Evaluate the impact
of your technology
How do you know what is working?
When your free trials finish, will you have enough information to make an informed purchasing decision?
If you have 2-5 minutes per day, you can collect evidence about your technology now that will help you make informed decisions later.
Write down (no more than three) questions that you want to answer about the technology.
You probably want to ask questions about three things:
Students
- Is this product helping students achieve their objectives?
- Is it equally useful for all of your students?
- Does it augment or replace a non-technology activity they already do?
Teachers
- Is this product helping you teach?
- Does it allow you to perform tasks you couldn’t do without it?
- Will it still be useful when you are back in the classroom with your students?
Product
- Is the product easy to use?
- Have you found the support from the supplier useful?
- Does the product actually do what the supplier says it should?
Try to collect some data to answer these questions.
Keep track of your own observations and perceptions about the technology. Spend two minutes at the end of each day writing down your impressions.
- What worked well today, and what went wrong?
- Which students had difficulty and which succeeded – and why?
- What will you do differently next time?
While this won’t give you a rigorous evaluation of your technology, it will provide evidence to help you answer questions that determine whether the products you’re using now will meet the needs of your learners later.
Want to learn more?
EdTech Impact has designed a training programme that will empower your teachers with the knowledge of how to continuously measure the impact of education technology products in their school.
If you would like to learn more about our technology evaluation training, please register your interest below.