Planning for Disruption

Educational technology has progressed rapidly in the past ten years, however many classrooms, curricula, and state requirements have not budged. This movement of educational technology has started the ripples of a disruptive force to change K-12 education. With high speed internet, bring-your-own-device, and 1:1 programs in schools, blended and online learning environments are poised to disrupt traditional education. Educators can already see the impact this advancement of technology is having on higher education with the MOOC movement. With careful planning and implementation, the blended and online learning technologies are ready to transform K-12 education.

In their 2008 book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovations will Change the Way the World Learns, Christensen, Horn, and Johnson examine the force of disruptive innovations in education. They note that traditional schools are built around a structure that promotes standardization, while learning is personal and individual. Citing Howard Gardner’s work with multiple intelligences, the authors conclude students will learn best in school systems designed to support multiple intelligences, and computer-based learning is the best opportunity for schools to differentiate learning for students with multiple learning styles. Christensen, Horn, and Johnson believe traditional schools are ready for disruption, and they provide evidence to support their claim that by 2019 more than 50% of high school courses will be delivered with online content. This disruption of traditional learning is more visible through the growth of online learning in higher education.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Douglas Belkin (@dougbelkin) questions the relationship of Massively-Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and traditional universities. Through a conversation with three university representatives, Belkin concludes MOOCs complement traditional university coursework, but MOOCs alone will not replace traditional university learning. MOOCs do have the ability to reach millions of learners, but critics of MOOCs are quick to argue few of these learners complete the coursework. MOOCs, and online learning, can be impersonal. Educational researcher Katy Jordan (@katy_jordan) has studied MOOC participation and completion, finding MOOCs enroll around 20,000 learners per course with an average completion rate of 13%. This means 2,600 learners per course complete a free and open class they otherwise would have not attended. So yes, learners drop out of MOOCs, but the MOOC disruption in education also opens access for new learners. As the costs of colleges rise, MOOCs are poised to impact the structure of traditional university learning, opening new avenues for learning. K-12 organizations must prepare for online education to disrupt the traditional system of education, pushing for a more personalized and individual approach to education. In the next five years, a majority of K-12 learning may be delivered online. Administrators and educational leaders must encourage new innovations like online learning, or K-12 education will continue to support a standardized, rigid, and impersonal learning environment.

The foray into blended or online learning does not need to be a step into the unknown for school organizations; a technology integration plan that includes coaching and peer-sharing will lead to success. When planned and implemented appropriately, new technologies like online learning will be very effective. A key part of this implementation plan requires support for teachers. My doctoral research study examined the correlation between teacher training and teacher use of laptops as my district began its first 1:1 laptop program. I found large-group, sporadic, and one-size-fits-all training does not lead to successful implementation of technology. An approach that focuses on coaching and peer-group collaboration will better results. Gene Hall, co-founder of the Concerns-Based Adoption Model, explains that teachers need a supportive coach to lead them through a differentiated learning path based on their familiarity and use of technology. Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, also pointed out while individuals can learn from a screen, sharing ideas in person leads to greater opportunities for innovation. Implementation of any new idea, but specifically blended and online courses, will be more successful if coaching and peer-group collaboration are used to differentiate instruction.

Traditional K-12 school leaders face many challenges. Many forces, like the recent emphasis on standardization and the exponential growth of technology, have primed K-12 organizations for disruption. Carefully planned and supported, though, this disruption can positively transform education to promote more personalized and individual learning.

---

Belkin, D. (2014, May 11). Can MOOCs and universities co-exist? Wall Street Journal. Retrieved May 15, 2014, from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579515521328500810

Christensen, C. M., Horn, M. B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Hall, G. E. (2010). Technology’s Achilles heel: Achieving high-quality implementation. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(3), 231-263.

Jordan, K. (n.d.). MOOC Completion Rates: The Data. Retrieved May 15, 2014, from http://katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

Lehrer, J. (2012). Imagine: How creativity works. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Staub, J. H. (2013). Teacher training and teacher use of laptops in a 1:1 laptop program: A correlational study (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Phoenix. Retrieved May 15, 2014, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1448892001

Do Something Crazy

“If you’re not doing something crazy, you’re doing the wrong things.”

-Google CEO Larry Page

Think for a moment about your job. Are you doing something crazy or something mundane? Are you supporting the status quo or are you creating innovative change in your industry. If you’re a teacher, I bet you’re maintaining the status quo. Most of us do. Unfortunately, the status quo prepares students for a future of the 1970s, not the digital, global, and collaborative future we can only predict. Teachers need to do something crazy, or our students will be ill-prepared for life.

Steven Levy’s (@StevenLevy) article, 7 Massive Ideas that could Change the World (in Wired Feb 2013), also included a rare interview with Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page. The quote above led the article. The quote isn’t specifically about education, but Page later addresses education directly, albeit probably higher education.

“It’s not easy coming up with moon shot [ideas]. And we’re not teaching people how to identify these difficult projects. Where would I go to school to learn what kind of technological programs I should work on? You’d probably need a pretty broad technical education and some knowledge about organization and entrepreneurship. There’s no degree for that. Our system trains people in specialized ways, but not to pick the right projects to make a broad technological impact.”

-Larry Page, in Wired, Feb 2013

America’s current K-12 and higher education systems do not adequately address the broad understanding needed for successful innovation in the immediate future. I’d argue, at least in K-12 education, students are not prepared for the future at all. Students are receiving a fact-based education, one which can be Googled rather than memorized. Yet schools still focus on memorization and rote responses. Standardized tests largely reinforce this.

As an educational reformer (or an educational revolutionary!) we need to practice revolutionary change. Page also calls for 10X change, change that is 1000 percent better than what currently exists. Page recognizes such attempts can come with spectacular failure sometimes, but without such risk, you are also guaranteed to not achieve wild success.

What will you do, as an educator, to succeed wildly? What risks are you willing to take? If we do not take risks, our K-12 education system will suffer mightily; generations of young people will be ill-prepared to identify and solve today’s problems.

Do something crazy.

Head in the Cloud(s)

This month is Connected Educator month (among other things, most yummy… Panini month).  While reflecting on this observance, I found it interesting that as a Connected Educator, I sometimes feel like I have my head in the clouds, which is almost exactly where it should be.

This past year, I registered for so many online accounts (YouTube, Twitter, Flicker, Google+, WordPress, etc.) that I often have trouble keeping them straight, let alone the passwords, as we recently witnessed.  I also have trouble keeping these services straight from those used exclusively for my school (iTunes U, Schoology, EasyBib, Turnitin.com, and our SIS system).  I really want to use all these sites and services to their fullest, but sometimes it’s too much.

This summer I received a bit of anxiety from being TOO connected.  I’m currently finishing my doctoral thesis, which undoubtedly adds stress, but as more of my work requires time in front of a screen, I’ve become more agitated.  I know I’ve read studies about connectedness to devices adding stress, and I’ve reached my tipping point.  As part of Connected Educator Month, I vow to stay connected to resources online but also stay connected to reality.  This means reading real books and magazines, spending time with my family, and devoting Sunday as “No-Devices Day.”

My experiences with electronic anxiety (a term I’ll take credit for coining, but it probably exists already) have led me to two concerning ideas.

1. What will happen to teachers who struggle with technology once the push for greater connectedness arises?  Will teachers, too, reach a tipping-point?  This needs to be addressed in technology implementation plans and likely it hasn’t been addressed yet.
2. What will happen to young kids (mine are 5, 3, and 1) when all their time is spent on a device?  They will (hopefully) have access to all their educational content electronically, but this access will likely be on the same screen- or otherwise- that they watch movies and play games.  How will educators address the potential rise in electronic anxiety among students?

I vow to stay connected as an educator.  I know the stress, which ebbs now, will eventually fade.  However, I have found I adapt pretty easily to new situations, and I know others will have more trouble than I will.  Not being connected is not a reality for our future, educational or otherwise.  I also feel addressing electronic anxiety forthrightly is another necessity of the future.  I hope we continue to see progression in both as education becomes more connected.

Why B.Y.O.D. won’t work.

Call me a cynic, but while I support the idea of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs, I am pretty sure they won’t work.  Not because they are a bad idea for schools to use technology that already exists, but because the program will not be implemented properly.

Clausen, Britten, and Ring (2008) noted how relatively easy it is to add new educational technologies to schools, but how much more difficult it is to get teachers to effectively integrate hardware into teaching practices.  Gene Hall (2010), one of the researchers that founded the Concerns-Based Adoption Model, stated simply adding technology to a classroom will have little effect.

What both articles refer to is a need for clear implementation and professional development.  I fear the BYOD movement will be poorly supported by school districts, which have little financial investment in the hardware anyway.  The schools will not care whether someone else’s technology makes a big impact, thus few resources will be provided to properly train teachers to use the new, diverse devices.

Added to this, if BYOD is implemented poorly, now students be allowed to bring their devices to school.  Without proper use, the devices will become an approved distraction.

I cannot think of a program worse for education except the one that is good in concept and poorly executed.  A poor implementation plan will lead to certain failure.

References:

Clausen, J. M., Britten, J., & Ring, G. (2008). Envisioning effective laptop initiatives. Learning & Leading with Technology, 36(1), 18-22. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Hall, G. E. (2010). Technology’s Achilles heel: Achieving high-quality implementation. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(3), 231-263. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.