive Technologies: Behavioral: Islands Resource/Infrastructure:Integrated

Over time, technology in Mountain Town High School has become ubiquitous. With fewexceptions, almost all classes have LCD projectors ceiling mounted and connected tothe classroom computer as well as an audio receiver and VHS/DVD player. Documentcameras are being deployed to new classes every month. Digitizing and scanningtechnology has recently been deployed as part of the e-Doctrina roll-out and as part of anew copy machine. Integrating the technology into instruction is forth-coming. Thesupport is there and the devices needed are becoming more and more prevalent.

Summary

It is difficult to assign a technology maturity benchmark stage to Mountain Town High School.On almost all framework subcategory, it falls either in Islands or Integrated. Even assigning anumerical value of 1-4 to each stage of each subcategory gives a mathematical average of exactly between Islands and Integrated. Given no other choice, it makes sense to err on theside of the positive and label the school as being in the Integrated Stage . The staff in charge of providing and supporting technology in the school has made big changes given the limit of their resources. The school is in better condition with technology than much larger schools within thesame general region of New York State, though there remains work to be done to create anenvironment where technology is a seamless part of the culture.

Technology is supported and is being introduced as actively as possible in the school. Withlaptops and desktops, there is approximately one computer for every five students in the school,but that may soon change. The school is in competition for a grant that would provide theinfrastructure and hardware for a one-to-one deployment of some computing device to allstudents and teachers in the district. Teacher buy-in for this and other technology is a mixed-bag. Some are quick to try new things and some dismiss everything outright. The schools scorewould increase if those who resist could be persuaded to incorporate technology into their routine. Another hindrance is money. While in an ideal school, budgeting for technology wouldbe a priority, dwindling income and increased costs for other budget items (salaries, health care,

cost of purchases services), concessions need to be made.

One aspect of technology maturity not addressed by the rubric is the availability of training for students and their access to technology outside of school. The demographics of the districttend to mean a lack of access to technology once the school day has ended. Many studentsenter high school with low skills for technology utilization. This changes the environment asmuch as teacher buy-in. Students who do not have the skill set for technology utilization areoften reluctant to try for fear of failure with a tool that others can use with ease.


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Works Cited:

New York State Department of Education (2012). The New York State school report card: Accountability and overview report 2010-11.

New York State Department of Education (2012). The New York State school report card:Comprehensive information report 2010-11.

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