Evaluating technology recommendations in American community colleges

Higher Edu Program Eval

Higher Education

Program Evaluation

The objective of this work is to explore the institutions' requirement of community colleges in evaluating their programs of instruction. Give of the 77 recommendations of "The American Association of Community Colleges 1988 Report: Building Communities: A Vision for a New Century." This work will further develop a set of questions that might be utilized in the effort to evaluate the recommendations chosen. Statistical methodology that might be used for analyzing these recommendations will be determined and an evaluation management plan developed.

Technological advances in the past few decades are astonishing and with these great technological feats have come challenges in all areas of life and most particularly in terms of educational challenges. Educational provision has in many ways failed to keep up with the rapid advances in technology applications which the individual in almost any field must know in order to be considered employable. In the work entitled Building Communities: A Vision for a New Century, a work published by the American Association of Community Colleges makes 77 recommendations which are focused on its' stated Mission of "We recommend that the theme "Building Communities" become the new rallying point for the community college in America. We define the term community "not only as a region to be served, but also as a climate to be created." (AACC, 2004)

In order that these communities are built there are many necessary provisions of education to be made. Five of the recommendations are stated as follows:

We recommend that every community college develop a campus-wide plan for the use of technology, one in which educational and administrative applications can be integrated.

We also propose incentive programs for faculty who wish to adapt educational technology to classroom needs.

We recommend that a clearinghouse be established at the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges to identify educational software of special value to the community college.

The community college-through technology-should continue to extend the campus, providing instruction to the work place and to schools, and scheduling regional teleconferences for community forums in continuing education.

We recommend that new uses of technology be explored. Specifically, community colleges should lead the way in creating electronic networks for learning, satellite classrooms, and conferences that connect colleges from coast to coast, creating a national community of educators who transcend regionalism on consequential issues. (American Association of Community Colleges, 2004)

14. Are satellite classrooms and conferencing available features in the school?

15. Are the educators within the school regionally focused or do they look beyond just the region in which they reside in terms of educational provision?

16. How many staff does the school employ on a full-time basis "specifically to support instructional telecommunication and computing"? (An Educator's Guide to Evaluating The Use of Technology in Schools and Classrooms, 1998)

17. Does your District support an area-wide network?

18. What types of operating systems are used with your school's LAN[s]? (i.e. Novell, Windows NT, AppleShare/Macintosh / Other)

19. Has your school adopted an Acceptable Use Policy?

20. For each group below please stated the number of accounts provided by your school district to the different user groups and the particular services provided:

Dialup Internet Individual

Access E-Mail

Teachers

Students

Administrators

Local Patrons

Parents

21. What three instructional technology support services are not adequately provided for in your school? (Example: maintaining a LAN, setting up desktop computers, provision of training for computers, software installation on a file server, provision of a help-desk for teachers and students)

The following labeled Figure 1.0 and Figure 2.0 are examples of technology surveys stated in the work entitled An Educator's Guide to Evaluating The Use of Technology in Schools and Classrooms (1998):

Statistical Methodology

Statistical methodology in relation to evaluation of educational provisions must be studies which are longitudinal in nature and may be qualitative as well as quantitative. Guidelines fall under a Federal Regulation as follows:

S.2969 Title: A bill to provide for improvement of Federal education research, statistics, evaluation, information, and dissemination, and for other purposes.

Under this bill the evaluations are stated to be required performed through "regional surveys."

Development of Evaluation Management Plan

The evaluation of the school, according to the above-referenced bill of Federal Regulation falls upon the school superintendents and administrators within each of the educational regions. In the effort to evaluate the school it is important that the superintendent garner the support and assistance of all teachers in the school so that efficient gathering of representative surveys is assured.

The surveys by which evaluation and analysis is to be conducted should be developed in collaboration with educators, business people in the community, as well as parents and other community members having the opportunity to provide their input in what precisely is within scope of the school evaluation.

The phases that must be included in the evaluation of the school's technological educational provisions will be in the phases listed as follows:

Planning phase. This phase is the when the preparation of the study is laid out which includes the development, testing of the plan as well as any revision of data collection instruments and finalization of the plan for data collection is conducted.

Data collection phase. This phase is the actual collection of the data which is done on pre-planned and scheduled dates. This will include meetings and interviews with parents, school staff, students, community members and members of the business community.

Data analysis and review of relevant documentation. During this phase the survey/interview results will be analyzed and then returned to each sector represented for planning program purposes. A review of relevant literature will be ongoing for the project's duration.

Report writing phase. This phase will be the writing of the final report of the analysis and findings of the study.

Summary & Conclusion

As this study has shown there are many aspects involved in the initiative to evaluate a school in relation to technological educational provisions. It is imperative that the support of all involved is possessed by the school in the conduction of an evaluation that will serve to be informative and efficient in its' outcome for furthering technological education in the community college.