How can my colleagues and I move away from "SUBSTITUTION" and towards "REDEFINITION" through our use of technology in the coming school year?

It's that time again. As I post this blog entry, it is officially the last day of my summer break. As any teacher knows, even "vacation" time is often spent reflecting upon the previous year and gearing up for the next. In my case, this has meant frequent meeting with colleagues, flurries of emails and text messages that increase in frequency as each day draws us closer to the beginning of the year and Pinterest boards filling up with possibilities. As a result of my R685 technology class (Technology Integration in Theory and Practice), my summer has also been filled with reflection upon the ways in which my colleagues and I are using technology and how we can grow in this area over the coming school year and beyond.  I have found the SAMR Model developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura ( http://www.hippasus.com/) especially helpful in this reflection. 

While I do believe that my school is already using technology in many innovative ways that would qualify as "redefinition" (check out this for example), I think that we have not yet met our potential in this area and would like to explore possible next steps to get us there.

To begin, it makes sense to look at the possible barriers that currently exist. According to Ertmer (1999) there are two types of barriers that impact teachers' use of technology in the classroom:

1st Order/External Barriers

• resources (hardware and software) 
• training
• support

2nd Order/Internal Barriers

• teachers' confidence
• beliefs about how students learn
• perceived value of technology to the teaching/learning process

(Ertmer, P. A., Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. T., Sadik, O., Sendurur, E., & Sendurur, P. (2012). Teacher beliefs and technology integration practices: A critical relationship. Computers & Education, 59(2), 423-435.)

Resources

 We are incredibly fortunate to have access to many resources in our school including desktops, mobile labs containing class sets of MacBooks and iPads, document cameras, AppleTV, projectors, digital cameras and even a maker's cart complete with a 3-D printer. For the most part, I do not believe that resources are a barrier in our school. However, according to Becker (2000), he believes that in order for computers to serve as "valuable and well-functioning instructional tool[s]" that the access should also be "convenient."  

Barriers: Unfortunately, mandated state testing often negatively impacts our convenient access (and sometimes our access altogether) to computers and iPads as they are used to give various tests throughout the year. Last year we calculated approximately 9 weeks of the year, in which our computers and sometimes iPads were tied up with state testing and were therefore unavailable for other uses. This means that teachers are reluctant to build technology use into regular parts of their workshops and projects as its availability is not always reliable. 

Potential Enablers: 

• Make technology integration a more visible and integral part of year-long unit planning so that the sequence of units can take the state testing schedule into consideration at the onset of the school year. 

• Develop menus of student outputs that use a variety of technological tools so that when some are not available, students are aware of and comfortable with other options. This draws on a belief described by a teacher quoted in Ertmer and Ottenbreit-Leftwich's 2012 article "Teacher beliefs and technology integration practices: A critical relationship" who strongly values student choice in the classroom and states: 

We really have to create choice for the kids. [I am] trying to create menus of learning outcomes to say, "here is what we want to learn, this is the end result... I'd like  you to show me how you learned. You can use a blog, podcast, video, slide show program. And they apply and practice, discuss and share and create. And the teacher just goes around and facilitates.  (p. 429)

Training & Support

Our school has a technology coordinator who works in our school approximately half the week. While I do not know the full extent of his job description, I do know that he spends a lot of time troubleshooting and maintaining hardware, software and our network and is largely responsible for dealing with state testing as it relates to preparing our existing computers and iPads to administer tests. We are also fortunate to have a relationship with Indiana University in which we often host undergraduate and graduate students who offer elective classes and support us in other ways as well through an Indiana Department of Education Innovations Grant

Barriers: Teachers who are not confident with their abilities in using technology and/or who have had a number of previous experiences with malfunctioning or unreliable hardware or software are fearful of implementing something with a large group of students and being unable to troubleshoot on their own if our technology coordinator is not in the building that day or not available. This can lead to lost time for teaching and learning and loss of student engagement as teachers struggle to try to make things work. 

Potential Enablers:

• Identify teachers at each grade level or area of the school who are willing to assist with technology on an as-needed basis. These teachers could also work directly with the technology coordinator as a liaison for their team. (This process has already begun over the summer!)
• Help teachers learn methods for creating screencasts for demonstrations for large groups so that any glitches can be dealt with before stepping in front of the class. 
• Increase teacher confidence and self-efficacy (see below) 

Teachers' Confidence

This is an area that is difficult to ascertain without interview or gathering specific information from the individual teachers in my building, but my anecdotal observations from weekly faculty meetings and professional development experiences would indicate that teacher in our school vary greatly in their confidence levels as indicated by concern or reluctance to try new technologies or a general self-identification of not understanding or "being good at" using technology. 

Barriers: Anecdotally, this seems to be a large barrier among some of the teachers in our building as expressed by their concern in being able to take on new technology tools. This can prevent colleagues with different levels of confidence from collaborating effectively as their means of communication and creation can be at odds with one another. All teachers in my school co-teach with one another, so this can be a critical concern.  

Potential Enablers:

• More time for teachers to informally experiment and play around with new technology tools in a supportive environment conducive to risk-taking. This may mean working in small groups or in partnerships with colleagues with whom they already have rapport with and with whom they feel comfortable asking questions. 
• Websites or resources created specifically for our school (taking into account content and pedagogy) in which there are resources and tutorials set up for teachers to use and play with on their own time. 

Beliefs About How Students Learn

Barriers & Enablers?

This is an interesting aspect to consider as our small staff already shares a common set of beliefs about teaching and learning which is often what drew them to our school in the first place. We already spend a lot of time discussing these beliefs with one another, but rarely do so with a technological lens. This could be an interesting avenue to explore in our staff development throughout the year.

Perceived Value of Technology to the Teaching Learning Process

Still Looking and Learning...

I have thought about this a great deal over the course of the summer and am often reminded of teachers (and many others too) who feel like they just need the feeling of pencil and paper or need to hold a notebook in their hands or have something tangible that they don't feel is represented by technology (this often comes up when I espouse the virtues of various technologies in helping us to become more paperless -- a value-driven desire). I remember then, that I used to feel the same way about reading books. I couldn't imagine ever giving up "real" books in favor of an e-reader. I thought I would miss the feeling of the pages turning, the cracking of a spine, the smell of paper etc. Then... I had a baby. I love to read and discovered that I actually had some moments throughout the day when I was feeding or holding a sleeping baby and could read, if only I could do it with one hand. I had a Kindle within a month of my son's birth and can hardly imagine wanting to read any other way anymore. 

I think that a large part of my continued learning and searching for information that will help me and my colleagues, and my school as a whole, to use technology in more innovative ways and to extend ourselves further away from substitution and towards reinvention is to recognize the potential for those moments like I had with my Kindle -- the times when you realize the potential and are willing to overcome preconceived notions and try something new. 

Evernote!

Barriers and Enablers in Technology

Find out what happened when some 4th and 5th grade students discovered they could anonymously edit one another's Google Docs. It was a a tough technology lesson for many involved, but led to a great solution.

http://www.gliffy.com/go/publish/4745541

How do cultural influences on teacher adoption and integration of technology extend beyond the schoolhouse doors?

Who would have guessed that a statement like the one above, "95% of teachers agree that using tech increases student engagement," would be a controversial one? Perhaps my initial perception of this idea as positive and, dare I say, obvious, is colored by the fact that I am, what Rogers (2003) would describe as an "early adopter" or someone who is quick to try out a new technological trend or idea.  I am eager to learn about new programs, apps and ways to incorporate technology to support my students, my teaching and my hobbies and personal life as well. The plethora of apps, for example, that I have downloaded and tried out in an effort to help students capture and record their learning, to learn math facts more quickly or to stream line my grocery shopping and meal planning process (to name only a few) would indicate that I follow this decision making process (pictured below) both quickly (as I progress through the stages) and frequently (as I try new things).

image found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DoI_Stages.jpg

However, the string of comments attached to the Common Sense Media quote above, helped me to realize that, while I may see many advantages in technology as obvious, the public perception is not always the same. Consider a sampling of the comments below:

• Because they're [teachers] too lazy and lack any sort of creativity to make their own lessons engaging. Lame. Technology shouldn't be a crutch for poor teaching methods.
• But, does it improve their learning? Or does it just entertain them a little better?
• But what of the kids that get addicted to the tech and don't do their school work?
• Yep, the technology sure engages them BUT the real question is: Does it result in an increase in achievement???

As I learned about and reflected upon how and why teachers adopt (or do not adopt) technology, this public perception was not one that I had spent a great deal of time considering until I ran across the quote and graphic from Edutopia in my Facebook feed and read the resulting comments. This notion of technology strictly as entertainment rather than a pedagogical tool or as an indication of "lazy" teaching is certainly not limited to the comments expressed above. A quick Google search  yielded recent news articles with similar sentiments and hundreds of comments decrying the state of education and calling for a "back to basics" approach to education in which students would not need to rely upon calculators, spell check and other "crutches." It seems that, at some level, it may be a generational gap and a difference between digital natives and newcomers (or who Rogers may describe as the "laggards") but I think it also extends beyond that and includes a lack of distinction between technology and media. I was struck by the extent to which the comments above and others found in similar discussions seemed to insinuate that engagement is synonymous with entertainment.  While I wholeheartedly agree that it is not the job of a teacher to entertain his or her students, I do believe that engagement is at the heart of learning and that technology offers many tools to enhance student engagement. 

(for an interesting, though slightly out-of-date, debate on this topic, check out http://www.edutopia.org/groups/walden-university/9752?page=3)

As I read the following quote in Ertmer and Ottenbreit-Leftwich's 2010 article "Teacher Technology Change: How Knowledge, Confidence, Beliefs, and Culture Intersect" describing the cultural context within which teachers make decisions about their use of technology, I must admit that I thought only about the school or institutional culture rather than larger societal constructs. 

“Teachers are not ‘free agents’ and their use of ICT [information and communication technologies] for teaching and learning depends on the interlocking cultural, social, and organizational contexts in which they live and work” (Somekh, 2008, p. 450). And, unfortunately, for most, the culture to which they must conform has not adopted a definition of effective teaching that includes the notion of technology as an important tool for facilitating student learning." (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010, p.264)

I thought about the number of teachers with whom I have worked who do not see that "teaching is effective only when combined with relevant ICT tools and resources."  (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010, p.259) and focused my attention only on the pressures and hierarchies within schools, but now realize how important it is to think more about the public's perception of technology and how that, too, impacts teachers as they make choices regarding technology adoption. It seems to me that videos such as the one below, can help to educate others about what best practices in technology integration really look like.



As educators who believe in the value of technology we must help a wider audience to expand their vision of technology as essential to teaching and learning in the 21st century. I believe that through the sharing of examples that represent best practices and help to highlight the learning (and yes, engagement) of students and then to point out how technology is a means to those ends we can work to break down this additional barrier that teachers face as they make decisions about using technology and may worry about outsiders (parents, tax payers, citizens and other stakeholders) perceiving their efforts as indolent rather than innovative.

The "Daily Divide" and "Flow"

As I was recently watching David Wiley's keynote speech on OER (Open Educational Resources) the idea that stuck with me the most was his description of, what he termed, "the daily divide." He described this as the ways in which education is so different from the rest of our lives. (This section of his address can be found around the 7 minute mark in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcRctjvIeyQ) This is so reminiscent of the question that students begin to ask early on in their school experiences and continue to ask, often through their college experiences, "When am I going to use this in the 'real world'? What has continuously struck me about that question in my years since becoming a teacher is that implicit in this inquiry is the notion that school is not the real world.

Is this idea, of school as running counter to reality, one that we can challenge? Can we fix it? Can we change what we do so that students no longer feel the tension of the "daily divide" between school and the rest of their lives? I believe that David Wiley would respond affirmatively. So, too, I believe, would author and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 

 I first encountered Csikszentmihalyi's work as I was working with like-minded colleagues to explore issues of school reform, reinvention and innovation. Csikszentmihalyi's work centers around the notion of "flow," a state of consciousness, in which an individual is completely absorbed in an activity. My students often describe this state of being as when they lose all track of time and space. In addition, Csikszentmihalyi characterizes "flow" with the following nine component states: 
 * challenge-skill balance (see graphic below) 
 * merging of action and awareness 
 * immediate and unambiguous feedback
 * concentration on the task at hand 
 * paradox of control 
 * transformation of time
 * loss of self-consciousness
 * autotelic experience 


 The following graphic represents the connection between skill level, challenge level and flow.

(image found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Challenge_vs_skill.svg#filelinks) 


 In this piece, "Thoughts about Education" (found at http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/future/creating_the_future/crfut_csikszent.cfm) Csikszentmihalyi argues that motivation is a key component for empowering children and helping to reform our current educational system. 

  "The claim is that if educators invested a fraction of the energy on stimulating the students' enjoyment of learning that they now spend in trying to transmit information we could achieve much better results. Literacy, numeracy, or indeed any other subject matter will be mastered more readily and more thoroughly when the student becomes able to derive intrinsic rewards from learning. At present, however, lamentably few students would recognize the idea that learning can be enjoyable." (Creating the Future Perspectives on Educational Change, 2002) 

 As I read that statement, I wondered whether it is that students wouldn't recognize learning itself as enjoyable or if this applies only to learning in school. I am inclined to believe that it is the latter. There is really no doubt in my mind that children enjoy learning in contexts outside of school on a regular basis. So, how can we take the concept of "flow" and apply it to learning in schools? And how can we, as teachers, help students to get into flow in contexts other than extra curricular activities and electives? How do we help to blur the lines between "education" and "everyday" so that when children and young adults become excited about learning something new, whether that be learning information related to a topic about which they are passionate or a new skill, they see school as the place where that learning can happen and they view teachers as the helpful mentors and facilitators that can help them to achieve their goals? 

I believe that if we look back at the component states of flow listed above, there are many connections between these characteristics and open education as described by David Wiley and others as well as successful models of technology integration in schools. While I still have a lot to learn about both of these topics, it seem that integrating technology and the use of OER can certainly help to differentiate learning for students in order to more frequently achieve a more optimal "challenge-skill balance." I also believe that this type of differentiation goes way beyond using technology tools as a means of providing resources directly to students so that they can access content at a variety of levels, but also includes the use of OER to help teachers learn more and gather a greater "toolbox" of resources to do this work with students, even without students' direct interactions with technology.

I can also easily see the connections between OER such as Google Docs and other collaboration tools for providing students with more" immediate and unambiguous feedback." Although it is not necessarily the same type of feedback that Csikszentmihalyi references (he has described this type of feedback as that which comes more from the activity itself), I believe that my students have had much greater success when using tools like Google Docs and getting real time feedback from me as I chat with them while they work on activities that range from persuasive writing to using Google Spreadsheets to compile information about historical immigration statistics. They are able to stay engaged for longer periods (thus, "concentration on the task at hand") when they are quickly receiving help, prompting questions and support at the same time they are involved in the project rather than waiting for a period of a day or more to continue on with next steps. 

 Finally, it seems that anyone engaged in a MOOC or open course of any kind must be engaged in an "autotelic experience" as they are often seeking these courses for their own purposes and are driven by their own agendas and goal rather than an outside requirement. 

As I learn more about OER and best practices for technology integration, I look forward to continuing this quest to consider the ways in which students and teachers can use technology in ways which promote "flow" and increase intrinsic motivation for learning.