In the previous post, I described how we have changed tack in the process of moving our established European international school towards a 1 to 1 computer arrangement. Prior to the recent arrival of the new director of technology and ICT facilitator (the second one is me), the school management had committed itself to a byod (bring your own device) project from September 2013. We have introduced an undefined delay and are carefully referring to '1 to 1' rather than byod, since we don't see any advantages to the institution of byod. The first proposal caused a significant amount of concern among staff, especially the proposal to dispense with their beloved desktops. We looked into how many teachers have experience of 1 to 1 programmes and there are only 8 teachers out of 80, of whom 5 have arrived within the last 4 months. It is maybe not surprising that they are alarmed by the idea of a move to mobile machines, citing worries about posture, power and projectors amongst others.
We have written a list of questions, which has been reduced to eight, the answers to which will allow us to write a 'manifesto' for the development of a programme. This may seem overblown, but we realised that the school had not discussed a justification for putting mobile technology in the hands of the students to use in their learning. We put together some articles and videos which covered various aspects of the issue on a learnist board and asked the leadership team to read a few each as well as considering our questions. Here are those questions:
We met the leadership of the school and had a thoughtful discussion around the issues. Since a meeting of the academic leaders was coming up (heads of departments such as Science and Modern Languages), we put the questions to them too for their reactions. We are expecting all of those responses by the end of the week, though the majority I have seen so far are along the lines of: you guys are the experts, tell us what we want. At least they can't say we didn't consult them. The idea behind developing the manifesto is to have the support of the institution as we go forward.
The next stage, which will run concurrently with the ongoing consultation, is to consist of research, visits and pilots. As much of the data as possible is meant to be contextual, ie How would 1 to 1 work in our school? The visits are intended to be varied and also to include people from across the spectrum in the school from techies to Luddites and admin to students; similarly we hope to set up a few 1 to 1 zones around the school eg iPad room, Chromebook room, laptops and tablets to gather different sorts of information. These spaces will also function as training areas for teachers in the 1 to 1 environment whichever it is to become.
Will this work? Will the result be a better introduction of a 1 to 1 programme? We won't know how it would been otherwise, but having observed the school during the last few months, there is a number of pitfalls I am hoping to avoid. Firstly, the experience of both students and teachers in the uses of technology in the classroom are very limited. Secondly, this is a quite conservative institution in which fear of change expresses itself in the form of banal doubts which double as passive resistance. I see no way to achieve a proper change in which education takes the central position unless the community comes with its hearts and minds. This includes the opportunity for the 'antis' to express publicly their misgivings. I have learned that whatever the outcome of a consultation, you have to keep up the momentum. When the deadline for feedback has passed, report quickly, adjust accordingly and move on. And realistically interpret both positive or negative reaction (there are dangers in giving disproportionate attention to either).
So far, the outcomes of the consultation have not really pushed us forward on a wave of new ideas, but they have allowed the expressions of doubt as well as obliging the community to envisage a future with a school where everyone has a computer in hand all day.
We have written a list of questions, which has been reduced to eight, the answers to which will allow us to write a 'manifesto' for the development of a programme. This may seem overblown, but we realised that the school had not discussed a justification for putting mobile technology in the hands of the students to use in their learning. We put together some articles and videos which covered various aspects of the issue on a learnist board and asked the leadership team to read a few each as well as considering our questions. Here are those questions:
- How do the school’s philosophy/mission/vision/values justify 1:1?
- How do we expect teaching and learning to change?
- What are the expected benefits?
- What difficulties could there be with the implementation of 1:1?
- What if we didn't do it?
- What process should we use to decide which model to adopt?
- Do we know if parents, teachers and students are in favour?
- Why should the school introduce a 1:1 programme?
We met the leadership of the school and had a thoughtful discussion around the issues. Since a meeting of the academic leaders was coming up (heads of departments such as Science and Modern Languages), we put the questions to them too for their reactions. We are expecting all of those responses by the end of the week, though the majority I have seen so far are along the lines of: you guys are the experts, tell us what we want. At least they can't say we didn't consult them. The idea behind developing the manifesto is to have the support of the institution as we go forward.
The next stage, which will run concurrently with the ongoing consultation, is to consist of research, visits and pilots. As much of the data as possible is meant to be contextual, ie How would 1 to 1 work in our school? The visits are intended to be varied and also to include people from across the spectrum in the school from techies to Luddites and admin to students; similarly we hope to set up a few 1 to 1 zones around the school eg iPad room, Chromebook room, laptops and tablets to gather different sorts of information. These spaces will also function as training areas for teachers in the 1 to 1 environment whichever it is to become.
Will this work? Will the result be a better introduction of a 1 to 1 programme? We won't know how it would been otherwise, but having observed the school during the last few months, there is a number of pitfalls I am hoping to avoid. Firstly, the experience of both students and teachers in the uses of technology in the classroom are very limited. Secondly, this is a quite conservative institution in which fear of change expresses itself in the form of banal doubts which double as passive resistance. I see no way to achieve a proper change in which education takes the central position unless the community comes with its hearts and minds. This includes the opportunity for the 'antis' to express publicly their misgivings. I have learned that whatever the outcome of a consultation, you have to keep up the momentum. When the deadline for feedback has passed, report quickly, adjust accordingly and move on. And realistically interpret both positive or negative reaction (there are dangers in giving disproportionate attention to either).
So far, the outcomes of the consultation have not really pushed us forward on a wave of new ideas, but they have allowed the expressions of doubt as well as obliging the community to envisage a future with a school where everyone has a computer in hand all day.
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