2.0 Project Abstract:

Wicomico County is located in Salisbury, Maryland and currently services a population of approximately 14,000 students. Due to cutbacks in hardware funding over the past four years, increased repairs on aging technology, and the new rigorous requirements of No Child Left Behind in the areas of reading and math, Wicomico County needs to implement handheld technology because of its affordability and reliability. Handheld devices will provide increased access for teachers to collect and analyze data more efficiently and for teachers to use with students to support reading and math instruction. As a result of this project the following number of participants will be served: 60 teachers and 200 students as well as 1500 students indirectly served by teacher data group.

The goal of the project is for 80% of students involved to score higher than non-participating students on various measures that are indicators of achievement such as county based formative math and reading assessments, homework completion and classroom engagement, thus positively impacting MSA scores. The project objectives are for 6 teachers and 200 students, to use handheld computers and software resources to enhance reading and math instruction, and for 60 additional teachers to use handheld computers and software resources to facilitate the process of data driven decision making to enhance reading and math instruction.

In order to meet our goals we will implement the following strategies:

Each teacher participating in the project will receive ongoing training and support through a project website with a variety of resources.

Each teacher participating in the project will participate in 15 hours of professional development.

Each student participating in the student portion of the project will be assigned a handheld computer and keyboard for the year.

Each student participating in the student portion of the project will use a handheld computer and keyboard for at least 30% of their instructional time throughout the year.

Each teacher participating in the data-driven portion of the project will be assigned a mentor, someone who previously went through the project, who will help problem solve and provide support throughout the project.

Each teacher participating in the data-driven portion of the project will receive ongoing training and support through a project website with a variety of resources.