April 2005 — Special Reports
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Administrative Technology: NEW RULES, NEW TOOLS
Regarding teacher administrative routines (i.e., tasks that are either required by the district or support instructional activities), the most frequent uses of the Pinnacle gradebook solution included keeping track of student attendance (90% of teachers reported this use), keeping track of student grades on individual assignments and tests (91%), calculating student grades (92%), and preparing student progress reports (83%).
In its conclusions, the study reported that successful adoption of educational technologies at the school level is highly contingent upon a technology leader or cheerleader who not only displays high levels of personal competence in technology use, but also espouses a philosophy about the importance and potential role of technology in schools. The study also concluded that the major obstacles to school reform in general - and technology adoption in particular - are often political, and not necessarily related to qualities inherent in the technology itself. The obstacles are political because they are often personnel-related. Therefore, values and beliefs about the importance of technology, the appropriate role of technology and the future of technology all shape the organizational culture, which either facilitates or prohibits the transition.
Stated differently, it appears that the schools which were most successful in using the Pinnacle gradebook had established mechanisms to support the building of organization capital: a culture and belief system that embraced technology from the classroom to the attendance office, a reliance upon technology to manage and store information about clients (students) and the quality of service (instruction), as well as the sharing of information in databases (student information systems) and in people’s heads (teachers’ knowledge of student needs and special characteristics).
Looking Ahead
Studies like the Pinnacle System gradebook project offer enough provocative findings to suggest further research. Though they hint at the potential time-saving qualities of administrative software, we still know little about how they redefine the instructional routines of teachers. For example, if a teacher is saving two hours each week, how is that time being reallocated? Thus, the next step in thinking about how to define research in this arena is to develop models that will quantify the actual amount of time saved, and then observe and record exactly how teachers use that time. Once the new uses of that time are recorded, it would then be logical to measure whether those uses have a positive impact on student achievement.
The first step in developing a model might include a grid of teacher tasks, as well as a comparison of the time required to complete these tasks both with and without technology. Using several assumptions about the length of the school year and the time required to complete administrative tasks, one could develop a model that reflects the assignment of hypothetical values for a typical classroom teacher. Again, it should be emphasized that the long-term goal is not to measure efficiency by minutes saved, but rather to determine how saved time might be used to improve the achievement of all students.
