Variables involved in creating a school that is based on technology

What does it take for technology to have a meaningful impact on the capacity of a school? 

By Rob Koch

The potential for technological innovation to increase the ability of a school to facilitate instruction remains largely untapped in many schools.  There are multiple factors that influence the effectiveness of technology implementation.  Levin and Schrum (2013) conducted a study of eight award-winning schools that considered technology as an important element of their success.  The study stressed the importance of using a systems thinking approach to implementing technology that addresses all of these factors at the same time.  Peter Senge (2012) defined systems thinking as the study of organizational structures and behavior focusing on identifying high-leverage strategies.

Levin and Schrum’s study identified the following components as being important for the implementation of technology:

·       Vision:  Teachers in their study stressed the importance of having a clear vision that guides the practices of the entire school. 

·       Distributed Leadership:  Levin and Schrum also found that distributed played an important role in implementing new strategies to improve learning.  Their study primarily focused on the teacher empowerment effect of distributed leadership (DL).  Harris (2013) would also point to the ability of DL to increase the organizational knowledge of the school and the data-driven practices of professional communities.  Taken together, teachers in a DL model work harder to implement new practices based on data-driven decisions through collaboration. 

·       School culture:   The most compelling finding of the Levin and Schrum study regarding school culture was the importance of trust and establishing digital citizenship.

·       Technology planning and Support:  Levin and Schrum found that the majority of schools that they studied found it important to have IT support in place.

·       Professional development:    They also found that schools that were effective in implementing technology provided time for professional learning communities.

·       Curriculum and instructional practices:  Some of the benefits that the study found were increased accesses to information, teachable moments for information literacy, and the ability to gather data quickly.

·       Funding:  Many of the schools changed their textbook policies to allow for open educational resources, replacing the cost of a textbook with the cost of a tablet or other device.  Some districts implemented policies allowing students to bring their own technology.

·       Partnerships:  Levin and Schrum also found that technology enabled the schools to strengthen their communications with parents.  Additionally, they noted that through partnerships with businesses, schools were able to increase their funding.

It was interesting to use InsightMaker.com to gain further insight into the findings of Levin and Schrum (Please feel free to explore and comment).  In developing this model, the factors that seemed to arise out of other factors were not considered as independent variables (slider).  For example, it was determined that school-parents and school-organizations partnerships would be influenced by the level of inclusiveness and relationships of the DL practices.  Additionally, independent variable were selected considering the ability of the school leaders to make choices regarding the implementation and allocation of efforts and resources.  (The Insightmaker contains detailed information regarding the assumptions that were made in creating the model.) The importance of distributed leadership and the vision of the school become apparent in this model.   

References

Harris, A. (2013). Distributed school leadership: Developing tomorrow's leaders Routledge.

Levin, B. B., & Schrum, L. (2013). Using systems thinking to leverage technology for school improvement: Lessons learned from award-winning secondary schools/districts. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 46(1), 29-51.

Senge, P. M., Cambron-McCabe, N., Lucas, T., Smith, B., & Dutton, J. (2012). Schools that learn (updated and revised): A fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education Random House LLC.

Open Educational Resources to Improve Student Achievement

A recent review from the What Works Clearinghouse (2014) reported that a study of the effectiveness of using MOOC’s as part of a blended classroom environment resulted in higher test scores. This report and several others indicate that open educational resources (OER) when used in a blended classroom result in higher levels of student achievement. Welsh and Dragusin (2013) discussed the business aspect of OER in relation to post-secondary institutions, concluding that they need to adjust their practices. They identified potential problems that might arise in the future such as revenue models, accreditation, course completion rate, and student achievement. I believe two things to be true. First teachers will always be an essential component of the educational system. Secondly, the work of teachers and organization of schools in their current state is quickly becoming irrelevant. The question that begs to be considered is what is the potential effect of OER on the public educational system? How do public schools need to adapt to capitalize on the vast potential of OER? How do we prepare teachers to provide education in the 21st Century?

References
Welsh, D. H., & Dragusin, M. (2013). The New Generation of Massive Open Online Course (MOOCS) and Entrepreneurship Education. Small Business Institute® Journal, 9(1), 51-65.

What Works Clearinghouse (2014). Interactive online learning on campus: Testing MOOCs and other platforms in hybred formats in the university system of Maryland. WWC Quick Review. Retreived from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/quickreview.aspx?sid=20121

Rob Koch

Robkch@gmail.com
Educator
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Gamifying

 Gamification

   Educators can learn a great deal from the science of games.  Children learn at an early age through playing different games.  In fact many of these games are games that they made up themselves.  The benefits of playing games extends beyond learning to the wellbeing of students.  Play relieves stress, improves brain function, stimulates the mind and boosts creativity, improves relationships, and energizes.  

Gamification

What is gamification?  Gamification does not mean reducing learning to simplistic tasks or creating a game.  It means making learning more fun and engaging while preserving the credibility of the lesson (Muntean, 2011).    

                         Gamification v. Classroom Instruction (typical)

Elements	Instruction	Gamification
Set achievable goals within participant’s zone of proximal development.	X	X
Sequential graduation of difficulty	X	X
Generalization of skills	X	X
Engage students to learn	X	X
Anticipatory Set	X	X
Frequent checks for progress and understanding	X	X
Provide models	X	X
Guided Practice	X	X
Independent Practice	X	X
Utilizes social learning and collaboration	X	X
Consequences for not getting the right answer the first time	X
Allows multiple attempts until the learner solves the problem		X
Provides immediate feedback (a condition of flow)		X
Requires mastery of topic before moving on		X
Students earn points to achieve different levels of mastery		X
Students provided with intrinsic and tangible rewards as the learn	sometimes	X

Related Topics:

Video Games

Video games has been shown to significantly improve a variety of metal abilities including reasoning, mental rotation, spatial attention, memory, reasoning, and reaction time (McLaughlin, Gandy, Allaire, & Whitlock, 2012).   However, there have also been numerous studies that indicate that videos games can have a detrimental effect as well.    Addictive behavior towards games, loss of educational time, increase in ADHD behaviors, tie away from other activities such as education or physical activity, and increased anti-social behaviors have all been associated with extensive video game playing Bavelier, Green, Han, Renshaw, Merzenich, & Gentile, 2011).

The Effect of Play on Health

Individuals from low SES environments tend to suffer from higher a higher allostatic load or the amounts of biological repercussions associated with stress resulting from the release of stress mediators such as cortisol (McEwen & Seeman, 2009).  Over time the release of stress mediators can accumulate and have negative effects of various organs leading to diseases (McEwen & Seeman, 2009).  A study of 1207 found that adults with a childhood history of low SES who engage in shift-and-persist strategies had lower allostatic loads (Chen, Miller, Lachman, Gruenewald, & Seeman, 2012).  Playing games involves the skills of reforming a problem and persisting until mastery is accomplished.  

By Rob Koch

References
Bavelier, D., Green, C. S., Han, D. H., Renshaw, P. F., Merzenich, M. M., & Gentile, D. A. (2011). Brains on 
      video games. Nature Reviews Neuroscience,12(12), 763-768.

Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Lachman, M. E., Gruenewald, T. L., & Seeman, T. E. (2012). Protective factors for adults
      from low-childhood socioeconomic circumstances: The benefits of shift-and-persist for allostatic 
      load.Psychosomatic Medicine, 74(2), 178-186.

Deterding, Sebastian (2011). Meaningful Play: Getting>>Gamification right [Slideshare Slides]. Retrieved 
      from http://www.slideshare.net/dings/meaningful-play-getting-gamification-right

Muntean, C. I. (2011, October). Raising engagement in e-learning through gamification. In Proc. 6th International
        Conference on Virtual Learning ICVL (pp. 323-329). Retreived from http://icvl.eu/2011/disc/icvl/
        documente/pdf/met/ICVL_ModelsAndMethodologies_paper42.pdf

McEwen, B., & Seeman, T. (2009). Allostatic load and allostasis. In Allostatic load notebook. Retrieved 
     from http://www.macses.ucsf.edu/research/allostatic/allostatic.php

Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Lachman, M. E., Gruenewald, T. L., & Seeman, T. E. (2012). Protective factors for adults from 
                  low-childhood socioeconomic circumstances: The benefits of shift-and-persist for allostatic 
                 load.Psychosomatic Medicine, 74(2), 178-186.

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