Introduction

In 1996, after the adoption of the first State Technology Plan, Maryland made a commitment to provide all public school students access to technology and frequent opportunities to participate in meaningful and challenging activities and tasks involving those technological tools. A substantial financial investment by the State, local school systems, and the federal government over the past six years, has enabled Maryland to make significant progress in fulfilling its commitment.

This summary represents the fifth in a series of annual reports that highlight not only this progress, but also the gaps still to be addressed. The data provided in this summary is important not only for what it shows about the capacity of Maryland students and teachers to access technology-based resources, but also for what it reveals about the way that students experience the technology in their day-to-day learning.

Data summarized in this report was collected in November- December 2001 from each school in the state through an online survey and includes targeted indicators in the following key areas:

1. Technology infrastructure
2. Teacher knowledge and skills
3. Technology support
4. Student use of technology
5. Administrative use of technology

It is important to note here that Maryland has gathered and analyzed this data on the availability and use of technology through an innovative technology-based system - developed by Bob Marshall, president of AWS Convergence Technologies and chairman of MBRT's Committee on Technology in Education. This system has revolutionized the process and timeliness of collecting information from every school in the state and has created infinite and unprecedented possibilities in what we can learn from the data.

Results

The results are summarized by state and local school system averages as well as by individual school reports. For a balanced view, it is important to look not only at the averages but also at the data being reported by each individual school.

Much of the focus over the past several years has been on building a strong technology infrastructure, which is absolutely critical for successful use of technology. Data from the fall 2001 Technology Inventory show that Maryland schools, on the whole, have made significant progress in establishing this infrastructure. This year, the state target of five students for every modern computer was met, a significant accomplishment considering that just six years ago the average ratio was 16 students for every computer. Gaps still are apparent, however, when one looks beyond the state averages to the school-by-school data. For example, several schools in some of the larger systems still are showing ratios that are more than ten times the state average.

In 1997, due to lack of wiring, only 23 percent of classrooms were able to access the Internet. Now 82 percent of classrooms have the capability to take advantage of this important resource. The state target of 100 percent should be reached when wiring of all schools is completed in 2003.

According to the data, the all-important support for school networks and equipment as well as instructional planning is shared by a number of individuals within schools and local school systems. The number of full or part-time school-based technology coordinators is increasing, thereby, reducing a school's dependence on staff members to provide this support on a voluntary basis and in their spare time. However, 11 out of the 24 school systems have schools reporting no school-based support for equipment and networks, having to depend strictly on the central office. Thirteen systems have schools reporting there is no school-based support for the use of technology, again having to depend on resources outside the school building.

Teachers continue to grow in their knowledge and skills. Where only 53 percent of them were comfortable using the Internet in1997, the reported percentage today is close to 90 percent. Most are applying the knowledge and skills by using technology regularly to improve their efficiency and productivity, especially for tasks such as maintaining attendance, grades, data on students; creating instructional materials; and communicating with staff members and other colleagues.

How - and with what frequency - teachers use technology with their students to support learning is not as promising. Similar to the data reported last year, some of the most complex and powerful uses of technology are not implemented in classrooms across Maryland on a regular basis, even in schools where technology is readily available. Only 14 percent of schools report that their students use technology to manipulate and analyze data or information on a regular basis. Only 12 percent report that their students regularly use it to perform measurements and collect data. Yet these types of tasks are among those where technology can facilitate not only the process but also the type of critical thinking and decision-making that we are trying to develop in our students.

The two areas of significant improvement over the past three years have been students' use of technology to gather information regularly from the Internet (60 percent in 2001 vs. 49 percent in 1999); and communicating information or results of investigations (46 percent in 2001 vs. 29 percent in 1999).

The Digital Divide

The issues related to access and use become even more pronounced when the Inventory data is disaggregated by poverty levels. Data show that the highest poverty schools remain below the state average in terms of student to computer ratios (6.9:1 vs. 5:1) and Internet connectivity (61 percent vs. 82 percent). Since the majority of these schools are in two local school systems, this does not indicate a statewide trend. In some systems, there is no significant gap. And, in a few cases, higher poverty schools have better access than lower poverty schools, indicating that some districts have focused resources on those schools having the greatest burden of poverty.

A trend that does continue statewide from last year is the disparity between how the technology is used in high poverty schools vs. lower poverty schools. The difference is striking when one looks at the percentage of schools reporting that their students regularly use technology to:

	Low Poverty	High Poverty
· Draft, revise, and publish writing	87%	50%
· Gather information from the Internet	77%	47%
· Communicate or report information	66%	32%
· Manipulate, analyze or interpret data	19%	14%
· Perform measurements and gather data	18%	7%

Nearly 52 percent of the highest poverty schools report that their students never have opportunities to use technology to manipulate and analyze data. 62 percent indicate that their students never use technology to perform measurements and collect data. The only area where a gap is not evident is in the use of technology to remediate for basic skills.

Implications

At a time when Maryland is in the process of evaluating its ten-year school reform program and the results it has produced in raising student achievement, this report on technology in schools comes at a critical juncture. As Maryland moves forward to ensure that every student receives a quality education and is provided the opportunity to reach high levels of achievement, technology will play a pivotal role in delivering on this promise.

What this data tells us about the capacity of each local school system, each individual school, and each classroom to provide students with meaningful, engaging, and complex tasks that involve technology, will enable us to close the gaps now that otherwise will close doors to our children in the future.

Maryland's renewed commitment to technology will be reflected in the updated Maryland Plan for Technology in Education, to be released this spring. The plan includes a stronger focus on instruction that utilizes the power of technological tools and digital resources; identification of new and powerful applications of technology to support instruction and assessment; and an expanded effort in gathering and evaluating data that will determine technology's impact on student learning.