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.

Thinking in a blended world

When many teachers discuss teaching in a blended classroom, a flipped classroom, or just plain analog they are missing the point. Our world is already blended, but do students have the knowledge a skills to interact with it?   The internet is no longer a thing that people go to a computer to access.  Through wearable technology it has become become an intimate companion that walks with us throughout our life.  Students have access to the internet and the information that it provides 24-7, as long as their data plan is funded. (Which raises issues of equity for low income students).  Information has no longer become a thing that need to be memorized.  Information has become a thing that needs to be evaluated and manipulated into a meaningful context.  To prepare students for their future, they must receive instruction in different methods of thinking and solving problems.

While not the exact words of Einstein, the paraphrased version
of an New York Times Article: Atomic Education Urged
 by Einstein 1946.

Linear Thinking

Simple cause-effect thinking that ignores the relationships between systems provides an incomplete view of the world.  This type of thinking often results in negative unintended consequences.  The movement to promote bio-fuels is a prime example of this.  The linear thought behind this is that the US is capable of growing crops that can be easily transformed into fuel, reducing our dependency on foreign oil and pollution. Farmers will also benefit from increased demand on their crops as well.  I wonder if anywhere in this process anyone asked about the wisdom of burning food in our gas tanks?  Increase use of bio-fuels has resulted in more land being utilized for crops which has reduced the amount of land that is available for forests and grasslands that help to process carbon emissions.  A study determined that it will take over 167 years for corn ethanol to make a difference in the carbon content of our atmosphere (Sexton, Rajagopal, Hochman, Zilberman, & Roland-Holst, 2009).  Additionally, it will result in reduced biodiversity (Sexton et al., 2009).  The impact of bio-fuels production on the water supply also needs to be considered, not only is the damand for water increased, the chemicals that are used in farming can contaminate the water supply (Sexton et al., 2009). Anyone that purchases their own groceries has noticed the increased prices of food that has resulted from the competition between the table and the gas tank.  On a global scale food production per capita is decreasing (Sexton et al. 2009).

Systems Thinking

A systems thinking approach to bio-fuel might have resulted in a different decision.  A systems approach examine the internal functioning of a system as well as its relationship with other systems.  Systems thinking, developed in the 1940's has not gained popularity until recently.  Instead design thinking has dominated much of the decision making processes until recently.  The primary difference between the two problem solving methods is that design thinking does not include the external systems in the reasoning process.  Additionally, systems thinking recognizes the complexity of global relationships and recognizes the futility in trying to control all of the variables, whereas design thinking assumes that the variables can be controlled.  I would argue that either form of thinking is far superior to narrow cause-effect reasoning.

Importance of Learning Styles

Perhaps one of the reasons for the lack of emphasis on non-linear thinking is that it lends itself to a global learning style much more than a sequential learning style.  Studies have found that learning styles are influenced by cultures (Sywelem, Al-Harbi, & Fathema, 2012).  Global learners are in the minority and typically do not not perform as well in school,  this may be because most teachers are also sequential learners themselves.  Consequently, the information that is presented in classes is sequential without any accommodations for global learning styles.  Even the new Common Core standards which is meant to instill 21st Century Skills, does not address non-linear thinking.    Yet it is this type of thinking that is so important for developing sustainable development.
By Rob Koch

More information:

Systems Thinking in Schools: The Waters Foundation
  The Cloud Institute
The Creative Learning Exchange


Kurilovas, E., Kubilinskiene, S., & Dagiene, V. (2014). Web 3.0 – Based personalisation of learning objects in virtual learning environments. Computers In Human Behavior, 30654-662. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.039

Sexton, S., Rajagopal, D., Hochman, G., Zilberman, D., & Roland-Holst, D. (2009). Biofuel policy must evaluate environmental, food security and energy goals to maximize net benefits. California agriculture, 63(4).

Sywelem, M., Al-Harbi, Q., Fathema, N., & Witte, J. E. (2012). Learning Style Preferences of Student Teachers: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Online Submission, 1, 10-24.


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What if School Was Invented Today?

What if school was invented today?  What would it look like? How would students learn and teachers teach?  The obvious answer is in school or online....Don't be obvious!

Think of the time that you learned the most.  How did you learn? How do they communicate? Was it in school?  I bet not... we need to change that...

Stage 1:
When answering this question don't think "outside the box," pretend the box does not even exist!  Part of this challenge is thinking of the right questions to ask. Questions like "If the body of knowledge that the world create is changing so fast how does one keep up?"  or "What are THE most important things to learn when in a matter of minutes you can learn almost anything?"

So the first stage in this process is creating the "right questions."  What are the right questions?

Please use your comment to post your "questions"  or if you are ambitious add to the presentation.