A Whole New World: Learning with a 1:1 Tablet Initiative

The Personal Computer, PC, initially meant that we had moved from the network workstation to an individual unit. A computer that operated on its own. One that could be in the workplace or in the home, but in the end it was a Productivity Computer. As a society through branding and ownership we separated the "PC" and the "Mac" groups. One group in the end was seen as a viable option for the home and the workplace and one was seen as a toy. This marketed personal impacted us for from Windows 3.1 through Windows 7. Microsoft coined the term smartphone and made the early tablet operating systems. These too, whether you had a Windows CE device or a Blackberry were work tools. They may have been personal in the fact that individuals carried them, but they were sparse, clunky, and truly designed with the productivity organization in mind. Lets be honest, the iPhone changed all that. It showed us that a personal device can be both truly personal and productive. It connected us with our work, our documents, our presentations, and our contacts but also allowed us to connect to the world in ways that we could not imagine. With Android following this lead, the two competing operating systems have pushed each other to create tools that are elegant, personal, and powerful. For those of us who imagine ourselves to be in a world of PC vs Mac or Android vs iOS we are stuck in a rut and missing the bigger picture. The world is changing. It is not the world we grew up in and we are not preparing our children for this world.

I entered Hillcrest school as a kindergartener in 1978. Mrs. Roush played the piano. We had art time. We read some. I even believe we might have taken naps. In fourth grade we studied states. In fifth grade we studied the country. In sixth grade we studied the world. There were reading groups. There was math. There was even a TI-99 in the library. In 1985, as a 7th grader at O'Neill Junior High, we first learned world history. I learned about the colonization, the British Empire, the separation of India and Pakistan, World Super Powers. It was the Cold War, US vs the Soviet Union, everything in dichotomous relationships. The teacher talked, we listened (sort of), and we wrote papers. This was my education, an education I was proud of.

This week, I saw this video. One I encourage everyone to watch:

We are no longer preparing our children for a dichotomous world, one that lacks information, or one that depends on utilizing productivity tools. We are preparing our children for an information rich world. One that surrounds us and needs innovative approaches that connect societies, and helps people solve great problems.

We began our 1:1 initiative in January last year as children and teachers spent 3-weeks units together using tablets at both home and school. We called them Learning Labs. The children learned. The teachers learned. We learned. Immediately the experience was transformative. Within days children were making a wide-range of products. We set up concepts to be explored and the children were creating videos, art, and writing stories in ways we could not imagine. As adults, we set up learning situations and content to be studied, and the children created a variety of products. They became the teachers, of the technology, the tools, and eventually the content to each other and to the adults. In 3-week units worlds were transformed in a way that we couldn't go back.

In August we began piloting 1:1 initiatives throughout our district. Over 1400 students in grades k-6, about 35% of our students in those age groups, began working with iPad minis. We have lived through the honeymoon of this is awesome and entered the realm of reality that this is what life looks like in a 1:1 initiative. There is great variance within our pilot classrooms yet common themes emerge. Kids are owning more of the learning. They are becoming partners in the teaching. The iPad mini truly is a personal device. It takes learning and makes it our own. It allows children to become experts in things and carry learning well beyond the classroom. Our teachers that have allowed their classes to use email find that the learning goes on between them and the students and between student groups well after the school day has ended. We have found tablets make a difference, children individualize. They make songs, movies, and artwork. They take pictures of their world and write about it. We have discovered that Explain Everything one of the most important tools in learning as it gives us insight into a child's thinking and allows us to share our work with our school community. We have learned that tablets are cross-curricular devices, being just as vital in Art or Music as they are in Reading and Math.

There is so much that we are learning, but mostly we are learning that tablets enable our children to be personal instructional leaders in the classroom. They create products with such diversity because of the nature of the tool and the capacity of our teachers to be open to such ideas. Students are innovative and creative because while they know they are working on a common learning target they are excited to share the unique ways in which they develop solutions and products. Our 1:1 devices are not the portable productivity pieces of PC era, but truly personal life and learning tools that allow for productivity but also humanity and imagination.

The tool is only one reason why we are being successful. The other important reason we are transforming as a learning institution is our teachers and principals. Our school district is a learning community. Staff are sharing, in every way possible. They understand that the technology is a tool, often a scary one at that, but it opens doors. Our pilot teachers are sharing with grade level partners, allowing each other to do things differently, but dialoguing about the successes and challenges they are facing. Our instructional coaches are meeting with individual teachers and groups, helping identify what the learning targets are and what activities/tools might help the students demonstrate mastery of those targets. Our teachers are creating free professional development opportunities to support each other and to connect with colleagues around them through activities such as Playdatedg58, ipadtacula, and the Student Involved in Technology conference. Then there is the twitter hashtag #dg58learns. 140 character snipits that are staff driven sharing. Resources, pictures, questions, and successes.

We just started our journey. We look how far we have come and we look forward to the road ahead. We have had great leaders that have put us on this path, but it is our path now. Any of us can do this. Any of us can start this in our districts. It starts with a dialogue, a hashtag, and a vision. We are preparing children for a different world. In order to do that, we too need to see our world in different ways.

Pesky, Yet Persistent Problems With Perspectives of Positional Authority

There is a book, a long book, that sits on a shelf in a room. This book has been read by seven people in the last fourteen years. For the author, it was an interesting adventure to write. The seven readers, well they read it because it was required. Since then, the book has remained on a shelf, a nice particle  board laminated shelf with other books. The book is my dissertation. With its completion and defense in from to the committee, I was granted three little letters to write on resumes that opened doors for the rest of my career. I am grateful for the professors who channeled me into the experience and through the experience. I am grateful to the committee of seven who read it. I am grateful for the doors those three little letters opened because it gave me opportunities to help students and adults learn throughout Illinois.

The funny thing is, the three little letters aren't the things that make one a good leader or an effective leader. They opened doors, the process of earning them gave me experiences and introduced me to fascinating people, but in the end doesn't make the difference between when a student learns or not, when a teacher is successful or not, when a teacher's assistant feels empowered or not. I learned a great lesson two months after I earned my degree. While co-teaching 4th grade Sunday School with my bride, she looked at me and said, "We both have the same number of graduate hours, one of us has two masters' degrees and one of us a doctorate. There is no way we are calling you doctor in our classroom." Wisest decision we ever made. 

That's the thing, it isn't about the title, the degree, or the organizational position that derives authority and respect. Each organization needs people to be responsible for different tasks. These tasks are independently important, require different skill sets, and come with different sets of problems and drama. Organizations are most effective when authority and respect are cultivated through mutual admiration, belief, and support. When these things are in place that is when schools, districts, and businesses thrive.

As a principal, staff frequently looked at me to ask the question about whether or not we were going to have indoor recess. When asked, I would frequently respond, "I don't know, we need to ask a member of the associates' team. They are the leaders outside and they will need to determine if it is safe or not to go out." While, I was responsible for all of the children and staff, it was the associates that were in the trenches daily at recess. They new the students, the fields, the blacktop, and if they looked at the weather, they would be able to make the most accurate decision. My role was to establish the parameters with the team for successful indoor and outdoor recesses but then to step back and trust those closest to the decision with the most knowledge to make the right call.

Another time, as a teacher was working to help a child learn to complete any of his tasks in school, the team looked to me as principal to do something. We talked. We brainstormed. We played through the options. We reflected and decided that yes I could take away his recess, give him detentions, or make him sit in my office until his work was done. We could use the power of the office to scare him or his parents. That might work for a day or a week. In the end, the position itself would mean nothing and the child would revert to not giving effort or completing tasks. We decided to talk with the child instead. A teacher, a social worker, and myself went to the parents home in the trailer park, rang the doorbell, and asked to talk. Forty minutes later we understood our child and family better. The child new we were invested in him and his family. And more work started to get done. Not all of it, but it was progress.

If we want to make a difference in our schools, it does come from top-down. Not because the top knows more, or the top has all the answers, but it is the top that needs to learn that all members of our organization are equally valuable, equally important to our success, and deserve equal respect. It is the top that needs to cultivate understanding throughout the organization that each member is important and when we talk together it is most often in a non-judgmental manner, except when required by the law, through which two humans are working together to support each other in being successful. The person is not telling you to do something because of their role, but rather having a conversation to cultivate support in a process that will help each of us perform our roles better and make everyone more successful.

When we no longer require respect because of position or title but rather cultivate shared responsibility and trust, then we can all be successful as students, teachers, support staff, and leaders. 

The Classroom Climate Spiral

My oldest son is a soccer player. He's not the next Messi, Reynaldo, Maradona, or Pele. He's not even the guy who will be holding their bags at the end of the bench. My son is the hard working kid who finds a spot at the end of the bench hoping for fifteen to twenty minutes sporadically throughout the game. He's the resilient one who shows up to every practice, every extra goalie training, and every extra foot skills opportunity. He's the one who usually doesn't know the final score of the game but is excited to have been part of the team. We all know my kid. The names change. The situations change. He's the kid that we all want around because he's easy to teach, to coach, to be with. He's the one who says "Thanks Coach" after every practice. The one that makes it easy for us to go home every night.

For four years and eight different head coaches this young man was never a starter. He went out. He played. He found his time. He was excited for most of the moments. He'd come out of the game. He'd sit next to coach. He'd listen. He'd walk away from each game with a smile. It didn't matter if he'd won or lost. He would go months without taking a shot, not to mention scoring, and he would be fine. He walked away from each game being able to self-assess his game and always picked up two or three things he felt great about.

The funny thing was, very few of his coaches were big praisers. Occasionally one would say, "I was proud of your passing." Some would say, "Nice work today" or "You played well." None of them were jumping up and down shouting his merit from the hilltops. It didn't matter. My son saw soccer as a journey of success. His coach's put challenges in front of him and in his eyes he achieved. Even when he played children three years older, thirty pounds heavier, and thirteen inches taller, he walked out thinking he had played a good game. My son was on the upward spiral in terms of soccer.

This year is different. From an outside observer, his skills are better. The teams he is playing are better. This year, he notices the results of the game. He knows they haven't won a game yet. However, he has a belief why. To steal his term last night, this year's coach has an "absence of positivity." He's right. It's almost like nails on the chalk board listening to the commentary from across the field. "What were you thinking?" "What was that?" "You're not doing what I was telling you." "If you can't stay wide you will be sitting." It's not swearing. It's not individually demeaning for the most part. It's hard to listen to. The results haven't been pretty, but my son's desire for practice and games have diminished. He relishes when he gets the opportunity to practice with the other coaches, but as a team they are on a downward spiral.

As each school year moves through the natural peaks and valleys, there are days when children do great things and days that make us wonder. The year itself is short but the weeks within it can be very long. It is during these times that we need to make conscious choices about which direction are we pushing our classroom climate spiral. Children listen to our reactions, our comments, and look at our non-verbal gestures. It's November and the classroom honeymoons are over. It's at this time when we know each of our children, can we give the comment or direction that while not necessarily praising still carries the tone of positivity? Can we give the subtle pushes, even when we are tired or exasperated, that provide direction and choice? It is in these moments that our classroom climate is created. It is in these moments that our relationships are maintained. These are the times which truly make a difference our students lives. My hope is that each of us brings a positivity that helps our children move forward on a daily basis. We set them up for success or failure. How will you choose today?

The Right of Revision

As teachers and leaders, we frequently tell our children that it's ok to make mistakes, that is the only way we learn. Sounds great, seems great, but do we believe it. Do we create a culture that not only accepts mistakes but encourages them and celebrates when we overcome our mistakes? Like so many things do our actions match our words.

A student completes a task in math, what feedback do we give them? Do they grade the assignment marking the number wrong at the top of the page and making an "x" by the incorrect questions? Do we grade the assignment and do the same? Do we have them check with a classmate and confer about what they believe they have mastered and what they haven't? Do we have them check against a master document and see which ones do not match and then go back and figure out why they didn't get them to match? Our practices and strategies impact our children's underlying beliefs regarding whether or not it is ok to make mistakes and recover or whether they need to be right the first time.

Jan and Steve Chappuis in their Seven Strategies of Assessment For Learning highlight 2 key factors related to this:

• Teach to Focus on Revision
• Engage Students in Self Reflection and Let Them Keep Track of and Share Their Learning

Powerful actions that promote effective learning. Ones that only exist is we as classroom leaders make it acceptable for them to exist. This is no different for us as adults. Do we believe that each day we too have the right not to be perfect? Do we believe that there are multiple ways for us to lead our classrooms, buildings, or district? What happens when someone else walks into our building or our classroom? Are we open to new ideas, willing to listen to others and see that there are multiple ways to help our children learn and grow? Our we open to revision?

As part of the Google Teacher Academy, we had the opportunity to meet with a number of Google employees. Frequently they would talk about a culture in which they were willing to try new things, fail fast, and make a next iteration better. As I think of Google products, Android, Nexus Q, Google TV. Their culture demonstrates this level of efficacy. We rarely hear about Google executives or engineers being fired because a product failed, yet their products fail all of the time. However, Android Cupcake has been followed by numerous versions including the soon to be released Kit Kat, Google TV and Nexus Q have led to Chromecast. 

At some point, we need to give ourselves the right of revision. That it is truly best practice not to get it correct immediately but rather to work with others to refine our work. We need to accept that each day each of us our giving our best for that day but it doesn't need to be the best ever. The best ever comes from learning from each iteration, collaborating, revising, and honestly moving forward. The only reason we fail is that we don't believe that we can succeed. Our own perceptions that others are judging us rather than their collectively owning our growth and success prevents us from collaboratively owning the right to revision and cultivating greater levels of success. Once we believe that it doesn't have to be perfect, that we can fail and try again then we can encourage our students to do the same. They won't believe it unless we do and we create an environment which promotes it. Google has, can we?

The Power of Passion

I'll admit, I didn't get it. I had been to Google this past summer, walked through their halls, met with their engineers and public relations team. I saw the great gathering areas, fantastically themed rooms, and even a couple of guys playing ping pong. I guess one couldn't see them doing their 20% time. However, even Google was getting rid of their 20% time. Then I came back and lots of our teachers were talking about 20% time. They called it "Genius Hour" and they were serious about it. It seemed so odd to me, here Google is getting rid of some of this and we were jumping on the bandwagon.

As an organization, we support teachers and students taking risks. If we want to reach new horizons, we believe that often that innovation can come from those closest to the point of impact. As such, I listened and I supported our "Genius Hour" plans. The teachers were excited. They were passionate. They were invested. Simply by following them on twitter and listening to their conversations it was clear that the "Genius Hour" experiences they wanted to explore would have students researching new topics, creating new products and presentations, revising their work, and sharing their insights. Clearly the process of learning would not just cover the Common Core State Standards and 21st century skills, but embed it in every component of the practice. This would not simply be some teacher sharing their favorite theme but rather organized chaos of student-led research investigation. I still didn't get it. It seemed like an awful lot of work and a classroom management nightmare.

Recently I began to see the tweets on our hashtag #dg58learns. Pictures coming from different rooms of kids doing research. The kids in the background too busy to look up and smile at the camera. Children with books, papers, and devices scattered around them on the ground. I walked into a classroom of seven year-olds and the children wouldn't stop talking to me about all the great things they found. I didn't even ask. They didn't know who I was other than just another guy who worked there. They were sure I needed to know everything about this mammal they were researching. It was passion. Their passion. Children so invested in their narrow band of interest that they had a hard time putting the information down. Children reading so much simply because they needed to know it. Creating amazing products because everyone else needs to understand why their thing is the coolest thing in the world.

I get it now. A little slow on the uptake, but I get it. "Genius Hour" is about their curiosity, their passion, their work. While in its infancy, this time has the opportunity to cultivate more learning than perhaps the entire rest of our day. Not that it should be our whole day, but rather that coveted part of our day that makes our work special. The passion and investment of students and teachers discovering those interesting nuggets, analyzing the seeds of newly found information, synthesizing these into unique products are everything we should be about as a learning organization. There is great power when we are passionate. The power to utterly destroy and the power to build amazing things. It is our job to allow the risks that channel our passions to create the innovative works of art that may someday change all of our lives.

21st Century Teachers

My child participated in Destination Imagination last year. The task was to build a structure that could hold a certain weight and have certain forces act upon the structure. He and several other 9 year old children worked for weeks engineering a structure. Like many children, he has a younger sibling. In the first five minutes of the group working on the first day, the younger brother walks into the room, takes a shoebox, flips it over, places the weight on it and states, "Like this?" He is immediately shouted out of the room and his structure ignored. Months later, the children still didn't have a structure as the now long forgotten 5-year-old's product.

In education, like many professions, we often miss the forest from the trees. We get caught up on the next challenge, such as "college & career readiness" or "PARCC" that we lose track of the greater goal. We, like the children working diligently building their structure for Destination Imagination, are so busy looking for solutions to the next challenge that frequently we forget the tools that we have in front of us. For school districts, typically 60% of the budget is teaching staff, 85% of the budget is personnel overall. These are our biggest assets, yet frequently we are looking for the next software, the next publisher's program that will be less than 1% of our budget to provide the solution. Yes, we miss moving the big rocks because we are distracted by the newest pebble.

The overall goal of Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Partnership for 21st Century Learning is to prepare students for a world that we cannot predict. The challenge is for children to be able to manipulate information, utilize skills creatively, collaborate together to make new innovative solutions, critically analyze situations, and communication internally and externally to ensure the challenge is solved appropriately. These skills aren't partial to any particular time period, but rather products of all time periods. The most innovative members of every society demonstrate some of these attributes. Furthermore, societies have risen and fallen based on their capacity to implement these skills.

What I don't understand is why we as educational leaders believe that in order to build these capacities within children that we should provide children with a lock-step path requiring teachers to teach with the same recipe provided by a software developer or textbook publisher. The dialogue goes like this:

Administrator: "I want you to teach or children to be innovative and critical thinkers."

Teacher: "Great, we are going to have lots of challenges and problem-solving activities at their level."

Administrator: "Absolutely, they are all in this book. Just follow a chapter at a time at the same pace as your colleague in the other school. Each chapter contains appropriate challenges for children each from a different diverse ethnic minority that is thematically appropriate for your children's age. Also, there is a specialized software program that complements each chapter."

Teacher: "Ok, so how are they supposed to be creative."

Administrator: "Each unit has creativity challenges."

Dutifully, the teacher goes into her room, follows the pacing guide, and executes the same learning experiences in the same order as her colleague in the other school. Children receive the same experiences and create the same outcomes. Clearly, while having a consistent experience that exposes the children to knowledge, none of the actual 21st century skills are developed by either the adults or the children.

If we want our students to be 21st century learners we need to embrace our classroom leaders as 21st century teachers. District and building leaders need to outline the challenges, analyze the data in partnership with their instructional team, and cultivate the opportunity for the team to create innovative solutions. We need to embrace the publisher materials, whether traditional or digital, as tools to help us accomplish the learning and growth for our students rather than full-scale solutions for all of learning. 21st century teaching requires leaders to trust their teams to work together, share, innovate, and try new things in order to promote growth. We can't expect these skills in the students if it is not part demonstrated by the classroom leader.

The Enemy's Gate is Down - Lessons in Learning from Ender's Game

Twenty-five years ago, I picked up my favorite book for the first time. I remember getting caught up in the story of a young boy who learns to find the means within himself and the other students to save the world. I read the book through the eyes of an adolescent. They eyes that saw the struggle to find oneself, the challenge of making difficult decisions, the need to win in order to survive and the desire to learn at times in spite of the teachers. It quickly became my favorite book, one that I read several times and when I became a teacher I passed down to many of my students. As the movie comes out, I have spent the last week listening to the audiobook. Reliving many of my memories as a child, but seeing the book through different eyes. At 40 years old, no longer do I relate as well young Ender Wiggin, but more to Colonel Graff. Now as I reread this book, once again does it bring meaning to my life and to my work. There are many lessons we as educators can learn from Ender's Game.

Learning Needs to Be Challenging Not Simply Rigorous:
Throughout the book, the children are presented with a multitude of games. The games itself are initially interesting, but it is not the game aspect that holds the students attention. After a while, the game aspect begins to fade and the children identify that the game itself is less fun. However, the children continue to pursue completing the game or task because the task itself provides interesting new challenges. Children become intrigued when they believe there is something solvable but the solution is not readily apparent. Simply increasing the amount of work, the detail within the work, or the level of precision required within the work does not increase learning or the desire to learn, but increasing the level of challenge can.

Learning Needs to Follow a Logical Progression:
When designing Ender's instructional program, the games were designed to become increasingly more difficult. Learning challenges started easy and became increasingly more difficult. Instructors started with managable tasks that engaged the students but were doable and increased both the challenge and pace as students were ready for them. The pacing of learning was based on the learners achievement and readiness for the next challenge. It is easy in committee meetings and administrative offices to establish pacing guides. However, if the objective is learning, shouldn't the learner's progression and success determine the pace.

It is the Students' Problem to Solve:
It is emphasized throughout the story that in order for Ender to reach the peak of his abilities, that he must never ever believe that the adults will rescue him. His success is solely dependent on the solutions he and the other students can create and implement. This is hard for us. Our compassion and empathy push us to lend a hand. However, we graduated. We passed the class. It is our task to create the logical progression, to provide the resources, but then we need to step back. We need to teach children to find answers, create answers, and seek each other out to solve challenges. The hardest part of teaching is to let the students do it without us. However, if we want them to do well on whatever measurement is before them, we need to let them figure out how to solve the problem on their own.

The Enemy's Gate is Down:
Ender's first learning in Battle School is that just because you enter a situation with one perspective, doesn't mean that it is the right perspective or that it is the perspective that should stay. In a world of Common Core, PARCC, and Smart Balance, doing more of the same with greater rigor isn't always right. Stepping back, shifting our view points as we approach challenges of teaching and learning. Risk-taking while keeping the end objectives in mind can create more powerful solutions. Finally keeping the overall objective first and foremost while not getting lost in details that distract but in the end do not matter is difficult but important. The "Enemy's Gate is Down" is all about becoming conscious of our perspective and questioning that vantage point in order to open up to possibilities of new solutions.

We aren't raising children to fight aliens, save the world, or to become little soldiers. However we are raising them to become innovative leaders with creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills. Our desire each day is to help them discover the best within themselves and others. As we prepare them for their adult world, one we can imagine but not necessarily predict, it may be time for us to re-orient ourselves. The Enemy's Gate is Down. I am excited that next month one of my favorite books will become a movie. I hope the movie doesn't ruin it for me.