April 2005 — Special Reports

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Administrative Technology: NEW RULES, NEW TOOLS

By Donald R. Tetreault, Ph.D., South Carolina Commission on Higher Education

Promising Research

In 2002, a small-scale pilot study of the Pinnacle System gradebook solution from Excelsior Software was conducted in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (Tetreault 2002). The system is a suite of software products designed to manage, collect and distribute information to and from classroom teachers via an electronic gradebook, and then formulate and distribute that information as needed to administrators, principals, students and parents. The study sought to address several questions, including:

  • To what degree have teachers implemented the Pinnacle System?
  • How has using the gradebook solution impacted teacher administrative and instructional routines?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the electronic gradebook, both at the teacher (classroom) level and at the school (administrative) level?
  • What critical factors are present/absent at the school and district levels that impact the system’s implementation?
  • What potential role d'es the gradebook solution play in school efforts to implement a vision for the use of educational technologies in general?

The study sought to answer the research questions through the gathering of data at six schools - two elementary, two middle and two high schools - all of which displayed some degree of variation in size and student demographics. Data were gathered through the distribution of teacher surveys, as well as through on-site visits that included interviews with selected teachers, administrators, school technicians and other personnel.

The study also sought to characterize the environment for technology-based school reform by gathering information about the efforts of individual schools and districts to transform low- or no-tech schools into high-tech ones. This was considered a critical aspect of the research since the implementation of a “change agent” like the gradebook occurs in a dynamic school environment that is characterized by political forces and shifting fiscal priorities.

Several interesting and provocative findings emerged from the study. For instance, researchers found that teachers had implemented the electronic gradebook in varying degrees depending on several factors, including:

  • The degree of school administration support and encouragement;

  • Access to sufficient training in the use of the system and all of its features;

  • Perceptions of administrative commitment to its long-term use; and

  • The degree of teacher confidence in technology not to “lose” data through network or hard drive crashes.

Interestingly, none of the limiting factors in adopting the technology were directly related to the gradebook system itself, but rather to external support factors beyond the reach of the application. For example, in schools where there was a clear technology leader among the administrative staff, and that person’s long-term commitment to technology use was evident, teachers were universal in their praise for using more technology in general - the Pinnacle gradebook solution specifically. In contrast, teachers from schools with less internal support for technology expressed some reservation about making a complete commitment to technology-based grade reporting and classroom management based on their lack of confidence that school administration - and the district - shared that commitment.