Laura Devaney

Thanks to a major funding refresh, one district found that it’s now possible to support its one-to-one initiative without scaling back access for other services or devices. Could your district do the same? The Federal Communication Commission’s historic E-rate modernization in 2014 paved the way for districts to expand their high-speed broadband and Wi-Fi and increase digital learning opportunities for students. Before the modernization, Category 2 services were called Priority 2 services and were funded only after all requests for Priority 1 services (telecommunications services and Internet access) were funded–but that meant most schools had no leftover E-rate funding for Wi-Fi equipment and other internal connections. And now, school districts across the nation are able to improve digital learning opportunities and expand Wi-Fi for teachers and students.

In Louisiana’s Lafayette Parish Schools, LaShona Dickerson, the district’s director of technology, has leveraged Category 2 funding to update her district’s infrastructure to support a one-to-one rollout. Working with Funds for Learning regarding E-rate processes, Dickerson and her team have updated the district’s phone system, implemented a student information system, improved financial payroll processes, and incorporated tools and resources that empower teaching and learning. “We were able to do a lot of this because of E-rate funding,” Dickerson said. “We work on a limited budget–everything we do has to be planned and strategic, and always has to be a collaborative effort.”

According to the Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) 2014 Vision K-20 report, 85 percent of secondary, 66 percent of elementary, and 83 percent of K-12 district survey participants said mobile devices will be allowed in schools in the next five years.

Not surprisingly, more than half of respondents said they don’t feel “highly prepared” with enough bandwidth or adequate devices and hardware to support online assessments. Just 41 percent of elementary, 40 percent of secondary, and 42 percent of K-12 district respondents said they feel they have adequate Internet bandwidth. Thirty-two percent of elementary, 36 percent of secondary, and 36 percent of K-12 district respondents said they feel they have adequate devices and hardware for students.

Speak Up 2013, an annual survey lead by Project Tomorrow, focuses on digital learning and college- and career-ready skill development. Survey results reveal that educators, school and district leaders, and parents understand that mobile devices help students access more digital content and digital learning opportunities.

1. School and district administrators say that tablets (41 percent), one-to-one programs (28 percent), mobile apps (22 percent), and bring-your-own-device policies, or BYOD (22 percent) have had a significant impact on transforming teaching and learning.
2. Eighty-six percent of school and district administrators said mobile learning increases student engagement.
3. Mobile learning also helps each student personalize his or her learning (67 percent).
4. School leaders note that mobile learning helps students develop a number of skills that will be necessary in college and the workforce, namely critical thinking and problem solving (51 percent), collaboration and teamwork skills (47 percent), and strong communication skills (37 percent).
5. Thirty-two percent of technology administrators said that allowing students to use their own mobile devices helps schools address budget challenges while still giving students access to technology.
6. The 2014 survey reveals that 41 percent of principals said they were comfortable with such a move. An additional 10 percent said they had already changed school policy to support BYOD.

Three trends are changing the way education is perceived in the US, and learning outcomes are improving with more modern approaches: The expansion of digital content, mass distribution, and personalized learning.

As school increasingly incorporate digital technologies and strategies in classrooms, school libraries are changing, too, becoming hubs of communication, research, and technology-enabled teaching and learning.

Sixty percent of librarians said they recommend and/or obtain Common Core-aligned instructional and resource material, 55 percent help teach students the skills required by the Common Core, 43 percent collaborate with teachers on instructional lessons aligned with the Common Core, and 30 percent help to ensure that technology infrastructure is adequate to support the Common Core.

Sixty-three percent of librarians rated expanding instruction on the use of digital resources as a high priority in the next two years, and 53 percent said the same of increasing access to digital content. School librarians also recommend a variety of technology for purchase. Thirty-seven percent of librarians recommend apps for purchase, 34 percent recommend subscription databases, 27 percent recommend tablets, and 26 percent recommend educational games, in addition to other technology recommendations.

As digital content becomes more commonplace in districts across the nation, some school leaders and educators wonder: what’s involved in a digital content transition?

Creating accessibility and digital opportunity in districts is crucial, said Wanda Creel, superintendent of Barrow County Schools in Georgia. Using videoconferencing technology, Barrow County students connect with Georgia Tech professors throughout the school year to work through labs and have conversations. Those same professors work collaboratively with district teachers to create and deliver digital instructional material. While 60 percent of students met or exceeded standards in a middle school science class, now 100 percent of students meet or exceed state standards. And while 12 percent met the “exceed” standard on a state test in years past, now 85 percent meet that same standard.

Digital content is driving the creation of repositories where educators can locate resources tied to standards, content areas, and grade levels -- because wading through online content to find one perfect resource is time-consuming and exhausting.

“When the Internet first appeared, we treated it like a content system,” Joseph South, deputy director of the US Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Educational Technology, said. “When the Internet exploded, it became a communication system. We’re seeing the same thing in our schools -- as we get more comfortable with digital, it moves from a content system to a communication system.”

To that end, learningregistry.org and free.ed.gov are two places educators can turn to when they need to locate free, searchable resources. “Once you unbundle things from the textbook, you’ve done some really challenging things and some really great things,” South said.

The idea of open educational resources (OERs) is appealing, South said, “but unless they come in some sort of a package, some sort of organizational structure,” they aren’t necessarily useful to teachers. School districts, too, are organizing digital content into free and searchable repositories -- for instance, South said, Arizona’s Sunnyside School District maintains a Google Doc which teachers use to search and upload their own digital standards-aligned resources.

District educators also recognize that not every student will have a device, despite questions pertaining to how the district addresses such a dilemma. “Our greatest advantage has been not only collaboration among teachers, but also collaboration among students,” Creel said. “Students share devices, and it does not become an issue.”

Above all, digital content is the goal, and devices are simply the tool to deliver such content -- teacher support and instructional plans must be in place.

Connected classrooms have many moving parts, and each must work in sync to give students the best and most effective learning experiences possible.

1. Reliable broadband and Wi-Fi Internet access
2. One-to-one and/or bring-your-own-device
3. Teachers who give up control
4. Students and teachers learn together
5. Administrative support
6. Communication and collaboration between IT and curriculum leaders

Social media has had a major impact on education in recent years -- perhaps a bigger impact than many realize. During a McGraw-Hill Education webinar, #EdChat founders Steven Anderson and Tom Whitby offered tips and best practices focused on how to use social media in education and how to craft an impactful social media strategy.

1. Don’t be afraid to jump in. “Not everybody is going to feel comfortable about learning this technology, and learning what they need to know, but that’s part of being a lifelong learner,” Whitby said. “We need to change the priorities of professional development.”
2. Be committed. “In order to maintain relevance in education you have to keep up with what’s going on, and to do that you really have to be connected,” Whitby said.
3. Get past the stereotypes. “It’s an opportunity for people to meet and socialize,” Anderson said. In fact, if more schools embraced social media, safety issues such as cyberbullying would not be nearly as prevalent as they are today.
4. Train teachers for today’s classrooms. “We have to educate our educators better if we want our kids to be educated,” Whitby said. “Digital literacy has to be understood by educators.”
5. Don’t start students at a disadvantage. “You do kids a disservice if you shut out the world,” Anderson said. “They’re not going to have a choice about whether to use technology -- those are tools their employers will expect them to be knowledgeable about when they get out into the world,” Whitby added.
6. Give up control. “Policy isn’t needed,” Anderson said. “You don’t need to have a physical social media policy. Policies are only meant to control, and you don’t really want to control something like this. You want to let things happen organically.”
7. Model the behavior. “Administrators who want to encourage teachers to use social media should use social media themselves,” Anderson said.
8. Find value in educators who turn to social media. “When a teacher says they found a resource on Facebook, or Twitter, or on a blog, it tells me they’ve taken their professional learning in their own hands,” Anderson said.
9. Lurk, learn, and then interact. “Lurking is powerful,” Anderson said. “I encourage people to use hash tags, look at lists, and find one they can follow.” Once users lurk on their preferred social media network, they’ll become familiar with the content and discussions and will feel more comfortable participating in conversations.

[March 11]

A former Los Angeles schools superintendent has stepped forward to criticize a $1 billion effort to provide every student, teacher and campus administrator with a tablet or laptop computer.

William Johnston, 87, did not object to the goal, but focused instead on using school-construction bonds to fund the project, which, so far, has involved purchasing iPads.

“I believe the current purchase of iPads from school bonds is illegal,” Johnston wrote in a Feb 6 letter to the committee that oversees the spending of the voter-approved funding. “iPads are known to last for approximately three years,” Johnston wrote. “New developments and technology will make them obsolete, requiring replacements. School bonds are designed to buy property, build schools, equip schools with lasting equipment. School bonds are paid for over a 25-year period.”

He added: “Voters approved the school bonds because they needed schools built, schools repaired, school equipment updated. They did not vote for iPads, a three-year consumable product.” Johnston, who served as superintendent from 1971 to 1981, is hardly alone in his concerns, which the district recently addressed publicly. Officials have maintained that state law, over time, has been clarified to affirm that bonds can be used for technology. And bond measures specifically list funding for technology.