Sunday, January 16, 2005

Digital Divide - Why technology?

Last semester I read an interesting study called Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide which focuses on the issue of the digital divide. In this research study, the premise is that there is more to the digital divide than just access (Do I have a computer?, and Do I have Internet access?). The definition is not so narrow, and needs to be broadened to include skills, economic opportunity, and participation in democracy.

“Access is undeniably important, but the real policy question is how well society will be able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by technology.”

As I read the section on the skills divide, I couldn’t help but see the parallel to education. Education really does reflect society as a whole, especially in the area of technology skills. We are not doing a very good job of providing our students with technology skill. (I would argue that most of their skill is self-taught at home). And, most importantly, we are not providing the technology skill (professional development) for teachers. Could this have a disastrous impact years from now? Are we contributing towards a skill divide of sorts in our schools? If teachers do not have the skills, how will the students fair? Schools should be the first place that we see skill development (technical and pedagogical), but instead we are lagging behind—education is one of the last.

“Just as widespread education raises the level of human capital in the economy, so do critical technology skills that are increasingly important throughout the economy.”

Education should be a social issue, not solely an economic one. It should be about how education can benefit society and the students we serve, not about money (not enough seems to be the perpetual excuse).

This all came to mind today as I was thinking about some of my previous posts. Some of the questions I kept coming back to were, “Well, why technology?” and “Can’t we do all of this without technology?” The answer is yes, but do we do a disservice to students and teachers when the rest of the world so effectively utilizes technology while we maintain the status quo of the last century? Are we in effect contributing toward the digital divide? What will the consequences be?

Posted by Randy on 01/16 at 05:09 PM
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Saturday, January 15, 2005

Instructional Maturity

In some reading a few weeks back I ran across a phrase that I think might be relevant to this vision piece that I’ve been charged with putting together. The phrase is instructional maturity. The word maturity here refers to quality of a particular context, in this case instruction. There are other contexts relevant to transformation, systemic change and technology—infrastructure maturity; software product maturity; and people maturity. The level of maturity in one area can impact, positively or negatively, the maturity in another.

For each of these, it is possible to develop a maturity model. A model contains features (What does quality instruction look like? What are the goals and methods for teaching?); defined levels/stages for each feature; and a scoring rubric which can be used as a guide for what to work toward.

So it would appear that our goal is this: to increase instructional maturity. The belief is that this can be done effectively through the use of technology.

Some questions that may be worth answering:

1. Do the features of instructional maturity listed in yesterday’s post apply to all core content areas? In other words, are there content areas that would not benefit from a shift to this particular view of classroom instruction?

I think they may not, but within the professional development proposed, we will discover which will apply and which will not. These conclusions need to be driven by the teachers, not imposed from top down.

2. Since one maturity can impact another, what is the impact of infrastructure maturity on instructional maturity?

I suspect that since we are working with teachers in a setting that has access to virtually any technology, this may be less of an issue. The infrastructure is probably robust enough for us to meet our goals using technology in any way we can think of. However, infrastructure may end up being an issue as this seeps out into other areas of the building, even other buidlings within the district. One of the phrases that has been restated has been, “using what we presently have.” This is fine to an extent, but lack of access to equipment, support, and other resources has always been a cry from the ranks, middle level and high school. And this is evident in the Technology Integration Plan.

3. Is it valuable to actually develop some sort of rubric for instructional maturity?

I am not sure on this one. We have developed some generic rubrics, but what I don’t like about those is that they focus on quantity rather than quality. That might be something to revisit.

There were also a few additional things that could be added to the “What are we doing to reach those outcomes?” section of yesterday’s post: (1) There is a flow for this: Institute --> technology enhanced classrooms --> Emmaus High School --> other district buildings. (2) We are doing this within available resources. We aren’t asking for more money in the budget. (3) Along with a new model for the classroom, there needs to be a new model of supervision. Adminstrators will need to learn effective ways of assessing teachers that use technology to reach their classroom goals.

Posted by Randy on 01/15 at 05:10 PM
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Friday, January 14, 2005

Essential Questions

In establishing a vision for learning and technology, I’ve been trying to answer three questions pertaining to the particular circumstances within our district: What is the vision for learning and technology? What are the outcomes? What are we doing to move toward our goals?

This weekend, I need to work this through, but here is what I’ve outlined so far:

What is the vision for learning and technology?
Learning is defining and solving problems creatively and in original ways, often in collaboration with others. In this collaboration, students and teachers share knowledge in ways that are authentic – like scientists, historians and other communities of learners. Teachers select goals and materials and act as guides and intellectual coaches. While teachers make broad decisions, students give input into how they achieve these goals and how they will be assessed and evaluated.

Technology is a support and catalyst for this type of learning. Technology extends the classroom environment focusing on inquiry, guessing, debate, and multiple materials including books, libraries, museums, videos, and experts.

What are the outcomes?
Student-centered learning experiences, disciplinary and inter-disciplinary project-based and problem-based learning, higher order thinking, authentic assessments, sophisticated collaboration among students, changing roles of teachers and students, student input into designing and assessing learning activities for achieving objectives, access to digital content, access to experts outside of the classroom, greater use of rubrics, and a shift in the way teachers think about teaching and learning.

What are we doing to reach those outcomes?
Assessing, through the use of rubrics, where teachers are in relation to the ISTE NETS. From this assessment, providing professional development to address areas of needed growth. These professional development opportunities will occur on a regular basis, over an extend period of time, and involve collaboration among teachers. The specifics of each meeting and the work accomplished will largely be guided by teachers’ personal goals for technology use in the classroom.

I can see this developing more by hanging some real examples on the theory. This can’t be theoretical. What do these concepts actually look like in a classroom, and how does the technology help to achieve this vision? I’ll be pulling from some of my experiences.

Posted by Randy on 01/14 at 11:27 PM
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