The 2003 Missouri School District Computing Census
Introduction
The Census of Technology (COT) is designed to assess Missouri’s continuing investment in K-12 education technologies and to help guide forward efforts. It provides important data to share with state and national decision-makers to increase public awareness and advance public policy and support for education technology. It provides local school districts with data to help identify needs and develop strategies to facilitate school improvement processes.
The COT has been collected annually since 1997. Prior to 2001, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) contracted with the University of Missouri ‘s Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis (OSEDA) to administer the project. In 2001, the census was incorporated into the April cycle of the Department’s online core data collection system. The 2001 COT was the first to be completed by all districts; data collected prior to 2001 were adjusted to estimate the entire population.
The COT has two parts: a district-level census and a building-level census. Information is to be completed based on the census date of March 1. The submission deadline date is April 15. The District Census assesses the levels of planning and training for the district as a whole and concentrates on hardware, software, and levels of connectivity for the administrative buildings and offices. Completed by district-level administrators and/or technology specialists, the District Census includes information for all Missouri school districts (524). The Building Census assesses planning and training needs for individual school buildings and focuses on hardware and levels of Internet connectivity in computer labs, libraries, and classrooms. Completed by building-level administrator or technology contacts, the 2003 Building COT includes information for 2,250 public schools. Exempted buildings include preschools and juvenile centers.
The 2003 Missouri Census of Technology was revised to better align with goals and objectives of the 2002-2006 Missouri Education Technology Strategic Plan and the Title IID Ed Tech Program of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. A significant number of items from the 2002 COT were deleted because they no longer provided useful data. [The 2003 Census has 40 items compared to 80 items on the 2002 COT.] Several items were updated or fine-tuned to yield more meaningful data. In addition, a few items were inserted to address new federal and state goals.
As in previous years, the 2003 Missouri Census of Technology Report arranges the data for both the district and building levels according to the following areas: technology planning, technology professional development, hardware and support, Internet connectivity-distance learning, technology usage, and technology funding. Where feasible and appropriate, this report presents and compares information from previous years. Aggregated responses for the district and building census forms are provided in Appendix A and B, respectively.
This report is one of several documents that examine the use and effectiveness of education technologies in Missouri. Other evaluative information can be found in the Missouri Education Technology Strategic Plan and annual status reports, eMINTS Program research reports, annual technology program reports, project descriptions and annual evaluation narratives, and a series of Newsline articles.
For additional information regarding the Census of Technology, contact the Instructional Technology section by telephone (573-751-8247) or email (instrtech@dese.mo.gov).
Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
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