Who are you really serving? How far does your reach extend? Why did you become a teacher in the first place?

On changing schools (again), moving away from Ed Tech (not completely), moving back into the classroom (why would I do that?!?), and bringing this blog to a close (perhaps) . . . 

The title poses some very good questions that I have been pondering over the last few weeks and months of this turbulent school year.  Going back to just over a year ago, having major cardiac surgery (in a foreign country none-the-less) certainly made me pause and think.  Add to that moving house/country/schools/continents brings everything into sharp focus and scrutiny.  There have been a number of ups and downs, and complete turn-arounds in the last 12 months which have culminated in a whole lot of change for me.  All of these changes were planned (in one way or another) and initiated by me and my family - we just didn't plan on doing everything at the same time.  That's just how it all worked out.  Now that we are a year down the track, I am making another big change with moving schools again, moving away from ed tech and returning to the classroom.  Why would I do that, you might ask?  The more that I think about it, the more I come back to the three questions in the title of this post . . .

What lies on the road ahead?  Are you on the right path?

Who are you really serving?
In my current role as an ed tech coach, I have really examined this question this year.  At my previous school, my role meant serving the entire student body (directly in classrooms, through technology tools and systems, and through various interactions with student leadership, clubs and the school community), the entire HS faculty (through developing teaching and learning with ed tech integration, through PD/training/support, and through building a school culture of professional sharing and collaboration), and the school as a whole (through my role as a co-director of digital learning, and through the development of school systems/procedures/organisation for school growth and innovation).  This year has been really difficult as these avenues for growth and development are in their infancy here, and out of my sphere of influence - which is just not a good fit for me.  Leadership here thinks my time is best spent acting as a technician (which we have enough of in IT Services), working as a substitute (wait, what?!?) or covering the ugly jobs of others (like planning the sub coverage for the day, very early in the morning).  My role here seems to be serving administration, as they simply do not understand what my role is, what my strengths and abilities are, or how I can help the school to grow and develop.  Am I serving the school community as a whole here - not really.  Am I doing what I thought I was brought here to do - definitely not.  Am I working in an environment which is conducive to school growth and innovation, as well as providing a platform for my continued learning and development - nope.  Which leads to the second question . . .

How far does your reach extend?
I can't help but compare my previous school to the current one when I consider this question.  The visual that pops into my mind is having my arms blown off by a grenade that has been handed to me . . . not a pretty image.  In my previous school, I contributed to school growth everyday in many different areas across the school.  Over the years, I helped to change the school timetable and master schedule, moved the entire school to become a Mac school and use Google Apps for Education, bring in external collaboration and certification programs for teachers like Google Certified Educators and GEG Poland, create flexible classroom environments, and update and evolve the courses and programs on offer.  Here, I have not been allowed to contribute to many of the bigger projects around the school such as building and outfitting the new campus, selecting school systems (LMS, SIS, SIMS), considering platform change for the laptop program, or bringing in/back Google Suite.  Everything has been relegated to "not now", "maybe next year", or "there is a team working on that already."  Disappointing, frustrating and again, not a good fit for me.  Not being able to contribute to school growth is demoralising, and does not help to build a sense of collegiality or ownership in the school.  Working in a strictly "top-down" environment where you have no voice and certainly am not heard, is not for me.  Looking back, I wish I had a better way to evaluate this aspect of a school from far away, before uprooting the family and making the jump.  In terms of evaluating where a school is at with its approach to educational technology, I think this is a very important question when considering a move that can only be answered truthfully by going there and seeing it for yourself.  What people say is so different from the realities of the environment, as everything is coloured by their own perceptions, attitudes and how they want to portray themselves, the faculty, the school or teaching and learning in general.

Why did you become a teacher in the first place?
This is the big question that I think all teachers should think about from time to time.  I first started thinking about becoming a teacher when I was halfway through my 3rd year of university.  I realised that my love for programming and computer science, and the kind of work that I was doing for my university courses, was not reflected in real-life and industry after graduation.  I had the benefit of an older brother who was already working in the software industry of the late-80's, and I could see the kind of work that he was doing was not for me.  When I started asking my friends and family what I should do, they all said that I had been a teacher all of my life - first as a school tutor, then as a lab tech in uni, and teaching assistant during the school year and over the summers.  Working with people, whether they be adults or students, is what I thrive on.  Seeing the lights go on, making connections, expanding someone's thinking and pushing their boundaries - these are the things which make going to school everyday worthwhile.  I have been doing this for 28 years now, and this is the first time that I have been in a school environment where much of this is lacking on a day-to-day basis for me in my current role.  If that is not a signal that I need a change, then I don't know what is?!  If what you are doing does not bring you some level of fulfilment and joy, then I suggest that you really think about the path you are on.  I have realised that I really need to get back into the classroom, to get back to teaching students who want to learn rather than adults who do not.  I have realised that I have been teaching CS in one way or another for my entire career, and I miss having my own classroom and students.  I need to work with the Growth Minded and problem-seekers, not try to change the very Fixed Minded and those who set in their ways.  Time for a change.  Time to look for a "better fit".

Does everything fit together?  Are you in the right place?

So, what am I going to do?
I am almost finished this school year, and this may be my last blog post for awhile.  It has served its purpose - to record my thinking and reflections on ed tech, to help me process everything, and to share it with anyone who cares to look.  Each of my posts has averaged well over 100 clicks/reads so they have at least been seen (I just don't know how many of those clicks were from bots trolling the internet ;-).  But I really started writing this blog for myself and it has run its course for the time being.  If you are reading this post and it is well past June 2017, then perhaps I have not come back to it in my new role back in the classroom.

I have come to realise that right now, I am not reaching very many students.  Being a coach and working with the faculty means reaching the entire student body through the faculty.  But the culture of the school has to be in alignment with this path, and school leadership must support building the path and setting a course for the faculty to follow.  Without this roadmap/vision/direction and without the authority to create them, the school simply remains in stasis, frozen in place.  My thinking now is that I can affect more change and reach more students by returning to the CS classroom . . . and a lot more fun along the way.

I can't wait for next year - going back to teaching Computer Science full time is complete serendipity!  They say "timing is everything", and in this case the timing was perfect for a change.  I have never had the opportunity to go to a new school with an established CS program that is growing, and never had another teacher to work with and share classes.  Moving to one of the top few international schools in the world is a great opportunity that could not be passed up.  Returning to the classroom, going back to my roots in CS, rejoining the AP community and (hopefully) getting back to the APCS exam reading next year, leading school trips and coaching school teams . . . it's all happening next year!  I know that I am a geek at heart - returning to my true geeky self just feels right!

Big Takeaways
Despite the frustrations and "poor fit" of the school this year, there are some big takeaways (as there always are things to learn), such as:

• Taking the opportunity to return to Asia (which we missed so much), and getting out of Europe at an opportune time (it seems to devolving and becoming unsafe in many places) have been good for us as a family
• Moving the school forward with ed tech and integration (even if some of the steps have been baby-steps, the faculty are at least moving), and being able to shift some people's thinking to "we are all technology teachers" has been important for future change here
• Moving a school towards innovation and updating teacher's pedagogy is a massive job, and it cannot be done without the support/endorsement/realisation of the school leadership as a whole - leadership's understanding and acknowledgement of ed tech role in school development is key, and has to happen before any real, deep and meaningful change can occur in the school
• Chip and Dan Heath's book Switch has been very helpful for me to frame my thinking and understanding of the very Fixed Minded (it has to do with the associated identity of the person involved, and their particular environment, rather than their personality or disposition), and my reflection on the how/why some particular initiatives have failed here
• Reconnecting with the international Ed Tech community in Singapore and Asia (and I will continue to work with Apple, Google and the international schools community as I transition back to the classroom)
• Concentrating on my recovery and health (the change of environment, climate and diet have been great for me ;-) plus being in Singapore where we all "just fit in" (for a mixed race family, living in Turkey, China and Poland has been challenging at times) has been a true revelation

So, this is the plan for next year and the foreseeable future . . . and it feels like I am going home!  Wish me luck!

Building Tech Integration in IB Diploma Courses

A friend in the US recently asked me for some help with how to get started with integrating technology in a school which offers the IB Diploma Program.  She observed that the faculty were very well versed in the IB Diploma and were very experienced teaching their courses, but there was a lot of reluctance with integrating technology in their classes.  She was looking for some examples, particularly in Math and Science, for how teachers are integrating technology in Diploma courses, and was also looking for some recommendations for US-based trainers who might help to move the school forward.  My response to her ended up being pretty long and detailed, and seemed worthy of posting it here for others to read and take ideas from.  So here's most of what I wrote . . .

To get to your question about integrating technology into the IB Diploma, you are correct in your observations about some teachers being very reluctant to consider technology in their classrooms, especially when it comes to teaching IB Diploma courses.  I treat all of the HS faculty as specialists in their fields because they are experts, and with a school the size of ASW (the HS is about 275 students G9-12) the faculty all teach predominantly stand-alone courses (there are very few courses in the HS let alone the DP, that are shared between 2-3 teachers).  HS faculty often cite not having the time to integrate technology, often talk about the deep and wide curriculum to get through, or intimate that they just don't see how something might be used in their course.  Seeing some piece of technology or a tool used within the context of a specific class can really tip the balance here, but finding those examples or the people who are actively "doing it" is the challenge.  Moving people along is tough when they don't want to move, so employing peer coaches/tech leaders within your school, getting faculty to expand their professional network to connect with people outside of their school, and exposing your staff to new ideas/tools/pedagogy has worked for me here (but it is a slow process).  One of the parts of all of this that we continue to struggle with is whether faculty "have to integrate technology" rather than just use it in class, as technology integration is not connected with teacher evaluation in any way.  As a result, we are a school which is technology rich and has lots of great things going on, but we still have teachers who actively resist tech in their classrooms because "they are doing just fine without it, and their IB DP scores are pretty good." 

With all of that in mind, here are some things/tools/ideas/projects/links for stuff that we are doing here at ASW in IB DP courses, which have grown out of our 1:1 Laptop Program (mostly since I changed our program to Macs three years ago).  Much of this has developed from encouraging teachers to allow students to demonstrate/show/share their understanding in more creative ways using digital tools.  Also note that I have tried to list things here which are beyond stuff which would fall within using Moodle or GAfE for communication/collaboration/organisation:

• Teachers flipping their classroom by creating their own short instructional videos (Visual Arts, Economics, Math) or by using online resources with students (Khan Academy)

• Digital audio recording and podcasting/vodcasting for Languages

• Using digital simulations for abstract concepts or experiments (Explore Learning gizmos for Math and the Sciences)

• Students creating video products which demonstrate their learning/understanding in creative ways, such as for their Group 4 Project, using green screens for making History news casts from WWI, creating short visual summaries for acts from a play or chapters from a novel, or creating short animations to demonstrate/summarise a concept or process

• Apps and other specialised features for supporting EAL and Learning Support students (i.e. OpenDyslexic font and browser plug-in, or using text to speech features)

• Providing online databases for students to access scholarly journals and other peer reviewed research

• Connecting and collaborating with experts/students/classes remotely (i.e. our G10 English classes worked with classes in Colorado - https://ahsthisibelieve.wikispaces.com, and our History classes recently participated in some online talks with historians from the UK)

• Graphing calculator simulator (Ti-Smartview) for better instruction and classroom use of the graphing calculators for Math

• Using an iPad with a fine-tip stylus as both a document camera and as an annotation device (instead of an interactive whiteboard)

• Pixton for creating graphical/cartoon summaries which demonstrate a student's understanding (this has been used with Languages and the Sciences very successfully)

• Online and free apps as resources (i.e. interactive unit circle for introductory trigonometry - http://www.touchmathematics.org/topics/trigonometry, Quia.com for online quizzes and review, Videonot.es for annotating online videos, Piktochart for creating infographics, World Newspaper Map - http://newspapermap.com/ for comparing different perspectives on world/current events)

• Using Google Sites to document their CAS projects - all G11-12 students are now doing this, as of this year

• Using Google Docs to document the research process as G11 gets started with their Extended Essay, which can be shared with the IB DP Coord, HS Librarian and their EE Supervisor

• ToK Google Site collection/aggregator using Scoop.it for current events and articles pertaining to different ways of thinking

This list has a few things which all IB DP students are doing/using, and I hope there's enough Math and Science stuff here to get you started.  In terms of an American trainer that might be good for you, we brought in Tom Daccord (http://edtechteacher.org/team/tom/) and also sent some of our new staff to his summer institutes in Boston over the years, which have been very good.  This helped to jump start some of the faculty, to get the ball rolling.

Another project that I have been working on with the IB has been the "Role of Technology in the IB".  A pre-publication version of the guide is currently available on the OCC.  In addition, some of us who were part of the small working group in the summer also presented a mock-up of the tech integration "AID lens" at the recent ECIS ICT conference in Munich.  A copy of our presentation "Thinking More Deeply about the Role of Technology Integration in the IB Programmes" is here, and the short video that has been prepared by the IB is shown below:

What is important to consider with all of this, is that some IB Diploma teachers are reluctant to engage with technology integration as they do not see how to incorporate technology into their lessons or units, and they do not have the time to devote to learning and using some new tools.  But tech integration shouldn't be focused on just tools - it should have a broader view of technology and the integration of technology.  The more I think about the "AID lens", the more I like it, as it has this broader view of tech integration leading towards tech literacy.

Remember those reluctant teachers who don't use any technology in their class, at all?  Are they really not doing anything for tech integration and building technology literacy?  Depends on how you measure or look at it.  Take for example, two History teachers who have assigned a research project focussed on different aspects of WWI.  Teacher A has made the final product a 2000 word essay, while Teacher B wants students to be creative and produce a short video using a green screen as a news cast from the trenches.  With the SAMR model, does the essay extend into the transformative levels, or does the news cast video?  Many people see the video project as incorporating more tech, so it must be higher up the SAMR scale.  Through the "AID lens", both projects come out about even as they both contain essential elements of Agency (ways of Being), Information (ways of Knowing) and Design (ways of Doing).  Both projects are building tech literacy, just with different student products.  Don't get me wrong here, I am not against the SAMR model (it certainly has its uses and it is really good for helping teachers think about tech integration).  But how do you measure if something is transformative?  Why would the video project be better for student learning?  Just because it's flashier?

I have been struggling with this for awhile now, but I am beginning to see how the "AID lens" brings a different perspective into play (which I think is worth considering).  Have a look at the "AID lens" and think about how it could be used in curriculum planning . . . what do you think?

Some after thoughts . . . here are a few more IB applicable tech tools to consider:

• Desmos online graphing calculator is wickedly good and you can get it on your iPad too
• Wolfram Alpha - online computational knowledge engine is very good at math . . . try entering an equation into it and getting it to solve it for you . . . and then walk through the steps for solving the equation one by one . . . 

Reflections on being part of the Learning 2 Africa Organising Committee

Being asked by John Iglar to be part of the Learning 2.014 Africa Organising Committee about a year ago, after it was announced in Singapore, has been both an honour and a curiosity to me. My immediate response to him at the time was "you know that I am not in the Africa region" to which he replied "I know, and I still want you to help with putting the conference together." Now that the first ever Learning2Africa is complete, we could talk a little more about the process and how he had to defend his decision to include me on the committee with both his own staff and the Learning 2 Advisory.  Which is fair enough, as I pointed that out from the beginning. John later told me that he wanted my enthusiasm and experience with Learning2Asia to set up the conference in Addis Ababa, as only a few others on the committee have been to an L2 conference before.

Working on the conference from afar was not a problem at all. Sometimes the Skype on GHangouts connections would get dropped during our weekly meetings, but other than that, everything was communicated asynchronously through email and shared GDocs. I suggested that I work on the Cohorts, Cohort Facilitators and Workshops remotely and to keep John and the committee in the loop as things progressed. 

As the cohort set up with Learning 2 conferences is so unique and important to the success of the conference, I decided to take my own approach to setting up the cohorts. My plan from the start was to align good leaders with each cohort, to have an innovative and effective leader embedded in each cohort. With this goal in mind, started contacting people at I know who would make good cohort facilitators who are either in the region, or nearby and who might want to come take part. This proved to be a really successful approach as it served to pre-advertise the conference, and provided the selected people with a little more leverage with their schools in order to attend the conference in a leadership role. I was only able to pre-select about half of the facilitators roles in the end, but this gave us a good base of people in these important roles. It also encouraged these schools to send more faculty to this new, unknown conference.

As the conference neared, some other advancements that I wanted to introduce into the process included:

• provide each cohort facilitator with a list of the members, schools they are coming from, and their roles/positions there
• having the cohort facilitators contact their cohort members in advance to front-load them with information to connect them and to start the networking process
• have the cohorts start thinking about their own "burning questions" , big take-aways and goals for attending the conference
• build in an orientation meeting for all of the facilitators prior to the conference opening, to form them into a team and to come to a common understanding of the philosophy of Learning 2 (which is new to most of the conference participants)
• daily check-in meetings with the facilitators to set them up for the cohort sessions later that day)
• daily debrief meetings with the facilitators to see how their cohort sessions went and to gather feedback from the cohorts; interestingly, these immediately became joint Learning 2 Leaders and Cohort Facilitators debriefs 

#baboon - Other than #Learning2 and #buses, #baboon was a trending hashtag during the conference (but we never did have a school baboon alarm)

As the conference got underway, the Learning 2 Leaders were asked to attach themselves to a cohort of their choice which was wonderful. Not only did the Cohort Facilitators enjoy having the Leaders present and participating in their cohorts, but the Leaders really connected with the participants through the cohorts. In the debrief meetings, the feedback that came out of the cohorts was inspiring and exhilarating - participants were connecting, sharing, collaborating and networking which are all the main goals of the conference and what distinguishes Learning 2 from other conferences (which have typical job-alike meetings). The best feedback came out of the second cohort session where each group is cussed their "burning questions" using a simple protocol based on the Final Word - Critical Friends. Having the chance to discuss issues, problems of practice, challenges and open "how to" questions with a group of peers in a non-threatening/judgemental environment (through the protocol) was fulfilling, enlightening and productive. Many of the Cohort Facilitators came away from that session raving about their group and how they really came together as a team. At the end of the conference, some were talking about how they would like to continue having cohort meetings online every day - surely this is the best possible outcome for the conference which is all about sharing and collaboration, especially beyond the conference.

To me, the cohort experience has been the most important part of the Learning 2 Asia conferences that I've attended. To bring this experience and connection to Africa for the first time is very satisfying and fulfilling for me. To take this another step or two forward, I have now been tasked by the Learning 2 Advisory to collaborate with L2Bangkok to help organize their cohorts, embed my additions to the process for setting up the cohorts, and to rewrite the "playbook" for future L2 conferences. And to take my own participation in Learning 2 a step further - I will be facilitating the Curriculum Leaders cohort at L2Asia in Bangkok. 

Why Tech Coaching is kind of like riding the Tour de Pologne

 . . . year after year after year . . .

Over the summer, as I caught some glimpses of the Tour de France on tv, I couldn't help thinking about the similarities (and differences) between Tech Coaching and operating/coaching a cycling team.  At first, the similarities were obvious and plentiful, but as the analogy grew in my mind, the many differences became apparent and a little bit amusing.  So let me explain my thinking . . .

This is my "fifth running of the Tour de Pologne", and it has been a frustrating yet adventurous, tantalizing but in some ways disappointing race over the years.  Each year, e results have improved, and in some respects the team has been completely victorious, but the race never ends, there is always another race to run, and sometimes the team results are middling at best.  Sounds pretty strange, right? Well, being a Tech Coach is like being a cycling team coach in many ways, and traversing the school year is like running a team on a major tour event like Giro or the big one - the Tour de France. But my school is not the biggest fish in the big pond of international schools, so I thought that I should not compare it with the most prestigious cycling race in the world.  As we are in Poland, which hosts one of the bigger cycling tours in Europe, I felt the analogy is a little cleaner with the Tour de Pologne . . . the obvious choice in the end.

As I prepare for this coming school year, and reflect on the previous one, I have been thinking about how it must feel to be a cycling team coach . . . and how it is so similar to my role as a Tech Coach working with the faculty at my school.  My role as a coach allows me to work with a group of professionals to improve and move forward as a team over the course of the year.  During a race, the coach would ride in the support vehicle day after day, running in front/behind/beside the riders on your team.  When something breaks down you have to stop and help to fix it.  You have to continually communicate with your team as the overall strategy changes throughout the stages of the race, as accidents happen along the way, or as fatigue and injuries disrupt the team.  As a coach, you have to help manage the team members to work together effectively and efficiently or they will never finish.  In the end, the glory goes to the winner, but they will never even finish the race without the complete support of their team.

On a cycling team, you would have all manner of riders, including front runners and break-away artists, hill climbing specialists, sprinters, supporting team members and others who like to ride in the pack, seasoned veterans and young up-and-comers with lots of potential.  As team coach, you have to encourage and support everyone on the spectrum as they are all on your team and you are going to finish as a team.  Can you see where I am going with this?  My team of faculty still has a wide range of talents, interests and abilities with educational technology, much like the specialists on a cycling team.  There are the sprinters - who will tackle any new technology quickly and efficiently.  There are the hill climbers - who will take on the heavy lifting and the big jobs without complaint, methodically moving forward and upwards.  There are the support members - happy to follow the pack and help the whole team move forward.  And there are the front-runners - who are always pushing the pace and driving everyone ahead.  On first glance, Tech Coaching is just like coaching a cycling team through the Tour de Pologne, but with some huge differences . . . and frustrating complications.  

 

Keeping with the bike racing analogy, imagine if you had to deal with some of the following problems during the course of a race:

• having members on your team who do not want to ride or even look at a bike
• giving everyone on your new team new equipment for the upcoming race, but they give it back to you because they don't know how to use it . . . and people say fill in the blank is just like riding a bike?!?
• breakaway artists who just want to go out hard right from the start, but have no idea where the course is (so they end up hopelessly lost or out of touch with the rest of the team)
• riders who are quite content to be pulled along in the peloton day after day, never really contributing to the success or failure of the team . . . they are just content to be there
• team members who seem to always be distracted by the equipment that the other teams are using, or are continually focused on any new bike technology that is being developed/used somewhere else
• stragglers who are happy to be left behind in the race and just want to left alone, never to finish any stage of the tour

If working with a group of faculty were as easy as coaching and managing a cycling team, then things would be golden. You see, in my annual race, I do not have control over the makeup of the team that I work with, nor do I have any input into the breakdown of the "specialists" on the team. The problem areas mentioned above are real and always present, in my current school, in my pasts schools, in any school.  With the natural turnover of faculty in international schools, there will always be a wide range of talent, abilities and interests when it comes to educational technology.  It's just part of the job.  It's the nature of the beast.  Unless leading the ed tech race is the primary goal of the senior leadership of the school, then we will always have varied results each year.  Again, it's the nature of the beast.  The race never ends and you never actually win (or lose) the race . . . it just goes on.  So I do not mean to whine or complain here - this is just my thoughts and observations.  I can be the best coach in the world, but unless everyone is on the same page with the same goal in mind (year after year) then the results will never be truly great . . . just good or satisfactory . . . or worse!  If you want lasting change, then it all comes down to school culture, which we all know is very difficult and slow to change, especially when you are not in a position of senior leadership.

So my challenge is how to help guide the breakaway artist, to staying on the course.  Or getting the reluctant rider back onto the bike and to the finish line (whether its their first time on e bike, or after a big crash).  Or turning the peloton support rider into a mountain climbing specialist.  Do I have all of the answers on how to accomplish all of these tasks?  Nope, not at all.  Every rider on the team is an individual work in progress.  I guess I have to take consolation in making the team just a little bit better each year.  I guess that is one of the main differences between being a faculty/peer coach, rather than my old job as a classroom teacher . . . students eventually finish your course and cross the finish line.  Being stuck on the tour just means that once this year's race is done, it's just time to start preparing for the next one.  

So are you a tech or instructional coach?  How do you deal with this difference between teaching students and coaching faculty?  How cohesive is your team, and how do you keep everyone on course?

The Day After 1984 - A Short Jaunt in an Unplugged School

Well, our '84 on 8/4 Unplugged Day has come and gone - my original ideas and plans are mentioned in previous posts here and here.  Personally, I took the Unplugged Challenge and extended it to a full 24 hours of no technology that was not available back in 1984.  Yesterday was an interesting day for me as a result, with a few moments of frustration, disconnectedness, and the occasional lapse into boredom.  As I progressed through the day, I made some notes (on an old notepad with ink and paper!) about what I observed of myself, the faculty and the students, as follows:

1. Conducted a walkthrough of the entire HS - many classes were working with textbooks and working on paper (much more than usually can be seen)
2. Starting the day, there were only a handful of students who volunteered and registered to formally take on the Unplugged Challenge, but a bunch more signed up in the morning (much to my relief)
3. Some faculty members resorted to asking for TimeWarp posters during the day, as they could not fully plan all of their classes to be without technology in the end.  This led to my major transgression of the day, as I had to briefly go online to email the poster to these faculty members.  Funnily enough, I didn't know about these requests as I was unplugged all day, until someone asked me if I had seen their email!
4. It was hard for IB Diploma teachers to be truly unplugged with their classes, due to the nature of their courses, due to the time of year (the last day for seniors is very soon), and due to how their classwork is structured in a 1:1 laptop school.
5. The Spirit Day Dress-up (like it's 1984) component of the day was fun and students participated in their typical small but enthusiastic numbers.  In terms of developing school spirit, it was well worth the effort.  Here's some of student posers . . . hey, isn't that Madonna?!?
   
6. Our usual HS Assembly took on an 80's flavour with one of the student bands playing some 80's hard rock . . . nice touch!
7. Most of the faculty/staff had an interesting relationship with the Unplugged Challenge - they planned their lessons to be without technology as best as they could for the day (sending attendance down to the office on paper, bringing in a tv and vcr with an old tape, using an overhead projector, working from paper and textbooks) but very few actually took the challenge themselves (I only know of one other teacher out of 40+ other than myself who personally did the challenge).
8. I collected some student feedback and reflections the day after, which garnered some interesting quotes, such as:

• "I learnt that I'm not that addicted as I believe myself to be at times, and that I actually enjoy a break from technology at least in classes, where you are not forced to sit behind a screen, but I still have a habit of reaching for my phone or computer to check messages for what's going on."
• "The most difficult part was that whenever I was bored, I felt the urge to take out my phone and start playing on it."
• "Yes [I would do the challenge].  I think it was interesting to see how I would function and to see how drastically different life is without all of the [technology] things that we have available. I think it would be an eye-opening experience for my friends as well. "

Personally, I went 24 hours without using any tech over the course of a full day of school.  It was an interesting experience, being the tech person in the school who is disconnected for the entire day.  It made for a pretty big backlog of emails and jobs to do the next day, but it was worth it to support the student body and go through the same experience.  The experience confirmed for me that my role in the school is heavily dependent on technology in general, and on email in particular for communication - no surprises there.  The biggest surprise for me though, was the realization of just how bored I got at different times during the day, as I could not read any articles online, check how my hockey team did last night, or see what's happening with friends, family and colleagues on Facebook or LinkedIn.  This last bit got me thinking that it is somewhat different for me here as an expat living/working overseas, compared to if I was still back home in Canada - the digital links to your own personal world are stretched over greater distances, connect you with a group of people spread around the world in different time zones, and become more important to you as they are the means of maintaining your important relationships with people, places and things which are distant or remote.

Have you ever gone Unplugged for a day?  What were your takeaways or observations?  Was it a mandatory experience in your school, or voluntary?  I wonder if making a mandatory unplugged event would change the dynamic, as those who do not want to participate simply won't and will find ways around any attempts at enforcing a blackout - what has been your experience?

BYOD - How does it fit in an international school 1:1 laptop program?

This blog entry came about after a friend and former colleague posed a simple question to me in an email - what do I think about BYOD? An innocent enough question, coming from a HS principal in the Middle East who is considering starting a 1:1 laptop program. As we have been in discussion again about changing the model of our 1:1 program away from a school-owned model, and BYOD has been brought into the conversation, this little question resulted in a rather long response . . . so I thought I would drop my thoughts on the subject in here as well . . .

The BYOD question is a big one. We have been hashing through this ourselves the last little while as we are considering switching to a student-owned model. In international schools, the BYOD question is very different than in a public school back home though. BYOD is a huge buzzword right now so don't get caught up in the hype, which is clearly focused on schools back home. So let's get into this from an international school's perspective . . .

First of all, schools back home are going BYOD to get technology into the classrooms without incurring very much cost to the school itself. There are still costs however, particularly in infrastructure and connectivity, in-house technical support, and teacher training. These are all very real and important issues which must be in place before any laptop program is launched or it will fail for sure. The machines themselves are just one part of the equation, and you need everything else as well in order to succeed.

Let's talk about the different models for laptop programs first, and then come back to the other considerations such as your faculty, the school programs on offer, and how the laptop program will support learning and be integrated into the classroom.

In my mind, there are 4 models for laptop programs (all with their own advantages and disadvantages):

1) BYOD - all students buy their own machines ranging from laptops to tablets to smart phones, which meet some kind of minimum specifications prescribed by the school. The school would still need to provide wireless connectivity and would have to provide training and support for at least the faculty (assuming that the school provides machines for the faculty). As there is no consistency with the hardware or the software in students hands, what you end up with is a program where computing is an adjunct to what is going on in the classroom. There will be some integration of technology, but it will not be consistent across the school as not everyone has the same tools to work with all of the time. The integration that you do see will be with the faculty who take this on and use Web2 tools which are browser based, free, and multi-platform. The faculty and technology integration in general, end up being the losers here, as it becomes very challenging to support students using a variety of equipment in the classroom, and to do anything constructive with integrating technology when there is no commonality of tools amongst your students.

2) Student-owned model with a strict prescription for the make/model/operating system allowed within the school. With this model, the school regulates exactly what machine the students have, but they are owned by the students and they can buy them anywhere they want. With this kind of model, the school might also have students buy into a school software package/licensing agreement to ensure that everyone has the same software tools available to them, but this scheme might not be appropriate or do-able within the school environment you are in or within the laws/regulations of the country. Some people call this "Bring This Device" as you are specifying exactly what the student needs to have. There will likely be pushback from some parents with this kind of model as some companies/organizations only pay for the tuition of their children, so this would be an extra expense. Such a model is also challenging for a school to implement and regulate - you have to be really firm with this or else it will morph into the regular BYOD model above. Another consideration here is that the school will have little to no hand in the support and warranty/servicing of these machines as they would be coming from various sources/vendors with different warranties, operating systems and overall packages. This can get pretty messy, especially if you are trying to tell a parent that they just bought a new machine which does not fit the school specifications . . . making it very hard to strictly enforce.

3) Student-owned model where students must purchase a complete package of machine plus software through the school. The school can completely regulate what the students have in their hands without actually owning all of the machines. With this kind of model the school can offer machines at reduced prices through volume purchasing and special deals with the vendors, but this is again subject to the laws and regulations of the country that you are in. And there will always be pushback from certain segments of you school population depending on what platform you choose, vendor you work with, and whether people have access to buying the same machines at cheaper prices elsewhere. And there will also be the segment of the population who will not want to incur the extra cost of buying a computer as well - they will want everything included in the tuition costs. The faculty and students are the clear winners here, as technology integration can really take hold and be effective in any classroom. The real difference between this model and the one above is that the school is enforcing the overall package that is bought by the student/parents for use at school and therefore has better control over the software, operating system, support, maintenance and warranty of those machines.

4) School-owned model where the school purchases, provides, maintains and supports all of the machines in the school - this is our current model which we are actively looking to phase out over the next few years. The school has complete control over everything in this case, which is great for the faculty and for the student body in terms of integrating technology in the classroom as everyone has same tools. It's also great for parents as there is no extra costs involved to them - everything is part of the tuition no matter if it is being paid for by a company, personally, or by another organization such as an embassy. The loser here is the school due to the tremendous cost involved with implementing, maintaining and supporting such a program. Combined with a lack of ownership of the machines by the students, this creates an environment which is very expensive to keep working - we are finding our 1:1 program to be hard to sustain in the long run using this model. With changing student populations from year to year, rising costs for repairs/replacements each year over a three year refresh cycle, and completely replacing all of the machines in a school division each year (on a rotation), it all adds up to a lot of fiscal headaches. Strangely enough, the students can be winners or losers in this model, depending on the grade they are in and where their school is with respect to the refresh cycle. My daughter is currently using some old, decrepit netbooks through this year, and then will move to a used PC laptop next year which will be in its last year of usage. After that, she will get a brand new machine (which will likely involve a change a platform) to use for two years, unless the school changes to a student-owned model by that time. So her computing outlook in the school is not very good for the next few years, which does not sit well with me as a parent.

I have worked within a BYOD laptop program at a previous school, which was very difficult on a day-to-day basis. Even as a technology and computer science teacher, it was often frustrating trying to help and support students in my own classes who had different machines (PC laptops, Mac laptops, Tablet-PCs, old machines, new machines, machines on their last legs), difference operating systems (various versions of Windows and Mac OSX, different languages, and even the occasional Unix box) and different software packages (licensed versions of Office, pirated copies of software from the market or downloaded online, and free/trial/alternative versions of various packages). On a day-to-day basis, I found it very difficult to support my students with their projects, and I know that other faculty who were less tech savvy simply gave up trying. These teachers either did not try to integrate technology (because they couldn't) or they assigned projects where the students decided upon the tools that they would use to complete them (some with technology and some without). In both of these cases, technology was not being integrated in these classrooms but was relegated to being an add-on if the student had the right tools available and the knowledge to use them.

My school currently has a school-owned model which is also not ideal. We are looking to move to a student-owned model over the next few years which is somewhere in between #2-3 above - this is all in discussion right now. Our current model is simply not sustainable, economically speaking. Moving away from the school-owned model has been discussed in past years, but has always been knocked back for a variety of reasons, but it might just be the right time to make a change now.

Other considerations that you have to think about that play a major role in this decision include:

1) Money - Who is paying for the program? Included through tuition, a capital levy, or simply budgeted for every year? BYOD and school-owned models are both all about the money - when the school has the money and when it does not. This is why BYOD programs are popular in public schools back home, and seem to be part of the conversations in international schools when they just starting a 1:1 laptop program. It seems to me that international schools which start out with a BYOD program either keep with that model due to financial reasons, or change to a more integration friendly over over time.

2) Full Technology Integration - Are you aiming for a fully integrated program (meaning technology is available for use 24/7 on a 1:1 basis, with coaches/integrators available to support faculty, and with a possible shift away from dedicated technology classes and computer labs)? If you are getting rid of your computer labs and are expecting all teachers and students to use technology in the classroom whenever it is appropriate to enhance teaching and learning, then you need some kind of consistency with the tools on hand. In my opinion, this is where a BYOD program falls down, hard. Not all devices are created equal - I find it very hard to expect teachers to come up with innovative and engaging lessons which integrate technology, where they have to differentiate for the different learning styles and abilities of their students, as well as the myriad of devices that they might have in their hands that day. It can be done, but is it asking too much of the faculty?

3) School Program - Will the platform/machine be expected to support all aspects of a student's course load, or will the school maintain specialized labs and software licenses for these courses/purposes? If you have courses in your school which have special needs for hardware or software as most international schools do, then a BYOD program will have to be supplemented with specialized labs and software licensing schemes to get these tools into the hands of the students, whereas the other models above can somewhat mitigate these factors. For example, we have art, design technology and photography courses which use specialized software and have corresponding hardware requirements for running the software packages. With a BYOD program, all of these courses would either need to be outfitted with all of their own equipment to support them, or the courses would have to be completely overhauled and redesigned. The potential cost of providing the hardware and software for select students in these courses who do not have the right kind of device, constitutes having a bank of school-owned machines, which is contrary to the aims of a BYOD program. So would the school's program and/or curriculum change instead? Another example involves specific software that all students need to use to connect with various pieces of science equipment and probes. With a BYOD program there would be a large segment of every grade who would need to frequently borrow a laptop just to get their lab work done. Having to keep banks of machines on hand for student use is not cost effective in the long run.

4) Purpose - What is the overall purpose of introducing or bringing in a new piece of technology into a classroom, department, team or school? How will it be used in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning? These are the questions that come up in my mind whenever a new piece of technology is proposed, and these questions still apply to a whole 1:1 laptop program initiative. If you want to simply allow technology into the classrooms and see what happens, without great cost to the school, then a BYOD program could be the way to get started. But if you want to move towards a model where technology is ubiquitous and fully integrated into the classroom, then a lot of time, energy, thought and research should be invested beforehand to see which model best fits where your school is now and where it wants to be in the future.

In summary, for international schools where the stakeholders pay a lot of money in tuition, I think that there is a strong expectation for these schools to be on the leading edge with technology and integration (no matter who is paying for it all). Can a BYOD program deliver all of this in an international setting? Not in the long run - the continual frustration of having a huge mixture of devices in the classroom weighs down the faculty and leads to the eventual change in model to either a student-owned or school-owned model. My previous school started out with a hybrid BYOD model and now has firmly moved to a model which is close to #2 above. My current school still has the school-owned model which it started out with about 6-7 years ago, but is now considering changing to some form of a student-owned model. Note that the administration wants to explore moving to a BYOD program, but it is the recommendation of the tech department that we fall somewhere in between these two extremes.

What am I in favour of? A student-owned model which gives them ownership and responsibility of their machine, and allows them to take it with them when they leave the school or graduate. A model which levels the playing field for the student body, placing the same machine with the same set up and software on it, in the hands of the students and the faculty. I am in favour of a laptop program which supports teaching and learning, without placing a huge onus on the faculty. And finally, I am for placing technology in the hands of students which is ubiquitous and transformative to their learning.