ICT planning: real goals from a cloudy vision

Everyone agrees that school implementation of ICT into the curriculum is very complicated. And every one talks about goals and strategic planning. But there are dangerous distractions for school leaders taking their attention off what really matters. I think what matters is kids learning, and that we should focus most of our attention on this. But look at what gets in the way.
Here are the four strands that the Digital Education Revolution (DER) set out as the basis for school strategic planning.
Schools are reporting to DEEWR on their achievement of these four strands. However, there are many such lists of goals. Most ar similar, but they approach the task from different perspectives.
Here is another set of national goals for integration of ICT, alongside the DER four strands.

I have drawn lines to connect elements that seem to match. Clearly, the Making Change Happen set of goals is broader, and is focused more on student learning and outcomes.

But lists can be quite deceptive and cloud our vision because they imply that listed items are of similar importance. They rarely are. A more precise list of the elements would look like this:
But this is my judgment of their relative position. The original document does not tell the reader this information. But there is only a limited indication in this list of the relative importance of the 3 main items.

Pity the poor school administrator who is looking for a quick overview of what to focus on when planning school ICT development. No one needs to tell school principals that ICT infrastructure is costly, complex and urgent. Unless one has a clear view of direction, the urgent will tend to displace the important.

Smartphones overtake PC and notebooks

A remarkably detailed presentation Internet Trends by Morgan Stanley, just published, has some very striking things to say about the mobile world taking over the internet. They predict that sales of smartphones will overtake combined computer sales by 2011 (in Nth. On the graph, smartphones is the green bar. Also notice that desktops have leveled off and notebooks have been ahead since 2009. A bit sad to note that some secondary schools are still purchasing large numbers of desktops.

It seems that they have not included iPad type devices in the graph, which are neither a phone nor a notebook. I think they classify more as a mobile device than not, and their amazing take-up will make the changes all the more dramatic.

The move to mobile devices has a message for schools, surely, though the well practiced habit of education in holding itself at least 5 to 10 years behind societal trends will continue, no doubt. But when students can pull out of their pocked or their bag, a small device that is more effective in accessing the internet than what the school has to offer, guess which one they will use?

Strategic planning for school ICT - there be dragons there

Strategic planning is a well meaning strategy for school to manage the very real complexity of change. It creates a nice logical structure, but hidden within the process are some very real dragons that can smite well intentioned school administrators setting out on this voyage of school improvement.

Here are the typical stages for strategic planning for the use of ICT. First, the happy scenario without the dragons.

1. Assess where you are
A small team of leaders and special interest people review what happens in the use of ICT, maybe surveying staff and consulting teachers.
2. Identify where you want to be
The planning group explore reasonable next steps for development based on what exists and what is desired.
3. Identify actions
The planning group in consultation with staff decide on actions to improve the program.
4. Document the plan
The details of what is planned are documented and distributed.
5. Implement the plan
The teachers and others involved in the implementation proceed with the agreed plan.
6. Review what you have achieved
The planning group or another group survey, measure and and assess how much improvement has occurred the the cycle of improvement starts again.

When dragons exist, and they usually do, they smite the unsuspecting sailor who is simply trying to get from A to B. This is what might happen to the strategic planning process.

Stages 1-4
The planning group of leadership people and enthusiasts for ICT may not have the same perspective as that of the average teacher and so may proceed without understanding the impediments. They may be influenced by technology enthusiasts in the planning group rather than the curriculum leaders. Dragon 1, experts leading the way. Planning stages 1-4 assume that the planning group and those they consult with actually know the direction the development should take. There is a sense of confidence about actions to take that is not justified. Dragon 2, a false sense of clear direction. Planning by a small group of people with a mission can easily become too ambitious and complex as the planning process takes on a life of its own. Dragon 3, excessive complexity. This dragon is particularly dangerous because its existence is used to justify a planning group doing most of the thinking because it is too complex to interest normal teachers.

Stage 5
This may be the first time the general teacher population are really engaged with the changes, and they may not be happy or committed. Dragon 4, disengaged teachers.

Here are some steps that will help avoid the dragons.

Dragon 3 - excessive complexity
Settle on a small number of objectives that are directly related to student learning. For example:
Primary benefits of technology in learning: students achieve higher levels of: [from the Florida Matrix]

• Active engagement in learning - choosing, selecting, pursuing topics
• Collaboration with peers, experts, near and far
• Constructive activities to build understanding, sharing, publishing
• Authentic learning engaging with real world issues beyond the school
• Goal directed planning, monitoring, reviewing - metacognition

I think these five elements adequately sum up how ICT can benefit learning. Teachers understand them all. They are widely accepted and are unlikely to change very much, and are not dependent on any particular technology.

Dragon 1: experts leading they way
Listen to experts by all means, but test their input with teachers all the way along. Last year's solution might not work now.
Dragon 2: a false sense of clear direction
Test innovations in the classroom before adopting them, gaining supporters along the way. Gain commitment to it being a learning process for classroom practice, not simply the implementation of a set procedure.
Dragon 4: disengaged teachers
Involve teachers all along the way in change they can observe in students.

To the unwary, the six step strategic planning process is a risky way to plan a voyage into unfamiliar territory.

Image: Baylee46

Planning for school improvement (and avoiding strategic planning)

The short video (3min 30 sec) explains some of the limitations of strategic planning for ICT development in schools. Then it outlines an alternative approach - emergent planning.

See the next post for more on strategic planning.

Godness gracious: the internet changed my brain!

There have recently been some excellent articles about an issue that is fundamental to how schools think about the impact of technology on learning. On one side are the pessimists who see the changes being brought about by new technologies as a threat to the way we should learn and engage with information and ideas. On the other hand there are the optimists who believe that we adapt to make the appropriate use of new technogy and ways of doing things.

Nicholas Carr, in Is the internet making us dumber? in the Wall Street Journal writes about evidence that multi-tasking and the sheer distracting nature of the internet interferes with deep and sustained thinking. He says that people are losing the capacity they used to have to read a sustained argument and follow through complex ideas in an orderly manner. He writes:

"What we seem to be sacrificing in all our surfing and searching is our capacity to engage in the quieter, attentive modes of thought that underpin contemplation, reflection and introspection. The Web never encourages us to slow down. It keeps us in a state of perpetual mental locomotion"

Carr quotes research that suggests that our brains and being modified to adapt to this new dominant form of communication, and we are diminished by the process, and becoming more shallow in our thinking. It is a pretty frightening prospect: technology makes people dumb!

On the other hand, Clay Shirky, also in WSJ asks, Does the internet making you smarter? He takes a closer look at history and points out that we have been here before. The invention of movable type printing famously had a major impact on the refomation, breaking the control of access to scripture away from the established church. And, as Shirky says,

"Vulgar versions of the Bible and distracting secular writings fueled religious unrest and civic confusion, leading to claims that the printing press, if not controlled, would lead to chaos and the dismemberment of European intellectual life."

And it did, and we generally now think of this as a good thing. No doubt Nicholas Carr's of the day were filled with foreboding. Shirkey goes on to say,

"Novels, newspapers, scientific journals, the separation of fiction and non-fiction, all of these innovations were created during the collapse of the scribal system, and all had the effect of increasing, rather than decreasing, the intellectual range and output of society."

We can say this now, but at the time it must have been frightening, with the controlled and well ordered system of distributing and interpreting text being destroyed all of a sudden - over a few decades.

Shirky points out a flaw in the story of the pessimists regarding technology, that they romanticise the past. Carr writes about people in the past ploughing through readings that kept their minds on a sustained argument. Very few people did this. It wasn't ever the experience of most people. He also acknowledges that the path to progress is very crooked. Guttenberg's presses produced erotic novels before scientific journals were invented.

"Reading is an unnatural act; we are no more evolved to read books than we are to use computers. Literate societies become literate by investing extraordinary resources, every year, training children to read. Now it's our turn to figure out what response we need to shape our use of digital tools."

Presumably learning how to read changed our brains. It should be remembered that Socratese complained bitterly about the intoduction of writing to the curriculum in ancient Greece because it would reduce the capacity of young people to memorise, which no doubt it did.

A third player, Steven Pinker in the New York Times in Mind over Mass Media addresses the issue of our brains being changed by new experiences. He says "cognitive neuroscientists roll their eyes at such talk". Every time the brain learns something new it changes, and adapts. He accepts that distraction, for example, as Carr complains, is a problem,

"But distraction is not a new phenomenon. The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of self-control, as we do with every other temptation in life."

This is where teachers and common sense come into play. Yes, the internet offers great potential for distraction, so teachers have to work to help students manage it, so they can benefit from its undoubed bounty of information and communication.

The three short articles are much more detailed than my summary. They address a crucial issue for school leaders to be clear about.

ACMA cyber safety one stop shop

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has a comprehensive web site dealing with all levels of cyber safety for children, teachers and parents [click image]

I provides useful material to look at with a view to using with students and parents. It is relatively conservative in its advice, naturally, but provides good material for students to react to and explore. It would be good to give a summary (maybe prepared by students) of what your kids think of their advice.

They are no doubt looking for latest feedback all the time to update the site. I looked a some advice for parents and was prompted to send them a suggestion to improve and update their information.

iPad for schools?

It is early days to decide whether the iPad has a significant role in schools and education in general, but I think it will. It is quite a different type of computer and many will just focus on what the iPad cannot do, not giving due attention to the thing it does better.

I have only been bonding with my iPad for a little over a week and I think its huge advantage is immediacy. It is quite different from a laptop because it is immediately available to use. In schools this is very valuable. In two minutes a student can switch on her iPad, open email, read a message and jump off to a web site. This is pretty important in engaging the attention of 30 students. There is virtually no delay, and the size of the ipad and the touch interface all make it significantly more personal interaction. Even the size on a desk is important. There is room on a desk for the iPad and books. The touch screen is a much better collaborative interface than mouse control.

The most significant limitation of the iPad that I can see is the reliance on the on-screen keyboard. This is fine for web browsing and short text input, for me, but then I am a touch typist. I suspect that two finger typers will find it quite satisfactory. However, for longer input sessions a bluetooth keyboard is an option. A class may well manage with a group of these for students who prefer them.

One thing we can be sure of is that the range of apps available for similar tablet computers will expand very quickly, making an assessment of the value of these computers a continuing feast.