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Table of Contents,
Flashlight Evaluation Handbook l
Flashlight Approach
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What role should evaluation play in the planning and
implementation of 'laptop initiatives' and other programs
that provide or require the same technology of all students?
Our basic approach to this problem is laid out
specifically in this article
and described more generally in an earlier chapter, "The
Flashlight Approach." The framework laid out there
suggests, for example, the importance of annual studies of
key teaching/learning activities for which you hope the
technology will be used, e.g.,
- faculty-student contact (via e-mail and online
discussion as well as face-to-face)?
- collaborative work among students (ditto)?
- student work on real world projects?
- information literacy?
- development of digital writing skills?
- ePortfolios?
- learning communities?
- study off-campus, while remaining in touch with
activities on campus?
It makes sense to focus your formative evaluations on
just a few such options, even though all of them may be
aided to some degree by the use of technology.
In addition to the basic formative evaluation structure
laid out in the article linked above, here are some
additional options to consider:
- Study support strategies, paying attention to
both the successes and the
costs. It's especially important to use evaluation
to get ahead of the cost curve, anticipating how choices
about technology deployment might in coming months
create unacceptable support burdens so that your program
can either increase resources for support, alter support
strategies, or throttle back on deployment.
- Pay explicit attention to 'gains and losses' for
various stakeholders. Any change in policy or
structure creates both benefits and costs for different
groups. Sometimes a shift can be simultaneously a
gain and a loss for the same group; for example, when
students have laptops in a classroom, does the faculty
member gain power or lose power? (answer: yes). It's
important to evaluate the changing shape of the
initiative from the perspective of the different
stakeholders.
- Study particular teaching/learning activities for
which other programs have used the same technology
(and the gains/losses stemming from those uses).
- By "study" we not only mean discovering whether
they've done evaluations. You ought to interview
stakeholders at institutions whose situations and
programs seem similar to yours. One relatively
inexpensive strategy is made possible if any of
those stakeholders have written articles: have your
team read the article, come up with questions, and
then interview the author by phone or online.
Each member of your team is likely to be curious
about different things, and can ask different
questions. But you've saved the stakeholder's time
by not asking that person to make an extensive
presentation up front.
- With laptop programs, we pay special attention
to issues of
learning space design (e.g.,
studio
classrooms) that make it easier for faculty to
have students use laptops and other materials work
on tasks in the classroom, and then confer in small
groups. It's also important to pay attention
to uses of laptops as
personal
response systems; used in combination with
survey software such as
Flashlight Online,
laptops can be used for a variety of kinds of
student responses.
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