Requisite Technology Skills Assessment

I completed two surveys to assess my strengths and weaknesses in the area of educational technology leadership. The first assessment is the Technology Applications Inventory, developed by the TEA to determine the requisite knowledge required for implementation of the Technology Applications TEKS. It looks at my knowledge and skills in the four strands of Foundations, Information Acquisition, Solving Problems and Communication.

What I discovered is that I scored the highest percentages of yes answers in the Foundations category, which makes sense. I have a good foundation of knowledge in technology, having used it for all of my adult life. In the Information Acquisition domain I answered 70 percent of the questions with a yes. Once again, since college I have been doing Internet research and learning how to evaluate information. My weaknesses lie in the Solving Problems and Communication domains, which I see as higher-level knowledge and skills. There were no surprises with this first assessment.

The State Educational Technology Directors Association survey was the second assessment I took. It is designed to evaluate my technology use, the availability of technology at my school and district policies related to technology. I obviously know how to answer questions about my technology use and the availability of technology at my school. I knew little, though, about district policies related to technoloty. I need more knowledge and skills in the area of district resources and policies.

Though this survey was very thorough, it's hard to take the wealth of information and boil it down to a few statements that sum up my understanding of technology. I do like that included availability of resources and district policies, though, because it provides a much better evaluation of what there is to use technology-wise. It seems like the first assessment is best for an individual and the second would be most useful to a group or committee that is examining technology use at a school.