Friday, September 24, 2010

Blog Assignment #2

When it comes to purchasing new technology equipment and software for the district, I've never had the opportunity to fill out a software selection form.  Therefore, I had to do a little research and ask the CFF coach in our building.  She said that our district does not have a specific form for software evaluation, there is only a general request form that is supposed to be available via the MyLearningPlan website.  However, when I checked the website to view the form, there is no such form.  Our district just started using MyLearningPlan this school year so therefore perhaps that might be why it's not available yet via the web.  Needless to say, I think that when it comes to purchasing software, a specific software evaluation would prove to be more useful when deciding whether or not to purchase a specific software.

By utilizing asoftware evaluation form, teachers/ techology coordinators can compare the pros and cons of various software options.  The district can also compare the effects of the various costs within the technology budget.

3 comments:

  1. It is interesting that as I read a good chunk of the blog posts that so many schools don't have software selection forms. I definitely think that that these forms are a good idea. I believe that an underlying benefit of these forms and that they take away the spur of the moment tendency to purchase the newest technology fad out their. When a decently in-depth form is required to be filled out, you must look at the product closely and may discover compatibility issues or other things that make you realize this is not the best technology or may be hard to integrate. When technology initiatives don't meet with initial success they have a tremendous up hill battle to reach success.

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  2. I'm wondering, if so many benefits come from filling out a standard evaluation form before purchasing, why there are very few schools or districts using it? The only reason I can think of is that designing the form and analyzing the data collected by the forms are both too time consuming, especially when most of the schools and districts are lacking of tech people. But as the Chinese saying says, take your time to polish the axe before cutting trees. I do believe it will save tons of time in the future if we can now spend some time on devising a standard form as well as standard procedures.

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  3. "By utilizing a software evaluation form, teachers/ techology coordinators can compare the pros and cons of various software options. The district can also compare the effects of the various costs within the technology budget." I agree with you here; especially the more expensive the resource becomes. i.e. perhaps an evaluation tool isn't necessary for something relatively inexpensive. The cost and man hours of evaluating the tool could prove more expensive than the software itself. Once the cost enters several thousands, tens of thousands of dollars and more then the tool should be used for sure. It's really nice to have more and more open source free software solutions available as time goes on.

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