Yes Tech!

Scott McLeod has asked for bloggers to participate in “Leadership Day,” a day to reflect on digital leadership with the purpose of helping school principals, central office administrators, and superintendants become more effective to lead the effort of preparing students for the 21st century.  Specifically, how to recognize, evaluate, and facilitate effective technology usage by students and teachers.

In my role as the Instructional Technology Coordinator for a large school district, I work with teachers as they use technology in their classrooms.  I need your help; I cannot do this without you.  

Technology professional development is not required according to the teacher contract and it is not required for administrators.  However, there are Michigan GLCE’s (Grade Level Content Expectations) that include student use of technology in every curricular area.  Michigan curriculum is required.  Using technology is no longer something that can be used “when there is enough time.”  Our students depend on us to prepare them to think critically, work efficiently, solve problems and communicate in creative ways, collaborate with others, and be able to figure out the best ways to do all these things, taking risks to do so.  Technology changes quickly and our students must adapt to it.  We all do.  We are the professionals who need to ensure that it happens. 

What can administrators do to help lead the effort?  Although I am thinking of specific things for my school district, these ideas could be applied to any school district.

• Take my online course “21st Century Skills for the 21st Century Educator.”  The purpose is to provide you with opportunities to experience tools that are now available online that will enable you to easily connect and share with others, participate in authentic collaborative activities with other educators, explore new web-based educational tools, and reflect on how all this impacts your professional life.  Contact me for log on information.
• Set your own personal technology goals.  Make the time to try out tech gadgets and web tools.  Ask for help; you know who to ask.  Be a learner.  Without this step, the rest simply cannot occur.
• Set technology goals for your school; work with teacher leaders to set them and carry them out.  Communicate them with teachers, parents, and students. 
• Attend the Spice it Up Technology Conference.  It’s local, it’s free, and you can learn a lot.  There is a strand just for administrators!
• Know the difference between using technology that will and will not make a difference in student achievement. Doing a worksheet on a computer or copying info from the Internet on a PowerPoint slide will not make one bit of difference in student learning. 
• Be aware that there are educational technology standards for administrators.  Study them, work with other administrators to make sense of them, and include them in your daily work.
• Hire only those who are tech savvy and creative.  In today’s economic climate you can be very picky.
• Expect that the technology that we have is used constantly.  Do something about it if it is not. 
• Showcase lessons that allow students to make choices, think outside of the box, and demonstrate their learning in creative ways.  Don’t call attention to the technology used, call attention to the content and the process.  

With your support at the building (or the district) level, together we can make a huge difference.  Our students will be more engaged, our teachers will be more effective, our students will develop deeper understanding of concepts, and our parents will be pleased with our efforts!  

I attended Michigan Virtual University’s Online Learning Symposium at MSU yesterday.  Michael Horn, one of the authors of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.  He was introduced by a high school student, Amanda, who is enrolled in an online class.  She spoke about how taking an online class let her learn at her own pace and in her own way.  She said: “We need a disruptive force to change the US educational system.  That disruptive force is on-line learning.”

Michael Horn has a business background and studies the reasons businesses have come and gone over the years.  He explained how initially products that seem to have no merit (“disruptive”) grow to take over markets; thereby pushing out older established companies.   He argues that our educational system needs to find a way to reach students according to their interests, needs, learning style, and pace.  He believes that online learning will be used first to help keep kids in school and to provide assistance when they flunk a class.  Then, once it is proven that online learning can help students in danger of dropping out of school, then it will be explored for all students.

The number of online course registrations has increased at a steady pace over the past few years.  Only time will tell if Mr. Horn’s predictions will come true.  In the meantime, I’ll be working with teachers and administrators in my district so that we are ready!  Thinking outside of the box is in order.

I’ll be buying his book.

Dennis Keeney, my district’s Technology & Data Analysis Director facilitated a presentation/discussion at a principal’s meeting.   It was eye-opening and thought provoking.  He talked about a book he recently read, by Rick Wormeli, Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom. 

Dennis talked about the reasons we give students grades: to document student progress; to provide feedback to students, parents, and teachers, and to inform instructional decisions.  With these reasons in mind, he discussed some common grading pitfalls according to the author:

1. Avoid nonacademic factors (behavior, attendance, etc).
2. Avoid penalizing for multiple attempts at mastery.
3. Avoid grading homework.
4. Avoid recording zeros for work not done.
5. Avoid group grades. Cooperative learning helps students learn, but is not an indicator of proficiency.

Gulp.  Teachers I know are all over the board with deeply ingrained beliefs about grading.  I have changed my own thinking about grading over the years. I totally agree with #1, 2, and 4.  When I was in the classroom (my last year was in 2001) I was no longer giving zeroes.  I get that… I did the math and was convinced that a zero skewed the info, so I gave a 55 instead of a zero.  I also believe that students should be given the opportunities to demonstrate mastery of concepts - test retakes (if they are given a different, but equal assessment),  I also believe that students should receive the highest grade.

Homework is a toughie.  I always graded homework because I thought at the time that the feedback would help students master the concepts, and I thought that students wouldn’t do the work if it wasn’t graded.  I have no idea if I’m right or wrong about that.  This would make a nice question for an action research project.  Will students do homework if it isn’t graded?  What factors make homework more meaningful for students to complete?

Giving group grades is also one that I grapple with.  I think that an occasional group grade can show mastery, if set up with an evaluation rubric, checkpoints along the way to make sure everyone is doing the work, and clear expectations.

As a parent, I can look at my two children to make some general conclusions about how they learn and what they know.  One of them could care less about the grade & didn’t always do homework, but he would ace the test. The other did every single homework and extra credit assignment and also aced the test.  GPAs were vastly different.  ACTs were very similar. 

These important conversations must take place in schools.  Mr. Keeney was masterful in facilitating a conversation about this topic.  He pulled individual student data out of our student information system (removed names) for discussion purposes.  As a group we discussed how they were graded and if the grades were indicative of their mastery of the content.   It seems to me that discussing individual situations somehow nudges people to think much differently than talking about generalizations, and is the way to go. 

I spent the afternoon with a great group of folks discussing & planning steps to help administrators be the kinds of leaders required to transform our schools into 22nd century places of learning… meaning we must plan for the future.  I wish I remember who said that at the meeting, but I really like the phrase “22nd century learning” much better than “21st century learning,” a popular phrase that I believe has become overused.  If we are planning for 21st century learning, we’re already too late.

Meetings I attend outside of my school district tend to be with people like me – people who work on instructional uses of technology.  Our ideas and beliefs are shared for the most part.  The meeting today was with a group of administrators (superintendents, principals, curriculum directors, etc) who come from diverse backgrounds .  I enjoyed hearing their perspectives and ideas -  it was fun to discuss educational technology with people who have such different job responsibilities from mine.  The lingo was a bit different from what I am used to, but we all are interested in changing the learning culture of schools and are striving for the same goals.

The discussion was rich as we talked about the “formula” for the development of the kind of administrative leadership that fosters student use of technology as a true learning tool.  What makes some administrators passionate about the topic?  How can students be added to this discussion?  How can we encourage the natural learning that takes place informally in homes to continue at school?   Should teacher evaluation have a technology component?  How can we best share ideas and network with others about this topic?  What are the routines and practices of our best technology-using schools?  Of course, there are many more questions than answers, but I am pleased to be a part of the discussion and planning process.

Also, a phrase I heard for the first time was “generative leadership.”  …I plan to learn more about what that means.

 
The MACUL Conference was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan last week.  The conversations, networking, and social events helped me connect with others, and spending time with others who “get me” for three days was pretty cool.

The pre-conference session with Jason Ohler on digital storytelling was a highlight, for sure.  Jason was masterful at helping everyone see that digital stories have everything to do about the story, and little to do with the technology.  By the end of the day, EVERYONE had written and produced a short digital video using either iMovie or MovieMaker, then we shared our creations with the group.  The stories were fabulous! 

I attended a wide variety of sessions, and picked up at least one thing from each of them.  I was on the MACUL blogging team, so I wrote about many of the sessions on the Conference blog.

So, now it’s time to set goals to figure out new ways of bringing the joy and effectiveness of technology into the arms of the students and teachers in the classrooms.   After much thought, I think that one of the things that needs to be done is to find ways to reach the school principals… the instructional leaders at the building level.    One principal from my district attended this year, and he has already made plans to add on-line collaborative experiences for the students at his school.  What could happen if all the principals were to attend MACUL next year in Detroit? 

So far I haven’t found a way to systemically communicate the need for keeping abreast of newer technologies that were not available even a few years ago to the building principals.  I’ve been asked to train them on using Word, PowerPoint, Excel, email, etc.  I’m  happy to do that, and learning to use these programs help them with their administrative tasks, but somehow there hasn’t been time for more meaningful types of staff development.   When I do have the opportunity to speak with the group, I have a short amount of time in their packed agenda. 

I plan to work closely with the principal who attended MACUL, and I’m banking on him having clout with his peers to ensure that we find time for doing what we need to do to prepare our students for the world they now live in.  We cannot do it without technology.

The Feb 2008 issue of Educational Leadership features an article titled “Cover the Material – Or Teach Students to Think?,” written by Marion Brady.  The author questions the logic of adding “rigor” and high standards to the curriculum at the expense of teaching students to think.  The author believes that old answers rarely fit in eras of rapid social change, and that adaptation to changing realities require higher-order thinking skills.  Textbooks do not help develop higher-order thinking skills, because they represent the final conclusions of other people’s thoughts and processes. 

Traditional instruction is more concerned with the study of opinions about the real world than with the study of the real world itself.  Internalizing others’ views required just one thinking skill–recall.  Trying to make sense of one’s own day-to-day experience requires the use of every known thinking skill.

Education leaders can take a crucial step toward getting students to use higher-order thinking skills by drawing a sharp line between firsthand and secondhand knowledge.  The best way to do this is to focus attention directly on some part of the real world. 

Our students need to have opportunities to make their own inferences,  hypotheses, generalizations, and value judgements.  Gobal collaborative projects such as the Roadkill 2008 Project (sounds gross, but you need to look into it… I heard about it on EdTechTalk this week), projects such as Cheryl Lykowski’s Global Explorers project, and Technospud Projects would fit the bill. 

A few classrooms in Walled Lake are participating in The Oakland Schools Land Use Project, where students come up with a development idea that would improve their community.  They collaborate with local experts who push them to think about concepts such as the impact on the environment and the people, and local zoning ordinances.  The students survey their community to determine the need, calculate costs, and identify benefits and challenges.   They present their idea to the county experts by videoconference.  The project has meaning to the students and they are learning to think!

I agree with the author, who believes that a focus on real-world issues can alter the entire culture of a school or a school system.  It is relevant.  It shows respect for the students.  Tim Tyson, former principal at Mabry Middle School (Georgia) gets it.  His students all participate in a film festival where they create videos based on a current events issue.  Scroll down to the bottom of this page to see some examples.  Principal Tyson delivered the closing keynote address at last year’s NECC Conference; it has been 8 months and it is still fresh in my mind.  He brought students with him who talked about their experiences doing their research, creating their video, and their feelings about making the world a better place.  It was highly motivating to them.  There is no doubt in my mind that the skills developed as a result of that project are the kinds of skills that are needed in today’s working world. 

What can we do (and what needs to be done) to give more emphasis toward teaching students to think in a time when our country is so focused on standards and testing?  I am doing what I can in my school district in Walled Lake, but I know that there is so much more to do.  One of the things I’m excited about is an 8th grade social studies project that I’m developing right now.  It will be one that ALL 8th graders (about 1,200) will complete, and it involves students collaborating to create projects that requires them to think!   They will participate using Moodle, an on-line course management system.  Pulling this off requires lots of time, teacher staff development, tech troubleshooting, and advanced planning.  Hopefully the teachers will soon agree that time spent on a project like this is worth the time away from “covering the material.”  Only time will tell.