Is Technology Illuminating?

My school site recently began using a system call Illuminate. This system can grade tests instantly and print up a detailed report on commonly missed questions or areas where a teacher should focus on more. It also provides a place where teachers can easily access previous STAR test results, CELD Test results and a number of other statistics or data about their students and school as a whole. It connects teachers and provides a place for discussion about students, teaching styles, exams and much more. While this is all great in theory, this technology is not a big hit with anyone. When they first heard that we would be using this system, teachers were very excited to see how connected everything would be. But after spending several weeks just trying to get it to work, that excitement died and bitter resentment was born. The system was just not performing as intended. There were also difficulties for teachers who had older computers that would not support the software. We later learned that this was a Pilot Test for our district! So not only had this not been tested out before, but we were required to use this to give out all of our district mandated benchmarks. After weeks and weeks of grief, multiple visits from tech support and very disgruntled teachers, there seemed to be some hope. Almost all of the teachers have given the first benchmark and successfully used the Illuminate system to upload the scores. While the idea is great, I think that before implementing it into a school and requiring that teachers use it, the company needs to make sure that it works properly AND the district needs to make sure that they have the necessary technology available for all teachers.