Applicability, there you are! Part 2

The other applicable session I attended was called Superhero iPad professional development: What we’ve learned over 3 years. While there was very little that was iPad focused, the presenters had some decent points about delivering an effective professional development workshop. It was the last session of the day, so my notes are a bit sparse. Though, credit to the presenters, as they stuck to one of their own tenets: instead of making their agenda more important, they read the crowd well and got us out of their early.

What not to do

• This device is for work only! Don’t download apps for personal use.
• personal allows for ownership, buy-in, interest
• Discourage collaboration
• Block app downloading
• let them explore and do the research
• Make your training session agenda more important than their learning.
• Try to deliver AND facilitate a large group. Have a partner.

Shame and Humiliation

• Calling out someone in a PD session can cause shame.
• Shame = same as trauma; paralyzing; cycle.
• If you see someone moving into shame, get them OUT.
• Humor
• Leave the room
• One on one

Engage creativity

• allow them to play, create, experiment, engage

Resilience

• Always have a plan B. 
• No internet connection?
• Fewer or more people than expected?
• Venue change?
• Google it. 
• Reflection: when someone is having troubles, reflect back what you are seeing.

Bribery

• “I’ll pay you $5 if you don’t learn something new.”
• competition = engagement

This last point was made manifest right at the end. An attendee turned to her friend and said, "They owe me five bucks, because I didn't learn a thing." 

I said, "Did you learn the five dollar trick?"

She scowled, smiled, and conceded the point.  

Applicability, there you are! Part 1

The two sessions I attended today were the most applicable to my job as an IT person, a personnel manager, and a one-to-one iPad coordinator.

The first was from the Val Verde Unified School District in Southern California, called Build a technology support team people love! This is definitely one of my goals, so I noted the takeaways that will help me in my daily work.

And, it was apparently applicable to many other's daily work, as the space was packed.

When people call for tech support, how do you want them to feel after hanging up the phone?
The presenter repeatedly made the point that IT is not in the technology business, but in the people business, and we happen to use technology. As my boss says, remember that the relationships matter most. Even if the answer is, "I don't know, but I'll find out" or "I can't fix that right now," there is a way to deliver that answer in a way that makes the user feel supported rather than brushed off.

Collectively, we are the face of IT.
Everyone in the IT department has an effect on the reputation of the department. And, depending on the size of the department, like a big department in a multi school district, people in the IT department may only be known as IT, rather than as individuals. So everyone needs to do their best to build the department's reputation. 

It's not the teacher's job to know certain tech things. It's her job to teach.
I have to remind myself this one often. Just because I know something, especially something that I consider simple, does not mean everyone else knows it. Yes, I think there is a minimum. However, turn that table around. Are there simple things that all teachers would know that would baffle a non-teacher?

With teachers, speak their language and understand their time.
The presenter gave a great example of a tech support call from the tech's point of view, then from the teacher's point of view. The tech was eager to get off the phone so he could fix the problem, then he was happy to have the problem resolved in a pretty quick amount of time, like 10 minutes. The teacher was annoyed because did not feel like she was being valued by the clipped conversation, and she lost that window of 5 minutes she has between classes to enter her grades.

Don't meet half way. Commit to 75% to make up for the days when when you can't get to it.
This point was about inter-departmental relationships. The IT department depends greatly on other non-academic departments to help with IT's work. The presenter's example was the Buildings and Grounds department for room setup. At my school, it's the Business department for purchasing and inventory. We need to work extra hard to make those relationships positive, and there are days when both sides won't be able to do that. Aim for doing 75% of the work to make up for the days when you don't have the time, energy, or good will to build that relationship.

Be the department that people will demand to keep, to not cut.
In an age when budgets are being slashed, be so good that teachers openly revolt at the mention of cutting IT. Especially if your teachers are part of a union, do such a good job that the teacher's union advocates for you.

So, that's the tech support session. Next up, iPads.

Flexible iPad management -OR- ISTE learns all about my job

A big reason for my going to ISTE was to support my Castilleja School colleagues during their presentation. Gabriel Lucas, director of technology, and Rachel Tennant, academic technology specialist, presented our approach to our iPad program in a presentation called Flexible learning and responsible oversight with a hybrid 1:1 iPad model.

The two of them basically built our iPad program over two years, and now it's my job to keep it running. We have about 400 iPads in circulation. We are one-to-one in grades six through nine, with a few "islands" and "peninsulas" of iPad groups in grades 10 through 12. And most faculty have an iPad.

The program -- and their presentation -- center on the ideas that a one-to-one iPad program can be scalable from 100 to 1000 (and more) devices and customizable to meet the developmental needs of each grade from K-12.

The presentation highlighted the differences between grades and how developmentally appropriate each step is. This is key, as there is a world of difference between how we manage the sixth graders from how we manage the ninth grades, and that is very intentional. They played recordings of our deans talking about the iPads in their grades.

• 6th grade: more restricted; can’t install or uninstall apps; students are new to the school, so don’t overwhelm them; teach students how to use it as a school tool
• 7th grade: not all in; inherited the program because the students as sixth graders last year had iPads; could not get the dean to do the interview; student can install apps themselves, but IT has  whitelist of apps that students can install.
• 8th grade: more responsibility, less control; transition to high school, mid-year, all students turn 13 = Apple IDs that they control
• 9th grade: less uniform; no team, like in the other grades; full control for students, more choice of when/whether to use the iPads; let students make mistakes

Four non-negotiables

1. Don’t muck it up - stick to a solid management system, a schedule for updating devices and apps, and beware of the one-offs. And, most importantly, don't let the parents manage it, especially in managing Apple IDs. This may sound counter to the way some schools work, but we knew that many of our parents, if tasked with any oversight or day-to-day management of the device or the account, would just let the student do all that herself. 
2. Maximize labor efficiency - it is not efficient to collect every iPad and touch INSTALL on each one in order to install apps or updates, which is what our school did in 2012-2013. In our case, using Apple's Configurator and giving each student an Apple ID saved us the hassle of tap, tap, tapping every device. 
3. Be cost effective - we're getting a better handle on this now by having a common core of apps that all devices will have, and we can buy those apps in bulk. We hope it will serve us and serve the students better by having some uniformity, rather than each grade or each class having a different note-taking app. 
4. Prepare for the unexpected - iCloud backup and restore have been our saviors. Students break iPads and students lose iPads. Using iCloud, we can restore the last backup onto a new device in about 15 minutes, which means the student has no disruption to their learning. 

Questions to ask yourself for your school

• How much control do you want?
• How much parental oversight do you want?
• What do you want the summer cycle to look like? Do you want to wipe out each device every summer, or carry student data year to year?
• What level of backup does the school want to provide for each student?
• How compliant with Apple do you want to be?
• What level of uniformity does the school want at each grade?

(My apologies to the readers and the Gabe and Rachel for the sub-par pictures.)

An explosion of an exposition

I said in my first ISTE post that there were a lot of vendors. Turns out that there are more than 500, from major names, like Google, Samsung, Panasonic, Adobe, Microsoft, and SMART; to smaller players like eSchool News (where I used to work), the American School of Bombay (where I visited in 2006), and Showbie (whose app we just started using at out school).

Here is a view of about one-quarter of the expo hall.

First round of sessions: SAMR, student tech support, and classic literature

The first session of the day for me was about the SAMR model. I was looking forward to this session, as my colleagues on the Academic Technology side of my department use this model often when helping teachers design lessons. And, according to the presenter's blog, he seems to be quite the expert on this topic.

Unfortunately, the sound quality for the large room was poor. There were probably 200-300 people in a very large ballroom-style space, and the speakers could not carry his voice clearly enough for me to follow the presentation. I left, and so did many other people.

I went upstairs to check out the poster presentations, and so did any other people. Wow. It was mobbed. The posters were engaging, and many of them were about student projects. Better yet, the students were the presenters.

The two posters that I investigated were The Tech.B@r is open: Students at your service, an example of starting and maintaining a student tech support service from Westwood High School in Blythewood, SC;  and Youth film fest of language arts, a cross-discipline, semester-long film recreation of classic literature from Centro Escolar Los Altos in Jalisco, Mexico.

The student tech support team is interesting, as we've mulled the idea for our school. We'd like to have some students help us with things like laptop upgrades, software training for teachers, app support. Perhaps I can get some ideas from Westwood.

The film fest is a cool project. I would like to think that it's the kind of project that I would design if I were a classroom teacher. The student that gave me the explanation was really excited to explain the project. When a student is that excited to share her schoolwork, I think the lesson was a success.

Read more:
Tech.B@r of Westwood High School

Youth film fest of Centro Escolar Los Altos

A disappointing keynote, but a good lesson

The cynic in me struggled mightily to see the relevance of Ashley Judd's keynote address. She shared her story, her history of depression, her family relationships, past and present, her experience in independent school, her humanitarian work. She has a powerful story, but there was zero connection to ed tech. This really could have been anybody.

A browsing of Twitter helped. I can't find the tweet, but it said that she spoke to us as a student. In a keynote, we're used to someone speaking to us as an expert, as a teacher. This speech was a changing of the lens and we should value that.

My takeaway, and the takeaway from many on Twitter: "The most important thing you can do is believe the child who comes to you." Honor what the student in front of you is saying, is revealing, is bringing to you. Take that seriously.

She spoke of the teacher that took time to notice her, and, in turn, how she wanted to work hard not to disappoint that teacher.

I am not a teacher, but I do see that as I walk the school where I work. What child is looking for someone to notice her as she battles her demons? What student may be revealing a little bit of her struggle, hoping someone will pick up on it and ask her, "How are you, really?"

Independent schools represent!

One of the opening addresses is an interview with an independent school teacher from right around the corner from my school who is the 2014 ISTE Outstanding Young Educator.

Diana Neebe is a high school English teacher from Sacred Heart Atherton who is central to the one-to-one iPad program at her school. What is also interesting is that she is, by contract, also the tech teacher/innovator/supporter for the other faculty. If they need help with something small, like how to share a Google Doc,  to something big, like how to go from paper to online quizzes, her school gives her the time, space, and responsibility to do that. I like that she said her tech role is part of her contract. That shows that her school values technology, that it's not an afterthought.

Read more:
http://www.shschools.org/page.cfm?p=375&newsid=1475&ncat=3