Smart Classroom

New Dashboard Measures Schools' Digital Learning Readiness

• By Michael Hart
• 04/06/16

The Metiri Group has introduced a new digital dashboard tool designed to help K-12 schools assess the quality of their digital learning programs.

The program, known as the TRAx Digital Readiness dashboard, is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product to assess schools' and districts' readiness and implementation in digital learning and their technology readiness for online assessment.

TRAx has a two-part focus: readiness and implementation. By collecting data from all stakeholders (students, parents, teachers, school administrators and IT coordinators), TRAx Digital Learning provides information on a school's digital learning readiness and its digital learning implementation.

Metiri representatives said digital readiness is a measure of a school's capacity to implement digital learning successfully. The TRAx tool evaluates a school's progress in establishing a vision for digital learning and whether the tools are in place for successful implementation. Digital implementation is a measure of the deployment of digital learning in classrooms. Then it measures a school's ability to move planning into actions that achieve the vision for digital learning that has been articulated.

TRAx Digital learning provides a calculation of readiness and implementation progress across five areas:

• Curriculum, instruction and assessment;
• Use of time;
• Technology, networks and hardware;
• Data and privacy; and
• Community partnerships.

Calculations result in specific ratings to help schools understand their readiness and their level of implementation. Data collection is automated with interactive consolidated reports provided through a digital dashboard.

"For years, we have seen our partners in K-12 education use incomplete or irrelevant data to inform their digital learning progress," said Metiri Group Senior Associate Jody Britten. "As of today, these partners have the ability to track and strategically plan for digital learning policies and practices using data that shows the complete picture of digital learning."