Summary of Key Findings
Districts were asked to name their top priorities, related to education technology that they thought that ERAC should be aware of and, perhaps, raise with the Ministry of Education on behalf of school districts. The results from this question were sometimes surprising but overall quite similar across districts.
Tools cannot be utilized properly if they are not reliable and this contributes to pain points in other
areas. SD23 – Central Okanagan reports, “Bandwidth is a major issue...Insufficient bandwidth, particularly
at our elementary schools causes ongoing issues.”
- Most districts reported that where technology is readily available, it has had a significant impact on educational opportunities, both online and in the classroom. Results reflected a unanimous desire to increase students’ use of technology.
- More than half of the districts ranked network bandwidth as their top priority; access to technology (by students and teachers) was also key.
- Professional development needs followed closely behind infrastructure and access as a concern. Asked what they would do if district technology funding were made more of a priority, over 96% of respondents reported that they would make either a moderate or great investment in professional development for staff, teachers and administrators.
- Distributed learning was a lower priority, indicating a somewhat surprising lack of focus in this area. This area may well be a niche that is overshadowed by other pressing concerns. Its lower priority may also reflect respondents’ low level of involvement with their district’s distributed learning program because many of these programs operate as quite separate entities within a district.
- Funding continues to be an ongoing issue as 43% reported that securing funding for hardware, software and peripherals was their first or second biggest issue, followed closely by the need to replace outdated equipment. It is interesting to note that over 80% of districts now have an ongoing plan in place to upgrade and replace outdated hardware, a vast improvement over five years ago. Funding has also had a major impact on districts’ ability to hire IT staff to support and lead technology initiatives.
From analysis of the data, several core themes emerged: Infrastructure, Access, Professional Development, Distributed Learning and New Technologies. These are discussed in the following sections.