Summary of Week 1's Assessments

I found the first assessment, The Technology Applications Inventory to be quite informative. It provided me with an overall result of my technological strengths and weaknesses broken down into four separate domains. The four domains consisted of: Foundations, Information Acquisition, Solving Problems with Technology Tools, and Communication. Of the four domains, I seemed to be technologically stronger in two areas.

The Foundations domain and the Solving Problems domain were my stronger areas, scoring 13 "yes'" to 5 "no's" and 12 "yes'" to 6 "no's." The Information Acquisition domain and the Communication domain scores were quite balanced, scoring 5 "yes'" to 5 "no's" and 7 "yes'" to 5 "no's."

Overall, I have a basic understanding of technology foundations and solving problems. My basic understandings consist of opening, creating, and publishing documents in programs such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, etc. for a variety of audiences. I can adjust and alter document's fonts, sizes, etc. when needed. If problems arise, I use technical instructional guides to assist me. My weaknesses consist of acquiring information about files; and evaluating electronic information for accuracy and validity. I am unsure on how to identify the source, location, media type, relevancy, and content validity of available information. In the communication area, I lack the ability of designing and implementing procedures to track trends and set time lines, etc. These are tools and strategies that I need to work on addressing and becoming more knowledgeable about. I think such tools could be beneficial to me and my students. Overall, I found this assessment to be informative and productive. I now know what areas I need to become more knowledgeable in to better serve myself and my students.

The second assessment, The SETDA Teacher Survey was quite different. It was lengthy and did not provide an overall conclusion of results. The survey covered many areas dealing with technology, the use of technology, the amount and time of usage, etc.; however, I did not get an overall result of any technological strengths and weaknesses as provided by the other survey. The SETDA Teacher Survey did in fact make me more aware of certain concepts and the importance of integrating technology in my classroom. Certain questions that were asked brought attention to concepts that I originally didn't know much about; such questions as T9-T14 referring to "data" and its results, whether or not technology is impacting students' skills. These questions stunned me; I don't truly know if my district performs such assessments to gather data about the impact of technology on our students; however, the survey made me curious to do further research on the topic. Overall, I didn't find this survey to be as informative as the other. It did not provide me with actual strengths and weaknesses that I need to address, but it did inform me and make me more aware of if technology is being used; how much; when; if it is being productive and such. At the Kindergarten level I teach, students are provided the opportunity to work with technology at least once or twice a week in computer labs and are exposed to a variety of other technological tools throughout the day in the classroom; however, I believe we could all work harder at addressing the technological needs of the students more in order to better prepare them for the future.