We are working to partner technology with a culture of learning to build creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication, and problem solving. We are working through what we believe the new learning landscape means for our students, their learning, and their future.

This fall we began our implementation by equipping each student in grades 5-8 with their own netbook running Linux. We also added a grade level cart of netbooks at each elementary building for grades 1-4 and an iPad cart at each elementary building for primary students. We also have 2 carts of MacBooks at each elementary building and 6 carts of MacBooks at the middle school for higher-end multimedia projects. I’ve written more about our device selection here and here.

While getting the devices into the hands of our students is a critical part of our initiative, it’s not the most important. Now we embark upon the work of changing the learning experience for our students. We’re only a month into that process, but we have already seen exciting and encouraging change taking place. We plan to share our story as it unfolds.

I believe the 5th grade student at the end of our first video says it all. He was asked, “How has the netbook changed your experience with learning?” His response was candid and entirely his own.

This is our beginning.

http://vimeo.com/32478996

I’m a bit frustrated and discouraged at the general lack of critical thinking taking place in educational technology today.

I’ll give you a couple examples, and I’m sure some people will take the opportunity to disagree with me. Which is good. Because it will provide evidence both for and against why I’m frustrated.

I know I’ve been talking a lot about netbooks lately. Many people have responded to this post I wrote a while back, and I still think it’s an important conversation to have. Because some people are way too caught up in a device that costs way too much to do way too little for our students. Let me break this down.

First of all, people who have responded or written back about this topic saying my focus is too device-centric are wrong and didn’t take the time to read what I said at the outset of the article above. Our goals for our students are to empower them to learn how to learn. We want them immersed in experiences that will afford them the opportunity to develop their skills of critical thinking, problem solving, written and oral communication, collaboration, and creativity. The coined “21st century skills.” And, of course, we want them to continue building a solid foundation of general knowledge. That’s what we want. Now, how do we get there?

When I talk about a netbook running Linux, many people lose their minds. Because it’s not an Apple device. We are getting our HP 1103 for $267. That’s a total cost. We are running ubermix with over 50 applications. The software is rock solid. If something happens to the software on the device, it has a quick restore function that allows us to restore the machine to its original state in less than 20 seconds, while still keeping all the student files. It has full access to the web, and by full access I mean it runs everything like Flash and a completely native and full Google Apps experience that requires no work arounds. It has full access to all cloud services we utilize with students. It has a web cam. It has the LibreOffice suite, along with a wide variety of other applications for a wide variety of uses. It runs Audacity for students to create podcasts. It has a light-weight video editor. You can save and share files from a USB key. It has Scratch to help kids learn problem solving and programming. It has over 6 hours of battery life, and it wakes immediately from sleep. It presents a real, immersive means to address all the 21st century skills we are aiming at.

But, it’s not an Apple. Which some people just can’t stand. I’ve had the same conversations over and over on this, and I just don’t get it. Because people are convinced that spending at least $500 for an iPad, plus the cost of apps, to have a machine that actually does less overall, is the right thing to do. And I know there are many free apps out there, but many of the valuable apps teachers want to use with students come at a cost. Again, let’s review the purpose of why we are selecting a device. Look at that list above. Yes, an iPad can do many of those things, but the netbook can address those skills just as well, and I’d say better, than an iPad can. And, the students are in complete control of the device. They have full admin rights. They aren’t restricted to the experience that we (or Apple) are dictating for them. The netbook is still a better writing experience both for the speed and accuracy of typing and the experience of moving between applications when composing. If the solution to the speed and accuracy issue is to buy the keyboard for the iPad, you can add another $70 to your cost.

So, let’s think critically, and let’s focus on students in grades 3-8 for the exercise. Because as stated above, I do think the iPad is a wonderful device for primary age students, but the netbook is the stronger option for grades 3-8.

You can have a device for $267 that does more to accomplish the goals above, is easier to manage, is easier to maintain, is cheaper to own, and allows students to entirely experiment and learn how to operate. Or, you can have a device for twice the cost that is the opposite. Now before you melt down entirely, yes, I do think the iPad is a compelling device. It’s just not the right tool for the total cost, experience, and goals as set out above.

Let me give another example. MacBooks. I’ve had the same conversation as the one above, only substitute the MacBook for the iPad. At a cost of around $800 for the unit, plus the cost of software licensing, and possibly Apple Care, we’ll assume an average cost of $900. In fact, that is the figure that Jeff Mao states is the price that Maine paid for their MacBooks in a recent refresh of their 1:1. That means for the price of one MacBook, you can get 3.3 netbooks. Let’s discuss.

One quick point of clarification. I think Apple makes incredible hardware. I would rather have my iPhone than any other phone on the market right now. My MacBook Pro is an amazing machine that I love using for video and photo work. I say that to negate the “you’re just an Apple hater” argument. That’s not what this conversation is about. It’s about thinking deeply about what we’re making available to our students and how we are being fiscally responsible in our process.

So, thinking deeply, the netbook allows students to do 90% of what a MacBook can do. At 1/3 the price. That’s important. Because it demonstrates that 90% of the time students would have more machine than they need. So, if we can accomplish the goals stated above 90% of the time with a $267 device, why would we do otherwise? The most immediate response to that question is multimedia work. I agree with that. Video work, in particular, is a much better experience on a MacBook. And, I absolutely want our students to be creating using video. So, we provide two carts of MacBooks at our elementary buildings and six carts of MacBooks at our middle school that teachers can check out when they want to do heavier multimedia projects. We do this understanding that kids aren’t spending the majority of their time on the devices creating videos. If they are, something is wrong with your curriculum.

Let’s break this down a bit further. For our middle school, we have approximately 1,060 students. Equipping each student with a MacBook would be $954,000. Equipping each student with a netbook is $283,020. That’s a difference of $670,980. Is the 10% of what a netbook can’t do worth $670,980? As mentioned, we have six carts of MacBooks at our middle school that are available for projects. These carts were purchased prior to our 1:1 implementation, but even if they hadn’t been, we could have purchased them, with the carts, for $172,000. That would still leave us $498,980. That is a significant figure.

So, people who are telling me that a MacBook is still the right device for this scenario, I really need to see some critical thought in a rationale that justifies that difference. Because we can accomplish all the goals at a fraction of the cost by using a 1:1 netbook and several checkout carts of MacBooks.

And just because this is already a silly-long post. Let’s hit one more example. Device control.

A tech director shared recently that they force all the schools in their district to lock down their student computers to the degree that students can’t change the desktop background or modify the location of any applications. He said they do this because it liberates the teacher. And that’s all backward. Because we want to liberate the students. We give our students full admin control of their netbooks to actually learn how the device works. We encourage them to experiment and get creative and find out what makes the thing work. If they mess it up, we have the quick 20 second restore to get them back up and running. Isn’t that the kind of inquiry we’ve been seeking for our students? Don’t we want them to have ownership over the device? We talk a lot about problem solving and innovation, yet we lock down one of the best conduits to authentically learn these kinds of skills? I don’t get that at all.

So, that’s where I’m at. I know many people are doing great things with iPads and MacBooks and even full laptops running Windows, but I’d argue you could do all those great things at a fraction of the cost with a system that will be more effective and allow students more freedom in their learning.

And, I would imagine, a couple of you might disagree.

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” -Sir Isaac Newton

I must begin with a thank you to Mr. Jeff Arnett, to whom I owe my greatest debt of gratitude. Jeff is the Chief Communications Officer of Barrington 220, a sage mentor, and a great friend. Jeff has consistently demonstrated the greatest patience and support, and without his wisdom and guidance, there is absolutely no chance that this communications plan would be anything close to what it turned out to be. Thanks, Jeff.

Below is the District 123 Communications Plan that I presented to our board of education last night. I believe there is great significance here in this document, and I am excited about what its implementation will mean to our district. It is my hope that the plan will do what it is intended- to create a systems of communications for our district that will build trust, increase transparency, improve awareness, and move all stakeholders to advocacy.

And I hope through the accomplishing of those that it will actualize its greatest potential- to help provide the strongest educational environment possible for our students.

As always, I welcome your feedback and input on any way you believe we could make this plan stronger.

District 123 Communications Plan

Thanks to josstyk for the use of the Flickr image.

Seems lots of people are working hard these days to establish policies specific to social media and online interactions with staff and students. Specifically, many of these policies are focused on the ways staff are engaging social media both inside and outside the classroom.

My district has recently started exploring the possibility of establishing our own policy, and that drove me to start looking around at what others are doing. What I’ve found has been quite fascinating.

I’m not yet decided on how I think we should approach this exercise, exactly. I do know, however, that I want to make sure we take an approach that will establish policy which will not serve to preclude teachers from using social media. Seems that might prove difficult. As I continue my research, I’m looking for what approach will work best to provide sound guidelines and protections for our students and staff while still affording both the opportunity to actualize the benefits that such media forms present. And I’m left to consider the following items that I’ve come across so far in my work.

We must be mindful of free speech considerations. Though, this is a difficult road to navigate given the complex nature of how the First Amendment has been interpreted for public employees. See Garcetti as an example.

My previous district just passed their social media policy. See section 5:135.  I’m very curious to see how their policy takes shape as they are now working to create their procedures. There are several issues in the policy that I think might prove very difficult to implement. Especially the parent permission piece.

Papillion-La Vista School District entirely prohibits teachers from engaging students on social networks and strongly discourages them from doing the same with parents or guardians.  I’m not sure that’s the way I want to go, but it seems the way many are taking at present. *Update 12-1-10- Please see Josh’s comment below for clarification on Papillion-La Vista School District’s policy. I’m afraid I misrepresented it here, so please read his helpful clarification.

There are also several interesting resources surfacing intended to help institutions with this issue. This site aims to help you quickly build your own policy for your business or district.  And recently, the Common Craft folks released their social media in the workplace video to help people better understand the issues involved.

The American School Board Journal also had an excellent article in its December 2010 edition on the subject. The first portion of the article can be found here (my apologies to those of you who don’t have a subscription to read the rest).

As we move forward and see more and more districts begin to policy social media and electronic communications, I hope we’ll see a movement away from the full restriction and more will allow common sense to prevail. Because it seems to me much of this is an old conversation repackaged into a new container. Yes, social media tools are new. But social isn’t. And we’ve been doing that inside and outside of schools for a very long time now. And in many cases, we already have policy for that. And if we restrict teachers from using social media or electronic communications with students, does that mean we restrict them from going to a student’s game or performance after school? Or from answering a phone call in our classroom from them after hours when they need help with homework? Maybe those are unfair comparisons, but they don’t really seem to be to me.

I’d love any direction, feedback, insights, ideas, examples, etc. that you might have on this issue as I know I could use more help on the topic as we explore our options for addressing concerns with social media and electronic communications in our district.

Thanks to Matt Hamm for the use of the Flickr image.

Life is unexpected. Just when you think you’ve crested a hill and can look long at the path stretching before you, opportunity arises and you find yourself taking a road unanticipated. I won’t say I’ve taken the one less traveled by, but I have taken another.

Today, I officially began my job as the Director of Technology and Communications in Oak Lawn-Hometown District 123. It is a role about which I am incredibly excited. Because there’s great opportunity here. And I earnestly believe I can seize it.

I’d like to say I’m beginning this position with a long list of answers sitting at the ready for implementation. But that would be a dishonesty. Because at this point, I have more questions than answers. I’m hoping, however, that the right questions can prove more powerful than me thinking I have the right answers. I’m hoping such for what it could mean for our students, our staff, and our community. And what it could mean for learning.

It seems to me as I’ve observed the advent of modern technology increasing in utilization in education, there has grown a rift between those in the Director of Technology role and many of the others in an educational institution.  Somehow the two sides seem to be at odds.  Neither understands the other. As it is most often manifested, the one side is prone to thinking in terms of restricting what takes place in the technological environment, while the other side believes those running the technological environment know very little about education. I know I’m speaking in broad generalities, but it is what I have observed in many places.

I don’t want that to be my case.

I was a classroom teacher for eight years before I left one of the most incredibly rewarding professions in the hopes of making a difference on a broader scale. However, I learned quickly that there is little more rewarding than directly investing in the lives of students in a classroom each day. It is simply an amazing endeavor. I left that not to take a position where my actions matter little to the experience of students and those who are working so hard to help them learn how to learn. I left teaching with the hope that I could make a difference in a different way.

It is now, standing once again on the edge of great new change, that I begin with questions. I’m hoping these are the right ones. Or at least the ones that will lead me to the right ones. And the right ones are those that will make a difference in the lives of the students, staff members, and community where I have the privilege to serve.

As is always the case, your input and help in crafting and molding both these questions and my potential to make a difference is extremely important to me. Here is my beginning.

1.  How is what we’re doing with technology making a difference for learning?

2.  How can we support teachers and do everything we can to help them help their students learn?

3.  How can we support teachers as they continue to learn?

3.  Does the environment we create build trust?

4.  How can we communicate more effectively and better meet the needs of our community?

5.  Are we reliable?

6.  Are we making a positive difference?

I hope these questions guide the work that I have ahead. And I hope I keep questioning the questions. And I know I will keep learning.

The following are my notes, reflections, and slidedeck from my ASCD literacy presentation.

I presented this session with Angela Maiers, a true guru in the land of literacy.

Angela and I began our presentation by asking the participants to answer the question, “What is literacy?”  Certainly there has been much written and discussed on this topic, and we explained that our approach to the subject is rooted in communication; specifically, how we input and output through various mediums and modes.

We briefly discussed the work of Luke and Freebody and their Four Resource Model.  We discussed how these four resources work both as we input and output in communication.

We then discussed how important the medium is and how much it has changed.  This change is significant, and that significance is evidenced in videos like this.

We asked the participants to then consider the medium and the mode of communication and which one we most often use as adults.  We typically favor speaking, but what do we require our students to use the vast majority of the time they are working to communicate their learning?  What if we started changing our expectations and removing some of the barriers that trip kids up when they are trying to communicate?  What if we let them tell their stories and demonstrate their learning like this?

We discussed a practical example of the way we traditionally teach literacy by using an example of the book Number the Stars.  We explained how we could be doing so much more with our students and expecting them to dig so much deeper in their exploration of reading.  We showed two videos, and explained how the second led to an incredible learning experience for the entire school based on a comment someone left on the students’ YouTube post.

We wrapped up the session discussing how dramatically the web has changed in recent history, and we discussed the implications for literacy based on this change.  We ended the session with this video and explained how important passion and audience are for our students.

The following are my notes, reflections, and slidedeck from my ASCD podcasting presentation.

I presented this session with Jeff Arnett, the Chief Communications Officer for Barrington Community Unit School District 220.

Jeff and I began the session asking the question, “What can you accomplish when you merge communication strategy and innovative instruction?”  As Jeff is the Chief Communications Officer for our district, he is constantly working to ensure our district is communicating effectively with our community.  Often times a role like this in a district ends up being more of a public relations role wherein the individual works to shape and control the stream of communications coming from a district.  Jeff, however, works very hard to maintain open dialog with the community about what is happening throughout our district, and in particular, what is happening with our students as they are learning.  This is evidenced in his use of Facebook and Twitter as a strong component to our district’s communication plan.

My focus as Instructional Technology Coordinator for the district is on engaging students in learning experiences through technology.  I work to help teachers establish and identify their learning goals, and then we move to extend the learning experiences students are engaging in a way that moves them beyond the point that was possible with traditional learning tools.

A year and a half ago, Jeff and I began discussing the potential of establishing a district podcast where we can both accomplish goals for our respective areas of work.  What we came up with is the content for our presentation.

We spent the first portion of the presentation talking about the why of this project.  Why did we do it, and why do we believe in it?  We framed the discussion around three main points; purpose, power, and product.  We each answered how our goals worked in these three points.  We then talked about the process that got us to a district podcast.

The questions we posed for each point were:

Purpose-

Jeff- How are your current communication strategies engaging your stakeholders?

Ben- What are you doing to create engaging learning experiences for students?

Power-

Jeff- What you are doing to create ownership of your message and brand?

Ben- What are you doing to release ownership of learning to your students?

Product-

Jeff- Is your product adaptable to emerging technologies?

Ben- Are your learning experiences adaptable to emerging technologies?

We presently have three different shows in the network.  Elementary Insights, where our Superintendent of schools has a discussion with elementary students about issues and topics of interest happening in our district.  The Midpoint, where members of our Board of Education have discussions with middle school students about what is taking place in the district.  The Barrington 2:20, where high school students report on stories from the community.  To hear a short sample of each show, click here.

We started the network a year ago, and if you look at our blog, you will notice a serious lapse in new content.  We spent the fall and early winter in a targeted effort to transition to a new content management system for our district, and once that transition is complete, we will move all our podcasts to our new platform.  This work is nearly at the point where the podcast network can begin again, and in fact, we recently recorded new content for Elementary Insights and The Midpoint.  Both should be released within the next week or two.

I believe a partnership with communications and instruction can yield powerful results for students, teachers, and the community.  I could talk a whole lot on this subject, but I’ll leave it at this.  If you have any questions on this project, please feel free to let me know.

A couple things ran through my mind today as I flew into San Antonio for the 2010 ASCD conference.  Both related to education.

On the trip, I started reading 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in our Times by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel.  Admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of the name.  I don’t necessarily like it, but I do get it.  While these skills have absolutely been a requisite part of our society and learning for many centuries, and they aren’t unto themselves new skills by any means, there is a new context in which we should be engaging them.  I agree with that.  Emphatically.

It seems over the past decade, our education system has temporarily lost the use of its mind.  We went from focusing on a more complete education of our youth to a finite focus on basic skills.  And we ramped up the testing and the accountability for those very specific skills, and we left many important things behind as a result.  Now the focus of many instructional programs is on test preparation.  And the majority of those skills apply very narrowly to the experience of taking a standardized test and can then be discarded by students once they are done with that two week window.  We do this at the cost of creativity, innovation, collaboration, problem solving, and other important lessons students should be learning about being a part of a democracy.

Frankly, it’s tough to watch.

And the watching led me to my second thought.  Airplanes.

What is it that airplanes are designed to do?  Really designed as their most core function?  Fly.  Take hundreds of people up thousands of feet in the air and fly them over the earth at mind numbing speed.  Transport us across the country in a matter of hours rather than months.  They are truly amazing, and though that word has been prone to overuse in our society, in this context I believe it is a perfect descriptor.

But what must an airplane also be able to do as a necessary utilitarian function?  Drive.  On the ground.  I was struck with this thought as I looked out the window when taxiing at the airport.  The comedy of it.  Looking out and seeing these incredibly elegant flying marvels of science lumbering around the holding grounds.  All that ingenious design and the power of jet propulsion being used to move along the ground at the speed you or I could match on our bicycle.

And that’s when I realized what we’ve been doing this past decade.  We’ve taken the airplanes and tried to make them cars.  We’ve told our students the most important part of what they learn is the utilitarian function of powering down all their potential to crawl around the ground.  There’s a reason we don’t use airplanes to commute to work on our highways.  The basic functioning of driving on the ground is such a minute part of what makes an airplane so powerful.

But that’s what we’re doing with our students.  We’re leaving behind the best part of what they could be doing with their education.  Forgive the Lifetime Original feel-good movie of the week payoff at the end here, but I have to.  We aren’t letting our kids fly.  We’re keeping them grounded and using metrics to measure how well they taxi as airplanes rather than how well they could be flying.

Though I still don’t care much for the name, I really do hope that we will find ways to begin moving our focus, conversations, and effort to the 21st Century Skills approach to learning.  Remember that there’s a whole lot more that we could be having our students do.

This quote is listed at the beginning of 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in our Times.  Will it every come to pass?  I don’t know.  But I certainly can hope.

“I’m calling on our nation’s governor’s and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.”  -President Barack Obama

I think it’s time we start getting education off the ground.

*Cross posted at Tech & Learning Advisor blog.

Thanks to Drewski2112 for the use of the Flickr image.

This week I had the distinct privilege of presenting two sessions on Communication and Collaboration at District 30 in Illinois with Andy Kohl. Although we had enough material to last us through the day, we tried to cram it all in a 90 minute time slot. Needless to say, we didn’t get to everything.

I think the conversation was outstanding, and I believe we should all take the time to wrestle with these ideas together with other staff members. I’ll share the session notes and presentation here, and please feel free to use anything that will be useful for you. And really, I mean it, go have these conversations with other members of your institution. I think you’ll find it an excellent opportunity for growth and learning for everyone.

Introduce Moodle and backchannel to attendees. Invite them to join in the process, building collaborative notes.

9:30 – 9:50 = Introduce ourselves. Introduce Moodle and Backchannel. Ask teachers to define collaboration. Use Etherpad to have them build this definition together.

9:50 – 10:00 = Review the definition and reflect on the process with them.

- What was different about this experience?
- How could this look different for the classroom?

- Discuss portions of the Panitz article.

Review questions asked in the article.

Students must learn to routinely ask questions such as: “Are we thinking clearly enough? Are we being accurate in what we say? Do we need to be more precise? Are we sticking to the question at issue? Are we dealing with the complexities of the question? Do we need to consider another perspective or point of view? Are our assumptions accurate or are they faulty? Is our purpose fair-minded, or are we only concerned about advancing our own desires? Does our argument seem logical, or is disjointed, lacking cohesion?

In other words, these important standards of thought must be applied to all of the important structures of thought: to its guiding goal or purpose, to the central question, to the information used with respect to the question, to the judgments that are made with the information, to the concepts inherent in the judgments, to the assumptions that underlie the judgments, and to the implications that follow from it.”

10:00 – 10:20 = Roundup of tools which can help provide these learning experiences for kids.

- Moodle
- Wikis + Google Sites
- Google Docs
- Blogging

- Look at the bowdrill video from YouTube. Talk about this as a collaborative experience for this student. Use this as a transition to the topic of communication.

10:20-10:40 = Discuss how communication has both changed and stayed the same.  Show “Can This be His Home.”  Discuss the result of new mediums and the “four resources model”.

10:40 – 11:00 = Time for teachers to work on a lesson example or retool an existing assignment.

—————————————————–

We only got to the point where we showed “Can This be His Home.”  Lots of good stuff in the Four Resource Model.  Maybe we’ll get to it next time.

Thanks to American Backroom for the use of the Flickr image.

Justin and Sandra,

First of all, let me applaud you and your efforts to engage and inform through the use of Twitter.  There are many government entities who are not willing to do so.

Let me also encourage you to actually engage and not just inform.  You will certainly find a host of passionate, candid individuals in this space, as you’ve no doubt already encountered.  They may well offer you more than you bargained for when you created your account.  Understand these are people who believe passionately in students, their possibilities, their potential, their ability, and their education.  And many of them are frustrated with the present state of education.  As frustrated as you likely are based on your recent tweets.  You’ve now provided them an outlet to unload their frustration.

I hope you will stay around.  I hope you will respond to the questions, the challenges, and even some of the pointed criticisms.  We don’t get enough of that from our government officials.  You have an opportunity to help remedy that.  I hope you actualize this opportunity.

I would also offer this one last piece of unsolicited advice.  Be careful of your words.  I know that is your profession, and that is why you work where you do, but I still offer the advice all the same.  When you make statements like, “we need to stop lying to students” you step upon very uneven and potentially damaging ground.  Because the statement immediately begets the question, “who are the we that are doing the lying?”  Are you insinuating that you are lying to students?  Are teachers lying to students?  Are administrators lying to students?  Are parents lying to students?  Are we all lying to students?  That’s a tough way to begin a constructive dialog.  Especially given the history of honesty from our politicians.  So please, weigh your words and expect them to elicit a very real, genuine reaction from the community.  If you want that reaction to be constructive, I’d encourage you to frame the questions and statements in a more measured manner.

I honestly appreciate your presence here.  I look forward to seeing what you do with it.

Ben

You can find the official twitter page for the Department of Education Press Secretaries at http://twitter.com/EDPressSec

Thanks to Star Dust for the use of the Flickr image.