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The Need for New Models

Many schools, districts, researchers, and educators across the globe are working on methods and procedures to evaluate technology integration. Discovering the impact of technology requires you evaluating technology within a larger system.

Program evaluation has changed over the past 30 years. 10 Key to this change is a new focus on multiplicity. Program evaluation now requires multiple methods, measures, criteria, and perspectives, and must satisfy multiple audiences with multiple interests. Learning environments are often part of larger, more complex systems, and evaluation models must reflect this complexity. Some researchers suggest that the components of complex systems—including technologies, teachers, and social services—cannot be isolated for study. 11 The outcomes associated with teaching and learning in these systems are also complex and call for sophisticated research strategies. School leaders face the task of measuring and demonstrating the effectiveness of technology with a variety of methods, rubrics, and tools. 12, 13, 14