Leaders in Digital Learning Offer New Evaluation and Assessment System for Digital Learning Initiatives for K-12 Schools
If you are engaging in any type of systematic digital learning initiative, you need to think carefully about data. If you haven’t yet been asked for data to support your answer to the question, “What progress are we making towards our vision of digital learning?” now is the time to act. Metiri Group has designed the comprehensive TRAx system to provide digital learning readiness and implementation data for schools.
Marina del Rey. CA, April 5 (Newswire.com) – Digital learning is on the radar of virtually every K-12 educator. Outside of school, 96% of nine- to seventeen-year-olds embrace a culture of social networking, online browsing, texting, GPS mapping, and interactive gaming. Inside schools, K-12 administrators are investing in digital devices, broadband, and training, but many are still not articulating student outcomes, collecting relevant data that can inform practice, or documenting changes over time. This is precisely why the Metiri Group, the author and developer of the Future Ready Framework and Dashboard for the White House and Alliance for Excellent Education, has unleashed a school-focused TRAx Digital Readiness dashboard.
TRAx is a customizable tool that assesses the digital readiness and the implementation of digital learning initiatives in schools and districts. A unique feature of TRAx is the collection of data from six different stakeholder groups: students, parents, teachers, school administrators, educational technology specialists, and information technology coordinators. The aggregation and comparisons from this multiple stakeholder dataset insure the accuracy of the TRAx reports. Thus, school administrators can act with confidence to address any gaps that the TRAx data surface. Schools are able to identify and close gaps more quickly, thus accelerating results and increasing effectiveness.
With this release of TRAx Digital Learning, districts and schools finally have access to a quality measurement and evaluation tool designed specifically for digital learning. TRAx Digital Learning measures schools’ readiness and progress towards achieving 21st Century, digital learning. With data aligned to the district-level Future Ready Framework, TRAx adds the dimension of school-level data to inform progress towards a research-based vision of digital learning in classrooms and other learning environments. Using TRAx, districts and schools can finally answer the questions, “What progress are we making and how are we continually developing our practice with digital learning?” with detailed school-level data from students, parents/families, teachers, school administrators, and technology specialists.
“We are excited to be launching TRAx for districts and schools in the United States and abroad,” says Cheryl Lemke, Metiri Group’s CEO. “We have witnessed such incredibly smart uses of the TRAx data by schools and districts. School administrators can now use TRAx to identify and address any gaps that are preventing the effective and innovative uses of technology for learning in their schools. The reports are customized and automated, so administrators can document their progress over time with one click.”
“We have been especially impressed by the data that is coming out of our new TRAx Digital Learning tools,” says Dr. Jody Britten, Metiri Group’s Senior Associate. “For years we have seen our partners in K-12 education use incomplete or irrelevant data to inform their digital learning progress. As of today, these partners have the ability to track and strategically plan for digital learning policies and practices using informative data that shows the complete picture of digital learning.” Because the TRAx tool is fully automated, districts and schools can license it and begin collecting data about digital learning almost instantly. The interactive dashboard allows administrators to assign roles and responsibilities to staff within the system, and engage stakeholders in survey taking by simply typing a specific code into a district jump page.
TRAx Digital Learning provides districts and schools with reports that are generated immediately and offer individual reports for each component of the Metiri Group framework for digital learning. These reports include digital learning readiness scores and implementation ratings that can serve as benchmarks or longitudinal trend data over time. Administrators can produce a customized report for their individual schools and districts on the interactive dashboard at any time. The district summary provides a listing of all schools and their readiness and implementation ratings for digital learning in a succinct report. Contact Metiri Group for a demonstration of the TRAx tool and learn more about how our partners are using data to inform, improve, and document progress.