The disconnect

…technology is an accelerator of greatness already in place, never the principal cause of greatness or decline. Newsweek, April 29, 2002.

My grandfather was an Iowa farmer. And he drove like one. His cars were large, American made and floated down the road like barges. And true to the Iowa farmer spirit of his day, he always drove at least ten miles an hour below the speed limit with one eye on the crops. To the best of my knowledge, he never had a driving accident and always wound up where he wanted to go, when he wanted to be there.

My guess is that if you had replaced Grandpa's Olds with a Ferrari, he would still have driven to the same places at the same pace checking how the beans were doing along the way. The new "technology" that may have gotten my grandfather excited would have been a new manure spreader or combine. And being a fiscal conservative, he would have questioned the need for those technologies.

I thought about Grandpa as I read Anthony VonBank's guest post on Scott McLeod's Dangerously Irrelevant blog. VonBank extols the virtues of GoogleApps* and has high expectations of its impact on education:

The addition of collaborative software, standardized mail and electronic calendars (not to mention the auxiliary tools Google provides like Maps, Blogger, Sites), should pave the way for a new consciousness that leaps the school, district, or (in the case of Oregon) whole state firmly into the 21st century. It should open faculty and administrators to the richness and accessibility of Web 2.0 and cloud-based tools so they can build up to much more data-driven techniques that embed the desired outcomes in a wealth of industry-current technology. Google Apps has the ability to bring students from all over the planet into collaborative work that utilizes higher-order thinking and yet builds upon the benchmarks provided for in the curriculum.

But then he laments:

When I have asked teachers and administrators in nearby districts who have gone to Google Apps for Education how they are using it as part of their overall mission or goals [emphasis mine], I get blank looks. Many don’t even really know what they have. There are plenty of individual teachers making great use of the Google Apps suite, and some districts are farther along than others, but the overall lack of a cohesive plan to leverage the power of these tools is generally not clear, in its infancy, or just plain absent. ... We have a new tool, with no real plans as to how specifically it will lead us to our 21st century goals.

And concludes: "The problem is that even when offered the keys to a brand new shiny red sports car, it seems as if the inclination is to just let it sit in the driveway."

Just like my grandpa above.

VonBank's post is a poster child for the blogosphere pundit/school-based practitioner disconnect. Technology advocates' passions too often are not recognized or do not align with the goals of administration in real schools. (A similar theme is school librarians lamenting that principals "just don't get it" when it comes to the need for their programs.)

The chance of this changing in my life time is, uh, remote. When my own district "strategic plan" was constructed a couple years ago, technology wasn't a top priority mentioned. So what's a tech director to do who wants to see what his/her department have to offer used to benefit kids? Leave the shiny new car just sitting in the driveway?

I'm here to tell you that you can successfully do technology implementation when there are no district goals addressing the use of technology. Technology planners developing a separate, hopefully parallel, set of goals and objectives should consider:

1. Technology as infrastructure. We don't insist that the custodial staff, the bussing companies or the business office tie into the strategic plan. Lights, buses and payroll are fundamental to the educational system. So are networks, servers, student information systems and teacher computers. It's not glam, but it's accurate.

2. Technology as a means to an end. Computers can be used to support just about any methodology or philosophy that exists in education. You love testing (or fear those who do love testing), tech has got your back. You like constructism and authentic learning and hands-on, we're here for you, baby. (See A Better Question.)

3. Technology as subversion. Good educators have always done what's in the best interest of kids, not always the party line. It's fun and good for one's karma. The technology department should have this mentality as well. I might not spell this out in the written tech plan, however.

4. Technology as supporting prima facie objectives. One has to love nebulous positives in education such as:
     - improved communication
     - increased collaboration
     - 21st century skills
     - increased accountability
     - data-driven decision-making
     - differentiated instruction
     - global citizenship, digital citizenship, yada, yada, yada
There's got to be something in that list that your pet tech project supports.

I am not to sure I even like "technology" as a goal for a school district. I want happy kids who will be prepared for a productive life attending a well-managed, fiscally-prudent district. If technology helps bring this about, I'll sleep well at night.

VonBank is in a hurry with his technology as sports car analogy. Personally, I think technology makes a better tractor - slow, deliberate, and productive.

*We are one of the districts that is implementing GoogleDocs and I share Anthony's excitement about its potential. But it is no more a silver bullet than, well, a silver bullet.

Image source: http://www.sodahead.com

Comments

[Joel VerDuin]

This post reminds me a great deal of "Disrupting Class" in the chapter about cramming technology. Essentially cramming is the idea that we tend to leverage new technology for our same old purposes - with marginal gains at best. The author says it is "perfectly predictable, perfectly logical and perfectly wrong."

What that book states is parallel to your analogy about your grandpa's driving habits. You could give him a Ferrari, but he would drive at the same speed. He would cram the Ferrari into his existing model (concerns about speed, wanting to view crops, ...) in the end, no change.

The issue is not an issue of lack of technology goals, it is a very structural issue. If the structure of how "school" happens - largely with one person, 25-30 kids and a teacher who is left struggling to teach the same concepts to kids no matter where they may be at, you will never Google Apps your way to significant and meaningful change. Instead, that new innovation will be crammed into the existing model. (Mostly because that new innovation lacks the ability to significantly alter the structure).

If your school system can actually craft and act upon a strategic plan that will alter how learning can occur to make it more individualized and meaningful, then perhaps some of these technologies be brought in to add support.

In the meantime, people will keep adopting, adding, and diversifying because we all want to believe that it will make a huge difference. We'll buy your grandpa a Ferrari, and be amazed when it plods along at 10 MPH below the speed limit.

[Kenn Gorman]

Although I don't feel like I need your permission, I do appreciate your statement about successful technology implementation can and should happen even without district planning. I have found that just saying "I want to help implement more technology" is always given a positive response...even from people who would be happy to "go back" to chalk boards and mimeographs (or whatever those stinky hand crank copy machines were called - I'll always remember the whole class taking a deep wiff of these papers when they were handed out).

I have completely changed my class curriculum this semester, partly from a mandate - if you can call it that - from one of the school's executive boards. Not sure if they know what that means, but I am actually very glad to have been given as much freedom as I have. Lots of extra work but so far it is going well.

Who better to "add more geek" that me?

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Joel,

The structure issue is at the heart of this. I don't see it happen from within - only when we are forced from external powers to fundamentally change will it happen. But given the conservative nature of the country, I really don't see that happening any time soon either,

Sigh...

Doug

Hi Kenn,

I have always respected those who change what they can change more than those who only complain about change being hard/impossible. I appreciate your comment.

Doug