Chapter 8: Integration of Evaluation into Technology Training: The Integration of Evaluation Into the University of Pittsburgh PT3 Project

In this chapter, the Pittsburgh Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) Project and its evaluation are described and the lessons learned from this 4-year experience are reviewed. This project took a unique view of the role of evaluation, which was to make it a joint responsibility of the PT3 director and the evaluation personnel, making it an integrated part of the project. The national PT3 goals were to address the fact that past efforts to reform education such that technology was an integral part of U.S. education had failed, and a new approach was needed. This project used a systemic approach that entailed making technology an essential part of the teacher education program in colleges and universities, so that new teachers were experts in technology use in teaching and learning before they took their first job. A second goal was to identify the nature and degree of the problems faced when making this a reality in the funded sites and the success of associated solutions. Thus, evaluation and research that delineated the problems and showed relationships between the processes used to implement meaningful change was expected to be an integral part of each PT3 Project. In Pittsburgh, this was the reality from the initial planning proposal until the end of project report over 4 years later.