I had the pleasure of working with a district recently on this concept of âhow.â For the sake of this story Iâll call them South Texas ISD (a fictional district). South Texas had a great leader who really was a believer in using mobile devices for learning. He shared his vision with the staff and community and eventually got funds through a bond to supply all 25,000 of his students.
INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT SURVEY
Participating District Data
There were 28 districts participating in the survey, primarily from Texas. Of those, the largest had a student enrollment of 45,000 and the smallest had just 362 students. Twelve of the 28 districts surveyed (43%) had a 1:1 program on one or more of their campuses. There was a combined student enrollment of 256,000 students, with more than 210,000 devices being supported.
Participating District Data
There were 28 districts participating in the survey, primarily from Texas. Of those, the largest had a student enrollment of 45,000 and the smallest had just 362 students. Twelve of the 28 districts surveyed (43%) had a 1:1 program on one or more of their campuses. There was a combined student enrollment of 256,000 students, with more than 210,000 devices being supported.
Who Filled Out the Survey
The majority of those responding to the survey were technology directors, CTOs, or instructional technology coordinators. I recognize there can be a level of bias when it comes to evaluating your own level of support or integration, but I found their answers to be extremely realistic, and the outliers tended to cancel each other out. In fact, taking that bias inflation out of the results actually gives the findings even more impact in some ways.
Staffing Ratios
In general, districts fund two technology support technicians for every one of their instructional technology specialists. As the survey data revealed, this has a direct impact on how well districts are supporting technology (most respondents felt they did a strong job of supporting technology) to how well they are integrating it (most felt they did a weak or adequate job of integration).
Outcomes
A majority of districts (69%) surveyed felt they had adequate to excellent level of support for technology. By contrast, only 41% of districts felt they were integrating technology at least adequately, with only one stating they were doing an excellent job integrating technology.
Conclusion
More people equals better support and integration of technology. Although that seems like a no-brainer, digging into the data revealed a level of disparity between âsupportâ and âintegrationâ in these districts. The ratio of technicians (1 per 999 students) versus that of instructional technology specialists (1 per 1910 students) seems to be the highest contributing factor to this. If the technology doesnât work, then you canât integrate it. That seems to be the mantra districts are following with these staffing ratios (we follow a similar ratio at Eanes ISD). However, if districts truly want to use these tools for learning, it would appear the next step is figuring out a way to fund that professional support person to help integrate the technology, whether at one campus (ideally) or at multiple campuses. A summary of this data is given in an infographic located on my website: http://mrhook.it/ratio
If a mobile device initiative were a car, the teachers would most certainly be the drivers. The district leaders would be the bank that ultimately chooses the car (device) and finances it. The campus leader is the GPS that gives the car direction, and the classroom is the road. Technology departments provide the maintenance and upkeep as well as fix any flat tires or cracked windshields.