The goal of technology infusion in schools is to improve student learning. One of the first things you need to understand before you develop your technology plan is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current instructional programs.

One way of determining student academic performance results is to examine the data from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test. This is the measure used in the state of Texas to evaluate student performance in high priority academic areas such as reading, math and writing. Other states have similar types of assessments.

By looking at the TAKS test results for each grade in your school during the past two years, you may get a picture of the academic areas that are strong as well as those that may require further improvement. Look at information on the student performance in reading, writing, and math. Also, examine drop out rates (increasing or decreasing), and also look at end of course exams (at the secondary level) in subjects such as Algebra, Biology, English, History to determine specific areas of strength or areas needing improvement. It is also important that you look at performance by gender, economic disadvantage, ethnicity, etc., to see if there are important discrepancies that need to be addressed. For those curricular areas needing improvement, you may want to consider how technology may help address the instructional need. For example, we know from research that open-ended, problem-solving software can help significantly improve mathematics performance of Middle School students (TIMMS study: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001028). Similarly, a number of technology tools and programs can help improve learning in science (TERC: http://www.terc.edu/TEMPLATE/topic/index.cfm?topicID=8). We also know that technology can help improve student's writing, the learning of social sciences, foreign languages and other aspects of the curriculum.

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