Technology Assessments

In the week 1 assignment, we took many technology self assessments.  Some of them were vague, just asking about general technology knowledge, and some of them were very detailed and long. I feel that it is very important to assess educators’ technology leadership knowledge and skills as well as assessing the knowledge and skill of student technology skill levels and their perceived needs.  There are many pros to assess the knowledge and skills of educators.  The district or school could use the results of the assessment to plan and schedule technology professional development courses.  In my opinion, I think that teachers should take an assessment given by the district, not a self-assessment.  I’m sure many teachers could read questions wrongs and check the wrong answer or just outright lie.  Although, I would like to think that all teachers had morals and wouldn’t lie on an assessment, but the world is not perfect.  :)  Teachers should be given a skills test to see if they can do certain things on the computer.  What they are not able to do should be recorded and they should be required to attend technology professional development classes in order to enhance their knowledge in those particular areas.  My district employs a method similar to this, except with self-assessments.  After the self assessments are taken, they are then turned into the technology department for evaluation.  The technology department then sends you a list back on professional development courses that they recommend you take based on your assessment submitted.  During the summer, we have a “Technology Feast” where almost 20 different courses are offered during a week.  Teachers are told to take advantage of these opportunities, but many of them do not because the district does not follow up with the teachers to ensure they completed the training.  The pros for assessing the students’ technology skill levels would be so the high school counselor could recommend technology electives for the students such as BCIS, BIMM, Webmastering, Computer Science, etc.  I’m not sure if there are any cons for assessing educators’ and students’ knowledge and skills of Technology.  The only con would be the time it takes to do the assessments, but it my opinion the amount of time it would take to do the assessments is miniscule to the results achieved.