Evaluation

Through the integration of iPad tablets and MacBook laptops from Apple I will be able to transition my students into self-motivated learners, allowing them to create their own curriculum. To measure this, I will implement a series of assessments that will target student, teacher and parent experience. These assessments will not just allow for the individuals to reflect on their opinions of the integration, but will also measure the actual usage within various contents and the faculty collaboration.

The most important assessments will involve the students and focus on the increase in their motivation as well as their overall understanding of the content. In my world studies class, I will be able to analyze the student’s progress the following year when I have some of the same students for American history. As for the students that I do not have the next year, I will gauge their experience by coordinating with the other social studies teachers, which I will also use when assessing my sophomore students. Through this extensive coordination with my social studies colleagues, I will be able to assess my students understanding in comparison to others who have not had the integration of these devices yet.

The parent evaluations will be the hardest to collect, but I believe that they are very important. As Ira Socol stated during the REALTe Conference, it is extremely important that technology is used in the home and built upon what is done in the classroom. For these assessments I believe having a Google form for the parents to submit at the end of each grading period would be ideal. Although the students would not have access to the devices in their homes, I would like to hear the feedback from the parents, and what they see from their student’s growth throughout the year.

The teacher evaluations will be conducted through several mediums, as I want to gauge their experience personally with the technology and how they felt students used the devices. This will obviously be reliant on teachers having access to the devices, but I would plan on having at least on other Language Arts teachers who is equipped with the same cart.  I would have a weekly meeting with the other teacher, and in that meeting we could discuss the positives and negative that we felt with the integration. This would also be a time when we could share any tips or applications that we felt would be beneficial. I would also like to have a Google doc, similar to the one that parents fill out, that the teacher could also use to give my feedback at the end of marking periods. As an overall assessment of the devices’ positive impact, I would want the teacher to participate in an evaluation of other teachers in their content that did not have the technology. This way they could help determine the year-by-year implications. Finally, I would want to discuss the teacher’s use of the devices, and have that be archived in a Google doc that could be submitted weekly or monthly. I would want to take note of their usage and their feelings about ease of use and how it affected their ability to communicate with students and faculty.