network? Would these people be better served by going to their site and presenting a
school specific email workshop? Mere attendance information can provide important
formative evaluation information that can help you improve your program as it progresses.

Having crunched the numbers, it is time to begin examining the workshop evaluations.
Are the staff members satisfied with the instruction? Is it being presented in a manner that
is most beneficial for learning? What improvements could be made for the next workshop?
How can instructors improve their methods of presenting these workshops? Do the course
materials need to be modified to better address the faculty's needs? While these evaluations
may have been administered as summative evaluations for each workshop, they can be
valuable forms of formative information for the overall program.

An informal source of evaluation is word of mouth. What is the "word on the street" about
this staff development program for technology? Is it valued or is it generally thought of as
a waste of time? This is a much less exacting science than what I have discussed so far,
but it is just as important. Listen in the teachers' lounge. Ask questions at the department
heads or principals meetings. Develop an informal information link to assess your success.
If you're new to your position or you're not the type of person who can easily build such
an informal network, find one that is already in place. Look around and find a secretary
who has been around for awhile and seems to know what's happening around the
building/district. Approach her/him with "I have a problem and I wonder if you could help
me . . ." and I'll bet that she/he will find out what you want to know in no time.

Changes in Staff's Skills
The most immediate change that you will see is changes in your staff's skills. Before they
can implement technology into their classroom or their office, they need to understand it
and be able to use it in daily life. Learning how to send that first email message is exciting,
but it is not nearly as exciting as corresponding with a son or daughter in a faraway college.
Actual application to your staff's daily lives can be the best evaluation of your staff
development program's success. One way of measuring success is to survey your staff
about their frequency of using the taught skill two months after attending a workshop. You
might ask the graduates of an introductory email class "Do you use email 1) often, 2)
sometimes, 3) rarely." Those who use it often have taken their new skill and successfully
applied it. Another way of assessing your program's success is to annually administer the
Technology Needs Assessment Questionnaire provided in the first article of this series.
Look for changes in levels of self-reported competency. If people who were involved in
your staff development program last year now report higher levels of competency, then you
were successful.

Changes in the Classroom Teaching Practice
Identifying changes in classroom teaching practice due to staff development is better
measured using relative rather than absolute measurements. It is reasonable to assume that
all of the attendees of a workshop (or set of workshops) do not begin at the same level of
technology competence. Imagine a workshop on Building Higher Order Thinking Skills
Using Databases . While one teacher may have never used a database, another may have
had a great deal of experience with them. Using a database in the classroom to build higher
order thinking skills can be the result of a continuum of steps.

These steps might include:
1) Make a computer available in the classroom
2) Talk about using a computerized database
3) Demonstrate finding a single fact on a computerized database (i.e., capital of Kentucky)
4) Demonstrate sorting a computerized database.
5) Demonstrate searching a computerized database by one and two fields.