Dangerously Irrelevant

Beginning in the 2010-2011 school year, our school went through a number of transformations and changes, all aimed at enhancing the quality of the learning and teaching within our building. We adapted a 5 x 3 trimester schedule providing longer class periods and a lower student-to-teacher ratio. We added a house system separating the student body into six different houses mixed by age. Through a partnership with Apple, we implemented a 1:1 laptop program with our students receiving MacBooks. Below are five lessons we learned and the two biggest struggles we continue to face.

Lessons learned

1. It's the pedagogy not the technology. Technology should always be at the service of pedagogy. If you've heard Gary Stager speak or read his posts, I'm sure you've heard this theme before. When technology integration moves from what Alan November calls automative to informative, the real fun begins. Technology integration in schools should not be about tacking technology onto poor pedagogy. Rather, the real joy and power of integrating technology into the classroom is the power it has to redefine the relationships in the classroom and reorient them toward a more student-centered approach to learning. In our efforts, pushing for a longer class period also allowed our staff to move away from lecture-driven instructional models and to start implementing strategies that are more constructivist in their nature. Project-based learning, challenge problems, and creative and collaborative work are all enhanced and enabled by high quality technology integration. Using a Google Doc and the Web to do a 20-minute kick-start with teams of students finding, validating, and creating information on a topic within the curriculum is a very engaging way to begin a new unit. Using various tech tools to easily integrate peer instruction strategies based on the work of Dr. Eric Mazur is a great way to leverage the technology. But in all of these examples, it is really the orientation to and relationship with the learning that has changed.
2. Support the pedagogy at all costs. Teachers will and can change their methods when they are comfortable with their knowledge and inspired by what they see from those around them. Any new teacher quickly begins to teach like her peer group. To support this shift in pedagogy, we spent the entire year before the 1:1 program began creating a full period a day for staff to attend PD sessions throughout the year. We created a new position, Director of Instructional Technology, to lead a good number of these sessions with the goal of staff literacy in a number of pedagogical tools before the 1:1 initiative started. As the work is ongoing, we now offer PD sessions after school on Tuesdays and Saturday mornings, giving our staff an array of choices, with a certain minimum number that need to be attended. We compensate them at $27 an hour through our Title II funds. A list of this year's sessions is here. This model has created small groups of teachers who attend sessions that they are personally interested in and who want to integrate these strategies into their classrooms.
3. The plumbing and the plumbers. For staff to choose these strategies, they have to be guaranteed the network and bandwidth will be supportive. To that end, we added to our technology staff, doubling its size from one to two. Additionally we upgraded in a significant way the technology infrastructure by adding numerous access points and made sure our bandwidth pipe could handle 800 students pulling on it at once. I believe these changes are essential and that without them our program would be in peril. Access to the Web has to work and work quickly if these strategies will be relied upon. Additionally, every student and staff member was given a gmail account hosted through the school. In a year and half of running, our network has been down for approximately one hour. It just so happened that one hour coincided perfectly with the superintendent's annual visit and the need to log mid-term grades. Funny how those things work out.
4. Student ownership. We had the choice early on to either externalize ownership to the students or keep the ownership of the machines on the books of the school. In our case - and after much study - we decided to externalize the cost and have families purchase their laptops through the school. We provide financing options to our families. As a private school we have this opportunity. I realize that in many public schools the machines must be school-owned. In visiting with other schools who have school-owned 1:1 programs, the breakage rates seem to be higher. In general our breakage rates have come in below expected numbers for the students. Yet, interestingly, the staff break their machines at a rate four times that of students. If our students want to put stickers and other stuff all over the machine, they can have at it.
5. Principal leadership. If it isn't important to the leadership, it won't get done. I'm not the world's greatest principal by any means - and I make a whole host of mistakes every single day - but if I do anything well it might be modeling technology use. I teach a class every year in the high school and lead a good number of the professional development sessions related to technology-rich teaching strategies. I believe that by spending my time modeling what I believe is important, it allows the staff to get on board. I won't ask you to do something I won't do or won't be willing to learn to do. Of course I pay for the time spent teaching by having to log more early mornings or late nights in the office, but I think the relationships built with students and staff more than make up for it.

Biggest Struggles

1. Classroom management. Our staff has learned rather quickly that if they want to continue to use lecturing as their dominant instructional strategy, equipping the audience with a laptop is not conducive to that end. The computer should be more than a $1,000 pencil for note-taking. Direct instruction in its proper place and within limited time frames can be an effective strategy. When everyone has a machine, how do you guarantee that they are all on task? To this end, our staff has learned about where to be physically while they lecture and how to set up the classroom. Some staff use the LAN monitoring program. In some sense, though, student engagement in a lecture-driven classroom has always been an issue. Note passing and eye rolling have always been there. Switching from passing a note to chatting on Skype is the same problem in different clothes. Good teachers have engaged students.
2. Assisting parents. Our students take their laptops home at the end of the school day and for holidays and the summer. At school we use the Barracuda system to filter the Web and their access and to block the traditional things that a school would block. When our students take the machines home, we presume competence on the part of our parents that they already are dealing with their own rules and Web access issues. For the most part this proves to be true, but I do think we need to do a better job of supporting some of our families that struggle in this area. One fear that some of our staff and families had is that our students would spend all of their time staring at the screen in front of them. This may be true the first week they pick up their machine over the summer, but over the last two years a few interesting things have happened. Discipline referrals have fallen by 50%, absenteeism is down by 30%, participation in school events like Homecoming and the canned food drive has more than doubled, and the number of student-initiated clubs and activities has grown by around 30%. And enrollment looks to be growing for the third year in a row. We interpret these changes to mean that technology is helping our school to form an environment that is truly conducive to student learning in a number of areas.   From what we see school is becoming more relevant and a place where our students want to be.

In conclusion, our journey is an ongoing one. Simply buying the machines and upgrading the network is not enough to be a 1:1 laptop school. The true work is in shifting the pedagogy to be more student-centered. As Gary Stager says, less "us" and more "them." The rewards to this point have been worth the risks.

Charlie Roy is the principal of Peoria Notre Dame High School, an 800-student coeducational Diocesian Catholic school in Peoria, Illinois. He also is an adjunct instructor for Aurora University, teaching courses in school leadership and instructional technology. In his former career, Charlie was an options trader on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. Follow Charlie on Twitter at @caroy.

Yesterday, along with thousands of other web sites, Dangerously Irrelevant shut down for the day to protest two bills, SOPA (House) and PIPA (Senate). I don't think my little blackout had any major influence, of course, but I wanted to express my solidarity with the larger concerns. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the issues, Congress is debating right now whether the Internet in America and elsewhere should be hostage to the demands of a few private companies. If SOPA, PIPA, and similar laws are passed, the Web could look like this for all of us.

Unfortunately, legislators are making policy out of ignorance. Indeed, they're even joking about it. This has to stop. The Internet is too valuable a resource to legislate stupidly or to hand over to the demands of corporations. As Josh Kopstein stated, it's no longer okay for Congress to not know how the Internet works.

Jason Gots recently articulated quite eloquently that

issues of copyright law, political control, privacy, and child protection are exciting governments around the world about stepping in to regulate cyberspace. While this may solve problems in the short-term, these regulations will be blunt, hasty, and hard to undo. And they will run the risk of extinguishing the Internet's connective power before we have the chance to realize it.

There are real dangers here. I encourage every one of you who lives in the United States to please contact your legislators to let them know of your opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

This applies to education too!

Of course all of this is true for education lawmaking too. We have a number of different education bills, particularly at the state level, that are being driven by corporate interests instead of pedagogical appropriateness. Read a bit about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), for example (thank you, Pam Moran, for cluing me in). While you're at it, check out its list of alumni politicians. I think all of that is pretty scary. How about you?

Yesterday Senator Marco Rubio, the co-sponsor of PIPA, dropped his support for his own bill, essentially admitting that he didn't understand the issues clearly when he introduced the legislation. I don't know if he was as embarrassed as he should have been, but his turnaround highlights the fact that our lawmakers are too easily snowed by corporations and others who have interests that often run counter to the good of the people or our schools. This is true whether we're talking about corporate advocacy for self-advantaging legislation or high-profile, extremely political, special interest groups that pressure state-level policymakers to align themselves with supposedly-national movements.

My home state of Iowa is a case in point. It is quite clear that some of the educational initiatives recently put forth by our Governor, Terry Branstad, have political origins outside of the state. There is a tremendous press from outside groups to get certain legislative items passed, regardless of their known harm to children or educators. This is leading to extremely disconcerting disconnects, including the fact that Governor Branstad recognizes that certain students need less time to learn required material (thus his proposal for competency-based, rather than age- or grade-based, progression) but doesn't simultaneously recognize that other students need more time to learn required material (thus his proposal for 3rd grade retention). Genuine concerns about his inability to recognize that there are two sides to the learning time coin are deflected with accusations that critics are against 'high standards' and 'high expectations' and 'accountability.'

We have to do a better job of educating our policymakers about important issues related to the Internet and education and other critical areas of concern. We also must do a much better job of holding them accountable for educating themselves. Otherwise their lack of knowledge will continue to manifest itself in legislation that is potentially harmful and dangerous to us all.

Image credit: RIAA reminds us why we hate them with obnoxious smartass tweet

As soon as you say 'failure is not an option,' you've just said 'innovation is not an option.'
- Seth Godin, The Flip Side

Download this file: png pptx

See also my other slides and the Great Quotes About Learning and Change Flickr pool.

[cross-posted at Education Recoded]

The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) has created a new Digital Principal Award to 'honor principals who exhibit bold, creative leadership in their drive to harness the potential of new technologies to further learning goals.' NASSP also will use the award process to 'showcase models of leadership that encourage the use of technology in instruction and for principals’ own professional use.'

Every year, eSchoolNews recognizes 10 technology-savvy superintendents. Now NASSP is recognizing some technology-savvy principals. If you know of a digital principal, nominate him or her by January 17!

As was so aptly said just a few days ago:

It is hard to make an argument that there are many desirable post-secondary educational or career scenarios for current high school students that will not require the use of computer technology on a daily basis. The kids have known this for quite some time now. High school students know that they will almost certainly be using computers in any desirable job that they manage to get after high school. They know that a computer is a requirement for success in today's higher eduction environments. They know that, in the "real world," college students don't write papers in longhand on loose-leaf notebook paper; they know that, in the "real world," people don't create business presentations with markers and paste on poster board or tri-fold displays; they know that, "in the real world," people who engage in any type of research may still occasionally use books, but they conduct the majority of their research using online tools. They know that, "in the real world," bankers do not keep their accounts in paper ledger books, or do their financial forecasting only with the aid of a calculator. Yet high school students are regularly asked to write in longhand on notebook paper, make presentations using kindergarten tools, research mostly using books, and do their calculations on paper. Why should anyone be surprised that they don't find their high school experiences "relevant?"

Do we have the will to integrate digital technologies into students' learning in regular, frequent, and meaningful ways? Are we brave enough to cast a critical eye at the learning tasks that we assign students and ask difficult but necessary questions about their relevance in a technology-suffused, globally-interconnected society? Are we willing to look at what passes for 'learning' and 'teaching' and 'schooling' on a day-to-day basis in this country and acknowledge that the vast majority of it is mind-numbingly boring and disengaging? Can we recognize that we're infantilizing our young adults instead of enabling them to be empowered learners, thinkers, and doers?

Robert Fried noted that:

We have opted not to create schools as places where children’s curiosity, sensory awareness, power, and communication can flourish, but rather to erect temples of knowledge where we sit them down, tell them a lot of stuff we think is important, try to control their restless curiosity, and test them to see how well they’ve listened to us. (pp. 58-59)

He also stated that:

[M]ost of what [our students] experience during school hours passes over them like the shadow of a cloud, or through them like an undigested seed. They may be present in the classroom, but they are not really there. Their pencils may be chugging away on the worksheets or the writing prompts or math problems laid out for them, but their intelligence is running on two cylinders at best. They pay some attention to what their teacher happens to be telling them, but their imagination has moved elsewhere. (p. 1)

We could have learning spaces that emphasize hands-on inquiry, critical thinking, collaboration, and authentic, "real world" problem solving instead of teacher lecture, rote practice, and fact regurgitation. We could have learning spaces that spark students' imaginations and enable them to be interested, engaged learners instead of dulling them into bored compliance. We could have learning spaces that students would choose rather than classrooms that we force students to attend. Shame on us that we don't.

[cross-posted at Education Recoded]

Steve Hargadon and I are chatting tonight about school leadership in the 21st century. I hope that you'll join us, share your thoughts, and ask some really tough questions.

If you're not subscribed to Steve's Future of Education webinar series, you should be!

In Iowa we use #iaedfuture to organize our online conversations about education in the state. In Wisconsin they use #wiedu. In the United Kingdom, they use #ukedchat to have similar conversations at the national level. What are other states, provinces, and/or countries using? (beyond the generic #edchat)

I made a publicly-editable Google spreadsheet to organize all of these geography-bound education hashtags. These are different from hashtags for conferences or for particular education topics (e.g., STEM or teaching History). Instead, they're hashtags that allow folks to talk about the present and future state of education in their area, to share ideas and resources, to propose and push back on proposed laws and policies, and to otherwise organize themselves. It's often said that the Internet destroys geography. While that's true in many instances, schooling systems still are primarily organized by geographic regions so boundary-level conversations are still relevant.

I hope you'll contribute the hashtag for your state / province / country. If you don't have a hashtag like these, perhaps it's time to get one started!

Five online resources worth checking out...

1. Shelley Wright shares what life in an inquiry-driven, technology-embedded, connected English classroom looks like (see also her post on a science classroom)
2. Ewan McIntosh talks about Guy Claxton's big question: What's the point of school?
3. Donald Clark says that 21st century skills are so last century
4. Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana note that it's critical to teach students to ask their own questions
5. Here's a resource that will help you identify apps for children with special needs

See also previous posts in this category!

Alberta, Canada is widely recognized as having one of the best schooling systems in the world. A recent article in Alberta Views highlighted the differences between its system and America's, noting that the United States is an 'anti-model' for how to do school reform:

By contrast we can also learn what not to do from reform in the US, whose education system is in decline. Its elements, implemented over the past two decades, are largely ideological: "market-based" reforms (the application of "business insights" to the running of schools); an emphasis on standardization and narrowing of curriculum; extensive use of external standardized assessment; fostering choice and competition among schools, often with school vouchers; making judgements based on test data and closing "failing schools"; encouraging the growth of charter schools (which don't have teacher unions); "merit pay" and other incentives; faith that "technologically mediated instruction" will reduce costs; an overwhelming "top-down" approach which tells everyone what to do and holds them accountable for doing it.

This state of affairs is both depressing and harmful, particularly since it's pretty clear what we should be doing instead. As a recent book, Surpassing Shanghai, notes, school systems around the world (like Japan, Finland, Singapore, and Shanghai) that consistently outperform the U.S. on international assessments do things very differently:

1. Funding schools equitably, with additional resources for those serving needy students
2. Paying teachers competitively and comparably
3. Investing in high-quality preparation, mentoring and professional development for teachers and leaders, completely at government expense
4. Providing time in the school schedule for collaborative planning and ongoing professional learning to continually improve instruction
5. Organizing a curriculum around problem-solving and critical thinking skill
6. Testing students rarely but carefully -- with measures that require analysis, communication, and defense of ideas

Schools in the U.S. are failing miserably to prepare most students for a complex, technology-suffused world and a hyperconnected, hypercompetitive global economy. What will it take for Americans to stand up and fight not just against our schooling systems but also against educational reform efforts that take those systems in wrong directions?

Hat tip: Joe Bower (for both the quote and the post title)

[cross-posted at Education Recoded]

From Gerald Bracey (via Joe Bower), here's a great list of things that AREN'T on the bubble tests our kids are taking:

• creativity
• critical thinking
• resilience
• motivation
• persistence
• curiosity
• endurance
• reliability
• enthusiasm
• empathy
• self-awareness
• self-discipline
• leadership
• civic-mindedness
• courage
• compassion
• resourcefulness
• sense of beauty
• sense of wonder
• honesty
• integrity

Anyone want to argue that students who possess these will be less successful in life than those that don't?
Anyone want to argue that these are less important than regurgitating decontextualized fact nuggets on a standardized assessment?
Anyone want to argue that schools shouldn't be teaching these?
Anyone want to argue that these are not being crowded out in favor of increased emphases on fact nugget regurgitation?

No? No? No? No? Then why, again, are we doing what we're doing?

Image credit: Taking a test