The Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) conducted a recent analysis on the extent to which students in CPS are using technology for school and whether factors such as school culture and the use of technology by their teachers and principals contribute to this. CCSR has identified a number of key factors that influence students’ in-school technology use. In this CPS and CCSR joint session, we will explore the key findings from this study and provide concrete suggestions on how you, as a leader, can support and increase student’s in-school use of technology within your building.

1. ccsr.uchicago.edu

2. ©CCSR
Findings from the CCSR Technology Report:
Leadership’s Role in Increasing Student In-school
Technology Use
Stacy B. Ehrlich, University of Chicago Consortium on
Chicago School Research
John Mellios, Director, CPS Educational Tools & Technology
CPS Leadership Technology Summit
July 16, 2013

3. ©CCSR
3
Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR)
Who we are
 Mission: To provide high quality research to inform policy
and practice in CPS
 Independent of the school system, but regularly meet with
stakeholders
 Work with administrators and educators to search for
solutions to problems of urban schools
Prior work on technology in CPS
 Detailed look at trends of educational technology use
 What encourages use in schools

4. ©CCSR
4
CPS Educational Technology and Tools Department
 Educational Technology
- Vision for learning through technology
- Initiatives: ipads, Technology Magnet Cluster
- Programs: Safari Montage, Adobe Youth Voices, Virtual
Learning
 Instructional Materials and Resources
- Manage the RFP process for all district materials
- Manage the distribution of district materials
 Libraries and Information Services
- Develop new libraries
- Support librarians
- Technology integration

5. ©CCSR
5
Current study explores how the use of technology
may have changed in CPS in recent years
 Technology use is now ubiquitous among youth
 But, students do not leave high school feeling prepared
- Nationally, 36% believe schools are preparing them to use
technology for post-secondary education or workforce
- Students in lower-resourced schools have least
technology support, despite likely needing it the most
(Goode, 2010)

6. ©CCSR
6
This study: What does technology use look like in
CPS now?
 What do use, support, and expectations for technology
use look like in CPS?
- How much are students and teachers using technology?
- How much do teachers and principals expect technology
to be used for teaching and learning?
 Do these differ across schools?
 How much are student, teacher, and principal
experiences related to each other?

7. ©CCSR
7
Data: CCSR/CPS My Voice, My School survey
 Data collection
- Online survey administration across CPS
- Spring 2011 and 2012
 2011 Sample (responding to technology questions)
- Students, grades 6-12 (74%; n = 123,657)
- Teachers, all grades (49%; n = 10,362)
- Principals (61%; n = 366)
 Focus here will be on high schools, but most findings
were similar in elementary schools

8. ©CCSR
8
Preview of main findings
 Levels of technology use in CPS are lower than might be
expected, given wide access
 Across all school types, teachers’ expectations of use
are lower than students’ actual use
 Student use of technology is related to:
- Teachers’ levels of technology use
- Levels of expectations for use (by teachers and principals)
- Barriers to use within the school

9. ©CCSR
9
Where CPS students stand: Access and preferences
 Over 90% 6th-12th
graders have access
to the internet at
home
 Students prefer to
use technology to
find information
10%
29%
61%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
I prefer finding information
online
Agree/
Strongly
agree
Neutral
Disagree/
Strongly
disagree

10. ©CCSR
10
While roughly half of CPS students use technology
weekly for school, 20-30% rarely or never do
19%
27%
50%
20%
24%
18%
61%
49%
32%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Internet Computer
programs
To create
something new
At least weekly
Montly
Less than monthly
Note: HLM analyses reveal that overall student technology use does not differ significantly between white and African
American students, or by neighborhood social status.

11. ©CCSR
11
Most teachers use internet weekly for preparation,
but fewer incorporate computers into their delivery
of lessons or expect students to use technology
15%
24% 27%
15%
21%
25%
69%
51%
44%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Use internet for
lesson prep
Use software for
instruction
Expect students
to use technology
At least weekly
Monthly
Less than monthly
No access

12. ©CCSR
12
Across all school types, teachers’ expectations for student
use are lower than students’ own description of use
6%
21% 18%
12%
21%
20%
81%
57% 62%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Selective
Enrollment
Neighborhood Charter
School Type
Students’ use of internet Teachers’ expectations of student use
15%
28%
36%
19%
25%
28%
64%
43%
32%
Selective
Enrollment
Neighborhood Charter
School Type
At least
weekly
Monthly
Less than
monthly
No access

13. ©CCSR
13
Though most principals expect integration of technology,
far fewer believe teachers are using technology to have
students interact
6%
40%31%
37%
63%
23%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Expect teachers to
integrate technology
Teachers use tech to
have students
interact
A great deal
Somewhat
A little / Not at all

14. ©CCSR
14
Most barriers have declined slightly in recent years, but
lack of computers and appropriate PD continue to be
largest barriers
22%
29% 25%
17%
23%
15%
23% 25%
47%
43%
36%
44% 34%
41%
60% 55%
32% 27%
39% 40% 43% 44%
17% 20%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
2005 2011 2005 2011 2005 2011 2005 2011
Not enough computers Infrastructure Internet issues Lack of apprpriate PD
Great barrier Small/moderate barrier Not a barrier

15. ©CCSR
15
Student, teacher, and principal
experiences are related to each other
 Some differences in student use are
explained by teachers’ use, expectations,
and school culture
 In turn, teachers’ experiences partially
explained by principals’ expectations,
and schools’ barriers to technology use

16. ©CCSR
Conclusions, Recommendations, and
Existing CPS Supports

17. ©CCSR
17
This study found that the following factors are
related to student technology use
 School type and composition
 How much their teachers use and expect technology
use by their students
 Whether school culture supports technology for
instruction and learning
 Existing barriers to the use of technology
 Leadership: higher expectations of technology use

18. ©CCSR
18
Leadership Recommendations
Reflect on the vision of learning within your school
 Does it include technology?
 What kind of integration?
- Computer practice programs
- Creation of learning artifacts

19. ©CCSR
19
Leadership Recommendations
Leverage already existing resources in CPS
 Safari Montage – online digital media repository and video
conferencing
 SOAR Library Systems
 District E-Book collection
 Online Information Databases
 Gooru
 Edmodo
 RTI programs
 Adobe Youth Voices

20. ©CCSR
20
Leadership Recommendations
Develop a culture within your faculty around integrating
technology into the everyday of learning
- Adopt Google collaborative structures (share lessons plans
on a shared google drive space)
- Ask teachers to collaboratively write something together
using google docs
- Survey teachers using google forms
- Go paperless
- Develop an culture of sharing by making everything open
source (open and accessible for viewing)

21. ©CCSR
21
Leadership Recommendations
Develop teacher capacity to integrate technology into
their own practice
 Do a tech “book read” by exploring an app or tool together
 Support teachers by giving them time to learn new things
and space to try things out
- Try out an app for one quarter and reflect how it goes
- Think through one lesson that focuses on students are using
technology
- Provide teachers time to reflect on the “piloting” of ideas
- Provide reachable tech goals for the school. (i.e. we are all
going to use google to communicate with each other).

22. ©CCSR
22
Leadership Recommendations
Attend to tech infrastructure
 Keep an up to date inventory
 Maintain equipment in your building (10-15% of budget set
aside for repair and upkeep)
 Remove the barriers that get in the way of the use of
technology (i.e. fix the access point)
 Think about unintended barriers that are inadvertently put
into place
- Carts locked in one closet reduces the likely use of the cart
- Checking out one cart for the whole school – results in students
only using it once a month
 Develop school level policies for technology equipment and
use

23. Many thanks to our funder, The John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation
For more information, please contact Stacy Ehrlich at
sehrlich@uchicago.edu
Full research report available at ccsr.uchicago.edu
Thank you!