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Predictions for 2012

January 31st, 2012 by Butch Owens

Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

That’s especially true in the world of technology today, but I think we can, at least, predict what the hot topics will be as we head into 2012.  Most important is how we respond to these issues.  Let’s take a look at some of my top picks which should be on every administrator’s radar.

BYOD – Bring your own device:  We have been talking about  1:1 computing for a number of years with very little progress other than a few pilot projects.  With the current budget situation I don’t foresee any changes in funding coming forward to make this a reality.  If we truly embrace getting devices into student’s hands we must look past the restraints of budget.  By embracing a “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) model we will succeed in getting devices into a lot more student hands in the classroom this year rather than have the devices sitting at home because of current school policy that forbids their use on campus.  I spoke of this earlier this year in a TBLOGICAL post called Digital Deprivation.  All students having access to digital devices capable of enhancing their educational experience is becoming even more realistic when you consider cheaper and cheaper devices such as the Kindle Fire, inexpensive netbooks, tablets, and Smart Phones on the market today.

Key topics to address:  BYOD Policies, Wireless Access, Bandwidth, Devices supported

24/7 Access to Information: Just a couple of years ago sites like Khan Academy were seen as a novelty.  A few tech savvy teachers might download a video to help explain a topic or give students a link to follow if they needed extra help with a concept.  Today it is no longer a novelty to see a short video clip on a subject.  Just go to YouTube and type in a topic you would like to know from replacing a valve cover gasket on your car to DNA replication.   These sites and videos are growing at a phenomenal rate, both proprietary and open source.

Key Topics to Address:  Teaching students to discriminate the good from the bad,  Providing Open Access at School,

24/7 Delivery of Course Content:  Yes, this does relate to 24/7 access, but takes it a step further.  Not only can students find information anytime and from any place, they can also elect to take all of their courses this way.  What that says to me is that if we don’t have it, they will go somewhere else to get it.

I recently had an opportunity to hear Dr. David Hagland, Director of Educational Options with the Riverside Unified School District, speak.  He has found that students don’t necessarily want to take a course completely online, but rather like to expand the classroom and teacher’s influence to an online blended format that includes lectures, class notes, videos, et cetera posted for student access before and after the traditional classroom lesson, and to have 21st Century technology tools available in the classroom.  For example, as I sit here typing this post in Google Docs, I know that I can access it on my computer at home, my iPad on the road or even share it with colleagues to get input and advice.  I’ve also clipped a few articles from the web into my Evernote account to reference as I write.  All of these tools and resources need to be incorporated into the teaching and learning environments of our students.

Key topics to address:  Learning platforms/management systems, online storage capabilities, teacher training for blended instruction, access to information.

School Libraries:  I know this prediction will not be a popular one, but the changing purpose and function of the school library needs to be addressed.  Schools are no longer getting the best bang for their buck when it comes to building and sustaining the traditional school library.  In a recent conversation with Dr. Devin Vodicka, Assistant Superintendent of Business for the Carlsbad Unified School District, we were discussing the new high school they were in the process of building. He stated that after much discussion on whether or not to build a traditional library it came down to the following question, “If we are really having such a difficult time deciding whether or not to build and stock a new library with books in the traditional way, we already know the answer, which is no. It’s just that it’s uncomfortable for our generation to picture a library without rows and rows of books.”

Are we still making decisions on what is comfortable for us or best for today and tomorrow’s students.  I’m not saying we need to do away with the library, just look at its role and function in our schools.  It will always be needed as a place to meet for that first date using the excuse as getting together to work on a school project.

Key Topics to address:  Digital books/textbooks and a system to checkout them out, installation of access points for students to connect at school, mobile devices,  workstations

 

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Posted in Integration, Leadership | 12 Comments »

Launch Technology Projects During a Fiscal Crisis?

October 31st, 2011 by Kevin Silberberg

Most District administrators are aware of the service FCMAT (Fiscal Crisis Management Assessment Team) provides each day in the way of the top education related headlines throughout the state. If it involves schools, and was in the paper, you can be sure that FCMAT captures the link and makes it very easy to read how school districts up and down the state are making the news.  Usually, it is a good day when you don’t see your district as a link on this website.

That being said, an article caught my eye today that speaks to the dilemma we face in California better than anything I have seen in years.  The article, “What happens if city schools go insolvent?,” describes the San Diego Unified School District’s possible financial collapse that could require a state takeover to keep the district afloat.

As a district administrator, I know well what state takeover would mean.  It is a cliff you walk over and seldom fully recover.  Here are the first actions that you can look forward to.

  • The superintendent would be immediately fired and replaced by a state appointed administrator.
  • The school board would lose all powers and become an advisory panel.
  • The state administrator would essentially become the district’s new leader and have the power to unilaterally make decisions, such as which property to sell, what academic programs to cut, which schools to shutter and who to lay off. After labor contracts expire, the administrator could impose district-wide cuts to pay and benefits.

Very depressing!  But this doesn’t tell the entire story.  Earlier in my day of reading, I had read with great envy an eSchool News special report on a visionary technology program that was being implemented in—you guessed it—the San Diego Unified School District.

Two years ago, the district embarked on a five-year journey to transform its classrooms and completely revamp the way San Diego students learn.  Since that time, the Interactive Classroom Initiative (i21) has expanded into more than 1,300 classrooms and has distributed some 78,000 netbooks and other mobile devices to teachers and students.

I can only imagine the planning, effort and vision the district has into this project.  To get all the stakeholders together on the same page to move forward is amazing and should be applauded.  The professional development alone in this program would be the envy of school districts who dream of one day moving their teachers and administrators forward embracing the appropriate use of technology that helps teachers teach and students learn.

So here we have the problem facing most schools in California.  Schools have to live within their means to make it in this economy.  With triggers about to be pulled and mid-year cuts on their way, we can in no way pull off projects like the i21 program and expect to stay away from state takeover.

Would financial insolvency mean the end of the SDUSD i21 program?  I hope not.  Unfortunately, the lesson many district officials may read into the San Diego Unified School District financial problem is: don’t risk any new initiatives; fund highly traditional low-tech expenditures; and make it through the toughest times ever experienced in California public education.

The better lesson is: we can’t do it all, and sustaining is the name of the game.  We must strive to prepare students for the technology-rich world our kids will enter while managing to stay solvent in these turbulent and trying economic times.

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Posted in Financial Planning, Leadership, Models | 3 Comments »

Digital Deprivation

September 12th, 2011 by Butch Owens

President Truman

Today’s problem is not the digital divide, it’s digital deprivation.  It’s difficult to find a student today who does not have access to the Internet, own a smartphone, communicate with friends all over the world and collaborate online with others to plan events—except, of course, when they enter the schoolhouse walls.  Instead of embracing and encouraging the use of the technology students bring with them each day, we forbid its use or even presence on campus.

Last month a colleague and I were asked to do a board workshop highlighting the use of mobile technologies and their value in the classroom.  To demonstrate the power of this technology we designed an activity around the iPad.  We divided the board members and senior staff into two groups.  One group was given the approved district textbook for world history, which was a rather new edition.  The other group was given iPads.  The assignment was to take 15 minutes and come up with a presentation on The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.  (I know many of you are probably scratching your heads right now, knowing you’ve heard the terms but perhaps don’t recall the details?  California’s content standards expect 10th graders to know!)

What we observed

Textbook group:   The group had a very nice looking book with 328 pages of which three quarters of one page was devoted to the Truman Doctrine/Marshall Plan.  Their report consisted of one page of bulleted points on chart paper which highlighted the year it was introduced by guess who, Truman, and who was sent to Europe to help design and carryout the plan, George C. Marshall.

What did it look like for the Textbook Group? Five people sitting around a table with one making the notes on chart paper, one talking and one sitting away from the group not engaged.

iPad Group:  The group with iPads quickly went to work and found thousands of resources including a video of Truman giving the speech outlining his reasons for sending aid and helping to rebuild the countries recently defeated by the Allies.  Another found a UK site that helped give a European perspective of the plan.  The group’s presentation consisted of Truman’s speech, video and pictures of Europe after the war and included a video of George C. Marshall touring war torn areas.

What did it look like with the iPad Group?  All participants actively engaged accessing different information, all related to the topic. Sharing their findings with each other.

I forgot to mention that the textbook group was forward thinking and pulled out their smart phones and began quickly looking for additional information.  We just as quickly had them place them in a box on the front desk per our school policy on cell phones on campus.

Think of your own life

So it’s no longer a digital divide, but digital deprivation.  Even one smartphone, laptop or tablet with access to the Internet would have provided an abundance of additional information above and beyond the limited information in the textbook.

Think of your own life.  When you get lost, do you pull out your old Thomas Brothers guide?  When you need a phone number, do you grab the phone book or the yellow pages?  When you want to know what’s playing at the movie theatre, do you reach for the entertainment section of the newspaper (do you still subscribe to a newspaper)?  My hunch is you use technology to find answers like these.

The next time you become involved in a discussion about whether students need regular access to technology at school, stop and try an activity like the one we did with our board members.  See if anyone really wants to be in the textbook group!

Posted in Integration, Leadership | 2 Comments »

Educators’ interest and enthusiasm for digital learning grows!

June 13th, 2011 by Sandra Miller

What’s driving educators’ enthusiasm for digital learning?  The latest Project Tomorrow Speak Up Survey suggests three factors:

 

 

  1. Teachers and administrators are using technology to improve their own productivity.  They use mobile devices, online classes and digital content; and this causes them to think creatively about using these same tools in the classroom.
  2. Students (and many parents) are demanding a different kind of learning experience, almost forcing teachers and administrators to reevaluate their ideas of the value of technology within learning.
  3. The economy and financial pressures on school budgets create a need to investigate how technology can help meet instructional goals with less expense.

The Speak Up Surveys have shown that teachers and administrators realize that students want to be “Enabled, Engaged, and Empowered,” yet there has been hesitancy in using technology to facilitate student learning.  District administrators and principals know creating a change in the values and skills of teachers to use digital content is a challenge.  These latest findings point to factors that may facilitate, even push, change.

Since 2008 twice as many administrators and teachers have smart phones, and 44% of teachers and 45% of administrators use Facebook.  Almost all teachers (96%) and administrators (99%) are tapping into communication tools to connect with peers or parents, but only 36% of teachers use these tools to connect with students.  (And students highly value this type of communication.)  The following chart shows teachers’ use of technology to facilitate student learning still has a ways to go.

Homework and practice is used most often, with other areas giving mixed results.  This suggests for administrators the need for teacher professional development, as well as tools and digital content to facilitate learning in new ways.  The use of online professional development may be one area that will assist, and the emergence this year of more and more inexpensive digital devices (tablets) offers administrators a starting point.

Teachers want to be effective in their teaching and researchers indicate the most solid predictor of student success is teacher effectiveness.  Getting teachers to report an increase in their effectiveness is a result we all want to strive toward.  In 2010, nearly a majority of teachers K-12 report technology helps them be more productive.  Sixty-eight percent of new teachers (1-3 years experience) say technology has increased their effectiveness by making them more productive, and 45% of these newest teachers say technology enables them to create more interactive lessons.  These are all positive indicators as we move toward facilitating student learning using technology.   

This look inside today’s classroom is just one part of Speak Up’s report: The New 3 E’s of Education: Enabled, Engaged, Empowered—How Today’s Educators are Advancing a New vision for Teaching and Learning.  Other key trends: Mobile Learning, Online and Blended Learning, and Digital Content are presented with interesting statistics to help administrators move forward toward a “new vision for learning.”

See this and other Speak Up reports.

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Posted in Data-Driven Decision Making, Leadership | No Comments »

Spring Axing

May 30th, 2011 by Tim Landeck

Every couple of years I see the lush, green field across from the picturesque, cliff-hanging lighthouse in my town brought to the city council for development.  Activists turn out in force and, with passion and voice, quell the development of this unique field for a few years until another developer sees the chance to triumph in the public forum, and the battle begins anew.

Like the environmentalist, our Technology Department never has the opportunity to trust that something is preserved forever.  This spring, as in so many others, the budget ax is on the upswing.  Faced with a dire financial situation, where can we chop into the bone even further?  As department heads scurry about like a recently disturbed ant hill, the question always comes up, “What does that tech guy do, anyway?”  The answer?  Whack!  The elimination of yet another K-12 technical position that is supporting site and/or district-wide access to innumerable resources.

What does anyone do? When I look around the district office and school sites, I see many positions that I don’t understand clearly.  What are their specific responsibilities?  What do they contribute each day?  Does my lack of understanding mean that the district can function just fine without these people’s daily activities? I don’t think so.

I am clear about the activities and productivity of those who report to me.  I trust that other department leaders also have a quality work ethic, are supervised appropriately, and do a fine job of overseeing their staff.

Unfortunately, when I deliver the repeatedly requested bullet list of technology department personnel job responsibilities and activities to my superiors, I know that the readers will not fully grasp the importance and significance of these activities.  If you don’t understand technology, you don’t understand technology; no bullet list will be sufficient to help you make informed decisions.

And there you have one more unique yet critical task of the technology department: educating non-technically minded educators and leaders about what we do.  Like the activists who fight to protect that green field across from the lighthouse, we must struggle to help our policy makers understand technology well enough to make wise decisions come budget time.

 

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Posted in Leadership, Operations and Maintenance | 1 Comment »

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