Jeff Johnson

FRIT 7738: Practicum in Instructional Technology

Technology Center Analysis and Evaluation Burke County Middle School

Spring 2013

Executive Summary

The purpose of this evaluation is to determine the efficiency and impact of the media center at Burke County Middle School. The evaluation should help determine if the center is making a significant impact and providing for the needs of its patrons. Currently the center is used as a resource for students, teachers, and administration to reinforce and enhance instruction in the classroom. It is available for all students in grades 6 through 8, and to all teachers both academic and exploratory. Depending on the individual teacher, students are exposed to the center about four times a month for an average of forty-five minutes per visit. Students can also request time to go the media center to work on individual reports and internet searches. The main focus of this evaluation is to determine if the media center is properly supporting the school and if there are areas of improvement that would benefit the school as a whole.

Organizational Chart

System Superintendent

BCBOE Technology Director

Burke County Middle School Principal

System Technology Support / IT

Instructional Coordinator

Provides school technology and network support System Technology Trainer Media Specialist

Provides training for system software implementations to all school media specialist

Provides teacher training, maintains equipment, and manages website. Media Center Clerk

Manages circulation desk, checks in and out books and equipment Media Center AR Coordinator

Manages AR, Copy Clerk. Supports Media Specialist Technology Specialist

Methods
During the evaluation process, a variety of data was collected. The data collected could only be referenced from experiences through this past year because the media center was completely re-staffed at the beginning of the school year. Key characteristics of data criteria would be: Interviews with the media specialist Teacher and student interviews Observations made in the media center Observations made in the classroom Observations made around the school Interviews were conducted to collect information to judge the effectiveness of the center. Media specialist, teachers, and administrators at Burke County Middle School were interviewed. During these interviews teachers were asked to list the positive and negative aspects of the media center. This was done to help determine the human aspect or attitude across many interviewees. Teachers were also asked to describe the effectiveness of the program for individual students and how the center has increased success in their subject area. Students were also interviewed to find out what they thought about the media center and how it could be improved. The interview questions used are included in the appendix. An observation checklist was used to aid in collecting data; this checklist is also included in the appendix.

Center Context and Goals

Burke County Middle School is located in Waynesboro, Georgia about 30 miles south of Augusta. One of the greatest resources for the county is Plant Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant. This one company generates a strong revenue base for the operations across the school district. Burke County Middle School was built in 1993. One of the original goals was to make the media center the hub of the school. The media center is a large, 6,500 square foot room with high ceilings and big windows looking out across the landscape. It was designed to be a relaxed learning environment that supports learning in many different media formats. Over the history of the center, it has seen the influx of many new technologies that are designed to aid in instruction, not just in the center, but throughout the school. Each teacher has a smart board and a minimum of 3 student computers. There are also 4 computer labs, multiple mobile computer labs, two ipad mobile labs, and four Nook mobile labs. The center contains a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction books that can be checked out. Every teacher in the building has a laptop computer and an ipad to use in class and for daily school functions and class preparation. The mission of the media center is to foster a love of reading, create effective users of ideas and information, and help students become life-long learners. They support this mission by providing intellectual and physical access to materials in a variety of formats, providing instruction in information literacy, collaborating with teachers to meet information needs of students, supporting the schools curriculum, and promoting reading. The media center also sets goals as related to the use of technology. These goals are

designed to: Increase student learning and achievement through technology Increase teacher uses of technology

Within the walls of the media center there are a number of support staff who support the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders along with faculty and staff. The Media Clerk is responsible

for circulation, collecting fine money, processing new materials, shelving books, assisting with inventory, archiving periodicals and newspapers, laminating, and book repair. The media center paraprofessional is responsible for promoting AR (Accelerated Reader), Renaissance Place, processing new materials, bulletin boards, maintaining computers and the media center. They are also responsible for running the book fairs, assisting with shelving and year-end inventory. The media specialist is responsible for overseeing media clerk and paraprofessional, purchasing and cataloging new books, purchasing and cataloging equipment and technology, maintaining the media budget, Destiny (inventory database), collaborating with teachers, conducting media center orientations, providing instructional technology and information literacy. The media center staff is also responsible for the scheduling of various equipment, facilities, and technology, maintaining copyrights, and maintaining an environment which is conducive for learning. Because this is the first year of a completely new support staff in the media center, the team is currently updating all equipment, clearing out outdated technology, processing all books for repair, and updating or discarding texts as needed. They are also ordering new reading materials for the center and providing support to teachers

with new and helpful ideas that will provide a student centered classroom.

Center Activities
The media center conducts many different activities throughout the year; one of the most important activities is the 6th grade orientation. Because the 6th graders are new to the middle school, they need to understand all the rules and procedures that are in place when visiting the center. As part of the orientation, students are taught how to use the Dewey Decimal System, how to access research databases, and procedures for using technology in the school building. Internet safety is also visited. Other activities conducted in the media center are AR testing, Star Testing and research rewards. These activities are conducted with all students in 6 th -8th grade. Each semester the media center will host a book fair. This is open to all grades for teachers to schedule time for students to purchase books. Language arts teachers are encouraged to schedule media center appointments on a two week rotation for student book check-out or to conduct on site research. Another exciting activity provided and conducted in the media center is the AR party. This is by invitation only to those students who reach certain goals in reading within the AR system. It is also the responsibility of the Media Specialist to maintain the school web page. This also involves a web based scheduling calendar that allows teachers to login and schedule their visit from their classroom computer. The media center hosts many different types of technology that can be checked out to use in the classroom such as student response systems, video cameras, ipad mobile lab, TVs and much more. The center is also used to host faculty meetings and teacher centered workshops when needed.

Evaluation
During the early stages of planning for this evaluation, I established three evaluation questions: 1. Is the media center equipped to sufficiently support the needs of the middle school? 2. What impact has the media center had on student achievement? 3. Is the media center providing enough teacher support to improve student performance?

To help answer question one, interviews had to be conducted with teachers, students and staff. A set of interview questions was created (Appendix A) for the media specialist to answer. This data shows that the media center is supportive in providing appropriate equipment. It also gave a better insight into the concerns of the center providing ample support to teachers using technology. Interview questions were created for teachers (appendix B) and students (Appendix C). The data collected from these interviews help draw a clearer picture of what impact the media center is having in equipment support. Question 2 asked, What impact has the media center had on student achievement? Achievement is a word that can describe many things. In this case achievement is considered passing all classes during the year. There is no quantitative data to view that would correlate between student success in the classroom and what influence the media center had on that individual student. While some of the

information collected came from many of the same sources as question one, I had to rely on teacher interviews to gain insight on the benchmark scores and how technology helped increase these scores. According to the data collected, there is a positive

correlation between the media center and student achievement within the classroom. Question 3 targets specifically the support given to teachers by the media center. Observations were conducted in classrooms while technology was being used for instruction. An observation check list was created (appendix D) to target how the technology was being used and how comfortable the teacher was with using this type of equipment for instruction. The data shows that teachers use of technology varied. While some used student response systems, others used their smart board. Some smart board users were advanced, while others would only perform simple tasks and even asked students for help in navigating the software. Interview questions were also used to help determine the effectiveness of the media center s support.

Judgments about Evaluation Object - Strengths and Weaknesses Based on the information evaluated, this evaluation study concludes: Strengths The BCMS Media Center is organized and is an effective tool to help students be successful in class. Equipment is organized and well managed by personnel. Designated labs are equipped to implement these resources to students. There is a designated time period and schedule followed by all teachers. There are adequate reading resources available to all disciplines in the media center.

 Support staff is helpful and friendly. Center is conducive to learning. Online support is provided through the schools web page. Media Specialist is available for teachers and students. Funding is available for new equipment. There is a vertical alignment of resources used through all grade levels. There are built-in incentives for students using the media center and high achievers within the AR program. Weaknesses This evaluation looked at a small sample group. Data from larger groups would give a better perspective of the true effectiveness of the media center. Data was collected only from the perspective of one years experience. It would be beneficial to evaluate data from a five year span. Limited workshops for teachers. Designated lab or center times are not flexible. There is limited time for teachers to practice or participate in workshops.

Recommendations After conducting this evaluation, the following recommendations are given: 1. The school system should provide more mobile computer equipment in the regular education classroom. Many of the mobile computer labs are outdated and have been overused. If more updated computers were placed in mobile labs, the students would not have to have a scheduled time to go to the media center, but instead could access programs in the classroom. With so many classes being scheduled for

the media center, it is difficult for teachers to schedule individual students time to go to the center for the purpose of using a computer. If the computers in the classroom were more up-to-date, then the teacher could come up with his/her own schedule to use within the classroom. 2. The school should designate time for teachers to attend workshops during the school day. If the media center provided multiple workshops within a given time period, teachers could select the one that best fits their needs. The school would have to earmark different time slots where teachers could attend and not be overburdened with other demands from the school during this instructional time. 3. There needs to be a stronger teacher role in technology literacy. Teachers should have a say in what workshops are needed. Currently all workshops are dictated by the administration. This is not a negative aspect, but there needs to be an opportunity for teachers to influence the type of workshop conducted. 4. Media center needs to create and implement some type of reward system for students. To help motivate students to work diligently, some type of incentive could be established. When students were interviewed, they mentioned that they liked going to the media center, but do not get to go as often as they would like. Maybe some kind of free reading time for a designated time period could be established.

Appendix A Media Specialist Interview Questions

1. Can you provide a brief history of the center? 2. What is the mission of the center? 3. What are the goals of the center? 4. Who are the stakeholders (middle school students) anyone else? 5. What are the job titles and brief position descriptions for key personnel who staff the center? 6. What are some activities or programs carried out by the center? (Ex. AR) 7. What is the purpose of these activities and who is the audience? Where are the activities conducted? 8. How long have you been in your current position? 9. What do you love most about your job? 10. What do you believe is the most important aspect of your job? 11. Considering all aspects of your department or center, what changes would you make? explain 12. How successful do you think your workshops are? 13. Do you have regular attendees/requests for workshops? 14. What workshops do you believe your center should offer? 15. What is the most sought after workshop? 16. Do you believe there are responsibilities that your department should undertake? Explain

17. Do you believe there are responsibilities currently held by your department that other departments should undertake? Explain. 18. How are students most able to experience and use technology in the school? 19. What proof exists that students are being prepared to be leaders in technology usage? 20. What new technology has been introduced to this site? 21. Are labs and technology resources readily available to teachers and students? 22. How are labs and technology resources distributed among teachers and students? 23. Are labs and technology resources fairly distributed among teachers and students?

Appendix B Teacher Interview Questions

1. What technology is your most prized equipment for instruction? 2. Do you feel comfortable using your smartboard? 3. Are there any workshops you would like to see given to enhance the use of technology in the classroom? 4. What technology would you like to have in your room that you feel would work well with your subject? 5. What are you apprehensive about when it comes to technology? 6. Do you know what web 2.0 means? 7. Do you use any web 2.0 in class? 8. Can you describe how you use technology in your classroom? 9. Do you have access to all the websites you would like to have? 10. Do you feel comfortable using the media center? 11. What suggestions would you give to the media specialist to help improve the center?

Appendix C Student Interview Questions

1. What do you like best about going to the media center? 2. Do you have enough time when your class visits the media center? 3. Do your teachers use technology when they are teaching? Do they let you use the technology? 4. What technology would you like to try in class to help you learn? 5. Do you get the chance to create online presentations in class? 6. Does the media center have interesting books to check out?

Appendix D Classroom Observation Information Sheet

Question What technology is available in the classroom?

Notes on Observation

Is technology being used in instruction?

What hardware and software are used? How are they being used?

Are students using technology? Are students engaged in the lesson?

Technology Problems Observed

Is the teacher comfortable using the technology?

Additional Observation

Teacher / Student comments concerning technology.

Part B: Monthly Report

EXTRAEXTRA
What is going on in the Media Center these days? The media center has been quite busy during the month of March. To kick off the month, the center hosted a seven day book fair. This will be the final book fair of the school year. Teachers were encouraged to bring their classes in and shop for a few books

that students would like to read over the summer. The money made during the spring book fair will go directly to the media center to purchase new and exciting reading materials for students to check out in the future. Within the new Teacher Keys evaluation system, there is a survey component that students must fill out to evaluate their teachers. The media center has been given the task to make use of the computer lab in order to administer these surveys to every classroom in the school. The media center will host classes in the on-site lab, along with the use of two mobile labs that will rotate throughout the school, until the survey is complete. It was report card time in the month of March. This was an excellent time to print out fine notices and attach to students report cards. This process will continue for the remainder of the school year. The media committee meets bi-monthly. This month the committee met to discuss the purchase of additional ipad labs and to begin the task of updating laptop computers. The committee is made up of the media specialist, Instructional Coordinator, one teacher from each grade, and an exploratory instructor. Accelerated Reader is a very popular program in the school district. During the month of March, the support staff determined which students met their AR goals for the

3rd nine weeks. These students are eligible for the AR pizza party that will be held by invitation only in the media center. Circulations of book check-out were low this month, around 600. This may be a little low because of the book fair, the administering of the TKES survey, and the CRCT administration. The media specialist and the support staff were not able to have teachers check out books or schedule visits during the designated survey days.

References Bailey, K. (March, 2013). Media Specialist, Personal Communication. Johnson, M. (March, 2013). ELA 6th Grade Teacher, Personal Communication. Walden, H. (March, 2013) Media Center Staff, Personal Communication Johnson, A (March, 2013) 8th Grader, Personal Communication Boothe, S (March, 2013) 7th Grader, Personal Communication Johnson, E (March, 2013) 6th Grader, Personal Communication Brogan, C (March, 2013) Instructional Coordinator, Personal Communication Kelly, J ( March, 2013) Exploratory Teacher Technology, Personal Communication