Mobile Learning Mindset

The Coach's Guide to Implementation

Carl Hooker

• Publisher: International Society for Technology in Education
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781564845849
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildungsstandards

Mobile Learning Mindset: The Coach's Guide to Implementation offers staff development activities to help education coaches prepare teachers participating in a mobile device initiative in their school. The six-book Mobile Learning Mindset series shares practical knowledge and strategies for successful implementation of K-12 BYOD programs and 1: 1 initiatives. The collection provides district leaders, principals, teachers, IT staff, educational coaches and parents with the information they need to make any mobile learning program a success. This book also features an interview with educational technology trainer and consultant Kathy Schrock.Tools and activities throughout the book will help coaches:

• Effectively model technology use.
• Identify stakeholders and cultivate buy-in.
• Build a culture of creativity and shared ownership.
• Evaluate and adjust a mobile device program.

This book, the third in the series, focuses on best practices for professional development around a 1: 1 initiative, with ideas on how to make learning more engaging for your staff. Audience: Tech Coaches/Coordinators

AFTER THE “WHY” COMES THE “HOW”

In Simon Sinek’s TED Talk on “How great leaders inspire action” (http://mrhook.it/sinek) he discusses what he calls the “Golden Circle” of what makes certain people or companies successful. The root of his talk (and later his first book) is that as leaders we must always focus our attention on the “Why” whenever starting a project or initiative.

While a majority of his talk and book center around this leadership concept of “why,” the “how” is really where the rubber meets the road. In a mobile device initiative, that “how” is almost directly attributable to professional learning and support. Staff can have complete belief in the concept of personalized learning with mobile devices (the “why”), but without a way to implement, train, model, and share (the “how”), most initiatives will struggle or fail.

Investigating the Effect of the “How”

I had the pleasure of working with a district recently on this concept of “how.” For the sake of this story I’ll call them South Texas ISD (a fictional district). South Texas had a great leader who really was a believer in using mobile devices for learning. He shared his vision with the staff and community and eventually got funds through a bond to supply all 25,000 of his students.

Everyone was on board with the “why,” but when it came time to implement, there was a problem: They only had a small amount of funds to pay for support and training staff. Although the initial deployment had help from the company that supplied the devices, there were very few support personnel. It just so happens that this district began its mobile device initiative the same year we began ours at Eanes ISD. So when I went to visit them four years later, not knowing their support history, I assumed they would be in much the same place as our district.

To my surprise, the staff of South Texas ISD were still struggling with integration, and much of the staff were still on the substitution level of Dr. Ruben Puentedura’s SAMR model (http://hippasus.com/rrpweblog/). How could this be possible? I probed their Director of Instructional Technology a bit and discovered that they had one support person for every 8,000 devices. Compare that with my district, which handed out 8,000 student devices and has 10 instructional support staff on hand. This made me wonder if the same was true for other districts that had higher levels versus lower levels of support. Would those with more support and training be much more successful on their integration? What follows are the results of that research, which really showcases the importance of the “how” to make the “why” successful.

INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT SURVEY

Date of the Survey: Fall 2014

Participating District Data

There were 28 districts participating in the survey, primarily from Texas. Of those, the largest had a student enrollment of 45,000 and the smallest had just 362 students. Twelve of the 28 districts surveyed (43%) had a 1:1 program on one or more of their campuses. There was a combined student enrollment of 256,000 students, with more than 210,000 devices being supported.

Participating District Data

There were 28 districts participating in the survey, primarily from Texas. Of those, the largest had a student enrollment of 45,000 and the smallest had just 362 students. Twelve of the 28 districts surveyed (43%) had a 1:1 program on one or more of their campuses. There was a combined student enrollment of 256,000 students, with more than 210,000 devices being supported.

Who Filled Out the Survey

The majority of those responding to the survey were technology directors, CTOs, or instructional technology coordinators. I recognize there can be a level of bias when it comes to evaluating your own level of support or integration, but I found their answers to be extremely realistic, and the outliers tended to cancel each other out. In fact, taking that bias inflation out of the results actually gives the findings even more impact in some ways.

Staffing Ratios

In general, districts fund two technology support technicians for every one of their instructional technology specialists. As the survey data revealed, this has a direct impact on how well districts are supporting technology (most respondents felt they did a strong job of supporting technology) to how well they are integrating it (most felt they did a weak or adequate job of integration).

Outcomes

A majority of districts (69%) surveyed felt they had adequate to excellent level of support for technology. By contrast, only 41% of districts felt they were integrating technology at least adequately, with only one stating they were doing an excellent job integrating technology.

Those districts that scored the highest on integration of technology into classroom and curriculum had either one full-time staff member on a campus dedicated to that role or a full-time staff member who served multiple campuses. Those with only one full-time district person to support the entire district or no person dedicated to this role scored the lowest.

Almost all (96%) stated that turnaround time on a technology work order was expected to be 5 days or less.

Only 28% of districts surveyed felt that they had “Strong” or “Exceptional” professional development around the area of technology integration on their campuses. Those campuses that rated high in professional development also had more staff members dedicated to integration of technology.

Conclusion

More people equals better support and integration of technology. Although that seems like a no-brainer, digging into the data revealed a level of disparity between “support” and “integration” in these districts. The ratio of technicians (1 per 999 students) versus that of instructional technology specialists (1 per 1910 students) seems to be the highest contributing factor to this. If the technology doesn’t work, then you can’t integrate it. That seems to be the mantra districts are following with these staffing ratios (we follow a similar ratio at Eanes ISD). However, if districts truly want to use these tools for learning, it would appear the next step is figuring out a way to fund that professional support person to help integrate the technology, whether at one campus (ideally) or at multiple campuses. A summary of this data is given in an infographic located on my website: http://mrhook.it/ratio

What Does This Mean for Professional Learning?

If a mobile device initiative were a car, the teachers would most certainly be the drivers. The district leaders would be the bank that ultimately chooses the car (device) and finances it. The campus leader is the GPS that gives the car direction, and the classroom is the road. Technology departments provide the maintenance and upkeep as well as fix any flat tires or cracked windshields.

In this scenario, professional learning is most certainly the gas that makes the car go. You can have everyone on board and loaded into the car with a clear path, but without a way to put things in motion, the learning sits idle. As you read through the chapters in this book and begin to discover ideas for moving the car forward, always be thinking about the parts necessary to move the initiative forward.

BRAIN BREAK

Giant Rochambeau

Materials Needed: None

Concept: A quick way to create mutual support through friendly competition

Audience Size: 20–500

Set-up: The childhood game rock-paper-scissors is something that everyone can relate to. In this version, everyone finds an initial partner and plays the game. (Note: Be sure to clearly define when you should “throw” your rock, paper, or scissors.) If you beat someone, they become your cheerleader, and you go on to face someone else (and their cheerleader). If you beat them, they join your cheering section. Eventually the game will continue until you have two people left with half the audience cheering for one person and the other group cheering for the other.

TOP 10 THINGS NOT TO DO

As I mentioned in the introduction to this book, we committed a couple of cardinal sins when instituting a new initiative. We cut back teachers’ extra planning time and reduced the number of support positions on campuses. These were short-sighted changes made in an attempt to save budgetary dollars, but they were detrimental to the advancement of staff learning with these new devices.

While we would eventually overcome those mistakes and reinstitute the Educational Technology position as well as adding in a planning period, we still made plenty of other mistakes when it came to training staff in a 1:1 environment. It is through those mistakes that we have generated this list. So, when embarking on your own device initiative, be sure to heed the warnings listed here, or you might consider returning this gift with a tail.

1. Do Not Wait until the Last Minute to Give the Devices to Staff

Because of the timing of our bond package and when funds could become available, we didn’t actually have iPads in hand and branded until mid-July. That meant many teachers only had the iPads in their hands for a month or less. As a result, many teachers did not have time to even think about how they would use the device, much less what their students would do with them.

Technology may be prevalent in the real world, but in the classroom, it’s still a relatively new concept when it comes to teaching and learning, especially with mobile devices. Teachers trying to implement mobile devices in their classroom need time to plan, prepare, and really become comfortable with the concept of the disruption this technology poses. A great deal of that comfort comes from experience. We recommend having a device like the students’ in the hands of teachers at least 6 months before implementation.

While our ultimate goal is for the pedagogy to shift from teacher-centered to student-led, teachers need to be familiar with the variables technology can introduce before they give up some level of control of their classroom to the students.

2. Do Not Forget to Address Classroom Management

As stated earlier, the concept of the traditional classroom and teacher control is completely disrupted when you introduce a mobile device for every student. The beauty and educational relevance of these devices is the personalization of learning that can happen. The level of personalization that can happen in a classroom is directly attributed to the style in which learning takes place.

While personalization is the ultimate goal, there are steps that need to happen to transition from the traditional non-device model to the more dynamic, student-led mobile learning model. Part of that transition happens in the realm of classroom management. I’ve been in classrooms with extremely strict rules for use of the devices. These classrooms are commonly the same ones that gravitate toward more of a lecture-style approach to teaching. These students now have the power of the world at their fingertips, yet teachers still feel the need to shut them down for entire 50-minute class periods.

Tight control over where information comes from can be a giant hindrance in the advancement of your device program. As I toured traditional classrooms when we first started our initiative, it wasn’t uncommon to see all the students sitting in their rows, watching the teacher with their devices face-up. On occasion, though, I would notice a kid using their iPad as some sort of steering wheel. I discovered later that the game Temple Run was gaining in popularity, and it was much more interesting than information the teacher at the front of them room was lecturing about.

Classroom environments that have the best management techniques tend to be much more student-centered. In other words, there are times when technology isn’t used but the students are still owning their learning through discussion and collaboration. The technology almost becomes invisible because the students are given an assignment to work and collaborate on, and the thought of playing Temple Run never enters their minds. They are now an active part of the classroom, and the learning objective is their goal, so they no longer feel the need to check out mentally.

3. Do Not Expect Technology to Be Used All the Time at the Highest Level

I have long been preaching the SAMR model by Dr. Ruben Puentedura as the way teaching should progress in a 1:1 (or any) environment. While his model hits home in many ways, I always struggle with the concept of SAMR as a “ladder.” I once had a teacher text me to tell me he had reached Redefinition and as a result was “all done” with technology integration. This idea that redefinition is our goal with everything in the class has always bothered me.

I was inspired by my colleague Greg Garner (@classroom_tech on Twitter) and his analogy of what teaching and learning with technology is like. He felt, and I agreed, that the ladder analogy should be transformed into something much more fluid … like a swimming pool. And so, the “SAMR Swimming Pool”

Figure 2.1 The SAMR swimming pool analogy was an idea that originated with Greg Garner’s take on Dr. Rubin Puentedura’s SAMR ladder.

Within this analogy, teachers can shift between the shallow and deep end of the pool when using technology with their students. They may even find a time to take a “pool break” and have no technology used for a certain collaborative project.

The bottom line is, when you are training teachers on the use of technology, you need to emphasize that technology can be used in many different ways but doesn’t necessarily need to be on all day. In fact, for the struggling t...