Region 10 RIMS CTAP is pleased to report that once again we have received a more than passing "grade" on our annual report from our outside evaluators Educational Support Systems, Inc. (ESS). In their report, ESS noted that all of our Goals and Objectives in all four Performance Areas (PA), were met or exceeded, except one (see below).

The California Department of Education (CDE), requires that all CTAP regions must address four program areas –

1. Professional development and learning resources to use technology as a tool to improve teaching and learning;

2. Professional development and support for hardware and telecommunications infrastructure design, implementation, and sustainability;

3. Professional development and support to use technology as a tool to improve school management, including pupil record-keeping and tracking for pupil instruction and data driven decision making;

4. Funding and coordination with other federal, state, and local programs.

Each of these program areas has goals and annual objectives. In 2007-2008, Region 10 RIMS CTAP met or exceeded all of the annual benchmarks. The one benchmark that was not achieved had to do with the statewide CALPADS system. To date, the CDE has not advised any of the eleven CTAP regions on what is expected of them to support CALPADS.

We are also happy to report that in all of the program areas, participants responded very positively to the effectiveness of the workshops they attended. In all four program areas, respondents indicated their “readiness and potential to use the knowledge acquired” with all percentages ranging in the 80s and 90s.

At the end of each school year, ESS sends out a request for feedback from the users of Region 10 RIMS CTAP services. We want to thank all of those who responded to the survey as those responses provided us with valuable information on the effect of our work in the districts, as well as providing us with data regarding your needs in the field. Many respondents also chose to provide comments to ESS regarding our services:

• Excellent hands-on instruction, great resources and materials!

• I am a seasoned teacher who never had much experience with technology, so this program was helpful and non-intimidating because of the great instructors we had.

• The CTAP workshops I have attended have targeted my immediate needs – not just ‘technology’ workshops in general. I rely on CTAP to provide these types of workshops for my staff and teachers at our school sites.

• The hands-on learning workshops where we collaborated with colleagues and prepared lessons for our individual classrooms were most helpful.

ESS also provided us with suggestions on improving our services in the region:

• I am looking for ways to get more technology into my students’ hands. Any information on funds available, grants, etc. would be helpful. (Repsonse: Approximately once each month a "Technology Funding Alert" newsletter is emailed to interested parties. Please click here for further information.)

• More information on use of technology to improve curriculum planning, charting student progress, and providing parents/districts with educational progress reports. Assistive technology for severely handicapped students.

• Send representatives to school site to demonstrate new technology to administrators. (Response: Region 10 CTAP Staff is available to attend district meetings. Please contact your CTAP district liaison for details.)

• Offer training at different levels. I was having difficulty keeping up because it was all new to me. I really enjoyed seeing what others were capable of doing with their experience.

• Provide higher-level sessions for Interwrite Pad, SmartBoard, Clicker Systems, and PodCasting. Introductory sessions were wonderful, but an advanced session for people already using technology would be even better. (Response: Please check our Professional Development offerings. We are developing "advanced" classes as follow-up to our Digital Classroom workshops as well as our iTELL workshops.)

• Quarterly reminders from CTAP (in the form of an emailed newsletter) providing information on what CTAP can do for my school. (Response: Subscribe to the RIMS CTAP Newsletter and get the latest CTAP news in your email inbox.)

• Offer workshops year-round. Many of our schools are 4-track and D-track schools, and there is no training when we are in session in July and August. (Response: Contact your CTAP liaison to arrange workshops in your district. With varying schedules in school districts, it's difficult to schedule workshops to accomodate off track teachers. In these cases, we tend to work with districts on an individual basis.)

• More of the same. If CTAP had more funding, it could provide more frequent and personalized service to our district without a cost barrier for us. (Response: We like that idea, too!)

Many of these suggestions have been incorporated into our 3-year plan’s benchmarks for 2008-2011. You should be seeing some of the suggestions in place this year!

We again want to thank you for your input!

The full report is available for download by clicking here.