It's Time for Change

I recently attended the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, and one of my big takeaways, was that the auto companies have finally figured out that it's time for a change. New cars are digitally smart; environmentally economical; forward thinking. While it took bankruptcy and a threat to their very existence to turn things around, I can't help but wonder why the departments that manage technology in our schools have been slow to acknowledge the need to reinvent themselves.

If you are a person in charge of making decisions about the direction a school or board takes regarding Information and Communications Technology (ICT), I challenge you to plan a way forward from where you are at this moment in time, rather than letting past history dictate where you spend your available resources in time, money and people.

Limit Desktop Software to what the Machines Can Handle
In my school board, like many others on Ontario, we have access to a wide range of OSAPAC-licensed software. While recent web-based resources have been included in educational licenses, it has been common for most applications to resides on outdated disk drives. In my experience, these drives have been very sluggish in delivering apps to the networked computers that serve our students, resulting in slow uptake of the most powerful of tools. The result of populating our schools with refurbished computers, is that students and teachers are commonly working on computers that are 8 years old. (The workstation I am provided through work, is a 2004 refurbished desktop.)
Question: How old is the computer you use?
Challenge: Teachers and students may need to say goodbye to favoured tools. Remember WordPerfect?
Opportunity: By phasing out desktops, you can pave the way for the ideas that follow.

Acknowledge that the Web is the One App that Matters Most
Prioritize making the Internet the app we serve to all students and teachers. Realizing that browser-based apps are usually optimized for access by multiple simultaneous users, students and teachers are likely to these alternatives to be more nimble than their desktop alternatives.
Question: What is the one app that you couldn't live without?
Challenge: Educators will need to find alternatives for the programs they do use. The ICT department will have to increase the budget for bandwidth.
Opportunity: Educators will eventually discover more online resources than they might have imagined.

Facilitate the Use of Personal Devices
There is little excitement in doing technology based projects when the tools we're using are out-of-date. Move to a model that allows and encourages users to use their preferred devices. Of course such a strategy needs to provide a range of handheld devices to level the playing field for those unable to provide their own.
Question: Does the hardware supplied by your employer meet your personal needs?
Challenge: Someone will need to write a 'Personal Devices Policy'.
Opportunity: Once approved, such a policy will open doors to cross-platform multi-app learning.

Migrate to the Cloud
At great cost, in the name of security and privacy, school email accounts are often managed on board-owned servers. Why did so many boards fail to introduce email to students? In the face of other choices, this tool has become less relevant to the younger generation. Still, providing a collaborative communications suite to learners makes sense... especially if such a tool allows students to take their communications and creations with them upon graduation. It's past the time when schools should have moved to a web-based service for email, calendars, and word processing. While I've been advocating for years that this might best be done through Google, there are alternative web-based office suites available.
Question: Do you access your files from multiple devices?
Challenge: We may have to say goodbye to something everyone has grown comfortable with.
Opportunity: Learners might gain long term access to their work... from anywhere.

Introduce Digital Note-taking
I maintain that the move towards digital notebooks will signal to all that education is changing. The use of web-based multimedia notes can enable the archiving and retrieval of information using a wide range of web-enabled devices. While the saving of content in any kind of notebook may still seem archaic to some, the use of individual collaborative e-notebooks is a skill that I expect will remain relevant for future generations.
Question: Do you collect your learning in a paper binder? Why not?
Challenge: Parents and teachers who prefer paper to bits and bytes will need plenty of handholding.
Opportunity: e-Binders are searchable, shareable, and sustainable.

Focus on Skills Rather than Software
Whether learning takes place in a professional development workshop or during a classroom lesson, the emphasis should be on skills rather than on software titles. Workshops on 'PowerPoint' or 'Smart Ideas' should be replaced with lessons on 'The Power of Presentations' or 'Learning through Visualization' and should be accompanied with access to a menu of relevant apps.
Question: What was the focus of the last tech workshop you attended?
Challenge: Modelling differentiation is a greater challenge than speaking about it.
Opportunity: Transferable digital skills can naturally evolve into differentiated teaching and learning.

Say Goodbye to Desktops; Say Hello to Wireless
By embracing banks of mobile wireless devices, teachers and students will have far greater flexibility in how they do their work. By partnering such initiatives with a movement towards BYOD and ubiquitous wireless, desktop anchors should gradually fade from our classrooms.
Question: Do you still work on a desktop computer? Why?
Challenge: Out-of-date desktop computers have been inexpensive to purchase... but expensive to maintain.
Opportunity: Savings on maintenance will free manpower and funding to pursue the other pieces of the puzzle.

Diversify
There is no one answer for what educational technology should look like. As an organization, I recommend embracing variety and diversity. Allow schools to choose the types of tools they would like to use in their classrooms. Whether you are a fan of Smartboards, iPads, PCs or Macs, there is room for almost any device in a wireless, web-centred system.
Question: What is your vision for the learning space you'd like your child or grandchild to experience?
Challenge: Varied choices and local decision-making will lead to questions about equity.
Opportunity: Through variety, pockets of excellence will emerge.


Recreating our ICT infrastructure for an unknown future is a challenge. Whether or not you agree with these suggestions, I hope these ideas encourage decision-makers to carefully consider how we can best support the learning of our children.


Photo credits: Rodd Lucier, TarynMarie, Burnt Pixel, aperture_lag, binarydreams

Caging the Mockingbird

Whether physical, virtual or systemic, when you attempt to move forward, or to move in new directions, you are bound to bump up against obstacles. As an advocate for making school more relevant for learners of all ages, I'm feeling a like a bird stuck in a shrinking cage.

Case in Point
This semester, a colleague of mine took a leap of faith to introduce a collaborative project to his English students. Students were grouped and assigned rotating roles that involve writing, drawing, recording, designing, and leading. The multi-week project is focused on the novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and has resulted in the development of group websites at Wix.com. While you can see some of the work students completed in the early days, network access to the site has now been blocked.

After reading Chris Kennedy's How to Stop Good Ideas Getting Shot Down, I have come to realize that many of John Kotter's 'blocks to good ideas' are serving as barriers the use of technology in my school:

Fear Mongering: "The website puts the security of the network is at risk."

Death by Delay: "If you review your unfiltering request with your principal, and your principal makes a recommendation to program council, and program council approves the use of the site, then a communication to ICT will allow us to consider whether or not we can provide access."

Confusion: "Facebook is the problem. If they do this, then that, while visiting that URL, then students would be able to access their Facebook accounts through the site."

Do those making the decision to modify filtering policies even consider the ramifications? Working to engage in his students in this rich project-based learning experience, my colleague ensured that student roles addressed expectations in reading, writing and media. He had to ensure his classroom could accommodate a range of production team roles; had to book computer lab time, and had to find a way to assess the differentiated contributions of participants. More than that, he had to take a huge risk attempting a project he'd never done before.

It's been three school days since access to Wix has been blocked. If things change, I'll add an update in the comments below. In the meantime, I have no idea what to suggest for the lessons lost, or yet to come. Should we encourage the students to work at home on these tasks? Do we complete the tasks offline? Dare we re-invent the project?

Maybe it's just not worth trying to be a mockingbird?

"Please take out your pencils and notebooks and copy this note from the board... There will be a test on this material next week."

Learning in E-lationship

There was a conversational buzz that dominated the ECOO2010 conference experience. It began with ""Hey, I know you..."

Ed-tech conference attendees across North America, are experiencing conference events with networked colleagues, on a level never before seen. This past week, a great number of Ontario educators (and a few out-of-province tweeps) were energized to meet face-to-face with members of their personal/professional learning networks.

It's been a relatively short time since Twitter has been embraced by e-literate educators, but this tool has become a major difference-maker in the spread of good ideas. Conference attendees are readily self-identifying by Twitter ID, and are cross-pollinating their networks by introducing their 'followers' to colleagues.

To their full credit, the ECOO organizing team made a concerted effort to engage participants in the use of Twitter as a networking tool. Throughout the conference, attendees had opportunities to engage in back-channel discussions, to join in a Twitter scavenger hunt, and to attend a Super Tweet-up event.

I've written before about the critical role of the fourth 'R', but now I'm thinking of spelling Relationship in a new way. The positive vibes that result when meeting e-learning colleagues, might as well be referenced as 'elation-ship' or 'e-lationship'. It's difficult to explain to the disconnected, but it is empowering and invigorating to engage in first time face-to-face conversations, with familiar co-learners.

As part of my commitment to attend ECOO2010, I agreed to deliver in a Pecha Kucha talk during the last day of the conference. I couldn't have chosen a more apt topic: 'Twenty Things I've Learned in Twitter'.

20 Things I Learned in Twitter

View more presentations from Rodd Lucier.

It used to be that conference-goers could count on meeting peers who shared their passions and interests, but in 2010, conference attendees are counting the opportunity to meet with fellow tweeps, as the most rewarding part of the conference experience.

In assuming that you're already on Twitter, I'd be interested in your take. If you've yet to join us in shared learning year-round, what are you waiting for?

We Can do Better than 1:1 Computing: Making the Case for an On-Demand Ecosystem

The very nature of any initiative that puts matching tools into the hands of students, facilitates the teacher led, lock-step learning that many constructivist educators rally against. That's just one reason I'd prefer that children learn and grow in an ecosystem filled with a variety of rich tools, rather than being assigned to a classroom boasting a 1:1 computer ratio.


I like to see the classroom as a learning commons, where individuals can tap into a range of devices to further individual and small group inquiry. In a project-based learning environment, the need for technology should vary widely among both teacher and student learners. Why not frame a classroom around a kit of enabling devices, designing an ecosystem to support the needs of groups and individuals?

The On-Demand Ecosystem:

Hand-held Devices:
In an ideal world, students will have permission to enable their personal devices on the school network. I would augment such an approach with shareable hand-helds, ensuring that each student would have access to e-books, apps, and cloud-based resources. While most of the apps available for the iPod and iPad are not built for rich media production, I will outline my argument for their adoption in a subsequent post. Suffice it to say, I suspect that these tools and their offspring will become the centerpiece of the learning commons.

Notebook computers:
At the outset, I'd suggest a ratio of 1 machine for every 4 students. Beyond speaking to the collaborative nature of Classroom 2.0, such an approach would lead all to value the interdependence of learners and devices alike. As the most capable devices in the ecosystem, these shared machines would do the heavy lifting for groups tasked with digital storytelling; media development; and online publishing.

Audio tools: Microphones, headsets, and speakers should be available for recording and playback. Securing a set of devices for each notebook computer seems sensible.

Digital Cameras: Used to create raw content for later post-production, these devices would capture evidence of learning, while facilitating the emergence of wide-ranging multimedia products.

Scanner: Whether scanning documents, photographs, or artwork, the scanner would ideally be accessible by any notebook computer.

Document Camera: An opaque projector for modern times, this device is perfect for the sharing print media; screens from hand-held devices; and other 2D and 3D offline content.

Projector: Whether touch sensitive or not, this presentation device might be paired with the teacher's computer to facilitate teleconferencing and large group instruction. In providing an area of focus, it would also be leveraged by individuals, partners and groups to share their learning.


You may note that I've neglected to include a printer. What does this say about the learning commons I'd prefer to see? Am I missing anything else? Which tool you see as critical to the design of Classroom 2.0?


Photo Credits: Adam Melancon; angela.a.acevedo; Burnt Pixel

What goes well with Salty Chips?

A teacher cannot live on 'salty chips' alone. Once the availability of technological tools can be guaranteed, teachers need to be engaged in ongoing professional development. Such PD needs to be ubiquitous, ongoing, and customized.

I've often wondered how we can succeed in harnessing the latest attendance software; or in implementing new report card software, yet we fail to make meaningful use of most available e-learning tools. There are ways to ensure that professional learning is appetizing.

Entrust teachers to bring forth their own agendas. Teach teachers the skills that they are interested in learning.

Provide training throughout the school day/week/month/year. Waiting for system-wide PD days is not enough.

Ensure common 'planning time' among teaching colleagues. This will allow educators to engage in meaningful, ongoing dialogue about how to engage learners with evolving technologies.

Provide planning time in large blocks rather than in small chunks. We need to get creative with scheduling. Small chunks of time are good for little more than grabbing a snack; making a phone call; checking the news of the day; running a few copies; marking a few papers...

Encourage teachers to mentor one another. There are niche experts everywhere. For example: If one teacher knows how to get digital images from a camera - to a computer - to a student's media project, then there is no reason why that expertise can't be shared.

Recognize teachers for using present day tools. Share 'good news' technology stories in your school or board-wide newsletters.

Make optional training ultra-convenient. Provide sessions close to where the teachers work... in their classrooms; or at the nearest resource centre/computer lab. Offer 'at the elbow' support before school; at noon hour; and after school.

Be open to having students attend. Consider allowing teachers to be accompanied by student-assistants. If a teacher has a classroom ally that can help in setting up or using the tools, they are far more likely to be used.

Offer incentives to participants! Salty chips in the form of classroom technology is highly motivating, but don't underestimate the value of fresh fruit, cold drinks, and cookies in creating a welcome learning environment.


Photo Credit: Michael Young