Who's Responsibility Is It?

As I contemplate and discuss the Agreements that guide our schools in the selection, implementation, maintenance and support of technology, the question arises, "Who's responsibility is it to make everything work?". In our district we have a distributed system of decision making but we don't always have a distributed sense of responsibility to purchase and support sustainable technology. Staff members are given the money to choose the technology they want to implement in their building. In the past, they provided a significant share of the support in the building as well. But as the demands have grown, we have hired district staff to increase tech support. Some schools continue to provide a fair amount of support by building staff. This gives them some internal support when something goes wrong and gives them a set of eyes within their staff for looking ahead. More and more schools are abandoning this, devoting their FTEs (staff hours basically) to other instructional purposes; direct instruction of technology for the most part.

There has been a see-saw debate in our district as to who should choose the hardware and software, who should pay for tech support and who should provide the support. Alongside this debate is the idea that schools are in the best position to decide and spend money to implement technology. Despite the fact everyone feels very constrained with the small budget they have, some schools have done an excellent job of providing access to their students and teachers.

My concern with this mix of responsibility is that we aren't clear about who insures that everything is implemented and working effectively. More important, we aren't clear that everything that is implemented is sustainable, not only from a building to building perspective but from a district perspective. If I purchase something that is unusual or unique, should I be responsible to make it work? or If I purchase it, can I assume that someone will rush in and figure out how it works, show me how to use it, and keep it running? If my school chooses to adopt some software that no one else is using, should our staff have the expectation of support? Is this sustainable in the big picture? Some schools have this expectation - some schools do not. Most important:

• teachers want technology for their students,
• they want it to work in their instruction,
• they want support when it breaks.

To reach this goal we all need to take some responsibility for the technology we are using. While it would be ideal if someone was on hand to provide instruction and solve problems when the need arises, we don't have the resources to meet this desire. I understand and agree that teachers should not be expected to do this on their own. They deserve training and support. There is a limit to the amount of support that can be given when there is an infinite number of software and devices to learn and fix. The following would move us in the right direction.

• Support a limited the number of applications and hardware.
• Empower building, community and district support staff to say no to support on unsupported hardware and software.
• Prioritize training on applications that we want to support.
• Provide training on supported applications and hardware.
• Encourage teachers to help one another with day to day fixes.
• Prioritize the response for support to instructional applications - as we have done for business applications.

Watching training - Meaning or Mechanics?

I'm sitting here watching people struggle to understand the meaning of the Instructional Practices of Marzano. The presenter is trying to incorporate the use of technology in his instruction. We are logged into a wiki and into a McRel blog - at least some of us are. There is a fair amount of frustration in the room. Part of this is due to the adults general frustration with technology. We often think that we are supposed to understand things the first time. If the technology doesn't work the first time we try it, we are annoyed and look for someone or something to blame. The thing with tech is that it is very experimental by it's very nature. There are few times, if any, that it works out of the box especially with a large group of people. In our case we have 50 people in the room, on a wireless connection, logging into accounts that were just created, using tools that are novel to most. This is a formula for stress and frustration.

It is difficult to control for some of these factors. It would be great if we could do a pretest of people's knowledge and ability with the tools beforehand. It would be a good idea to host the workshop in a setting that is well equipped for bandwidth and power. It would be a good to avoid first time login issues. Advice to self: If you are going to create accounts for people in a new app, you should probably send them their credentials ahead of time and invite them to let you know if it doesn't work.

We are just about to break for lunch and we have just begun to get into the content of the workshop - the Practices. The presenter has assigned a table of people to take notes (trying to keep people from breaking the lock).

Afternoon - Everyone has a username and password and can sign on to the blog and the wiki. That's not a bad turnaround on the account solution problem. While the presenter has described the difference between a blog and a wiki, I'm not sure that people understand the distinction or more importantly understand how it would fit into their instructional work flow. And this is the challenge. On the one hand we have technology. On the other we have instructional practice. If I were a teacher I think I would need a time to practice with each and each together. Despite the frustration, I think we are on the right track in this workshop. The question is whether people understand the instructional practices that are being illustrated with the technology. Also, will the get enough exposure in this session or in the ones to follow to benefit from the use of technology? There needs to be some amount of exposure to the tools with a easy reference to them for later use. Along with this, teachers need to have a deep understanding of the Instructional Practices.

I have assumed that the second ingredient, the Instructional Practices, were second nature to teachers. After speaking with some of the participants I realize that they are familiar with them but not enough to be able to train other teachers - and that is the point of this training. We are trying to encourage teachers in new practice - sometimes even breaking old bad habits. This group of teachers and administrators are supposed to be our ministers for best Instructional Practice. They are frustrated that this - the backbone of the workshop - is being sacrificed for the technology. I'm not saying that I have made this judgement, but it seems to be the prevailing theme.

At the end of this workshop I had stuff to clean up - I'm the AV guy :-) This gave me an opportunity to reflect on this question of balance with the presenter and the participants. Quite a bit of frustration was expressed by the participants. They felt there wasn't enough exposure to the practices. The presenter seemed a little puzzled at the frustration. He thought it was important for people to learn about the different free and low cost tools available to deliver the different aspects of instruction. He thought that technology was a useful tool for examining and illustrating the practices.

Participants thought there were some great tools and resources shared but felt that the technology overshadowed and delayed the presentation of the Instructional Practices. The time taken to get the wiki and blog working was a fairly large portion of the morning. The tech examples that were presented with each practice took quite a bit of time as well. Some of this time was spent in understanding the mechanics of the tool rather than the meaning of it for the practices

In order to frame the frustration of this workshop, it is important to understand the backdrop of people's frustration. Our district is under high pressure to decrease the achievement gap between our high achievers and low. Our teachers and administrators take this task very seriously. They want to help kids be successful. They want to fix the problem now. While most if not all of the teachers think we should be doing more with technology, they don't think that technology is the issue in this gap. There is a concern that, if we dwell on technology, we will fail to fully understand the Instructional Practices that are key to instruction.

As with all issues, everyone has their own perspective based on the role they play and their background. While I am hungry for integrating technology into the classroom, I realize that timing and meaning are essential to it's adoption. If people are overwhelmed with it OR with the other demands on them, their adoption will suffer. On the other hand I have to wonder when will the time be right to help people understand the meaning and the mechanics of integrating it. There is wisdom in exposure - immersion even. As people struggled to get logged into the wiki and blog I was concerned about the meaning being lost on them, but if not now - when will people begin to use the technology we have been talking about.

I understand and support the idea that these instructional practices are the meaning behind the practice of teaching. We need to help teachers understand and implement them with precision. If technology has to wait, so be it. But if we can find ways to interject technology into these practices we need to take these opportunities. We can take the time to document tech tools that bring the practices to light, to use these tools as examples and be willing to explore them even when they are a bit messy.

A Glimmer of Hope for Tech and Instruction

Last Wednesday I found out that the workshop on Instructional Practice, scheduled for today, is focused on Instructional Practice with Technology. Imagine my surprise as that is what I've been thinking, writing and researching since taking this job. I'm still not sure why no one told me about it. It sounds like something you'd want the tech director to know about. At any rate, the workshop is happening, I'm thrilled that it is happening. I will be there with 2 of my staff. Here's the outline:

• Introduction
• Using the Workshop Wiki and Blog
• Lesson Planning and Its Four Questions
• Overview of the Research
• Effective Instructional Strategies and Educational Technology
• Planning for Technology
• Presentation Zen and Tour of Your Manuals
• Conclusion and Evaluation

These areas are very important to the overall success of technology. It will be interesting to see how much emphasis is given to each. The workshop will be lead by Matt Kuhn, who was the trainer for the teacher evaluation/walkthrough training. He seems to know his way around the web 2.0 technology. I hope he can help people understand how all the pieces align to support the use of technology in the classroom.

As much as the content of the training, I am curious to see how the content is received; how natural will our teachers and administrators relate to his ideas and approaches? How familiar will they be with the content? How easily will they access some of the resources and ideas? How much will they complain that they don't have the resources to do what he is asking?

I am also interested to see who the administrators bring to the workshop. Each of them will be bringing 2 teachers. I will be taking their names for future reference as they are going to be the ones training the other teachers on this content.

It should be an interesting day.

Agreements - Barriers and Benefits

This week our Technology Leadership Team (IBB Tech Team) will meet to discuss the agreements that guide our selection and support of technology. I have spent quite a bit of time documenting these agreements and adding some on a pbwiki page. In this process I listed some key questions and a rationale for the particular agreement. My preparation was intended to help our team frame the issues surrounding the various aspects of selecting and supporting technology. I made this page available for editing/commenting so we could get a head start on the discussion.

As I have commented in earlier blog posts, the process of managing technology is fraught with many opportunities (more than we can grasp really) and many pitfalls. The pitfalls are generally unintended but can be anticipated with a bit of consideration. The good news is that we have some experience now. Ten years ago we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into and there were few people (besides salesmen) who were available to give us advice. Now we have made quite a few mistakes, we own quite a bit of equipment, and we have experienced the life-cycle of some equipment. This gives us a good basis upon which to make decisions.

Despite our experience with technology, the members of our technology leadership team represent many different specialties and perspectives. This has been beneficial but it does increases the time required to formulate a plan. One of the main points of conflict occurs when the convenience of one group does not appear to impact another group. It is a lack of understanding of the interdependence of all the pieces.

One example; Passwords. Over the years the passwords to administer teacher and student computers have become common knowledge. It began when building technology staff felt pressured to get software installed and preferences changed on computers. As an educational organization we didn't adopt the practice of business, that employees should use what is provided on a computer and not be capable of messing with the underbelly. Given the relative small number of support staff to computers, it seemed to make sense to share passwords and allow anyone to have the power to fix (or damage) their computer. Clearly, the practice of sharing passwords seems like a winner from the users perspective. It makes sense to make computer management convenient. On the other hand it defies best practice (in the IT world) to allow this access just because it is convenient. There is a wide range of knowledge and ability among users. Some staff understand and help themselves when they have computer trouble. The question becomes; Why have an administrative account at all if all users are admin users?

As this example shows, we are often balancing user convenience with overall security and/or support costs. My 6 staff are responsible for all the computers in the district. Building technology staff are responsible for support in their building only. The district tech's efficiency is hinged upon a common configuration and setup of computers. When we are asked to fix a computer that has been rearranged, it increases our resolution by hours. While, on the face of it, it makes sense to make life convenient for the largest number of people, it is the largest number that will be inconvenienced when one of my staff is indisposed with a single "customized" computer.

How do we overcome these differences in perspective? Fortunately there has been enough common understanding within the Technology Leadership to balance the needs of the many (teachers and staff) with the needs of the few (support staff). Most of the members of the team have some experience and therefore some appreciation of the real challenges of computer support. They know that what appears to be an easy solution isn't always so. They have spent hours and days fixing a single computer. On the other side, we (district support staff), have a desire to make technology convenient and understandable for our users. We want them to use these tools in their instruction. We want them to have easy and quick resolution to their problems. It is in this spirit that we debate the issues and forge creative solutions to our shared problems.

Given that we have more support available to teachers (we added 3 staff last year), it seems like we are better equipped to respond quickly to support calls. I am hoping that this fact helps sway people into greater restriction on admin passwords. I am not opposed to allowing a greater number of users admin rights but the people who have these rights should have an understanding of the options and implications for their use. They should also have an appreciation for the standardization of computer configurations. In the end, this standardization will speed the resolution of issues. It will also allow us to provide training and support in a format that is understandable to people using standard tools.

Higher Education

Today I experienced my first teleconference. I met with the Technology Advisory Council for Colorado Mountain College. The technology was an interesting feature of the meeting. It was interesting to see how the distance changes the conversation. I don't know if all of the people were as inexperienced as I - something that would change their approach. My first reaction is that this arrangement makes it easier to speak up. I felt a certain anonymity. The participants were located in 4 or 5 different locations. In addition to the feeling of anonymity, I felt a certain kinship with the people in the room with me. I felt that we were kind of on the same team - more connected that "them" out there. Again, this was my first experience. It might be a unique. I may never have this feeling of kinship or anonymity. We'll see.

The other part of this experience was the conversation that we had. CMC is trying to find out what schools and businesses need in regard to training - for their staff or prospective staff. This question made me think about how my staff work, how they solve problems and how they move along on their career path. What I came up with is that we don't spend much on formal training. When we do pay for formal, linear, sit down training, it is project based. It is aimed at a particular technology or capability we are developing. Generally we purchase this training as part of a software or hardware purchase. Aside from this training my staff and I get, we learn along the way. We basically teach ourselves by finding resources on the web and learning from each other. I must say that I have the privilege of working with some very talented people - people who have some incredible intelligence and background. As such, they are very capable and doing research and have a lot to offer one another. I don't know how unique this is compared to others' experience.