Your Ideas for EdWeek's "Technology Counts" 2009

As an employee of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and specifically its Instructional Media & Technology (IMT) team my job related duties can be varied to say the least.

One duty that I enjoy is serving on various committees for the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), a national organization for ed tech proponents working at the state level.   I currently sit as the vice-chair of the SETDA Data Committee.  Our committee has two main purposes: to collect data to produce the annual SETDA National Trends Report and to work collaboratively with the US Dept of Education and other groups that collect ed tech data by providing guidance and advice from the field.  

On May 13, I will be part of a group of state leaders that will discuss the data collection and publication of EdWeek's  Technology Counts and how the current indicators and survey may or may not reach the fairest or most accurate results.

Although SETDA approached Ed Week, the people there have been very responsive and willing to talk about how to improve the current efforts. They did mention that the research division, led by Chris Swanson, is very short-staffed, so recommendations should be tangible and reasonable – but SETDA believes that is possible, especially if SETDA offers to review the questions.

In talking with Ed Week and a few SETDA members, we see several particular areas of focus for our call, including:

• Indicators used to determine access (please see link at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/03/27/30sources.h27.html for details on how computed).
  
• Survey questions used to determine use, capacity, and other discussions.
  
• Theme for next Technology Counts (i.e., STEM, funding, virtual learning)
  

What I am asking you is for YOUR ideas, concerns, questions, comments and what not.  What do you like or dislike about Tech Counts?  How can we as an ed tech community make it better?

My meeting is at 1:30 PM ET so be quick and succinct!