Software is designed to be easily accessable and user friendly. When considering large scale puchases, which is why I assume there is a committe, cost is probably one of the first concerns, what is our budget? I personally feel "you get what you pay for", the extra expense involved with some software may be well worth it to save yourself and collegues time and frustration . It is the last item on the evaluation rubric so maybe others feel that way too.
Active Learning is also one of the criteria. Something I feel is imparative to education. There is no point in letting students mindlessly work through math problems. The program for me would need to be able to make them think and challenge them. One of my software choices was a math program. Elemetary students have so many facts they need to memorize.There has to be software that would let them practice and motivate students who do not want to use flashcards.
Grade level and State Standards are closely enough related that to get the best of one, the other would follow. Standards are important in making sure the lessons you teach are what students need to know to be able to move on. Grade level appropriate would depend on the student. Some will be ahead and some behind. I would want software that covers a broad area, at least a grade above and below the grade I was taeching. The versatility in the software would allow most if not all my students to be able to use a computer to practice at their level.
Writing and reading software were my other two choices. The evaluation of the hardware compatibility and save features are more important here. The math practice could be stopped and started without necessarily needing to be saved, but reports, projects, anything we are building or working on in steps would need to be able to be easily accessable and available to be printed, downloaded, manipulated and edited easliy.
I do not know enough about software to truly know what to look for. As I was considering the rubric, I was thinking what would be the easiest most time and cost effective software? I do not want to spend hours trying to teach third graders how to download information. But then it occured to me, that is what we deal with on a regular basis and why tech support and help features are evalated as well. One of the lessons in using the computer in any classroom could be how to problem solve and locate support for the issues you are experiencing with your system. I do not think the poor columns on the evaluation rubric are meant for that pupose but maybe something I would like to see considered, as the committe makes their choice. I would not choose anything I felt was poor but definatly would consider software that would allow my students to try and remedy the problems that arise.
I agree that software is suppose to be easy to understand and accessable but many times software is sometimes hard and confussing to understand, It also can be good to have different kinds of software but to have good software it can cost us teachers extra expense out of our pockets to get the software that is well worth the things that says "you get what you pay for" I totally agree with all the information that you have shared on your blog but the two pieces of information that I agree with 100% is active learning because I think that when you have an active learning mind and an active learning classroom students will become more engaged in what they are learning each day in the classroom. The second thing that I find most important to having help in the classroom is having hardware compatibility that sares information to help students with their projects such as reports, papers, and any other information that will help them in their futures to have an easy step by step process that can help them learn and better understand they material that they are given each year that they are in school.
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