The Cost Of Distrust
Last month, I had the benefit of sitting in on a Superintendent’s luncheon at our Spring TEC-SIG meeting. They shared stories of issues they were dealing with and having to overcome in their specific districts. Dean Shareski (@shareski) was our keynote speaker on that day and he guided our discussion about how many of our issues deal with our own district’s narrative. Specifically, one thing he mentioned that really stuck with me was the fact that distrust costs us more than we think.
This idea of distrust costing us is not unique to education. In life, when a man makes a mistake or has a wandering eye, it 
often results in flowers, chocolates and gifts to apologize for a temporary lack of judgment that creates distrust with his wife. While that’s a very general example, the same principle applies to the business world. Companies that have public issues with products spend millions in advertising and satisfaction surveys to overcome any distrust from their current and potential customers.
In education, we face this battle on a daily basis. Parents distrust what a teacher may be teaching their child. Teachers distrust what their principal is telling them to help improve their teaching practice. Community members distrust the district administration when it comes to goals and initiatives. All of these levels of distrust cost us more than money, they cost us time and morale.
I’m guilty of playing every role in the above educational scenarios. I’ve been a questioning parent, a teacher not sure about the accuracy of my evaluation and a community member certain that the district I pay taxes in has made a monumentally bad decision. The latter scenario is one that I have encountered regularly as a district administrator. In my relatively brief stint in this position, our district has taken some great strides in making innovative changes in the classroom. However, that change has slowed for a number of reasons, with the most primary reason being distrust.
Picture courtesy Men’s Health
Some parents in the community feel strongly about changes in their child’s education and the delivery of instruction. Take the recent shift to the iPads in our district. There is a belief that these devices are just toys without a lot of educational merit. Much of that comes from personal experience of the parents and how they have used these devices in their own house. The “Pass-back” generation is how people sees these devices playing a role in their life. If little Johnny is acting up, hand him an iPod. If Susie is throwing a temper-tantrum in the dentist office, hand her a Nintendo DS. Even for those that think there may be some potential for classroom use, there are concerns about screen time. They rush to the assumption that kids will be plugged in from the time they walk in, until the time they leave. Nevermind that they’ve trusted us with the education of their child for decades, this change represents something else.
The Last Sod School House in Kansas (photo courtesy of Library of Congress, circa 1908)
This shift to a more personalized approach in education has really only happened one time in the last 150 years. Back in the late 1800′s education was designed via the school house model. Any child aged 5 to 18 received education in the same room, by the same teacher. In the early 1900′s that shifted to the grade-level approach which allowed for more age-specific education. The shift with 1:1 classrooms is even more granular. Now each student could have a personalized learning plan.
Even though a great deal of the vision of rolling 1:1 iPads into the classrooms came from campus tech vision teams, there were some people that were left out of that loop and felt forced to change without their opinion being asked. Parts of the community feels the same way and gives us the feeling that if this tool simply solved a problem (i.e. Digital textbooks) it wouldn’t be as big a deal. However, the power of the device and learning potential in the hands of kids is actually one of the causes of concern.
So how do you solve or prevent distrust in education? We’ve taken several steps with community dialogue nights, booster club presentations, staff training, surveys and parent coffees. Many feel the best step would be to have complete transparency, but even that can at times not be trusted and add more confusion and distrust when numbers and funds aren’t properly explained. With all of this, it can’t be understated the value of honest communication. What I mean is, you can’t alway paint the rosy picture about everything, because people don’t find that genuine. You have to be honest about mistakes and *gasp* the “f” word – failures along the way. It’s through this openness and access that the foundation for trust can be built. I recently met with a community member who wasn’t happy with our WIFI initiative and had some concerns. However, she was actually pleased to see my “Top 10 things NOT to do in a 1:1 iPad Initiative” post, because it made her realize that we were not only aware of issues, but also identifying how to fix them.
I’ve calculated the time spent on “distrust” in just the last month and I’m shocked to say that nearly 20% of my time has been spent on it. I know I’m not alone and likely not even in the top ten in my own district in terms of time spent dealing with distrust. The cost of distrust can’t be measured solely on hours spent discussing it or money allocated to advertise against it. It costs us all with increased frustration. It costs us some level of our own self-confidence in doing our job. It costs us in our relationships with peers, colleagues and the community. But the most detrimental and potentially dangerous cost of distrust in education are none of these items. It’s the fact that distrust can derail what is ultimately the most valuable and important mission in all of this: educating our children.
LEAP Initiative – Proposed Phasing in of 1:1 iPads for K-12
Here’s a slideshare version of a presentation that we’ve been sharing with faculty and community this last few weeks. We spend a little bit of time on research as well as the idea of staging out community education, student expectations, and teacher professional learning as all three are important components to consider when scaling this out. We plan to do a video version of this too so parents can review with our comments included, but here’s the embedded static version for those interested. The embedded videos don’t work in Slideshare so I included links to those videos in this example:
Top 10 Things NOT to do in a 1:1 iPad Initiative
Part of the benefit of jumping forward with a 1:1 iPad deployment like we have tried is that we get the opportunity to impart knowledge to other districts looking to do a similar initiative. While that might not seem like a benefit, it actually also means we can make some mistakes because there is not a long history of this type of deployment in the world. Many districts have had 1:1 Laptop projects, which we have benefited from and could easily be applied to this list I’m about to share. However, for the sake of our specific district, and the questions I get from other districts on a daily basis, I’m going to break down the ten things you should NOT do when implementing a 1:1 iPad program.
1. Do NOT wait until the last minute to give them to staff.
Due to the timing of our bond package and when funds could become available, we didn’t actually have iPads in hand and branded until mid-July. That means many teachers only got to experience the iPads in their hands for one month or less. Not ideal when trying to make your staff comfortable. Perfect world they could have them a year to a semester ahead of time. Or at least before the summer starts.
2. Do NOT expect it to go perfectly on the first day students get them.
We planned the launch day as perfectly as we could have, but there are always a couple of issues to deal with. We had iPad cases held up in customs at DFW airport, so we had to fill a last-minute order of 1500 cases the night before. We crashed our Casper server 3 hours into the first day as hundreds of kids were downloading their apps at the same time. Both of those issues are fixable, but you can’t always anticipate those things during planning.
3. Do NOT roll out all your apps at the same time on the same day.
See item #2 above. If you are doing a 1:1 model like ours, where the end-user gets the apps, you don’t want to force-feed all your apps down on the same day. This is especially true with larger apps like Garageband, which we left off the initial day list and released it on the weekend, when kids could download it from their own bandwidth at home. This spreads the downloads out over time so you don’t have 1500 kids downloading a 1.7 GB app during 3rd period.
Don't Ctrl
4. Do NOT try and control everything about the iPad.
There are several models out there for deployment of apps – A personal model, an institutional model, and a layered model being the most common. The beauty and educational relevance of these devices is the personalization of learning that can happen. That is null and void the second you turn this into just another “system” to manage through your technology department. These are NOT PC’s. Do NOT try and manage them as such. You destroy the value-add by doing that. Because of age restrictions with Apple IDs, you can only have students 13+ manage those accounts. I encourage you to do that (this is the personal model). Students under 13, you’re likely to be forced to use some version of the other two models. In the personal model, the worst thing that can happen is they walk away with an app like Keynote. God forbid they actually want to use an educational tool to make presentations after they graduate.
5. Do NOT expect teaching to change immediately.
I have long been preaching the SAMR model by Dr. Ruben Puentedura as how teaching should progress in a 1:1 (or any) environment. Apple has also relied heavily on this model and I figure they know what they are talking about. Teachers can’t be expected to change the way they teach overnight. However, most of the tools we’ve given them in the past (Smartboards, document cameras, etc) were teaching tools. This tool is in the hands of kids, which means it’s student-driven. Teachers and students will lean heavily on substitution in the SAMR model to start, but have patience. Redefinition of teaching and learning does NOT happen overnight.
6. Do NOT assume the entire community will be on board.
As great as the idea behind personalized learning can be, it can be a pretty severe mind-shift for those lay-people in the community. Add on top of that, budget cuts with staff time, and you can see how this can quickly turn into a no-win scenario. It’s important to stress what the goals are in all of this and also to get both parents and teachers working with you to find solutions to little problems. However, that doesn’t mean you give them the option to not participate. The most successful 1:1 programs have a universal understanding and expectation across the district about what can and should be accomplished. In the community, there is a common misconception that an iPad isn’t a computer. If you pass a bond to buy computers, you need to make sure they understand that these are in fact tablet computers. The other item to stress is that this is a powerful classroom tool that now takes the place of the textbook, calculator, dictionary, etc. It might not do everything, but for the cost and what it will do, it’s well worth the investment.
It's not all about scores kids...heh heh!
7. Do NOT evaluate the program solely with test scores.
It may be the easiest and most publicized metric to measure kids with, but it’s far from the most accurate when you are talking about changing the culture of learning and customizing a student’s school experience through a 1:1 program. Engagement, motivation, collaboration, communication and the desire to dig deeper into subjects were all items we measured through anonymous student and teacher surveys. With all of those improvements, it’s what happens next when the student goes on to college and post-college life, that’s a thousand times more important than how they did on a random test. This item is closely tied to item 6 above when talking to the community about how the program is going.
8. Do NOT limit staff training to the summer.
Due to budgetary cuts, our high school teachers lost an extra planning period which was considered “PLC time”. This time was framed around Dufour’s Professional Learning Communities and allowed for same-subject area teachers to have a common planning time to grow and learn. On top of that, we cut back our instructional technologists across the district. Both of these factors could have killed the program and definitely kept us from transforming teaching and learning as much as we would have liked. The research of Robert Marzano and the findings in Project Red talk about how one of the key traits to successful implementation of 1:1 is a monthly training at minimum lead by the Principal and key leaders to give teachers the tools they need. Research also suggests that teachers will ultimately determine the success of the program, so it’s worth investing in them. We have seen the error in our ways and will implement back some PLC Time next year as well as add some support staff.
Teachers without a CMS
9. Do NOT expect email to be the best option for submitting work
Being paperless has been a great cost savings for us. We’ve cut back on paper use by 22% in the first few months and that’s only with 2 grade levels having 1:1 technology. While that’s a great cost-savings, management of all those digital files can be an issue for teachers. They no longer have to tote 187 papers back and forth to school, but now all of those papers will crowd their inbox of their email. Teachers at our high school have figured out how to use Gmail’s filtering to help with this organization, but ultimately, a good content management system is needed. We just purchased our system (eBackPack) to put in place for next year, and hope that not only will paper be saved, but also time.
10. Do NOT let fear overcome your mission
Everyone will go through a point in time where they doubt the idea of a 1:1 iPad program working. They’ll think it’s a fad. They’ll think it’s a waste of money. They’ll complain about having to change. All of these and hundreds of other concerns will be raised throughout the implementation process. It is easy to get dismayed by the loud minority of critics out there. If there is any hope of your program being successful, the core team of administrators, teachers and students need to be on the same page, speaking the same message. That message is plain and simple: This is not a technology expense, it’s an investment in our students and their future.
Westlake High School Visit day
On Tuesday, April 17th, 12 different school districts and over 100 people attended our WIFI visit day at Westlake High School. These districts we are all at various stages of iPad implementations or were looking for ways to integrate iPads into their schools. For my part, I presented on the “Why” and “How” to implement iPads in school districts. Those of you that have heard my webinar or seen me live, are familiar with this presentation. However for those districts that attended (and those that didn’t) I’ll embed it here and on the presentations page so you can hopefully utilize some of the ideas.
Radio Interview – TECSIG, iPadPalooza & Zombies!
Before I share the link to this recent guest spot on “Appy Hour 4 U” on Blogspot Radio, let me set the scene with a series of tweets that happened about 25 minutes before we went on air:
A couple of notes here -
1. You have to marvel a bit at the power of social media. Sure this is just a direct message on twitter, which is similar to email, but it amazes me the different ways people can communicate with each other. Carolyn Foote (@technolibrary) and I have even carried on a tri-modal conversation via email, text message and twitter. Not the easiest of conversations to follow, but not as hard as you might imagine.
2. As you can tell by her response, that I do have one form of kryptonite that also works well as bribes for last minute requests. Monster’s Low carb energy drink is one of many odd items that you would find in a visit to my office (along with a bin full of wigs and real longhorns). It’s a staple in my diet around 3:00 pm most work days. However, recently when I discovered that mixing it along with prensidone (a medical steroid for my back) that not only did I suddenly have super-human strength, but I could also type a 750-word blog post in less than 10 minutes. (Should be out tomorrow on the SchoolCIO.com/blogs site). That said, if Monster Energy wants an Ed Tech sponsor, sign me up!
So with those two excuses….er…..reasons out there, I submit my last-second, near flawless interview with Lisa Johnson and Yolanda Barker from NEISD. In this interview I discuss the 1:1 iPad pilot and progress, where we are going next, the spring TECSIG meeting on April 19, iPadpalooza, UT Flip Teaching and of course, The Walking Dead. (see last blog post)
Please take a moment to listen, it’s 45-minutes of fun conversation and I promise you’ll laugh at least once.
BlogTalkRadio – Appy Hour 4 U – April 5 Episode – Carl Hooker
Is “The Walking Dead” Analogous to Education?
The AMC show “The Walking Dead” has inspired a wave of zombie-loving enthusiasts out into the open, including me. Finally there is something to battle the current outer-worldly trend of vampires in our daily pop-culture. However, what makes this show so great, isn’t the zombies or even the over-the-top ways in which the zombies are destroyed (my fave is the pickax to the head), it’s the relationships between those that have survived and the new world in which they face.
Their entire world has been turned upside-down. They are fighting for what remaining resources are left in this new era. Their main goal is survival and often-times, civility takes a back seat. When you get right down to it, there isn’t anything left of the “real world” or the world which they lived in before this plight. Is it just me, or does this sound eerily familiar to our current system of public education and the way it’s being treated and attacked in the courts of public opinion (and certainly in our state legislature)?
Before you say, “Now Carl, you’re really stretching it on this one”, allow me to explain why I think even if you don’t watch the post-apocalyptic show itself, the premise of what I’m getting at holds true. Every one of us plays our own role in the world of public education. If you aren’t a fan of the show, I’ll break down the main characters briefly, but then tie them into our educational realm. If you are a fan, I’ll give you a spoiler alert at this point as I reveal a couple of major plot points that happened at the end of last season. First off, let’s start with…
Zombie Me!
The Walkers – Throngs of the undead that appear to “herd” throughout the landscape like cattle. Because of there movement style and the need to call them something other than zombies, the group refers to them as “Walkers”. They are driven by only the need to eat others, otherwise they wander aimlessly until a living person makes a noise or comes within their scent.
Walkers represent the un-informed American public. They wander around with some idea of what life (education) was before they died (or graduated) but really, they don’t have any clue of what it has become. They often “herd” around noisy distractions like talk-show hosts, politicians, or clever columnists, and often rejoice in the fact that education is taking it in the guts right now. In fact, if they were really zombies, they’d really like that guts comment.
Rick Grimes
Rick – The unquestioned leader of the survivors (now that he’s killed off anyone else that could be the leader). He plays a key role in making important decisions for the group, even if some of those decisions aren’t popular and sometimes wrong. He accepts the blame and moves on.
Rick is that leader on your campus or in your district that truly inspires change, while at the same time admitting to their own faults. Despite his first name, he is not anything like the “Rick” we currently have as leader of our state. You need this person to be the risk-taker for the group to survive in this climate. Without this leader, you simply maintain the status quo while the world of zombies gathers around your house and eats you alive.
Lori Grimes
Lori – She is the primary maternal figure in the show. She shows compassion and empathy, while still being a strong character in her own right. She has influence over Rick but is also concerned with raising her son, Carl and the not-yet born child she carries.
Lori represents the loving teacher. Teachers often times have some influence over the leaders in their campuses, even if it’s indirectly influencing their decisions. They also have to be concerned with the well-being of the children in their class. It’s become obvious to many of the “Lori’s” in education that the world has changed out there and everyone is infected by this disease in one way or another. The teacher’s role in this new world is getting through the day-to-day grind and teaching their kids how to survive.
Carl
Carl – Besides having a great name, Carl is the lone child left on the show (after Sophia was zombie-fied). He is the son of Rick and Lori, and quite often the reason why most people on the show die. His curiosity and need to be a grown-up ahead of his time get him in sticky situations that others end up getting killed over.
Carl represents the student (of course). Their curiosity and innocence is what makes education, and our country so great. However, because of the state accountability system and the need for “RIGOR”(mortis), their curiosity and creativity is (b)eaten out of them. They begin to realize that in order to survive in this world, you must be efficient at test-taking and at playing the system when it comes to grades. Not necessarily being a good learner, which would go a long way to them being more successful in life and not becoming just another zombie.
The Zombie Virus – We learned on the last show that everyone is infected with this. Some seem to have stronger levels of immunity than others (namely those alive vs. those that aren’t). It’s everywhere and it affects the actions of everyone in this world, because they can’t escape it.
The Zombie Virus represents the State Accountability test system. That one is almost too easy. We are all infected it by it in some form or fashion. The biggest difference are those that succumb to it and decide to leave behind civility in order to survive, and those that don’t and end up becoming one of the undead masses.
Shane
Shane – The antagonist and primary non-Rick character vying for leadership of the group as well as the affection of Lori. He met his demise at both the knife of Rick and the gun of Carl (after he became a zombie). He excelled at splitting the group up, providing negative comments, questioning Rick behind his back, and generally just being a pain in the butt to deal with on a regular basis. He also saw himself as sort of a semi-father figure for Carl.
Shane represents those people on your staff or in your building that don’t agree with anything that is going on. They question every move leadership makes, they are still supportive of the students (Carl) in many cases, but they also feel like we just need to become much more savage-like to survive in this world. Change is a bigger enemy to them than the Zombie virus.
The Support Staff
Daryl, Dale, Andrea, Carol, T-Dog, Glenn – These other characters all play lesser roles on the show, but they each have had their fair share of close calls and moments of survival. Dale was one of my favorite – he was almost always the voice of reason and tried his hardest to make sure that some form of civilization existed in this new world. (until he was bitten by a zombie that Carl didn’t kill earlier and then shot in the head by Daryl) Glenn’s the do everything guy on the show, with little concern for himself. He’s risked himself for the group on multiple occasions – the most gruesome of which is when they used him as live bait to get a zombie out of a well. He’s kind of the “every man” that we all like to root for.
These characters represent the support staff. This could be anyone from librarians to IT staff to reading specialists to the custodians. Without them, the district (and world) would be a lot more difficult to manage. They lay a lot on the line without a lot of praise, but they continue to be realiable and show-up when we need them most. Our little system doesn’t get off the ground without these folks, and much like Glenn, I find myself rooting for these staff members the most.
So there you have it. While there may have been some literary exaggerations made by yours truly, you can see why I love both the show and education. We are constantly watching over our shoulders for the zombie hoard that might be approaching and the latest mutation of the Zombie virus (hello STAAR!). Yet we still fight on with hope that one day, some how, our world will return back to a time when creativity, collaboration, and ultimately civility rule the day.
Until then, keep your pickax handy and don’t make any sudden movements….
a No.2 Pickax?
Time for a Title Change
As readers of my previous posts will note, I’ve recently attended a couple of different conferences in the last month. During these events, I’ve discovered that being Director of Instructional Technology means a lot of different things to people but mostly they focus on the last word in that title:Technology. I get asked all sorts of questions about switches, ports, access points, bandwidth, throughput, and—my favorite—“What does your back-end look like?”
What does my back-end look like? BIG
As flattering as that last comment may seem, I realized quickly it had nothing to do with my posterior. The problem with having technology in my title means that I get questions from both sides of the fence. In some districts, this may be the intended job description for someone in my position, although often they are called CTO. In my case, I want to really focus on the “instructional” word in that title which is not only overlooked, but often left out when I’m introduced. “This is Carl. He’s our tech director.” Imagine my surprise, or better yet, imagine the surprise of our actual technology services director!
All of these recent events have inspired me to begin the search for a new title. I want it to have some realm in the digital world. It needs to focus on innovation, learning, and instructional design. Alan November suggests all people in my job change our titles to director of learning design. I think he’s on the right track.
Seguin ISD in Texas recently hired a Director of Digital Learning. I think we’re getting warmer. Some forward-thinking companies have actually created a Chief INnovation Officer (CINO) who “originates new ideas but also recognizes innovative ideas generated by other people.”
I love that idea and description, but think my superiors may decide that requires a pay raise (not a bad idea either) but is not very practical in education. So, taking bits and pieces from all of those, I’ve finally reached a conclusion. All directors of instructional technology should now be referred to as Director of Innovation and Digital Learning. While the title may be a tad longer, and the acronym borders on absurdity, it takes the focus off technology and really puts it smack dab in the middle of both innovation and learning. Keeping the digital part in there keeps technology as part of the focus but not the central focus. With that title we can finally put the focus in the proper place: from our backend to the front of our minds.
(FYI – This blog is cross-posted at SchoolCIO.com)
A Tale of Two Conferences
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” – Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
Our panel warming up for SXSWedu
Dicken’s message from the 1859 classic was a constant theme in my head during the two conferences I attended this week, although, with a drastically different method of delivery. I had the honor to present both at the SXSWedu conference in Austin, TX and the NASSP conference in Tampa, FL this week. Having a platform amongst your peers is one of the highest honors anyone in my profession can hope for. Presentations aside, I also had the benefit of attending both of these conferences as a way of improving my own professional learning. What I experienced was about as polar opposite as you could imagine as an attendee, but valuable nonetheless. Here’s a tale of the tape if you will of both conferences:
Conference Background -
South by Southwest Edu (SXSWedu) is an up-and-coming conference in Austin. Taking the name recognition of the cultural phenomenon known as South By Southwest (SXSW) and then slapping the “edu” to the end of it gives this conference a certain cool factor that is hard to ignore. I’ve had the pleasure of attending both of the SXSWedu conferences in its first two years of existence and they’ve come a long way in a short while.
The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) has been in existence since 1916. This long standing national organization has put on a conference for its members in various locations all over the United States.
Attendees -
Carolyn Foote and I hanging in the blogger's lounge (thanks @cfanch)
SXSWedu – I met everyone from Levar Burton to a food blogger named @ATXFoodNews. There was a certain mix of educators, hipsters, and start-up companies that were ever present throughout the Hilton. The very fact that Dell’s Social Media Command Center was present would tell you that social media dominated the conference. Trying to keep up with the hashtag #SXSWedu on twitter was an exercise in futility at times, although I was proud to be on their big board, albeit for a brief moment. (special thanks to @ipadsammy and @AmyAtDell for making that happen) I also was interviewed for the Hechinger Report, interviewed by KVUE and for a podcast. Just what my attention-seeking mind needed.
Matt Zemo wowing the crowd at NASSP
NASSP – Suits. Lots of suits. Then shorts and hawaiian shirts. Since this conference was located in Tampa, there was a bit of confusion as to what the attendees would wear. I’m pretty sure there were people attending this conference who were a part of NASSP when it began in 1916. There was no blogger’s cafe, although there was Starbucks. The closest thing to a social media wall was probably the hallway outside the exibit hall where a post-it sheet resided along side a bag of oranges (yes, this was Florida). There was NO INTERNET! By contrast, the #NASSP2012 hash tag had a fairly steady stream of contributors which I was surprised with, but updated about every 5-7 minutes with new posts as opposed to the 5-7 second rate the #SXSWedu hash tag was loading. No interviews, but the attendees were interested in talking to us after and throughout the conference, so we felt like we made a difference.
Advantage – SXSWedu (I mean, seriously, no internet?)
Sessions -
SXSWedu – Last year’s conference was not truly crowd-sourced when it came to panel and session presenters. There was a dominance of Epsilen’s Project Share platform in almost every session attended. This was to be expected in an event that TEA was funding, and we all know Project Share is its latest obsession. This year, they got it right…sort of. While there were still a fair share of Project Share spokesmen, there was a lot more diversity in the panels and sessions. There was even a pretty progressive LAUNCHedu session that had start-up companies blasting 5-minute pitches into a crowd of experts.
NASSP – Sessions were geared fairly well toward their audience. Certain progressive sessions like ours, Gary Stager’s (@garystager) Best Educational ideas in the world, and Eric Sheninger’s (@NMHS_Principal) Educational Leadership 2.0 were all held in the same ballroom. There were lots of sessions on school law, data driven decision making, and cyberbullying. It was in one cyberbully session put on by Susan Sutton where I almost flipped my lid (blog to follow). However, there was a good mix of the few I attended.
Advantage: Push
Sir Ken!
Featured Presenters -
SXSWedu – Levar Burton, Arne Duncan (Secretary of Education), Marjorie Scardino (CEO of Pearson)
NASSP – Sir Ken Robinson, Douglas Reeves, Eric Sheninger, Gary Stager
Advantage – NASSP – Sir Ken pretty much would lock this up regardless, but having the CEO of Pearson was a big no-no for a conference trying to push the envelope.
After Parties -
Seriously? I won’t even go there. Advantage – SXSWedu
Location -
SXSWedu – Austin, TX – Home of live music, good BBQ, and the SXSW event by which this conference is named after. There was a definite “Austin” feel throughout this conference and which was highlighted by the moment of silence (on twitter) for Austin’s own “Icon of Weird” Leslie, who passed away during the conference.
Tampa's beautiful bay
NASSP – Tampa, FL – Home of the several sports teams, fake tans, retirement communities, and lots of smokers. I mean A LOT. Nothing made me miss Austin’s no-smoking ban more than when I was walking by a kid’s park and saw an 80+ granny stoking on a Pall Mall.
Advantage – SXSWedu (although the weather and water were gorgeous in Tampa)
Final Results -
So, without further or do, I give you the winner of this battle of educational proportions – SXSWedu by a nose. I think it’s safe to say that if SXSWedu continues on it’s current path, this won’t even be a close discussion in the years to come, but they really have to be careful not to let the corporate sponsorships and vendors get too far out of hand. People attend these conference to hear from other educators, not vendors’ sales pitches. NASSP surprised me in a few ways and I always think it’s a good idea to attend this “standard” conferences if for no other reason than to learn what the populace of school leaders are saying. It’s also fun to be a bit of a disruptive force and get people in higher positions to think outside the box, since they ultimately drive change.
Thanks to all that inspired and challenged me this week!
iPad Screen Record on a Mac via Airplay!
Those of you that follow me on Twitter know that I’ve been begging for an app that let’s me screen capture everything I’m doing on my iPad. Ideally, this would be on the iPad itself, but I realize that might be a couple of revs away. Today I heard about Reflection App (reflectionapp.com) a $14.99 app that your run on your Mac that lets you mirror your iPad on the screen via Airplay.
Now you can screen record (via Quicktime) everything you do on your iPad2 or iPhone4s! Gone are the days of recording in a dark room with a camera over your shoulder and a bad glare on the screen. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if next week’s Apple announcement trumps this and lets you do it for free, but I had to see it to believe it. See sample video below:
Data and Analysis of a High School 1:1 iPad Program.
The Westlake Initiative for Innovation (WIFI) project launched in August of 2011 in the Eanes Independent School District. The objectives – create a culture of digital and global learning, increase the relevance of education in real-world scenarios, and allow for a more individualized, flexible and differentiated learning via 1:1 iPads for every Junior and Senior level student. When the WIFI project began, those may have been the focal points of introducing a new tool into an already successful high school environment, but as our data and focus-group studies have shown us, there were a lot of other unintended outcomes as a result of this pilot.
In October of 2011, students and teachers were surveyed about the use of iPads in their classes. Since only those 38 teachers that were actually in the WIFI program were required to have some sort of integrated instruction with the iPad, some students were in classes that weren’t required to integrate these. It’s actually possible for a Junior to have 7 different teachers that aren’t involved in the WIFI pilot all together (the opposite is also true). That said, here are the outcomes of that initial survey:
Survey Questions and Data -
Number of students taking the survey – 862 total students – 50% Senior, 49% Junior, 1% Other (Some sophomores in upper-level classes also got an iPad)
Number of students that used their iPad to take the survey – 97%
How do you use your iPad in class for learning?
Reading novels or other assigned reading – 88%
Interacting with Websites and Apps – 88%
Taking Notes – 86%
Communicating and organizing (email, calendars, etc) – 85%
Collaborating with others (FaceTime, Google Docs, Social networks, etc) – 75%
Creating movies and presentations – 61%
Completing worksheets – 59%
Using online textbooks – 58%
Analysis: Like the SAMR model of technology infusion, many teachers and students begin to use the iPad as a means to substitute regular tasks in the classroom like note-taking and completing a worksheet. However, the amount of teachers (including those not in the WIFI pilot) that use them for some basic functionality has increased. We attribute some of this to comfort levels, but much of it comes from the students and their expectations of using these in class regularly.
In the next series of questions, we asked the students what effects having the iPad with them in the classroom have on various aspects of their learning. Engagement, motivation, distraction, ability to dig deeper and overall learning experience were measured. Here are the results:
90% of students reported some level of greater motivation to learn
85% of students felt some level of increased engagement in the learning process.
24% of students reported feeling distracted at some level at school with the iPad
Conversely, 40% felt little to no distraction with the iPads at school. (the rest were neutral)
89% reported having the iPad gave them a desire to dig deeper into certain subjects
93% replied that having the iPad in the classroom increased the likely hood of submitting an assignment online rather than paper.
89% Agreed or strongly agreed that overall, having the iPad has enhanced their learning experience.
Analysis: While not 100% in any one area, the iPad had significant effects in the learning process for students. Distraction was a bit of a concern, so we wanted to make sure to follow-up on that with teachers and students in our focus groups later in the year.
Teacher Survey Data
Teachers were given a similar survey with questions on their perspective of how the iPad has affected teaching and learning.
95% reported a high to extremely significant impact on how the iPad has helped them as a teacher
93% use the iPad to research content for their courses during the week and at some point several times a day
100% reported that communication has improved between teacher to student because of the iPad
93% reported that it had improved their assessment abilities to some level, with 34% reporting a significant increase in ease of assessment and data gathering.
96% reported that the iPad helped them accomplish what they need to do each day as a teacher. 30% of that group gave it the highest rating and claimed “I love it and think its the greatest thing since the chalkboard.”
Analysis: Teachers had the iPads in their hands only weeks, or in some cases days, before the students. In the comment section many reported that getting the iPads earlier would have increased their comfort-level and helped them plan for ways to integrate. While the desire for more training stood out, overall the iPad had a significant positive impact on their day-to-day operations as a teacher.
Focus Group Responses -
In December of 2011, the administrative staff at Westlake questioned groups of students and teachers from various classes. The students were chosen at random, coming from various subject areas and courses and not necessarily all with teachers in the WIFI project. Their feedback was extremely valuable and brought to light several unexpected outcomes.
On several occasions, students in the focus group reported a marked decrease in stress levels in school because of the iPad. They no longer had to manage and remember where all their papers are and were as they had them all in one spot. One student said, “It is just easier to keep track of things like notes and homework. It is all right there (on the iPad).”
Another factor in decreased stress levels was the real-time communication that students now had with teachers. One student said, “In the past, when I had a question on an assignment in 3rd period, I had to wait 5 hours until I got home, get on the computer, email the teacher, hope that the teacher was checking email, then wait for a response. Now that both the teachers and students have iPads, I can ask the question during 4th period lunch and have an answer by 5th period. Saving me hours of worry or confusion.”
Distraction was an issue on the October survey, but when asked about the level of distraction in the December focus groups, both teachers and students acknowledged that the distraction was greatly decreased from the first few weeks of having the iPads in hand. Several factors can be attributed to this decrease in distraction. One is that the novelty of the iPad had worn off and students were now truly using them for primarily instructional purposes. Another was that teachers had now become accustomed to managing this new device in their class and the administration at the high school re-enforced the fact that the iPads didn’t have to be used every minute of class. Students also mentioned that “it’s harder to hide an iPad than a phone” when trying to do something they shouldn’t be.
Staff acknowledged that if a student was distracted before the iPad, they would be distracted with it. Many staff reported that the lack of papers in their life made it a time-saver, but there were still some challenges when it came to turning projects and papers in. Repeatedly, staff reported that the anytime access to content and the internet was a significant help in their teaching and the learning of the students.
Lastly, students increasingly saw the iPad as more of a tool than a toy as the semester wore on. Senior Taylor Sutton said, “Students realize how much it is worth to them, so they don’t want it taken away. So it is put away when the teacher asks.” Another student drove home this fact that the iPad had transformed into a “school tool” when he mentioned that over the holiday break he left his iPad at a friend’s house for the entire two weeks. He felt like it was something that you use for school and wanted a break from it as well. Of course, the night before 2nd semester, he said it was charged and ready to go.
Summary of data and focus groups:
The data and feedback from staff and students would suggest that, like any new tool, the iPad experienced 
the classic “implementation dip” in late September/early October. Since then, it’s value in the classroom has continued to rise as distraction has given way to authentic learning. Teachers use of the iPads in their lessons began primarily as substitutive in nature, but has seen an increased in augmented uses and in some cases, teachers even redefining how they teach. Teachers across the board desired more training and support when it comes to integration of the iPad in their daily lessons.
Student research and questioning suggests that it has transformed learning at an even greater rate than that of teaching. They have discovered new and creative ways to use the iPad to help them learn and collaborate, including some students making use of FaceTime to remote into a class when they are out sick. As the value of this learning tool has increased, the singularly most asked question by Seniors is “can we buy these at the end of the semester so I can use it for college.”
All in all, the WIFI pilot has had its share of challenges to both teaching and learning, but overall, the summary of its intended and unintended outcomes has made it a success. This success is best addressed through the voices of the students. One recent quote that summarizes this success was from Student body President Steven Wilbanks. When he was asked in January how the iPad has affected his education he said, “I can’t remember what it was like to learn without this. Honestly, it seems like the old way of learning (without the iPad) was a long time ago.”
Thanks to Cathy Cluck, WHS teacher for organizing and collecting the teacher survey results. Thanks to Stephen Shands, WHS Assistant Principal, for sharing quotes from focus group feedback. Special thanks to WHS Students Arnab Chatterjee and Steven Wilbanks for organizing and collecting student data as well as presenting to the Eanes School Board their findings.
