What makes an interactive whiteboard interactive?

I was recently asked by a principal how he could tell during classroom visits if a teacher was using the Smartboard "effectively." A pretty good question.

While popular (2007, 2010, interactive white boards (IWBs) are controversial even (or especially) among technology enthusiasts. The major complaint is that the use of these devices reinforces the "sage on the stage" teaching methodology. "The IWB is little more than a fancy overhead projector and its touch sensitive screen is only used to save the teacher a couple steps back to the computer to change a slide." seems to be sentiment in the constructivist camp of techno-pundits.

But many advocates of this technology (myself included), see IWBs as genuine means of bringing more interactivity, more student-focus into classrooms of traditional teachers. These are signs of putting the "interactive" into "interactive white board":

• What happens on the IWB is determined by student response to questions.
• Students themselves use the IWB to solve problems or explain concepts.
• The teacher uses an IWB version of a game or puzzle.
• The teacher uses the IWB to add multi-media to a discussion and easily starts and stops video and music to discuss parts of the whole.

What we don't want to forget is that someone who is coaching a teacher is not really looking for "good technology use" but for just good educational practices. Having an IWB is not going to change a lecturer into something else. The device is plastic and metal, not magic. The Charlotte Danielson model's Domain 3: Instruction lists:

• Communicating With Students
• Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques
• Engaging Students in Learning
• Using Assessment in Instruction
• Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness ( See some echnology-related competencies in this area here.)

Any item in the Instruction domain can be enhanced using an IWB.

Smartboard guru, Patrick Crothers from Mahtomedi (MN) schools, reminded me recently that just because a teacher has an IWB doesn't mean it has to be used every minute of the day. And yes, a teacher can create truly interactive lessons without using any technology whatsoever. Finally, a major benefit I see is how our teachers use the SmartNotebook software that works with the hardware to organize materials, to find and share lessons, and to seamlessly blend multimedia into lessons. Not all benefits are observable in the classroom.

Will IWBs or any other technology "transform" education alone? Of course not. But such technologies can provide amazing stepping stones toward a more student-centric classroom. 

OK, IWB critics - have at me...

 

BFTP: Paddle Your Own Canoe - Developing Tech-Savvy Administrators

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post September 25, 2006. Our current group of building and district administrators are the most tech-savvy to date - creating websites, using GoogleDocs and looking for ways teachers can use tech to improve their effectiveness. Yes!

I decided long ago that I couldn't afford to wait for our administrators to take formal training in educational technologies. I needed tech-savvy administrators.

So it is up to districts to "paddle their own canoes" when it comes to helping create tech-saavy principals and directors. Without additional dollars, grants, projects, books, or meetings, these are some of the things our department has done to help "train" administrators:

• Set examples of good communication, planning and record keeping using technology.
• Involve our administrators in all technology staff development activities.
• Provide fast technical support and individualized training.
• Provide clear teacher and student information literacy and technology competency lists.
• Serve on building/district leadership teams.
• Serve as CIO to all administrators, finding and forwarding information of interest.
• Make sure technology competencies appear as a part of administrative performance evaluations.
• Help administrators understand what they need to know and be able to do with technology.

Under the last one, a tech-savvy superintendent, Eric Bartleson, and I developed CODE77 rubrics for administrators even before ISTE came out with NETS-A. (The most recent version, 2010 CODE 77 for Administrators links correlates the the 2009 NETS-A standards.)

The majority of our principals and other administrators use and understand educational technology pretty well. These folks tend to be neither technophobes nor technophiles, which is just fine with me. A school leader who is overly enthusiastic and optimistic about technology can be as frustrating as a Luddite.

Without administrative knowledge and support, technology will not be used well in schools by teachers or kids. But we can't wait for the magic wand, a new generation of administrators, or "requirements" from some higher power. We have to "paddle our own canoe" and work daily on the job to develop administrative proficiencies.  

How do you "teach" your administrator?

Surveying the landscape

I love giving and taking surveys. I just sent this one out via GoogleForms on Friday. The first of many I'll be using to get feedback from our 1000+ staff here in the district.

The more I use surveys, the smaller and more focused they get. One of the first ones I created back in the mid-90s was called the Mankato Survey of Professional Technology Use, Ability and Accessibility (the titles are getting shorter too.). While I can't find the original, written in FileMaker, here is a link to the 2003 incarnation. I'd honestly forgotten I'd written it until somebody ran across a reference to it and asked for a copy this week. Took awhile to locate.

My CODE 77 Rubrics have proven to be useful survey tools. I've written surveys to help users evaluate their library programs (Here's the teacher version in SurveyMonkey) and library facilities (Here's a version for student evaluations.) I've tried to get a teacher attitudes toward technology implementation with this survey. And of course, a needs survey is a part of every long-range tech plan we've written in the district. (We used a state survey for the latest tech plan.) This past spring and this fall we are surveying students to determine the percent who have home Internet access using this tool.

I've learned a few things about writing surveys. 

1. Don't give as survey unless you have a use for the information it will provide. Yeah, duh.
2. Test surveys before you send them. If you send your to just a few guinea pigs before sending it to the masses, your survey will not only have fewer typos, but fewer questions with confusing questions and useless responses.
3. Don't allow neutral answers. When using a Likert scale (Strongly agree 4 3 2 1 Strongly disagree), force people to choose a response either on the positive or negative side.
4. The more questions, the smaller number of responses. Make your surveys as short as possible. I think for every question you ask, you lose about 10% of your potential respondents. How do you make the survey shorter? Don't ask a question unless you have a use for the information it will provide (see #1).
5. The more convenient the survey, the greater the number of responses. Although the graphic above shows a web-based form, I actually sent the survey out to my staff in the body of a e-mail. Click two buttons and then submit. Finished.
6. Share your results. When people are asked their opinion, they like to know they've been heard and I believe most have a genuine curiosity about the results of surveys in which they've participated.
7. Give people a change to comment. Give people a choice of 10 things, someone will come up with a reasonable 11th. I often find that comments provide as much or more information than the questions.
8. Use the results as a guide, not gospel. Since I tend not to worry about the same things professional survey makers worry about (like sample sizes, validity tests, etc), I use the results as indicators not definitive answers.

My plan this year is to do a weekly 30-second survey. And maybe repeat them in future years to get some longitudinal data. It'll be interesting.

Results from the survey above:

 And my favorite comment:

Some of us do not Facebook or Twitter.  Those are evil time wasters.  Have you seen the episode of South Park where Stan gets sucked into the internet by his profile?  I mean, really, No Siree, I do not want to go down that route.  Please continue with email postings. ;-)