TBLOGICAL

Have you ever been to Southeast Arkansas? Chances are, not. I’ve been coming to Arkansas for six years and yesterday was the first time I set foot in the place. I’m sorry I waited so long; it was a treat!

First was getting there. I left Little Rock yesterday morning and, within minutes, urban life was behind me and I was cruising along Interstate 530 cushioned on each side by verdant woodland alive with the bright new leaves of spring. Once I left the Interstate, my route transitioned from woodland to a rural landscape dotted with tilled fields, horses, goats, churches and screened porches. Two hours after leaving Arkansas’s capital city, I arrived in Monticello, a city of 9,000+ inhabitants and the self-proclaimed “economic, educational and cultural center of Southeast Arkansas.”

Tommy Tyler, assistant superintendent of Monticello School District (and a TICAL cadre member!) welcomed me and took me on a tour of Monticello High School. The highlight there was my visit to Keturah West’s EAST Lab where senior Will Hunter was making some final edits to video podcasts produced by other students.

Later in the day, I visited the Southeast Arkansas Education Service Cooperative. Karen Eoff, assistant director (and a TICAL cadre member and Tommy’s twin sister!), gave me a tour of their facility. I learned about everything from the Hippy program to how the cooperative helps districts do Medicaid direct-services billing in support of their Special Education programs. From an educational technology perspective, the most fascinating stop on the tour was the Early College High School Program. Serving 1500 students across Arkansas, it’s a wonderful example of how technology can increase educational opportunities for all students, regardless of where they may live.

This morning, I got to spend quality time at Monticello Middle School where I saw two excellent teachers using technology as a tool of teaching. In my job I get to see technology used in a lot of classrooms, and too often, it seems to drive instruction, instead of the other way around. The class is not doing math, it’s doing “podcasts.” Kids are not writing essays in English class, they’re “doing PowerPoints.”

In both the classes I observed at Monticello Middle School, the technology was subservient to the instructional goals. The students in Lisa Brown’s science class had been studying Newton’s Laws of Motion. For review, Lisa showed clips from a MythBusters episode and called on students to identify laws exemplified in the clips. Math teacher Monica Sims had traded her chalk and blackboard for an Interwrite pad and board and was using both effortlessly to develop the concept of symmetry. In addition, she had the students using “old” technology such as MIRAs™, mirrors and rulers.

Southeast Arkansas may not be on Fodor’s Hot List, but if you want to visit a beautiful, welcoming place and see some state-of-the-art technology integration at the same time, you can’t go wrong here.

Even though California, home to Silicon Valley, has historically spent more per student than Arkansas on elementary and secondary education, Arkansas outperforms California in technology access and use in its K-12 schools. What might account for this and what can the two states learn from one another? TICAL cadre members from each of the two states discussed that question at the Leadership 3.0 Symposium last week. They were:

• Harry Dickens, Director of Technology, Texarkana School District
• Phoebe Bailey, Teacher Center Coordinator, Southwest Arkansas Education Co-operative
• Butch Owens, Director of Student Support, Murrieta Unified School District
• Bob Price, Superintendent, Empire School District.

It was my honor to moderate the discussion. Here are notes I took during the lively exchange.

• The states are very different in size. The entire K-12 enrollment in Arkansas is 450,000 students, considerably less than Los Angeles Unified School District, California’s largest district.
• Every certificated employee in Arkansas must have six hours of professional development in technology every year. Even retired teachers must have this training to keep their credentials active! On the other hand, California requires technology-related professional development only for principals of low-performing schools.
• Arkansas has 15 regional centers (”co-ops”) that provide professional development and other technology support for the state’s districtis; there are 11 California Technology Assistance Projects providing the same service to the entire state of California.
• Both states have a statewide high-speed network, but their use and implementation is very different. In California, the network extends to each county office of education, but varies greatly from that point on. Arkansas provides a T-1 connection to every district and co-op. Both states use their statewide network for various kinds of professional development.
• California has no student standards for technology; Arkansas adopted the ISTE NETS for Students. Both states have additional technology standards embedded in curriculum.
• Arkansas has a single student information system, housed at the state level. In California there is no statewide system in place yet and great variation around the state. Lots of information is collected in different places, but not integrated.

At our Leadership 3.0 Symposium yesterday, a great panel of educators shared their thoughts and experiences on the topic, “Getting Teachers to Use the Stuff: Supporting Technology Integration in the Classroom.” Panel members were:

• Lisa Gonzales, Principal, Palo Alto Unified School District
• Jim Scoolis, Principal, San Luis Coastal Unified School District
• John White, Principal, Los Angeles Unified School District
• Becci Gillespie, Superintendent-Principal, Pleasant Grove Joint Union School District

Much to our surprise, this was a jam-packed session. Fifty or more people crammed themselves into a meeting room set for 30. Some sat on the floor, some brought chairs from other rooms, and some just stood peering in from the door.

Discussion focused on four questions. Yours truly moderated the panel and took some notes which are shared below.

1. An assumption here is that our teachers have forms of technology available to them that they might integrate into their everyday practice. What are some examples of technologies that your teachers do have available to them but which they are just not using, or not using to advantage?

• Internet applications such as Google Docs, video streaming resources, Moodle, online classroom tools, Turnitin, Hotmath. Do use desktop applications e.g. Microsoft Office suite, Accelerated Reader, E-mail, Rosetta Stone. Vantage MyAccess.
• John bought 3 year license for MyAccess for $45,000, plus three Mac laptop carts that could be shared. Less than 20% of teachers are using these tools. There has been ample training, but still hesitancy. (Though some teachers who do use it are sold on it.).
• Is it realistic to expect teachers to buy into “anytime tools” and work 24/7?

2. Most teachers are devoted to doing everything they can to help their students learn. Why do many well-intentioned teachers shy away from using technology?

• Dead time: the technology fails. No one right there to save you. When that happens a couple times, you decide not to touch the stuff in the future.
• Lack of time and flexibility in use of time; you don’t have the time to search for and learn to use resources.
• Some teachers don’t see the technology as the answer to their problem.
• If it is not monitored, “it’s optional.” One reason not used is if the expectation from the top is just not there, especially if the leader is not looking for the use, praising its effective use, making it a clear priority.
• With a group of teachers who are comfortable with technology, as principal, let me come in and watch you use some of the stuff; you pick the subject; AND I will not penalize you in anyway if the technology fails on you; reward the risk-taking.
• Lack of familiarity
• Feeling pressured by mandated tests, pacing plans
• When students collaborate on projects, much time is wasted.
• Difficulty in envisioning an effective way of dealing with all the CA state standards ands till have students work in some are in depth.
• Even when it works, if it is hassle to use, it won’t get used.
• Proximity–i.e. often the technology is “away.” It’s in a lab down the hall. It needs to be right here where and when you need to use it.
• Home access issues–teachers worry that not all their students have the equipment at home to follow through with technology related assignments.
• Passwords! The intricacies of logging into various sites, tools, etc. Sharing passwords to make it easier and then encountering the problems of people/kids knowing passwords they should not, virtual vandalism, etc.
• The various security procedures that just make it so cumbersome to do things.
• Fear of loss or damage (teacher who did not use laptop for a year waiting for a lockdown device).
• Communication–or lack thereof–can be a problem here as everywhere. “My printer won’t work” (and whom did you tell so we could fix it?).
• Need to see how the technology does something better for them, helps them reach student outcomes more effectively than doing without the technology.
• Using technology in large group settings can waste the teacher as a skilled resource; why pay for the highly trained teacher to watch kids work at computers?

3. What is one example of an approach or method you’ve used that has increased the number of your teachers who are integrating technology effectively?

• Bringing the wireless lab to the faculty meeting and using it there.
• Bring in one or two parents who are comfortable with the technology and can be a kind of support, get equipment ready, etc.
• Have teachers collaborate on a project, help one another.
• Teach teachers how to plug the stuff in. In other words, help them know some of the basic of technology so small things don’t overwhelm them.
• Summer Institutes for teachers, and attendance required in order to use the new equipment.
• Revise teacher use policies so that there is more realistic expectations regarding loss or damage to equipment checked out to individual staff.
• Adopt an effective model of change and change management (e.g. CBAM).
• Context is critical. What works here may not work there.
• “Put teachers first.” If they are not comfortable with the technology, have access to it, how will they use it with the students?
• Practice “enticement.” Take the technology out of the lab and put it in the teachers’ hands and give them training in its use. In this example, the equipment became “theirs.” They could experiment with it at home. Started with volunteers, probably the early adopters. They generated excitement. And a coaching model grew out of this in which the early adopters had some release time to work with colleagues. Use of subs to release teachers to work together on how they would use the technology. Capacity building within the staff. Included discussions of what it feels like to go through this sort of change. And, “Do you realize you are asking your students to stretch like this every day?” In fact, you are modeling this.
• Banking minutes every week to make professional growth time available one day a week. Technology may be a topic at that time, or may simply be a tool used in the process of working on something else.
• Teachers over the summer have created PowerPoint presentations or other materials or technology-supports for lessons–support this and then facilitate the sharing of what gets created.
• Simple, searchable databases of standards-based resources (e.g. CLRN)
• Remove obstacles! Do everything you can to make it easier to use the stuff.
• Model it! The leader must use the stuff themselves, “walk the talk” in this as all things.
• Help them with it yourself (climb under the table and plug it in, if need be!)
• Using technology in classroom observations.
• Set an expectation and then monitor performance. May even want to build this into the evaluation process.
• Go with early adopters. Go with “the willing.” Create a critical mass of people. Get these people into summer workshops and other professional development experiences. Once other teachers see those early adopters having success with their students because of the technology, they will venture forth and give it a try.
• Introduce video and audio recording equipment and software–things that help teachers engage students.
• Use a variety of approaches to fit different teacher and personality styles. Don’t use ‘one-size fits all” professional development.
• Have someone there when they run into trouble, especially someone non-judgmental.
• Gather a core group and focus a whole day on technology. Started with getting their own laptops (not one that must be shared). As day progressed, identified people who were experts at one program or another, or at least had some good knowledge, and had them present mini-lessons to the software or tool during the latter part of the day. Also, pairing teachers with complementary skills/knowledge. Slowly but surely. Also getting parents’ buy in (and financial support, in this case). Also, sometimes “surprise” — example, providing a LCD projector for each teachers with a pre-trained parent to offer some support.
• Teachers must be comfortable, regular users if they are going to use it with their kids.
• There is an emotional component to all of this. It has to have an element of fun.
• Emphasize the “work smarter, no harder” mantra.
• If you expect teachers to use the stuff well, it is going to take time outside of school.
• Computer purchase assistance plans such as low or no-interest loans for purchase of personal computers.

4. If you could change just one of the “givens” you currently face that would make it much easier to get more teachers to integrate technology effectively, what would it be?

• Teachers would buy their own computers and consider them an essential tool of the trade.
• Professional ethics would pervail. Teachers would see technology as critical to being effective in pedagogy as well as classroom management, and simply invest the time to master the necessary technology tools and skills.

Evidence is building that we face a climate crisis. Today at our TICAL Arkansas conference, keynote speaker Sir Ken Robinson warned us that we also face a second and equally troubling “human resources crisis.” The future is unpredictable. If the students in our charge are going to survive, let alone thrive, in an unpredictable future, they must be creative. They must be able to think divergently. Yet current educational practice, little changed since invented to meet the predictable demands of the Industrial Age, stifles creativity and divergent thinking.

Amen. So what do we do to fix it?

First, says Sir Ken, we need to adopt new metaphors for education. I whole-heartedly agree. Since I’ve been in education, the medical metaphor has been popular. Teachers are doctors. Students are patients. Teachers diagnose needs of students, then prescribe and administer appropriate drugs and therapies (in education, we call these “interventions”). This metaphor implies that students are “sick.” After all, we don’t go to the doctor when we feel fine, only when we’ve a serious ache or pain. Sir Ken criticizes the medical metaphor because he believes it too often “mistakes the symptom for the problem.”

What new metaphor should we adopt? How about agriculture. Farmers do not make crops grow, as much as they might wish to do so. They can only affect the conditions, says Sir Ken, so that crops may grow. Adopt the agricultural metaphor and we educators should be tilling, fertilizing, and watering not testing, diagnosing, and prescribing.

In practical terms, what should we do tomorrow? Sir Ken suggest three things:

1. Reconsider the current hierarchy of school subjects. Math and science truly are critical. No one doubts that. But art, music, dance—any aesthetic education—is equally critical.
2. Do everything we can to develop and support good teachers. The better the teaching, the better the learning.
3. Cultivate imagination. It sets humans apart from other species, and it’s a prerequisite of innovation and problem solving.

Happily, Sir Ken received a standing ovation from the 300 administrators in the audience. For some, he opened eyes. For others he eloquently articulated inchoate thoughts and opinions. As for me, I was on the verge of tears when he concluded his talk. Why? We’ll leave that for another blog entry, but it wasn’t allergies, and I was not alone in the reaction.

When I was in elementary school, nurses came to my school and gave us all shots of something called “Salk vaccine.” Everyone knew it would protect us from a bad disease called polio. My friend’s mom had polio and I knew it was an awful thing. She couldn’t breath by herself anymore and lived in a huge machine called an iron lung.

Memories of my childhood vaccinations replayed for me today when I attended a meeting of the Select Committee on Schools and Community of the California State Senate, chaired by Senator Tom Torlakson. The meeting took place at the Jonas Salk High-Tech Academy in Sacramento’s San Juan Unified School District and addressed the topic “Policy Options for Enhancing Technology in California Schools.” The meeting was a very enlightening experience in two ways. First, the “testimony” was fascinating. Second, at the end of the meeting, those of us who wished were treated to a tour of the school.

During the meeting, nine people spoke on three topics: “Why Education Technology Makes Sense,” “Lessons from the Field,” and “Thoughts on Moving California Forward.” The speakers ranged from the district’s superintendent to one of the Academy’s students. Perhaps the most provocative recommendations came from the first speaker, Ned Davis, of the National Education Foundation. He urged California’s legislators to:

1. Act now, on a large scale, to implement what we already know works.
2. Set an example for the nation.
3. Create flexible learning environments.
4. Create an independent, education re-engineering team.
5. Create an independent technology innovation systems design team.
6. Invest 30% of educational technology budgets in professional development.
7. Plan and budget long-term for technology integration.
8. Invest heavily in anytime-anywhere blended learning.
9. Reinvent the curriculum and integrate 21st century skills.
10. Deal with the elephants in the room.

Following the testimony, Amanda Richards, an eighth-grader at the school, took me to visit several classrooms at the school so I could see just what “high-tech” at Jonas Salk is. Of course, in a 30-minute whirlwind tour I could get only a cursory impression, but it was clear the school was using technology as an integral part of instruction in every class, every day. Though students are not issued individual laptop computers, laptops are readily available in most classrooms. Students can grab any laptop and log into their school network account. From there they can do research on the Internet or read, study, share documents, or engage in collaborative work in their Moodle environment.

For this older school to accommodate the newly introduced technology, many creative modifications were necessary. Hanging extension cords are just one example!

As I left the school to drive back to Santa Cruz, I was both encouraged and depressed. For someone who believes in technology’s value for education it was very reassuring to see a Senate Select Committee take such an interest in this topic. And it was obvious that the infusion of technology at Jonas Salk was playing a dominant role in transforming a previously troubled school into a model for others to emulate. Yet as Amanda lead me around the campus, I could not help myself thinking, “Why are so many of our public schools like this? Barren, concrete expanses. No plants. No color. Chain link fences to keep others out and the students in. No vibrance outside, and precious little inside the classrooms.” So, the idealist in me applauds the recommendations made by the various panelists who testified. At the same time, the pragmatist in me grumbles, “Good grief, there’s so much more work to be done.”

On the twelfth day of Christmas technology gave me…

Twelve bloggers blogging
Eleven hackers hacking
Ten jobs a-spooling
Nine spammers spamming
Eight files a-loading
Seven disks formatting
Six pics-ilating
Five mp3’s
Four session cookies
Three flash drives
Two open ports
And a cartridge for my HP!

Best wishes for a warm and peaceful holiday and a very happy New Year!

Together, our technology team at Santa Cruz County Office of Education is reading and discussing Technology Challenged, by Miguel Aznar. The first thing I want to do is call your attention to the absence of a hyphen in that title. This is not a book about those of us who feel inept at or cowed by technology. Perhaps we’ll read that one next. Rather, it is about adopting a critical perspective and thinking (yes, thinking) about technology. It’s not about becoming technologically competent, but technologically literate. Borrowing from the subtitle, it’s about “understanding our creations” and “choosing our future.”

Well, that’s what it seems to be about anyway. We’ve only read the first two chapters. But we have already had an animated discussion of what technology is. While we all agree it’s not simply computers, projectors, and networks, we have no consensus on the best definition of technology. Author Aznar prefers “tools that extend our abilities” over “applied science.” A little googling (hmmm, should that be capitalized?) yields many more definitions. For example:

• Tools such as calculator, computer, or personal data assistant (PDA) used to help represent/solve a problem. Number Nut
• A body of knowledge used to create tools, develop skills, and extract or collect materials; the application of science (the combination of the scientific method and material) to meet an objective or solve a problem. National Institutes of Health
• Mechanisms for distributing messages, including postal systems, radio and television broadcasting companies, telephone, satellite and computer networks. The World Bank
• The science of the application of knowledge to practical purposes. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged

How would you define technology? Share your thoughts in the TICAL Forum!

Bless our state superintendent of schools; Jack has inspired me once again. In his State of Education address last February, Superintendent O’Connell reminded us that,

“…while improvement has been nearly universal, our across the board success has still failed to close an achievement gap that threatens the future of our diverse state. Groups of California children who have traditionally struggled, groups that in many instances make up the fastest growing portion of our society, continue to trail behind their peers — and the gap is not closing. Recognizing this is important. Addressing it is imperative.”

And addressing it clearly is his intent. November 13–14 he invites educators from across the state to attend the Achievement Gap Summit in Sacramento. Stuck in the trenches and can’t make it to Sacramento? You can learn what’s going on and contribute your two cents via the web dialogue, Achieving Success for All Students, which takes place October 29–November 1. Log in anytime you have free during that time period and you can see what’s going on and, if you’re so inclined, add your thoughts and opinions.

While it won’t do it alone, technology can contribute much toward closing the achievement gap. I shared some of my thoughts on this in a 2005 article in ACSA’s Leadership magazine, Accelerating Learning: Time to Pick Up the Pace. References mentioned in that article are available here at Portical.org.

Just as I was beating myself up for going a month without posting anything (of course, it was a summer month, after all), our very own California State Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell provided me with the perfect inspiration. He made this short Back to School video and posted it to YouTube. What a nice blend of fun and practical advice. And it’s also a creative way of using technology to put a friendly, human face on state government, which, for most kids anyway, can seem a very distant and incomprehensible institution. Way to go, Jack!

Superintendent O’Connell’s 10 Tips for Kids:

Well, the long awaited and much ballyhooed iPhone is here. I’m sure it’s fantastic, but I’m not going to stand, let alone sleep in line to get one quite yet. Despite the fact I earn my paychecks by thinking, eating, breathing and using technology, I am not an early adopter. I’m usually still figuring out the features of my last techtoy when the new one hits the shelf.

And that is not new for me. In sixth grade, lots of kids were starting to walk down the halls holding transistor radios to their ears. Not me. When everyone else had a “stereo,” I was still listening to “HiFi.” For years, I watched the NBC Peacock in grayscale. I think our house was the last on the block to transition from VHS to DVD. And when I finally upgraded from little Sony earbuds to Bose headphones, I promptly left them behind in the airplane’s seatback pocket. Now someone else is enjoying QuiteComfort®, my treat.

And so the story goes. Was I deprived? I don’t think so. Don’t remember feeling so. Maybe that’s why today, I don’t feel the urge to buy the latest technology just because it’s there and I can. I’m content to wait and see if the new gadget lives up to its hype. And the iPhone has a lot of hype to live up to.