Thank-you for your attention to and comments on my initial post. So let's talk more concretely about the direct link between Technology and Testing. Dr. Bobby Templeton, Dr. Duane Estes, Lynette Doering-Jackson and I conducted a study and wrote a paper we presented at a few different educational conferences (NASSP), about the link between increasing communication with stakeholders (via technology) and increased test scores. The results were startling. Our first surprise was the ease in which our clients (students, parents, teachers, administrators and even community members and the press) adjusted to getting all of their information electronically. Emails between parents and teachers skyrocketed and hits on the webpage were off the charts. I know that terminology is vague so I have attached the paper for you to read the specific charts of data and see just how dramatically the implementation of an electronic communication tool impacted Cullen & Baker Middle Schools.
You'll find if you look at the paper that the two schools discussed are both immersion schools, one to one computing, with 24/7 wireless access. That level of technology immersion certainly would impact the data, so as the IT Coordinator I decided to replicate the experiment at two High Schools (Collegiate and Roy Miller HS) that did not have immersion programs. The results were amazingly similar, dramatic increases in communication and increased test scores. All test scores for schools mentioned can be researched at:
Please don't misinterpret my intention here, I do not contend that by only dramatically increasing your communication with all stakeholders (which you can really only affordably do electronically) your test scores will go up. We all know it is a far more complicated process than that. Increasing test scores means coordinating staff (more easily done w/ an online communications tool), engaging students (more easily done when they are utilizing blogs, webpages and accessing homework via an online communications tool) and above all monitoring progress in an ongoing manner (oh yeah again with an online communication tool you can look at lesson plans, grades and benchmark test data all in one place). So I guess what I am really saying is that it is not the online communication tool itself but rather the full use of that tool by all stakeholders that in the end increases test scores.
More importantly though (what there is something more important than raising test scores?!) is the fact that you create community by increasing stakeholder buy-in. When parents know what and how their kids are doing every day at school, when teachers can communicate and share best practices, when administrators can monitor without interfering...stakeholders come together and form communities that begin online and transform into reality.
It is an amazing process and I am watching it grow everyday in my very own District and am inspired by it.
So what do you think can online communications help us build internal capacity and in turn increase test scores, is it really that simple, or are their more complex issues we need to discuss? Talk (Blog) to me ;-)
Final Draft of NASSP paper.doc