Technology Skills Assessment

The two surveys taken and viewed were the Technology Applications Inventory and The SETDA Teacher Survey. Both surveys were in reference to technology availability and use both in your school and district.

The first survey was the 'Technology Applications Inventory'. This survey asked a series of questions in 4 areas or domains: Foundations, Information Acquisition, Solving Problems, and Communication. The questions were clear and concise and were simply answered by either yes or no. By the types of questions asked, I believe that the survey was designed to identify my personal strengths and weaknesses in the area of technology. I believe that his survey was helpful in that it helped identify areas I personally could benefit from continued professional development. It also help identify areas that I successfully incorporate technology into my instruction and those areas that I could use more technology support.

The second survey was the SETDA Teacher Survey. Unlike the first survey, this survey was extremely long and troublesome. The questions were hard to follow and wordy. Many questions addressed areas in the school or district such as staff development planning and budget in which I have no knowledge. On many occasions, I was forced to answer “I don’t know”. As a result, I did not find this survey helpful at all in identifying areas of strengths or weaknesses.

The first survey helped identity the teacher’s skills and level of familiarity with technology. This made it easy to clearly identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. As a teacher, the survey confirmed my strengths with technology. I have a broad understanding of many areas and programs. Of course some I am more knowledgeable and skilled, but I do have exposure to a wide variety of software programs. One of my weaknesses was in the area of incorporating technology use in my classes. While I do use technology such as smart board for instruction, I don’t use as much technology for student product. Another area of weakness is using technology for data analysis. While I am knowledgeable with some aspects of spreadsheets and putting data into a spreadsheet document, I do show weakness displaying that data as charts and graphs.

As a future administrator, I would recommend teachers taking the technology inventory. I think this tool would prove useful for identifying areas for staff development. I would NOT recommend the SETDA survey for teachers. I do not believe that the data collected from this survey would be significant enough to justify the time for teachers to take the survey.