Turns out that I overwrote by 100 words or so, and since word count isn't my issue in this setting, here's the original, verboser, and linkier edition.
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For over two decades, I have worked to improve schools and their support systems. At the same time, I have dug into the ways technology facilitates community building. The intersection of those paths defines a cool place to hang out with compelling visionaries and amazing ideas about the ways technology can transform education. However, there has not been much of that coolness in the day-to-day lives of my children and their teachers. Though I am sure that exceptions exist, for the most part, teaching and learning in the Providence Public Schools have been largely separate from interactive technologies.
But this year, finally, I am seeing evidence that a collision between technology and education is heating up in our schools. Curriculum, assessments, and individualized systems of student support that occupy both physical and virtual space are taking root and spreading, driven by the adoption of curricula and classroom content management systems that have significant online components. This has sparked conversations within school communities and among district staff about the urgent need at nearly all schools to update technology infrastructure, access, and training for students and educators.
There’s statewide momentum, too; the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) is pushing ahead with substantial educational technology initiatives that have the potential to create conditions for teaching and learning that are more equitable, meaningful, and effective as a result of smart technology integration. In February 2012, RIDE hosted the “Innovation Powered by Technology” conference, which convened local and national experts and innovators to help our state’s educators move forward with technology integration. The conference brought resources to RIDE’s $470,000 Model School grant that will fund the design or redesign of a school that will use technology to transform teaching and learning. It’s great to see RIDE thinking so boldly and setting a context for innovation statewide.
So perhaps we really are having a moment here, one of those moments that have the promise to change everything. However, several factors could imperil universal access to the benefits of technologically mediated teaching and learning and reduce the impact of interactive technology in education.
One of the central practices that allows teachers and students to harness the power of technology in education is called blended learning, which the Innosight Institute defines as "any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace." One result of blended learning is a “flipped classroom,” in which students access content online via lectures or other means outside class and can then use class time to sustain more meaningful, interactive exchanges and explorations with their teachers and each other.
One key to making blended learning and flipped classrooms happen, of course, is online access. Such access is limited in many schools, in many homes, and within many communities both by availability of high quality computers and by inadequate internet access. Blended learning is a powerful idea that cannot work if young people can’t access online content. And it cannot work if they don’t have the resources not only to access that online content but also to control it in meaningful ways. This means that students need to have systems that allow them to log onto personalized environments, save work, interact with teachers and other students. They need quality time on quality devices for blended learning to be effective. The equity implications are sobering; it’s clear that in communities in which young people have consistent, personalizable access to computers and sophisticated infrastructures, they will accrue benefits unavailable to students who lack such access. Obviously, this would happen along economic lines unless we aggressively intervene and find ways, both in school and out, to provide adequate resources to all children from all communities. The equity issues associated with technology are no different than those that affect other aspects of school, such as the quality of academic programs, extracurricular offerings, and facility quality.
Because we know that such inequity is rampant, we need to come together as a community to assure that it doesn’t create a malignant digital divide as well. Working at the community level, we can go far to assure that resources are in place for one-to-one computing at school and computer labs systematically integrated with curriculum easily accessible in our neighborhoods. Providence is proud of its creativity and innovative spirit, and I suggest that we bring that spirit to bear to think together about how to provide our young people with the resources they need to learn in more exciting, engaging, and effective ways that also prepare them for the technology-infused world that they will enter into as adults.
Overly prescriptive curriculum and pedagogy pose another threat to the potential of interactive technology to transform education. Computer-based technology can and should be more than another method of content delivery. Learners, in order to be true learners, need to be active co-constructors of knowledge. This is true, of course, whether or not interactive technologies play an active role in (and out) of school. In order to learn to use our minds well, we all need to be able to explore, investigate, inquire, argue, and engage. In order to realize not only the best aspect of technology but the power of human connection in education, we need policies and practices that support and defend authentic relationships between students and teachers.
It is truly possible that we will look back and identify this time as moment when technology and education united to create powerful new ways for teachers and students to share and synthesize information with each other. Let’s not miss this opportunity.
For over two decades, I have worked to improve schools and their support systems. At the same time, I have dug into the ways technology facilitates community building. The intersection of those paths defines a cool place to hang out with compelling visionaries and amazing ideas about the ways technology can transform education. However, there has not been much of that coolness in the day-to-day lives of my children and their teachers. Though I am sure that exceptions exist, for the most part, teaching and learning in the Providence Public Schools have been largely separate from interactive technologies.
But this year, finally, I am seeing evidence that a collision between technology and education is heating up in our schools. Curriculum, assessments, and individualized systems of student support that occupy both physical and virtual space are taking root and spreading, driven by the adoption of curricula and classroom content management systems that have significant online components. This has sparked conversations within school communities and among district staff about the urgent need at nearly all schools to update technology infrastructure, access, and training for students and educators.
There’s statewide momentum, too; the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) is pushing ahead with substantial educational technology initiatives that have the potential to create conditions for teaching and learning that are more equitable, meaningful, and effective as a result of smart technology integration. In February 2012, RIDE hosted the “Innovation Powered by Technology” conference, which convened local and national experts and innovators to help our state’s educators move forward with technology integration. The conference brought resources to RIDE’s $470,000 Model School grant that will fund the design or redesign of a school that will use technology to transform teaching and learning. It’s great to see RIDE thinking so boldly and setting a context for innovation statewide.
So perhaps we really are having a moment here, one of those moments that have the promise to change everything. However, several factors could imperil universal access to the benefits of technologically mediated teaching and learning and reduce the impact of interactive technology in education.
One of the central practices that allows teachers and students to harness the power of technology in education is called blended learning, which the Innosight Institute defines as "any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace." One result of blended learning is a “flipped classroom,” in which students access content online via lectures or other means outside class and can then use class time to sustain more meaningful, interactive exchanges and explorations with their teachers and each other.
One key to making blended learning and flipped classrooms happen, of course, is online access. Such access is limited in many schools, in many homes, and within many communities both by availability of high quality computers and by inadequate internet access. Blended learning is a powerful idea that cannot work if young people can’t access online content. And it cannot work if they don’t have the resources not only to access that online content but also to control it in meaningful ways. This means that students need to have systems that allow them to log onto personalized environments, save work, interact with teachers and other students. They need quality time on quality devices for blended learning to be effective. The equity implications are sobering; it’s clear that in communities in which young people have consistent, personalizable access to computers and sophisticated infrastructures, they will accrue benefits unavailable to students who lack such access. Obviously, this would happen along economic lines unless we aggressively intervene and find ways, both in school and out, to provide adequate resources to all children from all communities. The equity issues associated with technology are no different than those that affect other aspects of school, such as the quality of academic programs, extracurricular offerings, and facility quality.
Because we know that such inequity is rampant, we need to come together as a community to assure that it doesn’t create a malignant digital divide as well. Working at the community level, we can go far to assure that resources are in place for one-to-one computing at school and computer labs systematically integrated with curriculum easily accessible in our neighborhoods. Providence is proud of its creativity and innovative spirit, and I suggest that we bring that spirit to bear to think together about how to provide our young people with the resources they need to learn in more exciting, engaging, and effective ways that also prepare them for the technology-infused world that they will enter into as adults.
Overly prescriptive curriculum and pedagogy pose another threat to the potential of interactive technology to transform education. Computer-based technology can and should be more than another method of content delivery. Learners, in order to be true learners, need to be active co-constructors of knowledge. This is true, of course, whether or not interactive technologies play an active role in (and out) of school. In order to learn to use our minds well, we all need to be able to explore, investigate, inquire, argue, and engage. In order to realize not only the best aspect of technology but the power of human connection in education, we need policies and practices that support and defend authentic relationships between students and teachers.
It is truly possible that we will look back and identify this time as moment when technology and education united to create powerful new ways for teachers and students to share and synthesize information with each other. Let’s not miss this opportunity.
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