School Technology And Readiness Case Study

The School Technology and Readiness (STaR) chart (see Appendix A) was created by the Texas Education Administration in 2004 in response to technology requirements as set forth in No Child Left Behind, Title II, Part D. The STaR chart was designed to help schools identify areas in which to improve technology use, help determine professional development needs, assist with long-range planning, and determine technology funding priorities (Texas Education Agency, 2006). The STaR chart requires schools to self-report technology use in four key areas: teaching and learning, professional development, school leadership, and technology infrastructure. Scores are reported on a scale of 1-4: early tech (1), developing tech (2), advanced tech (3), or
Key Task Area One is composed of six sub-categories: patterns of classroom use (1), frequency/design of instructional setting using digital content (2), content area connections (3), technology applications TEKS implementation (4), student mastery of technology applications TEKS (5), and online learning (6). Professional development. Key Task Area Two is composed of six sub-categories: content of professional development (1), models of professional development (2), capabilities of educators (3), access to professional development (4), levels of understanding and patterns of use (5), and professional development for online learning (6). School leadership. Key Task Area Three is composed of six sub-categories: leadership and vision (1), planning (2), instructional support (3), communication and collaboration (4), budget (5), and leadership and support for online learning (6). Technology infrastructure. Key Task Area Four is composed of six sub-categories: students per computers (1), Internet access speed (2), other classroom technology (3), technical support (4), local area network (5), and distance learning capacity
The specific data set accessed was the 2013-2014 Texas Campus Technology and Readiness Data (STaR). The 2013-2014 campus level data is the most recent, comprehensive data set available. Starting in the 2014-2015 school year, the STaR Chart became optional, and many schools have chosen to not report technology use to the state. Therefore, to ensure a non-biased sample, the 2013-2014 data set was used. Data was downloaded as a delimited file and imported into Microsoft Excel. Data was then sorted so any incomplete data sets could be identified and removed. Once all incomplete data sets were removed, data was imported into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), to be