Maturity Model Benchmark Evaluation

VMBO-GL is a Catholic secondary school with about 750 students aged 12 to 17 years old. There are about 70 faculty members, 15 support staff (administrative and maintenance), and a director. The school is part of a larger foundation with a total of seven locations. The foundation was established in 1948 and our location building has an older part built in the 1950's with an extension that was opened in the 1990's. The technical support department is based in one of the other locations with one technician based at our location on a part-time basis. I was surprised to find only three goals concerning technology in the school's five-year strategic plan (2011-2015): Digital learning tools are an addition to the traditional tools; Modernize infrastructure. All locations have a reliable and powerful infrastructure; Each location will have their own personalized electronic learning environment (Dutch acronym: ELO). While this last goal is commendable, in practice the ELO is outdated and underutilized. One of the reasons for this may lay in the first goal: technology is still very much seen as a cherry on the cake, and not the main course. The main course consists of books, pens and paper...

Technology Maturity Benchmarks

1 Administrative
1.1 Policy (Behavioral: Integrated/Resource: Intelligent)
Comprehensive policy is in place and published in the student regulations. In practice the rules are generally embraced by the majority in school and properly enforced.

1.2 Planning (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Islands)

I have found no evidence for the existence of a technology plan. There is virtually no mention of ICT in the school's publications.

1.3 Budget (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Emergent)

Technology resources are limited and I have found no evidence for the existence of budgeting policy relating to technology.

1.4 Administrative Information (Behavioral: Integrated/Resource: Intelligent)

The school uses the electronic student information system Magister. All team members have access to Magister and most staff use it.

2 Curricular
2.1 Electronic Information (Behavioral: Integrated/Resource: Integrated)
Both students and staff utilize the student information system Magister regularly to access information. The Internet is available to all students and staff too, but is not integrated in any curricular area. Some traditional methods offer additional electronic materials, but these are rarely utilized.

2.2 Assessment (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Emergent)

Assessment is usually quite traditional: formal pen-and-paper testing, project papers handed in a s hard-copy.

2.3 Curriculum Integration: (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Islands)

Some subject methods offer additional electronic materials but these are rarely used. Smartboards are primarily used as overhead projectors.

2.4 Teacher Use (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Integrated)

Technology available to teachers is underutilized. Faculty heavily depends on traditional, paper resources. Most faculty use educational video services for enrichment, but very little electronic material is created.

2.5 Student Use (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Emergent)

Students are rarely asked to perform tasks electronically. They have regular access, but even the limited number of student computers is underutilized. There is formal ICT training for students in the first two years of school for one hour per week. This focuses on operational skills (i.e. Microsoft Office).

3 Support
3.1 Stakeholder Involvement (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Emergent)
Each of the locations has an IT ambassador, but this group rarely meets together. There is no other involvement of faculty in the IT planning process.

3.2 Administrative Support (Behavioral: Islands/Resource: Islands)

One of the board members is formally responsible for ICT planning. It (currently) has no priority in the planning process and little other administrative support is offered.

3.3 Training (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Emergent)

There is very limited formal training offered at our school, technology related or otherwise. At the only training that I'm aware of, there were three participants during the first term while I was the only one in the second. It's not offered in the third term. Staff members are allowed to attend trains or workshops during school days if the apply. I have been unable to receive data on how many do, but my impression is that there are only very few.

3.4 Technical/Infrastructure Support (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Integrated)

A formal technical support department is located at one of our schools and our location has a part-time technician on site. She spends most of her time doing hardware repairs and software installations and updates. There is a telephone and email hotline in place, based on a ticket system, but this has a bad reputation amongst staff who therefore rarely use it. Communication back from the hotline can be slow and a single software installation request (freeware) took 5 weeks to process in my own experience.

4 Connectivity
4.1 Local Area Network (LAN) (Behavioral: Islands/Resource: Integrated)
We use a internal network accessible from all computers in school. Unfortunately, there is no wifi available anywhere in the building and the electronic learning environment (Dutch acronym ELO) is not used to its full extend. Courses and course materials are rarely updated by teachers. Students use it so rarely that whenever they do, they have trouble finding the right information. The foundation is in the process of phasing out the existing Moodle based ELO and move towards a new one incorporated in the students management system Magister. This, however, doesn't yet work properly in our location and is not perceived to be very user friendly.

4.2 District Area Network (WAN) (Behavioral: Emergent/Resource: Emergent)

The electronic learning environment ELO connects the seven schools within the foundation, but there is no collaboration between the schools. Each organizes its own piece of the puzzle as a stand-alone entity. The ELO site for our location is out-of-date and underutilized.

4.3 Internet Access (Behavioral: Islands/Resource: Intelligent)

All computers have high speed Internet connection. It is used often but curriculum integration is very limited. Inappropriate content is properly shielded. Unfortunately (as mentioned under 4.1), there is no wifi available anywhere in the building.

4.4 Communication Systems (Behavioral: Islands/Resource: Intelligent)

All staff have school email available and most (if not all) students have a personal email address. Furthermore, ELO also has an email functionality which is not integrated with the usual staff school email address nor is forwarded to the student's personal email address. This provides many communication errors for both students and staff. Staff email is used so often that people complain about the number of emails they receive. In planning with students the paper calendar prevails over the electronic calendar. If a test is planned but does not appear on the paper calendar, students can have it rescheduled.

5 Innovation
5.1 New Technologies (Behavioral: Islands/Resource: Islands)
No new technology has been implemented during the past year. Some staff is willing to experiment, but budgetary constraints make the necessary investments impossible at this point in time.

5.2 Comprehensive Technologies (Behavioral: Islands/Resource: Islands)

All classrooms are equipped with a smartboard and a teacher computers. These are generally used as overhead projectors and not to their full potential. There are two computer classrooms (32 and 20 desktops) and a media center (32 desktops), resulting in roughly one computer per nine students. Other tools are available in limited numbers: data recorders three MacBooks for video editing a laptop trolley There are no tablets or other mobile devices, no scanning facilities and no document cameras available at our location.

Conclusion
In general, I would categorize my school in the Islands stage. Some (or even most) of the resources and infrastructure are in place, but the use tends to be very operational. Curricular integration and activities aimed to develop strategic ICT skills and are few and far between. Policy regarding the use of technology is in place, but the planning and budgeting of technology use is very much in the emergent stage. In line with this finding, few stakeholders are involved in the planning and support system. A technical support department is in place, but no formal or informal training is offered. Connectivity is relatively good, as is to be expected in the Netherlands, and it is surprising to see that wifi is not available anywhere in the building. Email is used extensively by

staff and less so in communication with students. Verbal and paper notifications are still more important than electronic ones. The school is not very open to new technologies - not necessarily because staff are unwilling, but simply because staff are not offered the opportunity to work with new technology. Budgetary constraints offer an explanation, but in better economic times new technologies have also not had priority. I appreciate the fact that in this benchmark, both the formal resource and the informal behavioral aspect is taken into account. It discloses the (large) discrepancies between theory and practice.