Using PILOT |
Quick Start |
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Step 1: Create a New Account. |
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| Step 2: Fill out the Survey. | |
| Step 3: View Growth Opportunities to find classes matched to your skill level, or Search for classes that interest you. | |
| Step 4: Return to the site periodically for a reassessment as your skills grow. |
To take the PILOT assessment, start with Create a New Account. You will be prompted to identify where you work, establish a login and password. You may go in anytime thereafter and Update your Profile for editing your profile (changes to district, school, email, password, etc.). Please keep your profile up to date. Login if you're a returning user.
Next, choose Enter Survey. Here you will see the following Survey Categories:
Productivity Skills: Skills needed for daily operation and the use common technology tools and information resources to increase personal and professional effectiveness.
Educator’s Personal/Professional Use: Skills needed to use technology to locate and manage information, construct knowledge, interact, collaborate, and publish.
Student Use/Classroom Integration: Skills needed to be able to integrate technology into classroom activities in creating a student-centered learning environment.
Technical Skills: Skills needed to troubleshoot, install, and maintain hardware, software, and networks.
Survey questions are divided among the categories, which take 20-30 minutes each to complete. The survey is designed to be taken in sections so that you don't have to complete it all in one sitting. Categories contain individual assessments on each of the following subcategories:
Productivity Skills: Core Concepts Skills, Database Skills, Graphics Skills, Internet Skills, Multimedia Skills, Presentation Skills, Publishing Skills, Spreadsheet Skills, Word Processing Skills
Educator’s Personal/Professional Use: Communication, Ethical Use of Intellectual Property, Presentation Skills, Publishing Skills, Research, Using Assessment & Other Data to Guide Instruction, Video and Graphical Design Skills
Student Use/Classroom Integration: Student Assessment Using Technology, Student-Centered Technology Integration
Technical Skills (for technology support staff only): Hardware Installation, Hardware Maintenance, Hardware Troubleshooting, Network Installation, Network Maintenance, Network Troubleshooting, Software Installation, Software Maintenance, Software Troubleshooting.
Categories are classified in two ways: Levels of Proficiency and Levels of Application. Those categories of skills that speak to an educator’s introductory knowledge and ability in areas not necessarily related to the classroom are grouped in Levels of Proficiency and include Productivity Skills and Technical Skills. The categories that go to the next level where an educator actually uses a skill in a personal or classroom application are grouped in Levels of Application and include Educator’s Personal/Professional Use and Student Use/Classroom Integration.
Depending on the particular survey, you will either rate yourself according to the rubric description that most accurately describes your skills or check the statements that most accurately reflect your knowledge and skills. It is better to underestimate your skills, especially the first time you take the survey. Click on Submit Answers. From this page, you can see the completed and still-to-be-completed subcategories.
Each category level is more sophisticated than the last. If you're a novice when it comes to technology and this list seems overwhelming, don't worry! Just do what you can in the Productivity category. Then PILOT will generate training recommendations and charts. Or, if you've been using technology in your classroom for years, you might want to start off with the Educator’s Personal/Professional Use category. Later, you can go back and take the earlier sections to be sure you've mastered the basics. Designed to allow you complete flexibility, PILOT will save your responses for future reference and comparison.
Once you have completed any given subcategory of the PILOT assessment, PILOT produces a summary chart that shows your results for its related category. You may also view detailed charts of subcategories. PILOT saves the results for the three most recent times you’ve taken an assessment, showing the last chart in red and previous charts in blue, for comparisons.
The charts are oriented as horizontal bars that extend from 0 to 3 in increasing levels of proficiency or application. Categories classified as Proficiency use these levels: Entry, Intermediate, and Proficient. Categories classified as Application display bars on a scale with these levels: Emerging, Adaptive, and Transformational. Definitions of levels:
Levels of Proficiency:
Entry: Minimal or no experience with tool beyond an awareness level
Intermediate: Working knowledge and experience on a personal level but often needs help
Proficient: Quickly performs advanced operations with ease and can instruct others
Levels of Application:
Emerging: Instruction is teacher centered with an awareness of a variety of presentation tools
Adaptive: Experimentation with collaborative and student-directed learning
Transformational: Reflects upon integration of tools as part of instruction, instruction is oriented toward constructing meaning, and role in classroom is as facilitator and active learner
Based on your individual results, PILOT generates a list of training opportunities that would advance your skill level. These workshops are held at various Educational Services Districts throughout the state with those in ESDs where you reside highlighted in yellow. Follow the links for each workshop to view correlated ISTE Standards for Teachers, Skill Level Recommendations, and registration information.
Not only will training opportunities appear as a result of taking the survey, but they can also be displayed from the home page. Calendar of Events displays workshops month by month with workshops at your local ESD highlighted in yellow. To view workshops by ESD, use the filtering option at the bottom of the page. Using the Class/Workshop Search, you may type any part of a workshop title, and a list of workshops containing that string of characters will appear. Advanced Search will allow more detailed searches on topics such as ISTE Standards, date, and instructor.
Your responses to the assessment tools are confidential. PILOT will not provide individual assessment results to your principal, your superintendent or anyone else. When you login to PILOT, you'll be asked for your login and password that secures your results. If you’ve forgotten either of these, choose Forgot Username/Password? provided at the bottom of every page and you will receive a response in your email.
While your individual results will never be shared with anyone, the aggregated responses from your own school can be viewed. District superintendents may request aggregated survey results for each building by contacting their local ESD Ed Tech Director. All users may view a report that aggregates all the responses in the entire state. PILOT is a powerful tool that helps educational leaders identify broad gaps in education technology training—and take steps to fill those gaps to ultimately improve student achievement.
Be watching for the following additional categories in the near future:
- Educational Leadership Skills
- Learning at a Distance
- Administrative Leadership Skills
