6) Involve students in finding a single fact on a computerized database.
7) Involve students in sorting a computerized database.
8) Involve students in searching a computerized database by one and two fields.
9) Ask students to find a single fact in a database on a computerized database.
10) Ask students to answer a question which requires sorting a computerized database.
(i.e., What were the original 13 colonies?)
11) Ask students to answer a question which requires searching a computerized database
by one and two fields. (i.e., Which is the best state(s) to build a beach club for rich
retirees?)

The teacher with limited computer experience may be at the first step of the continuum
where he has to find a computer to use in the classroom. The more technologically-
experienced teacher, however, may have already demonstrated how to sort a computerized
database in her class. This means that the less experienced teacher has further to develop to
reach step 11 where the students are actually using higher-order thinking skills to answer a
question that requires synthesizing information from two or more fields.

An equitable form of evaluating the success of your staff development program would be to
count the number of steps along this continuum that teachers progress in a given period of
time as a result of the workshop(s). You might call this a "developmentally appropriate"
approach to learning technology. If the first teacher progresses to step 5, it can mark as
much progress along this continuum as if the second teacher progresses to step 10.
Last month I cited research by Showers, Joyce & Bennet (1987) that stated change in
classroom teaching practice only occurred if staff development included components that
visited a teacher's classroom and provided feedback and/or team teaching. Additional
assistance may be necessary to bring the less experienced teacher along the way, but that is
an additional success story that can be added to the evaluation.

Improvements in the Students' Skills
Staff development has only recently begun to have been evaluated by indentifying changes
in students' skills. The irony of this is that the ONLY reason we have schools is because
of the students. The ONLY reason that we provide staff development is to better serve the
student population. While some of your staff development program for technology may
teach teachers how to send email, it is used to help these professionals do their job more
efficiently.

While evaluating the success of a workshop may just involve passing out a form at the end
of a session and then tallying the results, identifying changes in student skills as the result
of work done in a series of staff development sessions is much more complex and often
requires a great deal of time. Imagine an instance where a school wants to integrate word
processing into the process approach to writing instruction. Instead of using a pen to write
a rough draft of a story, editting it, and then having to completely rewrite the paper,
students would use a computer. They would use an idea generating program for their
prewriting activities, they would then compose their story directly into a word processor,
and then revise it. There is no need to rewrite the paper because the revised paper is ready
to be published in a polished form.

This sort of integration doesn't happen in a week. It requires teachers rethinking the
process of teaching writing. It requires teaching students keyboarding skills. It requires
time. Changes like this must be evaluated longitudinally over a long period of time and
even between grades. This is type of evaluation is difficult, but it is what makes it all
worthwhile.