Leadership Day 2009: What’s Next for Technology?
Note: Scott McLeod put out a call recently for people to participate in Leadership Day 2009 and blog about technology leadership. (You can find the results of his call from last year here). This post is my response…
I’m spoiled. At least I suspect I’m spoiled. I work in a state that was recently ranked top of the pile in the Technology Counts 2009 report. Only West Virginia and Georgia received an “A” in both technology use and technology capacity in the report. I’d like to think that my particular county is more aggressive in pursuing technology goals than many in our state. So I suppose you can take what I say with a grain of salt. Or you can look at it as something that could be helpful for predicting future problems as your school system catches up with us…
Even in our district’s smallest elementary school, we see new technology walking in the door regularly. Every classroom has a handful of PCs that can be used for learning station activities for small groups. Many/most of our classrooms have replaced overhead projectors with document cameras, chalk boards and dry erase markers with SMARTBoards and those little electronic slates that the kids can write on. Several teachers (right down to kindergarten) have electronic student responders. There are cameras and flip cams, laptops and mobile presentation stations – I could go on. All of this in a building that dates back to at least the Depression era, for a student population of less than 90.
The hardware is only half the story. We have a number of cloud-based curriculum tools that allow students to start an assignment in class and continue working on it at home (if they have Internet access at home). Those software packages allow the teachers to view and access student work at school or at home. I graded papers last year for a writing assignment while I was at a conference in Charleston, 100 or so miles away, by accessing the work on my laptop via a wireless connection in my hotel room. We have consistent broadband access, state-provided email accounts, and regular professional development opportunities that generally occur outside normal school hours and include a stipend. What more could a body want?
If we have a technology problem at the moment it’s that the maintenance of our computer systems is not a local issue for us. That is to say, we rely on outside sources for trouble shooting and repair of our systems. That outside source is primarily our RESA office. We send work order from repairs, upgrades, etc. to them. They cover several counties with minimal, and they get to us when they can. Sometimes that means that a particular machine is dysfunctional for a weeks.
If two or three of the machines in a lab become dysfunctional and stay that way for three or four weeks, the usefulness of the lab can be reduced. Instead of taking a class into the lab and sitting everyone down at a machine and giving them an assignment, you end up with a handful of students who don’t have access. There are ways to cope; it would be better to just have the machines working.
From a layman’s perspective, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a hardware or a software problem. And even a geek wannabe like me can’t usually tell which it is just from looking. We have someone in the building who’s been assignment duties as a sysop for the school. Maybe reloading Windows would fix the problem. The sysop doesn’t have the time or authority to do that – and doesn’t know if it would solve the problem. So we wait…
When the PC is one of 16 in a lab, it’s annoying. When it’s one of four or five in a classroom, it becomes a problem that can change the course of instruction because a teacher no longer has enough PC’s to have a functional learning station.
Technology integration is the simple idea that a teacher and a group of students have come to rely on some technology as part of their instruction to such an extent that they take it for granted. Nobody expects it to work perfectly all the time. But success in technology integration is a factor of reliability.
It’s not a particularly flashy issue. We’ve committed a lot of personnel resources and money to just having technology already. But to succeed in technology integration we will eventually just have to make upkeep and maintenance more of a local, in-school function. In my state, I suspect we’ve taken steps to better equip district personnel to cope with computer problems through our technology integration specialist (TIS) program. That seems likely to keep us ahead of the national curve. Eventually that level of training will need to filter down to the school level.
