Matt Frey is a data guy. As Executive Director of Instructional Technology at Plano ISD in Texas, he often slips into his district’s sea of digital usage data to understand student engagement, direct budget planning, find power users and more. But sometimes, he’ll dig around without specific goals or questions in mind, exploring until the numbers fall into a pattern or tell a story about his district’s digital successes—and dilemmas.

“It's important and appropriate to go into data looking for answers to specific questions. But I find it's sometimes just as valuable to go in there without an agenda or specific context, just reserve time to poke about in your data and let it speak to you,” explains Frey.

Frey’s tool of choice for exploring usage data in his district is ClassLink Analytics, a feature included in ClassLink's Single Sign-On platform. The data pinpoints usage and engagement with any application or resource accessed through ClassLink’s LaunchPad at the district, school, grade, class, or even individual student level. Frey and his team can see how often students log in to an app, how much time they spend in the app, and even the time of day they logged in. That data helps his team make informed decisions around subscription renewals and professional development, quickly detect technical issues, and more.

EdSurge caught up with Frey to learn how he uses data to support his district. He shared his thoughts on the big-picture impact of analytics and gave us a sneak peek at the eye-opening new analytics tool that he says has uncovered some misconceptions in his district.

Read the full article about using data to support school districts by Wendy McMahon at EdSurge.