Mobile Learning Mindset

The District Leader's Guide to Implementation

Carl Hooker

• Publisher: International Society for Technology in Education
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781564845788
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildungsstandards

Mobile Learning Mindset: The District Leader's Guide to Implementation offers lessons learned and examples to help education leaders successfully implement a mobile device initiative in their school or district. 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.Tools and activities throughout this book will help district leaders:

• 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.

With this book, you'll gain a better understanding of the effect that mobile learning can have on your staff, students and community and get guidance on modeling, risk-taking, building a culture of creativity and shared ownership, and leading the various components of a mobile device initiative. Audience: School/district leaders

STARTING WITH THE “WHY”

One of the most influential videos during my time as an administrator early in our initiative was Simon Sinek’s TED talk titled “How great leaders inspire action” (http://tinyurl.com/o8jswn4). In the talk, Sinek discusses what he calls the “Golden Circle” of what makes certain people or companies successful (see Figure 1.1). 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.

Figure 1.1 Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle.

I found this talk extremely compelling, especially when I first watched it. At the time, we were in the throes of a debate about what device we should choose for our 1:1 mobile device initiative. Lots of time and energy were dedicated to this “What” of the initiative, while equal amounts of time and energy neglected the “Why.” Ultimately, we discovered the error in our ways and refocused our energy on why we were doing this in the first place.

As a leader, you will need to communicate this message clearly and well to all stakeholders. Everyone from a teacher to a parent to a student should know what the purpose of learning with mobile devices is in your district. Creating a vision or goal out of the “Why” will help guide all other parts of the initiative. In this book, we’ll look at why having a strong and well-communicated vision is so important and discuss the role a leader plays in a district that is embracing mobile learning.

Many districts have a mission or vision statement. If I had to hazard a guess, it’s a buzz-filled sentence or paragraph about pushing kids toward excellence and making learning personalized for each student. Most, if not all, usually contain some statement about becoming global learners or using the 4 C’s of 21st-century learning in the classrooms. The bottom line is, districts put this type of language in their mission statements but rarely have an action plan to follow through with it.

Any district starting out with a mobile learning initiative needs to look long and hard at these statements. Do they need to be adjusted? Can the goals of the initiative align with the goals of the district? Our district’s mission statement mentions having students globally learn in a “technology-rich environment.” So, although there may be differences in opinion about what that means, I always point to that statement when discussing why we are doing a mobile device initiative.

It’s also important to have some measurable goals in mind when you are setting out on this mission. You might take the bait and decide to tie your mobile device initiative to test scores. I’ve seen districts go this route to improve writing or math or science scores. The thinking is the introduction of mobile devices will “auto-magically” make the scores rise as the students will have more access to technology (neglecting any thought that pedagogy might actually play a part in that, too). Although I think test scores do play a role in measuring school districts, scores don’t necessarily measure the impact of learning. Judy Estrin writes in her book Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in the Global Economy (McGraw-Hill, 2008) that innovative companies like Pixar steer clear of measurements for the most part. While you can have metrics that will measure small, incremental components of your initiative (such as student engagement or communication), it’s not feasible to associate test scores with that innovation. In fact, Estrin goes on to write that innovation geared toward the future can’t be measured while it’s actually happening.

That’s a good lesson for an administrator leading a 1:1 initiative. The long-term goals and measurements can’t be fully obtained until students have left the institution. Before our initiative, one of the first bits of feedback we got from students who had graduated was that although we prepared them for the academia of college, they weren’t prepared for all the digital distractions that would be surrounding them. Alumni would share that they would sit in 300-seat lecture halls and witness all the students with multiple devices half-paying attention to the professor and half-paying attention to their device.

In the college setting, most professors believe that it’s the job of the student to learn—more so than it is the professor’s job to make sure they learn. So students leaving a fairly device-restrictive, nurturing environment are suddenly thrust into a world with no support and no boundaries. While this could be the case for most students heading to college, we saw an opportunity to help with at least one part of this issue. Teaching students at an early age to manage digital distraction, while a disruption in the early stages, was a major goal of our initiative in the hopes that students would be more than college-ready—they would be college-successful.

One of the most powerful graphics I’ve ever come across was from Tracy Clark (@tracyclark08) and her “S’more” she created called “measuring what matters.” When CEOs at Fortune 500 companies were asked what they want most in future employees, the words that they repeated the most were represented in her “Soft Skills Bingo” card (see Figure 1.2). What stands out to me right away isn’t so much what you see, but what you don’t see. I don’t see “good at math” or “proficient in writing” or even “good with Microsoft Office.” You see skills like perseverance, resilience, teamwork, leadership, and those 4 C’s we hear about so often (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity). These “future-ready” skills, as I refer to them, are much more important to the future of our kids, so shouldn’t we focus on these?

As we are now proceeding into the fourth year of our initiative, these skills are the ones we are focused on measuring going forward. While there is no true “21st-century skills” assessment, there are a few out there on the market that could accomplish the task. When done in conjunction with portfolios, observation, and qualitative surveys, you could really start to measure how these skills are being taught in a classroom. Although technology isn’t a specific skill listed here, it certainly affects most areas of this bingo card.

So before you move forward through this book, be thinking about what skills are the most future-necessary for your students and how your initiative can help build those skills. If at all possible, have a pre-assessment based on these skills so you can have some comparative data (one of my top 10 things not to do, as we failed to do this from the outset). Keeping this at the forefront of your mission not only will drive the change, it will give leadership, teachers, students, and parents a clear vision of what is expected and what the goals of your mobile device initiative are.

Figure 1.2 Tracy Clark’s S’more “Measuring What Matters” (https://www.smore.com/bg57). Courtesy Tracy Clark.

TOP 10 THINGS NOT TO DO

Sometimes the best advice is to tell people what to avoid. Every district and school is different. There is different parent support, demographic makeup, teacher readiness, technology proficiency, and campus leadership expectations. This top 10 list should be a warning list for district leaders who are either starting or currently implementing a mobile device initiative. Please know that this chapter could easily be 20 things, but these 10 items are the most crucial to avoid when embarking on this journey as a leader.

1. Do Not Forget to Model

You are setting the vision and preaching what it will do; it’s time to put your money where your mouth is and model this change. This means using the exact same device the students and teachers are using during meetings, site visits, and community meetings. That type of modeling shows that you not only believe in what you are doing, but you are also a part of this change (see Figure 2.1).

Some early examples of modeling include insisting that all leadership staff and school board members have the same device and that they use these devices during all meetings. Also, if you expect teachers to attend trainings that focus on the device and how to integrate it into the curriculum, you should be present for these same trainings. Many superintendents or school leaders assign professional development to staff, but don’t attend themselves. Learning alongside your staff sends a powerful message that you value the investment of their time to learn about it.

Figure 2.1 The author trying to be a model mobile DJ.

2. Do Not Neglect Buy-In

That might be a bit of a double-negative there, but you get my point. How many district initiatives or incredible ideas are hatched and thrown onto campuses without any buy-in by the staff? This is a recipe for failure. Seek out the leaders and respected voices on campus to be a part of this process before you even start the initiative. This means bringing community members and teacher leaders together early on to discuss the “why.”

Listen to their ideas, concerns, and solutions respectfully and openly. While not all the ideas may be yours, it’s amazing how much better an initiative like this will run when people feel like they have ownership in part of the process. One thing our superintendent does during a major decision is to leave the room when final discussions need to take place.

He’s there to handle the questions and arguments, but when it comes time to build consensus around a particular decision, he walks out and tells the committee or group that he’ll be back in 30 minutes and listen to their solution. This yields two very positive outcomes:

1. Teachers and staff in the committee feel empowered to make a decision and stand behind it because it was not handed down from “on high.” If someone questions the decision, they will defend it and even take it somewhat personally.

2. Should questions arise about why the district decided on a particular platform or device, you have evidence that not only was it not just from you, you actually weren’t even in the room when the decision was made. Your job is to support the decision of the consensus.

3. Do Not Forget to Communicate with Everyone All the Time

While it’s certainly possible to over communicate, we are much more guilty in education and administration of under communicating. Collection day for the iPads? Oh yeah, we sent out an email a couple weeks ago about that. Restrictions on the student iPads? We put that info on our single website for everything iPad. No matter what you are doing, 1:1 or otherwise, be prepared to communicate in multiple media with multiple distributions and repetitions. Spreading the word will help decrease confusion and frustration and increase trust and clarity. Too often the mythical “district” is to blame for bad ideas or solutions not communicated.

4. Do Not Expect Teaching and Learning to Change Immediately

Much like the image I have pictured in Figure 2.2, just adding technology to a situation won’t change anything without support, time, and expectations. Look at the movement around interactive whiteboards in the mid-2000s. These were seen as innovative teaching tools, but the majority of teachers who used them simply made more interactive PowerPoint presentations. That’s not really transforming learning, is it?

Figure 2.2 Is this transformative teaching?

I have long been preaching Ruben Puentedura’s substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition (SAMR) model. SAMR (www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog) is a framework through which you can assess and evaluate the technology you use in your class. The SAMR model supports and enables teachers to design, develop, and infuse digital learning experiences that use technology. The goal is to transform learning experiences so they result in higher levels of achievement for students. Apple has also relied heavily on this model, and they see the power in using transformative learning along with powerful tools as a win for students.

Teachers can’t be expected to change the way they teach overnight. However, most of the tools we’ve given them in the past (Smartboards, document cameras, etc.) were teaching tools. This tool is in the hands of kids, which means it’s student driven. Teachers and students will lean heavily on substitution in the SAMR model to start, but have patience. Redefinition of teaching and learning does not happen overnight.

One other thing I’ll mention is the generation gap of learners in our own schools. Students who have played the “game of school” long enough will see a mobile device initiative as disruptive change, too. This is especially true for high school students who have mastered the art of scoring well on tests, getting homework done, and reading their textbook nightly. Introducing a concept like student-centered learning with a mobile device means not only do they have to do more work, but they also can’t just coast by on the older systems of traditional school. I’ve argued that there is a generation gap in schools between the 5-year-olds just now entering who have been immersed in this world, and the 17-year-olds leaving who have mastered the traditional methods of “learning” in schools. In the new mobile-device-saturated environment where students are empowered to be creative and solve critical problems, they may actually learn more as a result. But it’s still a change to consider from the students’ perspective nonetheless, and one that doesn’t happen overnight.

5. Do Not Assume the Entire Community Will Be on Board

As great as the idea behind personalized learning can be, it can be a severe mind-shift for people in the community. Add to that budget cuts with staff time, and you can see how this can quickly turn into a no-win scenario. It’s important to stress what the goals are in all of this, and also to get both parents and teachers working with you to find solutions to little problems (See Figure 2.3). However, that doesn’t mean you give them the option to not participate.

Figure 2.3 Parent workshops will help educate your community.

The most successful 1:1 programs have created a universal understanding and expectation across the district about why 1:1 is being done and what it can and should accomplish. While much has been made of the failure of Los Angeles...