Running head: TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

Technology Integration Proposal: The Answer Pad

Keshlae B. Baltrip

EDUC 5321 Curriculum Planning with technology

Professor Dr. Kristy Duckworth
East Texas Baptist University

June 30, 2015

Version 1.0

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

Introduction
School districts around the nation have been seeing huge budget cuts as of lately. These
budget cuts have gotten so severe that teachers are given a set amount of print paper and a set
amount of copies they are allowed to make for a semester and sometimes for the year. Why is
this important you may ask yourself, but what are the main learning resources we use in todays
classrooms? Handouts are the vast majority of how information is presented to the students and
how the students present what they have learned to teachers. The purpose of this technology
integration proposal is to help alleviate some of the monetary distress that is happening in school
districts due to budget cuts.
Education is usually one of the last budget areas to be cut, but most districts today are suffering
declines in both state and local funding. At the same time, many are also facing dramatic
increases in costs ranging from utilities to pension funds. With decreasing revenues and rising
costs, school districts are forced to make tough decisions if they are to balance their budgets and
still meet the needs of their students (Hill, J. 2010). Helping to cut the districts spendings
down on printing paper will ensure that teachers are not losing their jobs and students are not
getting the short end of the stick when it comes to limited or paperless instruction and
instructional feedback. Presenting an alternate way to assess students other than using paper is
the answer to this issue. Since the district is paying for paper it gives teachers a limited amount
to work with which either leaves the teachers short on their handout materials or spending their
own money to purchase more copy paper.
The application I am recommending the schools began to use in secondary middle and high
schools is called The Answer Pad. The Answer Pad is a student response system available for all
electronic devices including iPad, iPhone, Android and web browsers. This app is perfect for

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

school districts that are interested in the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) classrooms as well.
The Answer Pad is really made up of two parts. 1. The student response piece that lets students
go interactive with outstanding drawing features. 2. The answer sheets that score and capture
data from existing paper exams including full online reporting, the ability for students to show
their work, and a variety of question types (Admin, 2013). If the school is using the flipped
classroom method this app is beneficial and works for the instructional method as well.
Background to the Issue
The current use of technology on campuses includes projector screens, interactive
whiteboards, and using Microsoft office on the classroom computers. These technologies are
great form teacher and student use in the classroom and open up the classroom to endless
possibilities. The current beliefs about technology is it is a great way to have students engaged at
all points of the lesson. Although staff skill level may not be on the same level, there are plenty
of teachers who understand educational technology tools and application and have no problem
with assisting a fellow teacher if help is needed. There has been a growing desire for
implementing technology into classrooms and The Answer Pad is a great way to up our
technology use as a campus.
The only tools needed for The Answer Pad to be a functioning and working are electronic
devices. Almost all students have a type of mobile device or electronic tablet available to them.
The great thing about this application is it is not exclusive to just IOS systems, students can use
the application on the classroom computer if they do not own their own device. Inviting students
to use their phones, tablets, laptops, and etc. In class will help the students to stay engaged and
get excited about what is being taught and being able to give live feedback to the teacher via
electronics. Integrating this technology will allow the students to be exposed to different types

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

of assessments both formative and summative. This application will also help the students to
limit the amount of paper needed to practice their newly acquired knowledge, while ultimately
introducing them to more technology uses in the classroom besides the same mundane projector
and PowerPoint.
This application will fit into the current curriculum and instruction with ease. There will
be no significant change in in either curriculum or instruction. This application will simply be
added to help with student response and student assessments. To add The Answer Pad to the
curriculum would be a small addition to take out paper assessment and feedback and input the
use of the app. There will be a need for the teacher to teach the students how to use the
application, which should take place at the beginning of the school term.
Planning for Implementation
Training for the use of The Answer Pad application will take place before school has
started. The preferred training time would be during teacher in-service. The teachers and
administrators would only need training on how to create and account and to set up their classes
and students in the account. Once the educators have set up their accounts they can began the
YouTube tutorial and overview videos on how to create their tests and response systems for the
students to use and also how the students can be taught to use the app to respond. After the
educators have been taught to access the application website then they can move to installing the
app on their mobile devices. Follow up training will be conducted at the end of the first unit of
studies depending on how comfortable the teachers and students feel about their comprehension
of the application so far.
The beauty about The Answer Pad application is there is a free version which allows for
one teacher per account and up to 200 students to be registered to that teacher. With the free app

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

you can go interactive which allows the students to be engaged in the lesson as it is being taught,
have answer sheets that grade your tests for you in real time with student statistics available,
common core standards, portfolios with five captures, and 12 free templates. The free version of
The Answer Pad app has lots of features that will be beneficial to both teacher and student, but I
recommend the district buys the professional version of the application because it has more to
offer. The Teacher upgrade App costs annually $10 for a teacher and $1 per student. This
upgrade offers everything in the free version plus a template gallery, image uploader, image
annotation, portfolio unlimited, broadcast, customize standards, paperless solution, timed tests,
and data export.
The Answer Pad Plus is exactly what we are looking for with trying to cut down the expenses
due to budget cuts. To fund this technology, I believe it should be incorporated into the
technology budget as technology has a standard to be met by school leaders. Educational
leaders ensure that curricular design, instructional strategies, and learning environments integrate
appropriate technologies to maximize learning and teaching (Hopkins, 2002). If the technology
cannot be added to the technology budget, the free version should be used but it will be limited
once the teacher has reached 200 student point.
The people who are directly involved/impacted would be the students and teachers. The teachers
will have the training they need to teach their students what the app is for and how to use the app
for class. Once the students are signed up for a profile on the app they will need to download the
apps to their electronic devices of save it to their computers so it is ready for classroom use at all
times. This implementation will be led by the teachers in the classroom, and for teachers, it will
be led by the technology head or by the teacher who has grasped using the application the best.

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

Monitoring will take place by the teachers and administrators in the classrooms. The monitoring
will be done on a weekly basis for a month, after the first month of use no monitoring will be
required unless administrators feel the need to. The timeline for implementation would be the
first month of school and that would involve getting the teachers and the students comfortable
with using the application instead of paper copies.
Evaluating The Answer Pad would be done by school administration and teachers as well. This
evaluation will be over the ease of use for both student and teacher. This could be done by using
the app as well, but it would be more of evaluating on a scale one to five comparing the use of
the app to a regular copy handout. Getting input from both teacher and student about how they
feel the application has helped apart of the evaluations. I believe these evaluations should be
done at the end of the first term this technology is implemented.
Proposed Integration
Those involved in the implementation of The Answer Pad app will be the teachers in the
classroom. They will inform the students how they will be allowed to bring in their own
electronic devices to participate in class and to take tests. The teachers will also walk the
students through the steps of downloading the application and going to the website and setting up
a user profile. Once the students have downloaded the app to their preferred device the teacher
will give them the access code for the class profile and the learning can start. Because this
technology offers so many features and step by step guides students will learn to navigate and
explore its features with ease.
Conclusion
The Answer Pad application is the answer to budget cuts effecting print paper. With this
application the district can save the money it would normally spend on copy paper and spend it

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

elsewhere that monetary assistance is needed. This application will provide the teacher a way to
engage the students, and the student motivation to learn by incorporating their electronic devices
into the lessons, while also including real time feedback. I strongly propose the district backing
of this technology not only because of all the features but because students and teachers suffer a
lot and get the short hand of the stick when budget cuts come into play and this application can
help alleviate some of that strain. With so many features this app has for the free version and the
endless amount for the professional version The Answer Pad is a great asset to have in any
school district.

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

References
Evan, A. (2014, January 23). The Answer Pad Enhancing Student Engagement in a BYOD or 1
to 1 Environment. Retrieved from http://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/01/the-answerpad-enhancing-student-engagement-in-a-byod-environment/
James, S. (2014, April 30). TEI Tip: The Answer Pads Steps Up to Capture Student Data in Go
Interactive! Retrieved from http://teitemplates.blogspot.com/2014/04/tei-tip-answer-padssteps-up-to-capture.html
The Answer Pad: BYOD Student Response System. (2013, April 16). Retrieved from
http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=4992
Hull, J. (2010, October 7). Cutting to the bone: How the economic crisis affects schools.
Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Publiceducation/Cutting-to-the-bone-At-a-glance/Cutting-to-the-bone-How-the-economiccrisis-affects-schools.html
The Answer Pad. (2013, March 5). The Answer Pad (TAP) Overview Videos. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAnswerPad/featured
Hopkins, G. (2002, June 18). Technology Standards for School Leaders Released. Retrieved
from
http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin247.shtml#sthash.Y5xTQI0z.dpuf

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

Appendix A

Student Name: Keshlae Baltrip

The student and the instructor will complete a column of the rubric. Each
will decide the number of points granted for each section. The student is
expected to evaluate themselves fairly and thoroughly. An average of the
two scores will be found to determine the final grade for the assignment.
Criteria

Points
Possible

SelfEvaluation

APA formatting

15

15

Writing etiquette, structure, and mechanics

25

25

Introduction Significance; Convincing

25

20

Background

50

45

Planning for Implementation Complete and

thorough

70

70

Proposal Complete, specific and plausible with data

driven decisions and research based statistics

70

70

Conclusion Persuasive and viable

25

25

Presentation Clearly correlates with written proposal

and is well delivered/articulated Base your score on
your practice of your presentation

20

20

Total Points

300

290

Instructor
Evaluation

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION PROPOSAL: THE ANSWER PAD

Appendix B

10