1. How does your district make use of technology to keep track of data?

What software do they

use? How well does it work?

A local school district uses Skyward to keep track of students grades, schedules, food service
accounts and communication. It is easy to use and provides a nice summary of the students
scores, however, the teachers feel a great need to keep hardcopies of both attendance and grades
to compare with Skyward because of possible glitches.

2. How do you the staff member make use of it?

Skyward allows for easy communication with the parents and students. The instant updates of
grades, attendance and student scheduling has eliminated many headaches. The online
assessment program has also improved the feedback and grading portions of classes. It has
helped me to provide extremely timely feedback on assessments during and at the end of units,
and assists me in analyzing which topics my students need more time to master.

3. Have you or how do you use it in Data driven decision making?

Technology has enhanced data driven decision-making in that it is used most often is the
determination of students understanding of course material. It is easy to view each class and
assess which students have struggled on specific tasks. It has improved teaching by providing a
layout of all the classes scores that can be compared and reflected upon. Technology has also
allowed parents easy access to an overview of how their student is performing in the classroom;
this parent involvement has transformed the role of a teacher.

4. Do teachers/staff have an input as to what is used to collect district data?

Teachers/ staff have limited input as to what is used to collect data. Skyward is slowly being
introduced into Pennsylvania and the features that are associated with the program can hardly be
beat. I believe it would be difficult for the school board to gather the teachers input as to what
system to use and I would doubt many teachers know of other systems.

5. Based on this chapter, what do you think you would consider if you had to plan the purchase
of a school districts administrative software?
The main considerations I would have for selecting software would be the ease of integration
each separate software system allows. The text describes three specific categories that
administrative software should encompass. All three categories and their sub-categories must be
integrated into each software system and serious evaluations of the different software options
must be completed. I would also advocate a trail period of any software to be purchased to see
what type of learning curve is necessary and to evaluate any possible problems that may arise.