Klein Independent School District led the country on the number of Speak Up surveys for years. What value do they see in participating in Project Tomorrow’s survey? In a Speak Up publication, Dr. Bret Champion, superintendent of Klein ISD, answered that question by saying, “The data we gather from Speak Up informs next steps for digital learning in Klein ISD, as we work with all stakeholders to re-imagine learning and make our shared Promise2Purpose vision a reality for EVERY student.”
Last month, I wrote a post giving a broad overview of Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up Survey. As a refresher, the Speak Up survey is a national research project that is a free service to schools and districts to assist their efforts in technology and district planning. The survey will help districts gather the thoughts of students, parents, teachers, principals, librarians, technology leaders, district administrators, and community members on a range of issues such as:
- Learning and teaching with mobile devices, digital content, gaming, videos, and virtual and augmented reality
- Internet access at home and in school
- Importance of math and the best ways to learn math
- Digital citizenship
- And much more!
As a former technology director, I totally agree with Dr. Champion’s assessment of the Speak Up survey which is why I’m hoping more districts will join Klein. That’s why I reached out to some districts who have been utilizing the data from the Speak Up survey for several years to find out their tips and tricks for the deployment of the survey. Below is what I learned.
How to Increase Staff Participation in the Survey
- Provide tweets and other social media messages/images that campuses can use to promote the survey.
- Hang posters announcing the survey at the entrance of each school.
- Send survey instructions to each teacher to share with students through Google Classroom or other Learning Management Systems.
- Provide an award for the campus with the most responses.
- Provide presentations for each campus regarding survey results for use with their technology planning meetings.
Increasing Speak Up Participation by Parents/Community
- Tweet out messages about Speak Up.
- Send emails through the district’s message system at the district and campus level.
- Post information about the survey on the district Facebook page.
- Provide information with the Speak Up logo on all campus and district websites.
- Put promotional messages on each school marquee.
Why Participate?
- The data from the Speak Up survey is extremely useful for technology planning both at the district and campus levels.
- Questions have been vetted for quality and relevance.
- It is free and enables us to collect information through one survey instead of having to create our own.
- All the promotional materials are provided.
TCEA is so convinced this survey will assist districts in their technology planning that we are giving away two free TCEA Convention registrations to Texas school districts who submit their surveys during Speak Up America week (December 4-8), or Speak Up Appreciation Week (January 8-12).
Hopefully, some of the ideas offered by school districts can assist your school and/or district in promoting the survey, and a chance to win a free TCEA convention registration will provide an added incentive to participate. If you have any additional tips and tricks to share, please include them in the comment section below.
Credits: Microphone photo by Kane Reinholdtsen on Unsplash, Teen with laptop: Photo by Mikayla Mallek on Unsplash. Also a big shout out to Dianne Tidwell, the Director of Instructional Technology at Tomball ISD, for providing me with some great tips on how Tomball gets such amazing participation in the survey.
