by Know Your Why for Participating in the Speak Up Research Project
When you register your school or district for the Speak Up Research Project, we ask you, “What do you hope to accomplish?” It is surprising how many participants do not enter a response to this question. To be fair, this does not necessarily mean they don’t know their why; only that they have chosen not to share anything. Those who do enter a response give us a glimpse of the value the Speak Up data will provide them and we appreciate seeing the variety of reasons. We took some of the current responses to highlight for those new to the Speak Up Research Project in the video below.
As promised in the video, here’s our blog post on the topic!
One district boiled it down to this…we are using Speak Up surveys to gather data to help make decisions. Whether that be to gather data for tech plans or state reports, there are some really great detailed reasons our participants have shared with us…Here’s our top 10 list in no particular order.
- We plan to continue innovating throughout the district by taking the results and adjusting our approach to ensure all students’ needs are met.
- We hope to understand how students, parents, and administration perceive technology being used in the classroom. Another district noted a similar reason with a powerful emphasis: Stakeholder input on technology usage and perceptions and its effect on learning.
- We expect to get valuable feedback to feed our annual strategic plan for digital learning.
- We plan to use the stakeholder data to direct district technology funding decisions.
- The technology committee will analyze our data as well as benchmark ourselves against national data for action planning and next steps.
- We hope to identify our district’s strengths and areas of improvement to elevate 21st-century teaching and learning growth.
- We hope to gather information from stakeholders to guide the district in responsible, collaborative decision-making regarding technology use in our schools.
- We would like to utilize the results to help us advocate for the continued use of our One2One program for students.
- We hope to collect data that can help us inform our practices and policies moving forward. As you’ve seen, this can take many forms including 3-5 year technology plans, broader district strategic plans, and more specific plans focused on digital learning or instructional technology.
- We hope to collect data regarding the current technology climate. This also sounds like:
- Gain better knowledge on how to assist our students, parents, and teachers.
- Understand how to better engage with our stakeholders
- Gauge how our stakeholders perceive the use of technology and its importance in our schools.
In case you haven’t watched the video, here are the five reasons we highlighted:
- We hope to get a better understanding of our “state of the district” with regard to educational practices, technology use, student safety, etc. With data from this survey, we can continue to improve the services we offer to all stakeholders. (There are several themes in the surveys that can be valuable to districts.)
- We participated several years ago in this program and hope to compare changes in perception and attitudinal data points. (Speak Up provides longitudinal data for districts and schools.)
- We want to provide a way for students to share their information and then to compare their thoughts with students in other locations. (Can we hear it again? Honoring student voice! And you get comparative data at the state and national levels.)
- We hope to use the data to inform us on how to move forward with our current tech practices in our district. (This is what inspired the blog post!)
- We hope to discover ways to support students and teachers with instructional technology either through professional learning or purchasing appropriate platforms.
If you found a reason for participation that resonates with you, let us know! You can message us at SpeakUp@tomorrow.org or tag us on social media using #SpeakUpEd and @ProjectTomorrow .
