Value of Assessing Educational Technology Leadership

Value of accessing both the educators’ technology leadership knowledge and the student technology knowledge and skill


In order for school districts, campuses, and educators to effectively assess their integration of technology into the curriculum, the state of Texas education agency developed the Texas School Technology and Readiness (STaR) Chart. The STaR Chart is an online tool to assist campuses and individual teacher on how well they are integrating technology into the curriculum.

The Texas School Technology and Readiness (STaR) Chart is composed of three parts:

Part 1: Texas Campus STaR Chart:

The Texas Campus STaR Chart can be used for technology planning, budgeting, and evaluation of technology projects. All campuses that request a state funding of technology must complete the Texas Campus STaR Chart.

Part 2: Texas Public STaR Chart:

The Texas Public STaR Chart allows stakeholders to view what campuses are doing to effectively integrate technology across curriculum. Stakeholders can view this information online across the state.

Part 3: Texas Teacher STaR Chart:

This is an online tool that allows individual teacher across the state to access their technology knowledge and skill and how they are helping students become technology literate for the 21st century learning.


My Intake

I believe the state of Texas has done a good job of designing these tools for educators to assess their level of technology knowledge and skill. The Teacher STaR Chart is divided into four areas: Early Tech; Developing Tech; Advance Tech; Target Tech. This is important for educators to know if their level of technology is in the lowest area, which is Early Tech, or if it is in the highest area, which is Advance Tech.

As the technologist specialist on my campus, I am the person that is in charge of making sure that all teachers on my campus take the survey. Many of the teachers on my campus express to me that they don’t even know what they are supposed to be doing in regard to integrating technology until after they went through the Texas Teacher STaR Chart. And some of them tell me that they don’t know if a particular activity can be considered to be a technology activity. For example, in the Early Tech part of Teacher STaR Chart where it says: “Teacher uses technology to complete tasks such as gradebook and attendance; e-mail; produce documents; manage curriculum and administrative tasks; and present electronic information to students.” Some teachers say they have no idea that using email or entering grades into gradebook software is consider being technology literate. So this shows that the Teacher STaR Chart has made many teachers be aware of areas of technology they are using effectively and the areas they may need to work on. Some teachers say that they were not aware that students must master technology skill by the end of 8th grade. This is another benefit of teachers using this tool to assess their technology knowledge.

The only concern I have with the survey is that, it may be difficulty to get honest and accurate response from some teachers. Some teachers that do not want to be bothered with more work may just check any response just to be done with the survey. Doing this may not give accurate account of where the teacher is in regards to utilizing technology in the classroom.


Source: TEXAS STAR CHART (http://starchart.esc12.net/docs/TxTSC.pdf)