Category: Technology for Learning

Technology for Learning

Where Can I Learn More about iPads in Elementary Schools

I get asked regularly, besides my writing about our iPad initiative, who else writes about iPads in elementary education.

Here are some of the folks I read:

  • Sidwell Friends School (the primary grades iPad initiative at the school the Obama girls attend)
  • Fraser Speirs (Scottish tech integrator. Has great posts about iPads in elem sch)
  • Tony Vincent (great info on teaching and learning with mobile tech, especially iPads)
  • Jennie Magiera (amazing tech coach in Chicago, was one of our keynotes at our Leveraging Learning Institute – not exclusively iPads but on the nose about pedagogy with tech)
  • And this blog isn’t about iPads, but we see our iPad initiative as how we implement Customized Learning in the Primary Grades and Mark Davis is a teacher who writes about his experience with customized learning. Very nice, concrete writing about implementation…

Social Media for School Leaders

I just returned from the national middle school conference (AMLE12) in Portland, OR.

While there, I attended a wonderful session on Social Media for School Leaders by Howard Johnston and Ron Williamson. Their presentation showed a wonderful balance of the realities of today's viral communication and the school context.

The presentation addressed the role of social media in five areas:

  1. Social Media and Schools
  2. School Safety and Crisis Management
  3. Communication
  4. Productivity
  5. Professional Growth

What they made clear is how important a tool social media is to schools and school leaders, and the enormous opportunity lost when schools shun social media. They raised the following questions suggesting why school leaders might want to pay attention to the potential of social media:

  • Do you communicate with students, families and staff?
  • Do you monitor community views about your school?
  • Do your kids use social media?
  • Do you need to stay on top of cutting-edge educational topics?
  • Do you need to promote good news about your school in the community?

And they recommended a 5-step plan (in part, based on findings from the Pew Internet and American Life Project) related to social media and school safety:

  1. Learn about social media and how it works
  2. Recognize that most teens use it responsibly
  3. Don’t attempt to ban it
  4. Help students, families and staff know about how to manage social media
  5. Focus on responsible student use

Johnston and Williamson provided a great list of resources available to school leaders:

 

More Indications of Positive Results from Auburn’s iPads

We’ve had iPads in our Kindergarten classrooms for more than a year now. This fall, we also rolled out iPads to our 1st grade students. All in the name of improving students’ mastery of literacy and math.

We know that we have too many students who aren’t demonstrating proficiency, so for several years, we’ve been making sure that teachers are getting quality training in literacy and math instruction, and we’re hopeful that, combined with the access to educational resources made possible through iPads, that we’ll increase that level of proficiency.

And when we examined gains made by last year’s kindergarten students, that’s what we found. Our kindergarten students had made more gains than in years past, leading our Curriculum Director to proclaim that taxpayers’ money is well spent.

Read more about our gains in the Sun Journal article Educators Say iPads Help Scores, and the MPBN radio story Auburn Educators Tout Benefits of iPads for Kindergartners (sorry iPad users; you need flash to listen to the story, but you can still peruse the article).

Learning about Leveraging iPads for Learning

We just wrapped up our second annual Leveraging Learning Institute. We played host to 140 educators from across Maine, the country, and around the world! We had folks from Georgia, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. We even had five educators from two schools in Japan. What we all had in common was a passion for the potential of iPads to personalize learning for primary grades students.

Apple even sent a bunch of their people to learn from us about how we’re doing customized learning with iPads.

We had wonderful sessions on everything from the kinds of apps we’re using (presented by our 1st grade students!), to how to use various kinds of data to support your initiative, to communicating with the community, to what to do if your initiative is having troubles, to figuring out the complexities of syncing apps in a school setting. Check out all the sessions here. Resources from sessions and the institute are available here. (Fear not! Over the next couple weeks more and more will be posted. Videos of the keynotes will also eventually be posted.)

In addition to the Auburn team, Education Commissioner Steve Bowen, trauma suregeon Rafael Grossmann, Apple Distinguished Educator Kathy Shirley, Apple Distinguished Educator Jennie Magiera, and customized learning evangelist Bea McGarvey presented and participated. Get connected to all our presenters here.

We had wonderful press coverage! Stories highlighted the conference just prior to its starting, the Commissioner’s involvement in the opening keynote, trauma surgeon Rafael Grossmann, who also shared the opening keynote, and Auburn Kindergarten teacher Amy Heimerl, who did her own research study on the effectiveness of the iPads.

Maybe the best press coverage was our team of Auburn Middle School students who live tweeted every session and even participated in a few! (Search for the #adv2014 hash tag and be sure to set your feed to receive “all posts.”)

We’re already looking forward to next year’s conference. But I’ll warn you! We opened registration in the second half of August and registration filled in just a couple weeks with a long waiting list. After this year’s success, we expect to fill even more quickly!

Tricks for Teaching Tech Quickly (The Series)

Technology can certainly help a teacher manage her classroom, or keep track of student progress. And there are students who will benefit from becoming computer experts by taking computer classes. But the most powerful use of technology in schools is when it is a learning tool for students, just like their texts, papers, and pens (well, maybe not just like…)

But to leverage the power of technology for learning, the technology needs to be treated as a tool, and most of the time allocated for the activity needs to focus on the curriculum, while making sure that students still learn what they need to in order to use the technology well.

This series of posts will help you do that well in your own classroom:

 

Kids Teaching Kids: Tricks to Teach Tech Quickly (4 of 4)

This is the fourth in a series of posts on teaching technology quickly so technology-based learning activities can be focused more on the curriculum than on the technology.

Kids Teaching Kids
Another effective strategy is “Kids Teaching Kids.” This strategy is important because many teachers still don’t feel they know as much about technology as their students do (whether they actually do, or not).

The good news is that same feeling of inadequacy translates into the teacher having 15-30 valuable resources right in her own classroom!

In its simplest form, “Kids Teaching Kids” can be as simple as when a student comes to you and says, “I saw that Moesha had some interesting animation in her project; will you show me how to do that?” You respond, “Why don’t you ask Moesha how she did that?”

More deliberate approaches include creating a poster listing typical tech issues, apps, peripherals, devices, and programs for your classroom, and the students who know how to use them, do them, or fix them. When a student needs help with using the iPod Touch as a digital camera, he can look up at the list and see which of his classmates already know how to use it.

Some teachers use the “three before me” rule. If a student has a question about how to do something, she must ask three other students before approaching the teacher.

Another strategy is to teach a new skill or tool to a handful of students, with the expectation that they will then go on and teach the other students.

Notice how each of these approaches both empowers students (often including students who may not have a lot of other opportunities in class to feel empowered!), and frees you to put your energy where it is most needed.

 

Cheat Sheets: Tricks for Teaching Tech Quickly (3 of 4)

Below, is the third of four posts highlighting techniques that will help insure that teachers are helping students succeed with their work by teaching them the technology skills they need, but doing it quickly, so that most of the time could be spent focusing on content from the curriculum.

Cheat Sheets
The third trick for teaching technology quickly is a strategy that works hand in hand with mini lessons: the use of “Cheat Sheets.”

Cheat Sheets are help guides: step-by-step instructions for using a specific program or doing a specific project. (My students always preferred this name to “help guides” or “instruction sheets,” although I’m not so sure my former Assistant Superintendent liked the name….)

If students were learning how to make Web pages, the teacher might give students a handout with step-by-step directions for making new pages, saving pages, inserting graphics, formatting text, making links to other pages in the project, making links to other Web sites, and creating tables to use for formatting the project.

Unlike mini lessons, there can be many sets of directions on the cheat sheets because students can go directly to the one they need, when they need it.

When teaching mini lessons, it’s valuable to have the teacher model following directions on the cheat sheet. For example, many middle grades students aren’t all that good at following step-by-step directions, and when I was a middle level technology integrator, had students that wanted to start with Step 3, or wanted to do the steps in a different order. In many cases this was simply because they hadn’t been shown how to follow directions (or hadn’t been shown for a long time). Saying, “Where do we start? What's the first step?” or “So, what's the next step? What step number are we on?” can go a long way…

Further, when a student asks how to do something that is on a cheat sheet, I’d often ask her what step she was on. Some students find it easier to ask the teacher how to do something, than to go back to the directions and do it themselves. Redirecting the student to the cheat sheet helped make them more self-reliant and freed me to work with the students who really did need my help (after all, why did we put all the time to writing out directions?).

I often found that after students followed the directions on the cheat sheet three or four times, they had learned the skill and didn’t really need the cheat sheet again. But they always had the cheat sheet to refer to if they came back to do this type of project in the future.

Be sure to share any cheat sheets you create with your colleagues. No reason each teacher needs to create all the cheat sheets themselves. Remember: many hands make light work!

“Just in Time” Lessons: Tricks to Teaching Tech Quickly (2 of 4)

This is the second in a series of posts on teaching technology quickly so the focus of technology-based learning activities can be not on technology, but rather on the curriculum.

“Just in Time,” not “Just In Case”
The mistake the Health teacher from the recent post made wasn’t doing mini lessons before letting students start their project. Her mistake was doing too many mini lessons. Teachers, often simply because they want students to succeed, try to show students everything they might need in order to complete a project.

The problem with this approach to education, according to Roger Schank (1995 – print book or hyperbook), is that it gives students information they might need before they perceive they need it, or answers questions students don’t have yet. This is “Just in Case” education. We teach students knowledge and skills just in case they will need it later. The problem is that because students don’t yet perceive they need it, it doesn’t get filed effectively in student memory and we end up re-teaching it later.

“Just in Time” education is either teaching knowledge and skills when students recognize they need them, or working to create a sense of need or to generate interest before teaching them. In terms of technology mini lessons, it means identifying the 3 to 5 skills students need right away to get started on the project, and doing other mini lessons only as the need arises.

For the Health public service announcements, it would mean teaching how to import video clips, how to build the video by sequencing the clips, and how to crop and edit clips. It would also mean not showing students how to put in titles or transitions or how to export their final project, because those are skills students will need near the end of their work, not when they are getting started. Those mini lessons might still be taught, but only days later, when and if students need them. Further, “Just in Time” education means that the teacher does not take time to teach those skills if students figure them out on their own. Although it might be a good idea to plan a minilesson because students might need it, that does not mean that it has to be taught.

 

Tricks to Teaching Technology Quickly: Mini Lessons (1 of 4)

Yesterday, I suggested that teachers sometimes make one of two mistakes when designing technology-based activities for students: either spending too much or too little time teaching the technology skills necessary for the activity.

I am not referring here to how teachers might use technology to help with their lecturing and direct instruction (although one friend reminded me that too much lecturing and “PowerPointlessness” are also mistakes teachers make when teaching with technology…).

Educators who read me often know that I'm not a big fan of spending too much time teaching about hardware or software, whether it is for professional development for teachers, or learning activities for students. I'd much rather see a lesson where the students, young or old, learned how to analyze data (and leave knowing also how to use a spreadsheet) than a lesson just on how to use the spreadsheet. But those kinds of lessons only work when you can figure out how to teach the technology quickly.

Below, is the first of four techniques that will help insure that teachers are helping students succeed with their work by teaching them the technology skills they need, but doing it quickly, so that most of the time could be spent focusing on content from the curriculum.

Mini Lessons
Technology mini lessons are no different than mini lessons in any other discipline: a short lesson covering some specific skill or fact.

For a video project, they would include things like importing video from the camera, cropping video clips, sequencing them, and adding titles and transitions.

For making Web pages, they would include lessons such as adding graphics, making new pages, making links to your other pages, or making links to other Web sites.

For making brochures, the mini lessons might be changing the orientation of the paper, changing the margins, and setting up columns.

Ideally, each mini lesson is followed by a brief period when the students can apply what they have just learned before the next mini lesson is introduced.


The Two Mistakes Teachers Make When Teaching With Technology

Even though we may be working with “Digital Natives,” students do not necessarily have the technology skills to do the work we want them to do with their laptops and tablets. In an environment where the technology is in service to learning the curriculum, it is important that teaching those skills is done quickly so that most of the student’s time is spent on the content of the activity, not the technology itself.

But good, well-intentioned teachers often make two inadvertent mistakes when they start out teaching with technology…

I once observed a middle school Health Education teacher work with her students on a technology-based project. She is an excellent teacher who comes up with very creative ways to engage her students. She also used technology quite a bit herself and had terrific ideas of how to use computers with her students. Although she was an experienced teacher and knowledgeable about using computers, she was a novice at teaching with technology. She ended up making a critical mistake.

She was preparing to have her students make thirty-second public service announcements (PSAs) about different health issues and diseases. Students would use the desktop video software available on their laptops. I was there from the first lesson, when the teacher described the project to the students. Enthusiasm was high! These students were dying to create videos and they were anxious to get their hands on their computers. The teacher had carefully and thoughtfully prepared a series of skill-building sessions to prepare students to use the desktop video software.

But it took her three days to go through all the skill-building lessons.

By then, many students had lost interest in the project or were off task, and some were really disruptive.

The teacher’s mistake? She had put too much emphasis on the technology. She spent too much time teaching the technology skills.

Teachers new to teaching with technology generally make two mistakes when integrating technology into their teaching.

Spending Too Much Time Teaching the Technology
Spending too much time teaching the technology takes the focus off of the curricular goals originally intended for the technology-based activity. Or, worse, this destroys the intrinsic motivation students might have for a project when it is introduced. The Health Education teacher’s PSA project was like this. It turned out well, but she had to work to get their interest and motivation back. Teachers want students to know all the skills that they might need throughout the project, and don’t recognize that students probably only need a handful of skills to get started and can learn new skills as the need them, if they don’t figure them out on their own.

Not Teaching the Technology Skills
The other mistake is not teaching any technology skills at all. For example, a teacher might want students to create PowerPoint presentations or to make a multimedia project to show others what they had learned from the research they have done in class. But the teacher doesn’t show the students how to use the presentation or multimedia software and simply expects them to figure it out on their own. Sometimes this is because the teacher assumes the students already know how to use the programs, or because the teacher isn’t sure how to teach them herself. Sometimes it is because she is concerned about the time it will take and she knows she has a lot of curriculum to address.

If we are going to expect teachers to integrate technology into teaching (hopefully because we believe in the benefits to learning!), then we certainly don’t want teachers to leave students floundering with the technology. Students deserve to be given support and instruction in order to be successful with the task. By the same token, we want teachers to be able to focus most of their instructional and student learning time on their curriculum and not to shift the emphasis of their teaching to technology.

What, then, is that balance between supporting students with some technology instruction and not taking too much time so teachers and students can stay focused on the curriculum? Teachers must not only design engaging technology-based projects and activities for their content, but they must figure out how to teach the technology quickly.

Why We Must Embrace Disruptive Technology

There is more to Sustaining and Disruptive uses of educational technology than the opportunity to improve education and to reach more students. There are risks involved. But this isn't from embracing Disruptive uses, but rather from not embracing them. David Thornburg:

When kids who are that fluent with these tools encounter an educational system that is predominantly driven by the awesome power of a sheet of slate and a stick of chalk, then they're in trouble. Or the teacher is in trouble, more appropriately, because the student will just tune [the teacher] out and do this project at home. [He'll say,] “It's not worth my time to try it here, I don't have access to the resources. I'll just get through the day.”

In fact, the whole Sustaining/Disrupting idea comes from the world of business and the writings of Clayton Christensen, who “focuses on the critical distinction between sustaining technologies that enhance current trends in an industry and disruptive technologies – innovations that herald the wave of the future.” He argues that even well managed companies fail if they don't respond to innovation in a timely manner. It is adaptive organizations that survive and thrive in the presence of disruptive technologies. (See a summary here.)

That doesn't mean that it's easy. In fact it can generate a lot of fear. That's because Disruptive uses can fundamentally threaten well established practices. When graphing calculators first came out in the late 1980's, I bought one because I knew they represented great potential for teaching math. I showed it to a close friend, who was also a math teacher. Her first words were, “Wow! This is great!” But, without missing a beat, she went on to say, “I hope none of my students have one!”

David Thornburg had this to say about 1-to-1 computing, perhaps the biggest disruptive innovation facing schools in along time:

There's a realization that when you go below 4 to 1, as an educator, your world changes. I think that the teachers and administrators who are resistant to one-to-one computing definitely do understand the implications. These are very bright people. They know that the world of education as they know it will end. …

How can we help schools adapt to disruptive technologies? And more importantly, how can we take advantage of the “wave of the future” to improve schools and reach more students?

 

 

Do Something Different: Disruptive Technology

There are really two ways to use technology for teaching and learning. Johnson and Maddux refer to it as “Type I” and “Type II” (see here, for example). Alan November refers to it as “automation” and “infomation” (see here). Others refer to them as “sustaining” and “disruptive” (see here).

The bottom line is that Sustaining (Type I) approaches simply automate conventional practice – they support the ways teachers currently teach. Disruptive (Type II) uses are those that allow students and teachers to do things that they couldn't easily do before, or perhaps couldn't do at all. Business recognizes that although Sustaining uses of technology make work more efficient, there is only incremental improvement and benefits. It is with Disruptive uses of technology that real gains are to be made.

For example, the typewriter is Sustaining since it makes writing more efficient (it's neater, and with practice you can type faster than you can write). The word processor, however, is Disruptive because of the ease of revision. If you need to revise or edit a paper, there is little advantage to having a typewriter over having a pen and paper. In both cases, you have to start over with a new copy. With a word processor, you simply make your changes to the existing copy and print a new one. In fact, writing teachers have noticed that young writers no longer do separate, distinct drafts of a paper (1st draft, 2nd draft, etc.). Young writers now simply do a single rolling, evolving draft. They may print a new version (or submit a new electronic version in a drop box!) at certain points of their work, but each of these is not an end product of work on a specific draft, but rather a snapshot in time of the single evolving paper.

Other Sustaining examples include drill and practice software, student response systems (“clickers”), and SMARTboards. Each of these are more efficient ways of doing what teachers have done for a long time. But, since we aren't really changing what teachers have done – we aren't changing eduction – they won't mean that we will reach more students than we have in the past or that our schools will achieve anything they haven't done in the past. There's an old saying that if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten – even if you're doing it more efficiently.

Keep in mind that what matters most is how the technology is used, not which technology is used. For example, PowerPoint to create slides for a presentation is a Sustaining application, but students using PowerPoint to create multimedia documents to teach others about a topic they have been studying could be a Disruptive application. Using a graphing calculator in a math class with the traditional Algebra text is a Sustaining use, but using a graphing calculator for modeling real (messy) data and studying functions is a Disruptive use.

Other Disruptive examples of using technology in education include digital storytelling, WebQuests, or using blogs, wikis, and podcasts to build community and literacy. These uses have been shown to get students excited about learning, to learn basic skills, to use and develop higher order thinking skills, and to motivate hard to teach students. These tools have the ability to change education.

David Thornburg puts it this way:

All too often, we see teachers who are using technologies today trying to do the same kinds of things they did in the past, only more efficiently. I'm not going to go back to using a typewriter now that I use a word processor. But those are examples of what I'd call doing things differently–and the real power comes when you do different things.

Technology is expensive. I'm not sure it is worth that expense, if we are only going to use it to do what we have always done. But it could be well worth the cost if it brings productive changes in learning to our classrooms.

What is the change in learning you'd like to see in our schools?

 

Leveraging Learning: iPads in Primary Grades – Registration Opens Thursday!

Last November, Auburn successfully hosted their first Leveraging Learning Institute, focused on iPads in primary grades. We will be hosting the Institute again November 14-16, 2012. Sessions will appeal to those just starting and veteran implementers, as well as, those new to our conference and those who attended last year!

We expect the Institute to fill quickly, so please know that registration opens Thursday, 8/23 at noon (Eastern time).

Come gain insights into:

  • How to design and implement an iPad initiative to customize learning for students
  • Structuring professional development for continuous improvement
  • iPads for formative assessment, and special education, and as a creativity tool, and more!
  • Which apps should you use?
  • Leveraging data and supporting your initiative with thoughtful research
  • iPad and iOS management, and large-scale tech implementation
  • Managing apps and iPads in the classroom
  • and more!

Classroom visits will be available as optional pre- and post-conference sessions under separate registration (which also opens Thursday at noon!).

“The quality of this conference was extremely high. …the information was both pertinent and useable immediately.” Kevin Howe – Board Member – Lakeside Union School District – Lakeside, CA – LL2011 Attendee

We look forward to seeing you in November!

 

Keep the MLTI RFP Focused on Maine: Talking Points

As with other issues around the new MLTI RFP, I have had good exchanges with folks since I wrote about my worries about the new RFP having an option for other states to buy off of the terms of our contract. Some of you have asked what you might say to the Commissioner, if you wanted to express that you felt similarly.

Based on my experience working both in the private sector and the public sector, and on discussions with business people about this possibility, here are my talking points:

  • The possibility that the price would be lower because the vendor could sell more units is unlikely. A vendor is more likely to give an attractive price to a single showcase initiative.
  • Our RFP should be based on the changes in learning Maine would like to see. This doesn't apply to other states.
  • Even if other states are allowed to buy using our terms, the vendor has to do a separate contract with each state. The legal hassles of this mean that vendors will choose not to submit proposals to Maine.
  • If you take a second to imagine a vendor that you would like to see submit a proposal, there is a very good chance that they will not.
  • Please, make it clear in the RFP that submitted proposals will only apply to Maine.

 

Keep the MLTI RFP focused on Learning: Talking Points

I have had some great conversations and email exchanges with many of you since posting my concerns about keeping the new MLTI RFP focused on learning. Some of you have asked if you wanted to reach our to the Commissioner to express similar views, what might you say?

Here are my talking points:

  • Instead of tech specs, the RFP should describe what we would like to do with the devices (what is the change in learning that we would like to see?)
  • Technology is expensive, and we should not invest in it if we are simply going to use it to do what we do without it (what is the change in learning that we would like to see?)
  • Looking at the work in Maine, perhaps that change in learning should be Customized Learning and the Education Evolving recommendations
  • In keeping with the components of Customized Learning, the learning activities described should include both those for low level learning and for high level learning.
  • Low level activities (recall, understanding, simple application) could include the following: access to online resources, information gathering, note taking, communicating, studying, accessing online educational tools, etc.
  • High level activities (non-routine application, analysis, evaluation, creating) could include the following: creating simulations, project-based with multimedia, coding and programming, writing for a purpose and audience, digital storytelling, engineering and design, etc.

 

MLTI: How Will a Multi-state RFP Help Us?

Maine is nearly ready to enter a new contract cycle for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, and is currently working to craft a new request for proposals from vendors.

The DOE is considering exercising an organizational agreement that would allow other states to buy-in to the terms of our contract.

I recently shared my concerns about this possibility with both Commissioner Bowen and state Tech Director Jeff Mao, and asked them to please consider NOT framing the new MLTI RFP as a multi-state buy-in.

It is generous that the tech director is thinking about how he might help other states by using a provision that would allow other states to essentially access the same agreement that we reach with the successful vendor.

But I’m afraid I don’t see how such an arrangement will benefit us (Maine) and, in fact, I’m worried that it will hurt us. I have worked in both the public sector and the private sector, and although I can see why other states might like the option, I can’t imagine that vendors would.

If part of the motivation is to get a better price by suggesting they’d sell more units (and I admittedly don’t know the reasons the DOE is considering including the option allowing other states to sign on), then I worry that the reasoning is false. I would think that a vendor is more likely to give a better price to a single, well-designed, targeted initiative that had a good chance to showcase their solution.

Also, if our RFP is based on the kinds of changes in learning we’d like to promote (as I advocated in my previous post), it would generate the kinds of proposals that might include very specific software solutions and professional development, as well as hardware and network solutions. These would all be based on Maine’s context, our schools, our learning. How do other states benefit from that? Maybe I could see that if MLTI were simply a tech buy, but we’re not. We’re a learning initiative.

I worry, too, that this arrangement would needlessly make things difficult for a vendor. I would imagine that, even if there is a provision in an agreement between states allowing other states to buy in given our terms, that the vendor would have to still negotiate separate contracts with each state. I don’t think that there is a way for a different state to buy on our terms without having a separate contract with the vendor. And I worry that that which makes things unnecessarily difficulty for a vendor only hurts Maine and the possibilities of our getting a proposal that would include an attractive solution that meets our needs.

And my biggest fear, is that if a multi-state buy-in option is awkward and difficult for vendors, then vendors who could offer us the most attractive solutions will simply choose not to submit a proposal. Frankly, I worry that quality potential applicants will choose not to submit a proposal.

And worse. We can’t even ask our best partner in MLTI what they think. I would imagine that Apple would feel, now that the DOE is working to shape the RFP, that they couldn’t talk to the state about any topic that might even be perceived as related to the RFP. I would imagine that any vendor would think that that was too close to conflict of interest, or even illegal. So a partner that has been very helpful in the past and always quick to collaborate with us on all our challenges is likely to now be a mute partner.

So, if you are also worried about the unintended consequences of including a multi-state buy-in option in the new MLTI RFP, please contact the Commissioner of Education (624-6620; commish.doe@maine.gov) and state Tech Director (624-6634; jeff.mao@maine.gov) to encourage them to frame the RFP around Mane’s needs.

MLTI: What Change in Learning Would You Like to See?

I think one of things that MLTI, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, did well, right out of the gate, was to say it isn't a “tech buy,” but rather a learning initiative. I think this one point is a major reason why the first (and still only) statewide learning with laptop initiative did so well and is more than a decade old. Even the first RFP to prospective vendors focused on what we wanted to do with the technology, rather than tech specs.

And the focus on learning was especially evident in our professional development.

Our PD focused on project-based learning, and the writing process, and mathematical problem solving, etc. We focused on how to teach with technology, not so much on how to use it. And when we did focus on how to use it, it was in the context of how to teach with that tool. We didn't do workshops on how to use a spreadsheet; we did workshops on how to analyze data and the participants left also knowing how to do spreadsheets.

But I've grown concerned that MLTI may be moving away from that focus on learning. To listen to conversations about the initiative, they seem to focus much more on the “stuff” (comparing devices, network and filtering solutions, and discussing software fixes and specifications…) than on teaching and learning. I am not saying that I've heard that from Jeff Mao, Maine's Tech Director, or the DOE, as much from out in the general public. But even so, it has me worried a little…

I think one of the tricks of keeping a mature initiative going is to reflect on what made it great in the first place, and make sure that we keep those pieces fresh, even if they may have gotten a little stale and need refreshing. That's not to say that the MLTI team isn't doing their job. Every initiative needs freshening up when things have been routine for a while!

Right now, the MLTI contract is getting ready to run out and the Department of Education is working to craft a new RFP. What better (and perhaps more appropriate!) time to freshen up an initiative than when designing that initiative's RFP.

So I recently had conversations with both Commissioner of Education Bowen and Jeff Mao, asking them to please consider framing the new MLTI RFP around the change in learning they would like to see in our classrooms. This post reflects some of what I shared with them, first in my phone conversations, and then in a follow up email.

So, I'm hoping that MLTI is still committed to being a “learning initiative” and not a “tech buy.” And if it is, I'm hoping that the RFP can be crafted in such a way that this is evident.

And if so, then what is the change in learning that the Commissioner and the MLTI team are hoping will come about by leveraging the technology? Is it Customized Learning? What would Education Evolving, Maine's new education strategic plan, look like in action and how could technology help bring about? Is it the practices highlighted in the DOE's new Center for Best Practices? What are we hoping students would be doing each day, both on and off their devices, that we would recognize is a change in learning?

Or as I say in presentations, if we're just going to use technology to do what we're already doing, why put the money into technology?

I'm hoping that the Commisioner and the MLTI team will consider framing the RFP in such a way as to make obvious that we are looking for a change in learning, and allow the responding vendors to propose the technical solutions that they think can help get us there.

So, if you think that MLTI should be more than a tech buy, please contact the Commissioner of Education (624-6620; commish.doe@maine.gov) and state Tech Director (624-6634; jeff.mao@maine.gov) to encourage them to frame the RFP around desired changes in learning.

 

 

We Had It All Backwards: The Two Types of Instruction

When I told my Curriculum Director, Shelly, about my thinking about there being two types of instruction (Instruction for Lower Level Thinking and Instruction for Higher Order Thinking), she seemed to think the idea made a lot of sense to her, especially in the context of our work around Customized Learning.

She agreed that given how curriculum is organized within Customized Learning, we couldn’t continue to emphasize lower level thinking.

And we got talking about how, since all our middle and high school students had laptops, probably the low level learning, the recall and simple application, was something that students could largely do on their own (with guidance, and coaching).

And then Shelly said, you know, we’ve had it all backwards…

She told me about when she was a high school science teacher, she did a cell unit with students. She used to spend about two weeks of direct instruction to insure that students knew all the parts of a cell. Then she would turn students loose to do an analogy project, where they would write about how a cell and it’s parts were like something else (maybe a football team, or a corporation) and its parts. Students largely worked on this project on their own.

And we reflected on the irony that we (teachers) would spend so much time on something students could probably do on their own (looking up background information). And we did so little direct teaching on something that students probably needed more modeling and assistance with, the higher order thinking.

And we reflected on how teachers should really do a unit, like the cell unit, the other way around. Turn kids loose to learn about the parts of a cell, then do a bunch of instruction and scaffolding on how to make a good analogy (or what ever kind of complex reasoning we’re asking students to apply).

Other places do it that way. Carpe Diem is a 6-12 public school in Arizona that allocates its teaching resources directed at the higher order thinking more than the lower level thinking. Students use online curriculum, supervised by educational technicians, to learn the basics within a unit. Then students spend a large block of time each day, working directly with certified teachers, doing projects and other activities that require higher order thinking (nontrivial application, complex reasoning, and creating) with the content and skills from the unit. Watch this video about Carpe Diem’s approach.

 

What impact would it have on your students, if we turned them loose to use technology to learn the basic information in a unit, and then we spent quality time with them, both instructing students in how to do complex reasoning, and in applying complex reasoning to the content?

Auburn’s Messages About Learning with Technology for Commissioner Bowen

Commissioner Bowen Visits Auburn Schools

This morning, Maine Education Commissioner Steve Bowen spent an hour at Auburn’s Fairview Elementary School.

We had been wanting Commissioner Bowen to see how Auburn’s schools are leveraging technology for learning. Although the brevity of his visit precluded having him go to the middle school or the high school, we did get him to one of our elementary schools.

The Commissioner was able to visit Kelly McCarthy’s kindergarten classroom to experience Advantage 2014, our literacy and math program with iPads. Next, he visited Stephanie Marris’s 6th grade to see project-based learning with laptops in action (in this case, working on filming and editing plays students were creating and performing).

The Auburn team had three key messages for Commissioner Bowen about teaching and learning with technology.

Teachers Need to Get Out of the Way
Teachers are used to being the experts and passing their knowledge on to students. This sometimes leads to teachers feeling uncomfortable when they aren’t the expert. In many cases, however, students are more comfortable with technology than their teachers are. Teachers need to get out of the way of their students when it comes to technology. They need to see what the students can teach them, and allow students to pursue ways to use the technology for learning that the teachers themselves might not know how to do. This can be especially true for teachers in grade levels starting an initiative while inheriting students who have already been in it for a year or more (as it was for 8th grade teachers in the second year of MLTI a decade ago, and will be for Auburn’s 1st Grade teachers this coming year).

Teachers Can Teach More
When teachers are intentional in their planning, and are selecting apps and activities that both match the curriculum and engage students, the students can be more self directed, receive more immediate feedback, and spend more time on task. This allows teachers to give more students individualized attention, as well as give each student what they need academically when they need it. More teaching gets done!

It Takes Deliberate Leadership
Successfully leveraging technology for learning doesn’t just happen. Kids don’t learn better just because we passed out laptops or tables. It takes planning, and team work, and communication, and positive pressure and support, and lots and lots of PD and support for teachers. It takes leadership with school change in mind.

 

MLTI, Kindergarten iPads, & Customized Learning: a Keynote with Gov. King & Commissioner Bowen

Imagine!

Governor Angus King, who started the country’s first statewide 1to1 learning with laptop initiative, on stage with Commissioner Steve Bowen, whose strategic plan for education moves Maine away from Carnegie Units and toward Customized Learning, answering questions posed by kindergarten students who are participating in the country’s first 1to1 learning with iPads in kindergarten program.

What would they say about meeting the needs of all students?

What would they say about the role technology could play?

What would they say their favorite color was?

That was the opening keynote, “Learning – Past, Present, and Future,” at the 2011 Leveraging Learning – iPads in Primary Grades Institute in Auburn, ME.

If you missed the institute, you can still watch the keynote (link to YouTube).

Hope folks can join us for the 2012 Leveraging Learning Institute next November. Registration opens in mid-August.