Tag:

project tomorrow

2024 SpeakUp! Survey for K-12 Leaders

by Matt Russell February 26, 2024

written by Matt Russell

As we navigate through the intricate landscape of K-12 education, a recurring question emerges. One that resonates deeply with educators, administrators, and stakeholders alike: “What K-12 education concerns keep you awake at night?” This probing inquiry has been a cornerstone of the SpeakUp! research project for years, revealing pivotal insights into the evolving challenges and priorities within the education sector. From school safety to student learning loss, teacher retention, effective parent communication, and the ever-looming threat of cyber incidents, the concerns vary. Yet, a persistent issue stands out—digital equity.

The NETP Addresses Digital Equity

In an era where the call for equal opportunities grows louder, the recently unveiled National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) casts a spotlight on digital equity in education. The plan, developed with contributions from Project Tomorrow, advocates for leveraging technology in classrooms to foster inclusive learning environments that cater to all students. This emphasis on addressing digital inequity is a testament to our collective aspiration for a fairer education system.

But the question looms: Is your district equipped to confront these equity challenges and heed the NETP’s recommendations?

SpeakUp! Leaders Survey Address Digital Equity Issues

Participate in the 2023-2024 SpeakUp! Surveys open through May 31, 2024!

TCEA, as a Champion Outreach Partner of SpeakUp!, presents an invaluable tool to gauge your readiness—the SpeakUp! Leader Survey. This concise, 12-minute survey offers district administrators and school leaders a unique opportunity to assess their preparedness to tackle digital equity issues. Upon completion, participants will receive a Digital Equity Readiness report card, at no cost, providing a comprehensive evaluation of their district’s capabilities.

FREE Webinar Series on NETP and SpeakUp! Data

To delve deeper into the intricacies of the NETP and how the SpeakUp! data can serve as a catalyst for addressing equity concerns in your district, TCEA invites you to join a forthcoming webinar series. This enlightening series, “Leveraging the NETP and SpeakUp! Data to Address Equity Issues in Your District,” offers three sessions to fit your schedule:

Friday, March 1, at 1:30 p.m. PT / 4:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. Central
Thursday, March 7, at 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. Central
Monday, March 11, at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. Central

Gain insightful knowledge on the synergy between the NETP and SpeakUp! Surveys, including the innovative Leaders Survey. And discover how these resources align with the NETP’s vision. Furthermore, the session will elucidate the benefits of the Digital Equity Readiness report card, empowering your leadership team to make informed decisions and take meaningful action toward achieving digital equity in your district.

Register for the Webinar Series

Join us in this transformative journey to bridging the digital divide and fostering an equitable learning environment for every student. Register today and take the first step toward realizing the full potential of educational technology in your district.

Register Now!

February 26, 2024 0 comment

CTO/CIO Educational Trends

Insights Learned From Your Speak Up Data

by Jennifer Bergland October 23, 2019

written by Jennifer Bergland

I am going to be very up front with my intention in writing this blog. My goal is to persuade school district technology directors or other administrators to seriously consider having their school or district participate in the annual Speak Up Survey.

Speak Up is a research tool districts use to learn what students, educators, parents, and the community have to say about educational issues. Yes, there are quite a few questions on the survey that deal with technology, but there are many other types of questions that will provide you with some much-needed insight into the attitudes of your stakeholders.

For example, in last year’s survey, they asked several questions about social and emotional learning. They also asked students how they prefer to learn subjects like math or science. Oh, and did I tell you that the survey is completely free and that they make it really easy for your district to participate?

A Texas-Sized School District

In order to help you see how a school district administrator could use this data, I’m going to take the state of Texas’ data and pretend I am the technology director of the “Texas School District,” covering the entire state. Let’s see what the data tells me about my district or what questions come to mind when I review the data.

Community

First, I’m very interested in the use of technology in my community. 78% of the members of my community use the internet to conduct research and 76% use mobile apps. 75% of my community use technology to watch an online video to learn how to do something. This tells me that a large portion of my community has internet access and is using it for research and to learn new things. However, it appears there is still some type of digital divide in my community. Is it an access or a skill problem, or both? I’m also surprised that only 26% of my community say they use Twitter. Since I spend a large amount of time on Twitter, I had assumed others did, too. This lets me know that I need to use a wider variety of social media to communicate with the members of my community.

Students

There are a series of questions in the survey that are posed to middle and high school students to see how often they seek ways to learn something because of their interests. This helps me see how students are using technology when they are looking for specific information or want to learn a skill. Only 9% of both middle and high school students post a question on a discussion board or a forum. Do we need to be more intentional in using this type of application? Do they just not know how, or have they found better ways to seek answers to their questions?

There are a greater number of students who are researching the internet for information: 32% of middle schoolers and 42% of high school students. Students are also using YouTube and other video services to learn how to do something. 42% of my middle school students and 57% of my high school students often use videos to teach them a skill. I need to talk to the instructional staff to see if we are taking advantage of this type of technology. Should we be posting short videos that teach one of the standards our students are struggling with? If so, what skills do my teachers need to know in order to do this and what technology do they need?

Teachers

Speaking of teachers, I really want to know what they are doing with technology. The data tells me that 45% of them are customizing digital content they find online to meet their students’ needs. This sounds an awful like Open Educational Resources (OER). Hmm, maybe we need to have more conversations about OER.

SpeakUp I also discovered that 43% of my teachers are facilitating student collaboration projects using online tools. This is such a great skill. How can I leverage these teachers to help other teachers do this as well? Also, I’m pleasantly surprised that 44% of my teachers are using an online curriculum. However, I want to know more. What is the frequency? Are they occasionally doing this or is this something they use every day? I also want to know what they are using. Are they using the district’s Learning Management System, or is it an online textbook?

I am a little disappointed that only 9% of my teachers are creating their own online professional learning networks. I had pretty high hopes that platforms like Twitter could help connect educators, especially those who may be the only one that teach their subject at their school. Maybe I need to do my own survey to see if, in fact, that is the case. Maybe the 9% are the teachers who do not have a colleague at their school that teaches their subject. Sounds like I need to do some more digging.

Finally, there is one question I am very interested in. It asks the teachers what they need to more efficiently and effectively speakup integrate digital content, tools, and resources into their daily instruction. 51% said they wished they had a classroom set of digital devices. 49% said they needed to know that their students had adequate broadband access outside of school and 46% indicated they were concerned that they didn’t have consistent, reliable internet access within school. Maybe I need to have my staff do some focus groups related to internet access and speed. Looking at my network resources, they should have adequate bandwidth, but maybe something is happening on campus that I am not aware of. While my team is on campus, I probably should also have them ask teachers about the availability of technical support since 47% of the teachers indicated it was lacking. And lastly, my teachers still need time to plan with their colleagues (60%) and additional professional development (50%). I need more staff to be able to meet this need!

Whew, I learned this much in less than an hour by looking at this data. This will come in handy when I go to the superintendent and tell her I need more funding to do the things she wants me to do. It will also help me know where I need to place my time and energy.

Your Turn

Seriously, I gained this information in less than an hour. Just think what you and your team could glean from your district’s data.

If nothing else, I hope you will sign up to watch one of their webinars so that you can learn more about the survey and how it can assist you in your work. On October 23, you can watch the livestream of Julie Evans, the CEO of Project Tomorrow, provide a congressional briefing on the latest data. Julie does an excellent job of weaving a story with the data. She is always extremely interesting. In addition, check out this site for other webinars the Speak Up team is hosting.

Register Now

The Speak Up survey is open until June 30, 2020. What are you waiting for? Register today!

Photos of student and teachers by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Photo of hands and laptop by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

October 23, 2019 0 comment

Coding/Computer Science

Coding for Creativity? The Latest Report Says “Yes”

by Lori Gracey May 31, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

To be honest, when I think about coding activities for grades K-8, I don’t normally think about using the skill of creativity to complete them. And yet, that’s what the latest report from Project Tomorrow/Speak Up says. Here are some of the key findings from this report released in May 2019.

Finding #1: Creativity Is an Important Skill

Three-quarters of parents of school-aged children (74%) identified creativity as an important skill for their child to develop in school to be successful in the future. And I think that all educators would agree with this as well. In looking at a future filled with artificial intelligence and robots, creativity is one of the main things that will help humans to distinguish themselves from “the machines.”

“Students from all types of communities and family backgrounds want to learn coding as the means to developing their creativity skills and improving their preparation for future success.”

Finding #2: Coding Helps Develop Creativity

Parents and school district leaders see coding as a good way for students to develop creativity skills. Students agree as well; 58% of students in grades 6-8 say the most important reason to incorporate coding within the school day is to help them develop creativity skills.

Finding #3: All Students Want to Learn to Code

Student interest in learning coding transcends gender, grade level, community type, and home poverty, and that interest is growing. Middle school student interest in learning coding increased by 23% in just three years. So let’s not kid ourselves that coding is only for gifted students or mathematically talented students or boys or girls or wealthy students. Coding is for everyone and should be taught to all students K-8.

Finding #4: Teachers Need Help Teaching Coding

Teachers need easy-to-use tools and classroom support resources to effectively integrate coding as a new form of creative expression across their curriculum. While there are many resources for teaching coding, teaching it from a creativity mindset is not as prevalent. The best way to promote creativity while students are learning coding is to allow them choice, both in what tools they use and in what products they create. Of course, this is managed choice with the teacher helping to ensure that good decisions are being made.

Steve Isaacs, a teacher at William Annin Middle School in Basking Ridge, NJ endorses student choice to not only help his students develop their creativity muscles in an organic way, but also as a way to teach them about how to learn. Mr. Isaacs uses coding around game development as a medium for his students to develop these skills. Most importantly however, he provides ample opportunities within these coding experiences for his students to self-direct their learning.

“When they start creating, I want my students to have choices as to what tools they use and to take learning into their own hands. Even when I guide them through something, they need to take ownership to make the game their own. This is really about teaching kids about how to learn, not just about how to make something based upon my instructions.”

Critical Questions to Ask

How are your students strengthening their creativity skills? How are they being exposed to coding and allowed to choose their own projects to be created? How are you ensuring that all students have the opportunity to learn to code?

May 31, 2019 1 comment

CTO/CIO Leadership

SpeakUp Survey Is Open!

by Jennifer Bergland October 25, 2018

written by Jennifer Bergland

It’s time for students, parents, teachers, principals, librarians, technology leaders, superintendents, and more to Speak Up via the annual Project Tomorrow’s digital learning survey. Share your thoughts and experiences on education issues such as:

Learning and teaching with mobile devices, digital content, gaming, videos, and virtual and augmented reality
Internet access at home and in school
Importance of math and best ways to learn math
Digital citizenship
And much more!

The free surveys take less than 20 minutes to complete and are completely anonymous. Join more than 500,000 people from more than 10,000 schools to be sure your voice is heard this year! Your school or district’s data will be made available to each entity. This data can help guide your efforts to expand digital learning opportunities for your students.

2017 SpeakUp Data

Below is some the Texas data from the 2017 SpeakUp Survey:

speakup

34% of Texas 3rd-5th grade teachers indicated there were not enough computers for students to use at school.
48% of Texas 6-8th graders and 39% of students in grades 9-12 said they were not allowed to use their personal mobile devices at schools.
31% of school administrators and teachers said the availability of technology for student use at school was a challenge for technology integration.
44% of school administrators and 43% of teachers listed digital equity issues such as student access to technology and internet at home as major challenges.
46% of school administrators and 69% of teachers said that motivating teachers to change their teaching practice to use technology in their classrooms is something they still struggle with.
59% of librarians said helping teachers move from sporadic to sustained usage was one of their top challenges while 47% listed students not having enough access to computers or the Internet outside of school as one of their challenges.
48% of librarians indicated the integration of digital content components into a teacher-friendly system was a major challenge.
The number one issue (57%) for technology leaders when it comes to cloud computing is ensuring that the data is secure.
47% of the technology leaders consider the homework gap (students lack of access to the Internet at home) and teachers lack of understanding cloud applications are the next two biggest challenges in implementing cloud technology.
The next challenge facing technology leaders in this area is having multiple sign-ons with different products (41%).

Specifics

As you can see, we can learn a great deal about the technology implementation across the state from the SpeakUp Survey. Every school and district will be given access to their own data. If you have never participated in the SpeakUp survey, I HIGHLY encourage you to consider doing so this year. You can start small and only do a few campuses or a few grade levels. This is completely free and your data is never shared with others except in an aggregated form (i.e. Texas or national). It is a wonderful tool to use in your planning.

speakup

Surveys are open through January 30, 2019. They make it easy to promote your survey with their promotional materials. This flyer is an excellent promotional resource. Also, they are super helpful, so if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them.

Credits:

Photo of data chart was created by rawpixel on Unsplash

Photo of students using laptops was created by NESA by Makers on Unsplash

October 25, 2018 0 comment

CTO/CIO Leadership

Ways to Promote the Speak Up Survey

by Jennifer Bergland November 21, 2017

written by Jennifer Bergland

Klein Independent School District led the country on the number of Speak Up surveys for years. What value do they see in participating in Project Tomorrow’s survey? In a Speak Up publication, Dr. Bret Champion, superintendent of Klein ISD, answered that question by saying, “The data we gather from Speak Up informs next steps for digital learning in Klein ISD, as we work with all stakeholders to re-imagine learning and make our shared Promise2Purpose vision a reality for EVERY student.”

Last month, I wrote a post giving a broad overview of Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up Survey. As a refresher, the Speak Up survey is a national research project that is a free service to schools and districts to assist their efforts in technology and district planning. The survey will help districts gather the thoughts of students, parents, teachers, principals, librarians, technology leaders, district administrators, and community members on a range of issues such as:

Learning and teaching with mobile devices, digital content, gaming, videos, and virtual and augmented reality
Internet access at home and in school
Importance of math and the best ways to learn math
Digital citizenship
And much more!

As a former technology director, I totally agree with Dr. Champion’s assessment of the Speak Up survey which is why I’m hoping more districts will join Klein. That’s why I reached out to some districts who have been utilizing the data from the Speak Up survey for several years to find out their tips and tricks for the deployment of the survey. Below is what I learned.

How to Increase Staff Participation in the Survey

Provide tweets and other social media messages/images that campuses can use to promote the survey.
Hang posters announcing the survey at the entrance of each school.
Send survey instructions to each teacher to share with students through Google Classroom or other Learning Management Systems.
Provide an award for the campus with the most responses.
Provide presentations for each campus regarding survey results for use with their technology planning meetings.

Increasing Speak Up Participation by Parents/Community

Tweet out messages about Speak Up.
Send emails through the district’s message system at the district and campus level.
Post information about the survey on the district Facebook page.
Provide information with the Speak Up logo on all campus and district websites.
Put promotional messages on each school marquee.

Why Participate?

The data from the Speak Up survey is extremely useful for technology planning both at the district and campus levels.
Questions have been vetted for quality and relevance.
It is free and enables us to collect information through one survey instead of having to create our own.
All the promotional materials are provided.

TCEA is so convinced this survey will assist districts in their technology planning that we are giving away two free TCEA Convention registrations to Texas school districts who submit their surveys during Speak Up America week (December 4-8), or Speak Up Appreciation Week (January 8-12).

Hopefully, some of the ideas offered by school districts can assist your school and/or district in promoting the survey, and a chance to win a free TCEA convention registration will provide an added incentive to participate. If you have any additional tips and tricks to share, please include them in the comment section below.

Credits: Microphone photo by Kane Reinholdtsen on Unsplash, Teen with laptop: Photo by Mikayla Mallek on Unsplash. Also a big shout out to Dianne Tidwell, the Director of Instructional Technology at Tomball ISD, for providing me with some great tips on how Tomball gets such amazing participation in the survey.

November 21, 2017 0 comment

CTO/CIO Leadership

SpeakUp Survey Opens October 16

by Jennifer Bergland October 9, 2017

written by Jennifer Bergland

If you knew that 55 percent of your district’s parents thought their children would thrive in a blended learning classroom, would it impact your strategic planning for your school or district? Would it help your planning if you knew the five essential elements your teachers felt they needed to effectively and efficiently integrate digital content, tools, and resources into their daily instruction? Would it surprise you if you found that 53 percent of your middle and high school students felt they needed the Internet at home to do their homework, but only 13 percent of your teachers were assigning homework that needed the Internet? All of this information and so much more can easily be obtained by your district’s participation in the SpeakUp Survey. And by the way, these statistics are from the surveys completed by Texans in 2016.

Project Tomorrow is a national education nonprofit group whose mission is to “ensure that today’s students are well prepared to be tomorrow’s innovators, leaders, and engaged citizens of the world.” The SpeakUp Research Project for Digital Learning is a national research project and a free service to schools and districts to gather survey data from students, teachers, librarians, campus and district administrators, parents, and community members. It is designed to help education leaders as they create and implement their vision of the next generation learning model. And it is completely free to school districts.

You are probably thinking this sounds like way too much work, that you simply don’t have time to distribute all of these surveys and make sure they are completed. The good news is that they have made this process super easy. They have everything you need.

SpeakUP Support Materials

Some of the items you can find on their website to help you organize and promote the survey are listed below.

Welcome Packet – gives you enough information to get started
Flyers – to help promote the survey
Information Material – to help answer all your questions (timeline, testimonials, introduction letters to give to principals, etc.)
Social Media – suggested messages for the different social media outlets
Sample Emails – help you get the word out
Instructions – for each group you are targeting
Lesson Plans – in case you want your teachers to build this activity into a learning experience
Press Release – to communicate to your community that you want their input

You have complete flexibility with the implementation of the survey. If this is your first time, you could start small by targeting one school or one grade level. You could decide to only survey students and staff this year and add parents and community members the following year. Just remember, the more data collected, the more information you will have for your strategic planning. This brings us to the best part. After the data is collected, Project Tomorrow analyzes it and provides you with your own data in an extremely easy format to read and manipulate. They even have a PowerPoint template that you can use to easily import your district’s data.

Important Details

Register your district so all further communications from Project Tomorrow will get to the right person.
Promote the survey using all of their free materials.
Determine the time frame to conduct the survey. Project Tomorrow opens the survey on October 16 and closes it on January 19.

Information is power. Knowing what key stakeholders value and their opinions on certain issues can assist school district administrators when implementing new programs and adjusting current ones. This is especially important when the district is transitioning from a print-based instructional model to one that relies on the use of digital materials and technologies. The SpeakUp Survey provides your district an excellent opportunity to help gather the data you need to monitor and adjust during this transition. Gaining this information has never been so easy! What are you waiting for? Register now!

October 9, 2017 0 comment

Educational Trends Leadership

You Need to Speak Up!

by Jennifer Bergland November 14, 2016

written by Jennifer Bergland

How many students in your school or district have access to fast broadband at their homes? How many students have access to a personal digital device they are allowed to bring to school? What are your community’s expectations about the use of technology in your classrooms? If you do have answers to all of these questions, are they based on real data or hunches? If they aren’t based on real data, they can be. Project Tomorrow provides the SpeakUp survey so that educational leaders and policy makers can know what their key stakeholders think about the use of technology in the educational process.

The Basics

The survey is for grades K-12.
There are surveys for students, teachers, parents, administrators, and community members.
For grades K-5, a teacher can decide to do a group survey or individual surveys.
Each survey takes less than twenty minutes to complete.
Survey will be open until January 13, 2017.
All of the data will be made available to the district contact in February to be used as the district wants.
The questions are grouped by theme:
- Learning and teaching with technology
- College and career readiness skills
- Student’s interests in STEM
- Professional development
- Internet safety/privacy issues/homework gap
- Administrator’s challenges
- Emerging technologies

speakup graphic

Use of the SpeakUp Data

Districts can use the free data about their own stakeholders in any way they wish, including to:

Use in technology planning (budgeting, equipment, infrastructure, professional development).
Define your district’s strengths and weaknesses of technology use.
Engage your parents and community in the process.
Provide a greater voice in policy and legislative initiatives.
Provide reliable data to report to your community.

Although there are surveys for different stakeholders, each district or school can decide which surveys the district will promote. If this is your first year to participate, you might want to only have your administrators and/or teachers complete the survey. You can also decide how big you want to go. To get started, all you need to do is go to their website and register a contact for a school or the district. This contact will get weekly summaries that can be shared with the teachers or principals. The final data gathered from your school or district will be sent to the contact in February.

Project Tomorrow has some excellent promotional materials that will make it easy to get the word out. Included in these materials are flyers, banners, instructions, sample tcea-speakup emails, lesson plans, a list of the survey questions, and press releases. They have made it super simple to get started. As an incentive, if your district participates in the SpeakUp Survey, it will be eligible to win one free TCEA 2017 convention registration!

Promote the Survey

Send emails to all stakeholders and include a link to the survey.
Provide a link to the survey within your district’s LMS for easy student access.
Use district or campus social media.
Set goals for each type of survey (100% administrators, 80% teachers, etc.).
Involve district leadership in promotion at various administrative meetings.
Use the promotional materials provided by Project Tomorrow.
Use school marquees to inform the community about the survey.
Use weekly summaries to spur competition between schools.
Set up a period of time that is designated as your SpeakUp push (i.e. two weeks before Christmas break).

speakup banner

I have been involved with Project Tomorrow since its inception. The surveys are excellent and provide incredibly valuable information. The data can be used to help your district determine your future goals and aspirations based on real data, not assumptions or anecdotes. The data will allow you to reflect on where you’ve been and where you want to go. Knowing your community and parent expectations on technology use can be very useful when you submit your technology plan and budget requests. If you have any questions, you can contact Jenny Hostert at jhoster@tomorrow.org.

November 14, 2016 0 comment

Educational Trends

It’s Time to Speak Up!

by Jennifer Bergland November 1, 2015

written by Jennifer Bergland

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, smartphones, tablets, mobile apps, online classes, and games – Do these digital tools or others like them really have a place within our classrooms today?

Are students more engaged in learning when instruction includes these tools?

Can technology increase teacher productivity or student achievement?

Do technology tools support the development of critical thinking, communications, teamwork, and global awareness?

What do parents think about the use of technology for learning?

These are great questions that districts need to consider when thinking about how technology should be used to support a student’s instructional goals. Fortunately, districts don’t have to reinvent the wheel and create and manage a survey that will gather this valuable information. Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up Survey will provide districts with the answers to all of these questions and more. It is designed to gather data from students, teachers, administrators, parents, and community members. Participating districts will receive localized reports with all of their data findings to use for planning, budgets, and purchasing decisions. The best part is that it is easy to administer and it’s free!

This data would be very useful in the evaluation of a district’s performance in providing a strong digital learning environment, which is required in House Bill 5 (passed in 2013). All the information your district needs to participate in the Speak Up Survey can be found on their website. The survey is currently open and will remain open until December 18. If you have any questions, contact Jenny Hostert at (949) 609-4660, ext 17 or email her at jhostert@tomorrow.org.

November 1, 2015 0 comment