1. Group 1
Pages

2. Evaluating Educational Technology
Evaluate – determine value or judge worth
Appropriate – suitable for the educational situation, motivational and promotes learning at correct levels
Evaluating educational technology involves determining if technology is appropriate and enhances the teaching and learning process.
Evaluating Educational Technology

3. Sources of Information
School districts and state departments of education
Districts provide guidance on specific software
Department of education provides a list of recommended software
In order to access these sources, contact your tech coordinator, curriculum resource specialist, media specialist, tech committee or other teachers

4. Sources continued
Professional educational organizations – provide Web sites with information on software levels, content, and pricing
Catalogs – Help identify tech for classrooms and online catalogs provide demos.
Colleagues – offer advice about outstanding products
Published evaluations – Educational publications and journals have sections dedicated to reviews of educational technologies.

5. Sources continued
Technology conferences – Meetings dedicated to provide a vast array of info and resources for educators
Web – Most comprehensive source of tools and resources that provides a vast source of info (EDTECH – larger well known discussion list on educational issues)

6. Evaluating Software Applications
Software evaluation rubric – an assessment tool that provides a number of important evaluation criteria

8. Evaluation continued Content
Valid – the software has well grounded instructional properties, meets standards, provides appropriate content, and teaches what is intended
Documentation and tech support
Documentation – any printed or online info that provides assistance in installing, using, maintaining and updating software
Tech support – service that hardware and software manufacturers and third party companies offer to customers to provide answers, repairs, and other assistance
Ability levels and assessment
Ability level – refers to students’ current competency or skill level for a specific learning objective
Academic level – based on grade level increments to determine if student performance is at appropriate level
Tech quality and ease of use
Tech quality – how well the software presents itself and how well it works
Ease of use – user friendliness

9. Evaluating Web Resources
Not all web information is reliable, so it needs to be evaluated appropriately
The evaluation categories include:
Authority
Affiliation
Purpose and objectivity
Content and learning process
Audience and currency
Web design

10. Evaluation of web continued
Authority – refers to credibility of authors and site maintenance
Affiliation – refers to professional, school or government organizations with which a website is associated
Purpose – the reason and intent for which the website was created
Objectivity – the process of determining or interpreting the intent or purpose of the web page and if it is free of bias
Content – info a web page provides
Learning process – when the content engages students to use higher order thinking skills and become active learners
Audience – the individual or group intended to view or use the web page
Currency – measure of how up-to-date or timely the web page is and how often it is updated
Design – the way it is arranged, uses instructional design principles to deliver content

11. Web Evaluation Rubric
A detailed scoring guide for assessing the value and content of a website.