Moving to Digital Content by Jermyn Shannon-El

Moving to

Digital Content

Written by Judy Salpeter Presented by Learning.com 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS Presented by Learning.com

Moving to Digital Content

Varied Content and Approaches

Print Textbooks Losing Ground

A Districtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Choice for Change

Cross-Curricular Collaboration

Types of Digital Content

Benefits of Implementing OER

Technology and Social Studies Skills Together

Tips for Moving to Digital Content

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Moving to Digital Content

In spite of K-12 education’s reputation as slow-moving, there is a quiet revolution taking place in our nation’s schools: the demise of the print textbook, which is gradually being replaced by digital content of all sorts. This migration began a decade ago and has accelerated in recent years, fueled by 1:1 initiatives, improvements in bandwidth and infrastructure, and other developments that are placing technology in the hands of students for everyday use at school and at home.

Housing Online Resources

For an example of how things have evolved, let’s take a look at Texas, the first “textbook adoption” state in the U.S. to expand its definition of textbooks to include digital content. One of the earliest Texas districts to embrace this broader definition was Irving ISD, a large urban district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that launched a 1:1 laptop program as early as 2001.

Having the ability to pick and choose content from a variety of sources is another major strength of digital solutions – one that makes it easy to personalize learning for individual students.”

According to Alice Owen, Irving ISD’s former executive director of technology, teachers and students in the laptop program quickly lost interest in print textbooks as a primary tool for instruction and began looking to digital resources – both purchased and free – as more viable alternatives. “We set up a server and called it our ‘textbook’ server, to house many of these online resources,” she explains. “They were categorized by grade level and subject area. As publishers provided digital versions of their print textbooks, we would post those on the server, as well, for students to download to their laptops. Eventually the high schools did not want to store all of the unused textbooks

Dr. Philip Lacey, Director of Instructional Technology, Niles Township HS District 219, Illinois

Teachers and students in the laptop program quickly lost interest in print textbooks as a primary tool for instruction and began looking to digital resources.” Alice Owen, Former Executive Director of Technology, Irving ISD, Texas

and be device agnostic to work on multiple platforms. The state has also combined textbook and technology allotments into a single funding source so that money not spent on textbooks can be used, instead, for technology resources.

at their campus, so they would tell our textbook warehouse just to keep them in storage.” By 2009, with $4 million worth of textbooks sitting in their warehouse, Irving ISD was making news – both local and national. “It really prompted a push for change at the state legislature,” says Owen, who was one of the people who testified before the legislature in favor of more flexibility in the use of textbook funding. By year’s end Texas had dropped the requirement for schools to purchase a print textbook for each student in each class and had expanded the list of state-approved texts to include digital resources.

Texas is not alone, of course. Numerous other states have embraced the move to digital. The state of Florida, for example, is requiring school districts to spend half their instructional materials budgets on digital content by 2015. North Carolina has passed a law requiring districts to buy only electronic textbooks and materials by 2017. And states including California and Utah are actively involved in supporting the creation of open source digital alternatives to print textbooks.

Jump forward five years and Texas has made it clear to districts in the state that all future textbook adoptions need to have a digital foundation

DISTRICT SPOTLIGHT District

Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery CSD, New York

Source

Andrea Tejedor, Director of Innovation & Instructional Technology

VARIED CONTENT AND APPROACHES “The digital content we are using is as diverse as our students,” says Andrea Tejedor, who explains that many teachers in her district have moved away from textbooks and embraced digital units built around Open Education Resources (OER) and other free content. They also subscribe to other content, such as videos from Discovery Education, but are “not looking at a total package solution from any one company.” Many of the teachers in the English Department use Project Gutenberg for older literature that is in the public domain. Instead of buying new textbooks, they put money into purchasing devices and load this public domain content onto the devices. Another early adopter was a Chemistry teacher who has created his own YouTube channel to share concepts and model experiments. The students watch and learn from his videos and also film themselves doing experiments and solving equations – allowing them to mentor their peers and build their digital content. In the spirit of OER, the content the students and teachers create is shared generously. “One teacher led the way with Project Gutenberg,” says Tejedor, “but now the other English teachers have jumped on board.” Educators share their learning objects and ideas through their web sites for parents, students and other teachers to see, and additional teachers and departments are getting involved.

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Print Textbooks Losing Ground Why are districts committing to the transition away from print? Here are the top reasons that educators shared for making the move to digital.

Staying Current and Adaptable

With textbook development and adoption cycles taking many years, textbooks are frequently out of date by the time they reach the classroom – where they typically remain for close to 10 years before new purchases are considered. This is an issue with history and current events, as well as science and other subject areas that change more rapidly than can be captured in a slow-moving text resource. Digital alternatives can be updated quickly, evolving and expanding to include new content. They can also be adjusted to suit the needs of students with varying learning styles and ability levels. As Andrea Tejedor, director of innovation and instructional technology for the Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery schools in NY, explains, “Our move to digital content stems from our interest in capitalizing on mobile technologies to provide students with differentiated learning objects that remain relevant and up-to-date.”

Working with digital content has made it possible to focus on curriculum and technology skills at the same time.” Mary Spiga, Principal, Carteret SD, New Jersey

Motivation and Engagement

Going digital allows students to learn in a way that ties in with their high-tech lives outside of school and makes learning more meaningful and fun. As New Jersey’s Carteret Middle School history teacher Tara Romero puts it, “We can see it in the numbers: Now that students are using digital resources to study and create presentations, interest in the class has gone up ten-fold. Students come to class excited about what they’re doing. There’s also been an increase in students handing in their assignments.”

The digital content we are using is as diverse as our students.” Andrea Tejedor, Director of Innovation & Instructional Technology, Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery CSD, New York

Cost Savings

According to Irving ISD’s Alice Owen, “In addition to the $4 million of unused textbooks sitting in our warehouse back in 2009, it was estimated that, at the time, the nation was spending approximately $6 billion a year on textbooks. At one point we figured the district spent about $425 per student on textbooks annually, and prices for books have gone up since then, not down.” Owen also cites a 2012 article in U.S. News & World Report on “How Your Textbook Dollars are Divvied Up” that estimated that about 32% of what college students paid for textbooks went to cover printing and publishing costs. K-12 textbooks have a similar cost breakdown, meaning that schools can realize a rather major savings by moving to digital content.

Varied Content from Multiple Sources

As Dr. Philip Lacey, director of instructional technology services in Illinois’ Niles Township High School District 219, puts it, “The rich options offered in digital resources, such as video, audio, just-in-time feedback through formative assessments, and collaborative features are not available to our students through a traditional textbook.” Having the ability to pick and choose content from a variety of sources is another major strength of digital solutions – one that makes it easy to personalize learning for individual students.

By making resources available online, students have seamless access at school, home, or wherever they have WiFi.” Erica Hartman, Supervisor of Technology Integration, New Jersey

Access Beyond the School Building/Day

Digital Literacy and Test Prep

With Common Core and other assessments moving online, many education leaders are coming to the realization that unless students are learning in a digital environment, they will not be comfortable being tested in such an environment. Mary Spiga, principal of Carteret Middle School in New Jersey, explains that, “Because of budget cuts, we had eliminated tech classes in the elementary schools; before implementing the CCSS assessments, we realized these students needed to know how to type, to highlight and edit text, or to complete a variety of other tasks. Working with digital content has made it possible to focus on curriculum and technology skills at the same time and, therefore, became a back-door way of preparing students for the tests.”

Going digital allows students to access content and homework assignments on Internet-connected computers from virtually anywhere. According to Erica Hartman, supervisor of technology integration at West Morris Regional High School District in New Jersey, where students participate in a BYOT program supplemented by school-owned Chromebooks, “This is the biggest change we have seen. By making resources available online, students have seamless access at school, home, or wherever they have WiFi. Leaving your textbook in your locker is no longer an excuse.”

Convenience

Doing away with heavy textbooks – which are easy to lose, cumbersome to carry, and put a major strain on student backs – is yet another, much-cited advantage of going digital.

DISTRICT SPOTLIGHT District

Dayton ISD, Texas

Source

Peter Griffiths, Executive Director of Federal Programs and Accountability

A DISTRICT’S CHOICE FOR CHANGE According to Peter Griffiths, Dayton ISD’s goal – spurred by new state-level policy – is to move classes at all grade levels and in all subject areas from print to digital in the next few years, as well as to ensure that all digital solutions are device agnostic, in order to be compatible with the district’s BYOD policy. “For the 2014-2015 school year,” he explains, “we gave campuses a choice. We informed them that all textbooks will be digital in four years and told them that, until then, if they want to stay with consumables or hard copy textbooks, there is an additional cost. Or they can choose to go entirely digital now and use the savings to buy devices.” The science teachers, across the board, decided to plunge right in. In grades K-8 they opted to go with no textbooks at all, using their funds to buy devices for grades 6-8. At the high school level, science classes chose to buy one classroom set of textbooks and focus the remaining funding on digital resources. Classes in other subject areas are using a mix of digital and print resources. While the mandate to migrate to digital is coming from above, the details are largely left up to teachers and curriculum leaders who work collaboratively to determine what online content to use. Principals meet periodically to discuss programs, interventions and common goals, and this occasionally leads to a decision to purchase a district-wide subscription. Most of the time, however, teams within an individual school and subject area meet on their own to identify great resources and build their own digital alternatives to textbooks.

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DISTRICT SPOTLIGHT District

Fort Smith Schools, Arkansas

Source

George Lieux, Information Technology Facilitator, Professional Development Department

CROSS-CURRICULAR COLLABORATION Fort Smith Schools are involved in a digital conversion of three of their buildings: one large junior high, one large elementary school (K-6), and one tiny elementary school that has one class per grade. George Lieux explains that each classroom is now equipped with Windows 8 touchscreeen laptops and an extensive library of digital tools including the Moodle Open Source Learning Management System (LMS), the Edmodo social networking tool, subscriptions to Discovery Learning videos, Brain POP elementary lessons, Accelerated Reader, EasyTech curriculum, and much more. In addition, the system is set up to allow teachers and curriculum leaders to create and add their own content to the LMS. “We just started the laptop program this year and these schools aren’t entirely textbook-free yet, but they will be before long,” says Lieux. One thing he is excited about is the way in which the digital environment encourages collaboration. “We are using coaching cycles, with literature, math, social studies and technology specialists working together. They agreed that they wanted to develop a lesson on WWII together. Once they had decided what they wanted to teach, I stepped in and helped them find the technology resources to assist them in doing that.” Lieux advises taking a gradual approach and allowing teachers to move at a pace that’s comfortable to them. He finds that the early adopters – the teachers and students who embrace the new way of doing things – are crucial to making the sorts of changes that will truly impact the ways in which students learn. “When we first started introducing technology into the classroom,” he says, “many teachers were hesitant. They were scared of doing something to harm the devices. Some of them – the ones who were teaching advanced classes, for example – thought that their students were already doing so well, they shouldn’t mess with it. But when they saw the excitement level of the students involved in digital learning, they became motivated to give it a try.”

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Types of Digital Content

What are the most widely used digital alternatives to print textbooks? Below are the most common types of digital content being used in today’s schools.

OER and Other Free Content

Homegrown Resources

Open Education Resources (OER) are defined as free content released under a Creative Commons license. The content is free to acquire, free to use, and may be remixed, re-purposed and/ or distributed so that others can not only use it but adapt and build upon it. Items range from an entire course or textbook to a single asset such as an image or worksheet.

“Create-your-own” digital content runs the gamut from simple solutions that allow teachers to design their own pathways through vetted and pre-organized content to far more ambitious authoring efforts. The Vail School District in Arizona, for example, has built an extensive digital content repository to house content created, tested and vetted by teachers and curriculum leaders from the district. Some states are taking a similarly ambitious approach, hiring educators to contribute to digital textbooks that can be used statewide.

Commercially Available Resources These include enhanced versions of existing textbooks, with video, audio and other elements added, as well as digital-only courses designed to take advantage of the technology environment in which they operate. A number of other resources – including TV-quality video, games, simulations, online projects and much more – are available on a subscription basis.

Most schools that are on the path from print to digital are embracing some combination of the types of content above. This is made possible through LMS and other curriculum-building tools for accessing and organizing the resources, aligning them to standards, monitoring and assessing student progress, and allowing individual teachers to customize the offerings and assign work that’s ideally suited to their own students.

Benefits of Implementing OER • Improved access to materials: OER are free to acquire and cost-effective to implement, which helps improve student access to quality educational materials. • Scalable resources: OER may be used by individual teachers to supplement their curriculum, or by districts to create their own courses or textbooks. • Integration with existing curriculum: OER come in a variety of sizes and can be used to supplement and enrich existing curriculum. • Same content, multiple skill levels: Educators can adapt OER content into derivative versions that allow students to work at their own skill level. • Greater empowerment for teachers: Teachers who have the flexibility to develop and adapt their own learning resources for their students can have greater success teaching their customized materials. • Promotes collaboration: The digital format of most OER supports collaborative authoring and sharing of resources among educators. • Passionate community of developers: Many OER providers rely on the community to provide updates and revisions, creating a global team of educators who are passionate about the quality of the resources.

DISTRICT SPOTLIGHT District

Carteret School District, New Jersey

Sources

John Morrison, Social Studies Teacher Tara Romero, Social Studies Teacher Mary Spiga, Principal

TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL STUDIES SKILLS TOGETHER In Carteret Middle School, where students participate in a one-on-one program, the middle school social studies classes all use Learning.com’s EasyTech, which focuses on developing tech skills while exploring curriculum content. Seventh graders, for example, study developing nations, while learning about research skills. As John Morrison explains it, each student is assigned a different country that they follow throughout the marking period. They participate in Web quests with questions about their country and are required to identify what Web sites they are using – including ones from multiple perspectives and countries – and prove that they’re credible sources. These skills are all reinforced through EasyTech lessons that talk about research skills. In this flexible digital environment it’s possible to modify and add lessons related to current events. For example, when the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disappeared mysteriously in March, 2014, Morrison created a lesson that had students exploring four scenarios about where it could be. “The students are excited and interested,” he says. “They’re following current events, making connections, developing technology skills and learning how to do research – not just being fed content and spitting it back out.” Eighth grade teacher Tara Romero shared another example of the power of going digital: “We used to do a project about Carteret where students would read local history and take a field trip. Now we’re doing it by having students create multimedia presentations. They take pictures around town, interview people, edit and do voiceovers, then invite community members and politicians to come see the results.” The enthusiasm, Romero explains, is palpable. The students can’t wait to do the unit and are thrilled that community members and politicians come to see their work. Through this process, the community has become much more aware of what is going on at school – leading to additional learning opportunities. “For example,” Romero says, “the students were invited to cover a local event for the community and do a presentation at a council meeting.”

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Tips for Moving to Digital Content

How can you make the most of digital content for your students? Educators shared the following advice on how to ensure a smooth transition from print.

Set Goals and Understand Why You’re Doing It

Have a Good Vetting Process

It’s important for trusted sources (commercial or in-house) to review digital content to see that it’s compelling, accurate and standards-based. This advice applies to teacher-created resources, to OER and other free resources, and to commercial content. A lower number of quality resources is more valuable than a large number of varying quality. Technical vetting – to ensure that the recommended resources work on all the platforms that students might be using, in and out of school – is another important piece of the puzzle.

Don’t let a single, narrow goal – such as saving money or decreasing the weight of student backpacks – be your sole reason for moving to digital content. Start with your overall vision for student learning and determine how new curriculum approaches, paired with digital content, can help you reach your goals.

Provide Options

In embracing digital content, the goal is rarely to do away with print entirely, but rather to offer a variety of options for teachers and students. A library of high-quality print resources can coexist with a rich and varied collection of standards-aligned digital alternatives – including OER resources, videos, simulations, digitized artifacts, authoring tools, collaborative project ideas, and more. In this way, teachers and students are able to map personalized paths through the content, with approaches tailored to each student’s needs.

Offer Job-embedded Professional Development

Ensure that all teachers have the opportunity to explore and learn how to use the digital resources in their instruction. In many districts, this takes the form of leading-edge teachers modeling teaching approaches for their peers, staff meetings devoted to exchanging ideas and success stories, and other collaborative approaches to professional learning. 14

Let the Enthusiasts Lead the Way

Pool and Organize Resources

Districts are finding different ways of storing and organizing content so it can be shared with colleagues and students. From learning management systems with a variety of ways of accessing commercial and OER content to homegrown digital content repositories, these tools make it easy for teachers and students to transition from a textbook to a digital learning environment.

Finding innovative and enthusiastic people to serve on the planning committee and be part of the first wave of implementers is a key to success. Once these teachers – and the students they work with – are able to demonstrate the amazing power and appeal of technology-based learning, others will follow suit.

Get Stakeholders Involved

Offer Time and Support for Those Who Want to Contribute

Have local meetings to discuss which digital resources will be used and explain why the shift is happening. Involve parents and community members in the planning and strategizing for transitioning to digital content. Work with district curriculum developers to incorporate the best digital resources.

In districts such as Vail, Arizona, or states such as Utah, where entire digital content repositories are being filled with teacher-created lessons, time and money are set aside for the exemplary teachers who are willing to contribute. Often they are hired during the summer or release times to do such work.

Allow Plenty of Time for Teachers to Get Up to Speed

Infrastructure and Access Are Essential

Not every teacher will feel comfortable working in a digital environment, let alone creating their own lessons for such an environment. Allow those who are ready to take the lead and mentor others along the way. Offer many vetted learning objects and ideas for those who prefer to ease in slowly.

A good wireless network, high broadband connectivity, and a solution – whether 1:1, BYOD, mobile labs, or some sort of a hybrid – that provides students with regular and equitable access to devices is an essential first step. Ensuring at-home access to the Internet is important as well.

Home-School Connection

Inform parents of online resources that can be used at home and services that allow for affordable Internet access. Ensure that students and families know how to log in from home or places other than the school building. 15

About the Author

Judy Salpeter has been involved in the world of educational technology since the early 1980s when, as an elementary school teacher in western Massachusetts, she bought her first Apple II computer and brought it into class to use with her students. Shortly after that, she moved to California to earn her Master’s Degree in Interactive Educational Technology at Stanford University. During the 1980s and 1990s she authored an early software program (Mystery Sentences, published by Scholastic), a book (Kids and Computers: A Parents’ Handbook) and numerous articles for publications including Parenting, Business Week and Newsweek. Salpeter has worked with Tech & Learning magazine (formerly Classroom Computer Learning) since 1986, first as managing editor, then as editor-in-chief/editorial director, and now as the program director for Tech & Learning Events and the editor of the K-12 Blueprint web site, sponsored by Intel. She has also served as an editor-at-large on numerous projects for the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and as a freelance editor and author for a number of other organizations.

About Learning.com

Learning.com helps districts implement digital learning initiatives with award-winning content, tools and services. By incorporating Learning.com’s curriculum and assessments into core instruction, educators help their students develop 21st century skills. With Learning.com’s digital content management solution, districts can seamlessly access, organize and share digital content to meet their instructional goals. Learning.com also offers industry-leading professional development services to support educators as they integrate technology into the classroom. Founded in 1999, Learning.com currently partners with more than 2,500 districts to help prepare their students for success in college and future career opportunities.

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PEOPLE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS BOOK: John Morrison

Michael Gorman

Former Director of Tech/Integration Professional Development Southwest Allen County Schools, IN

Global Studies, Grades 6-8 Carteret Middle School, NJ

Tara Romero

Peter Griffiths

History, Grade 8 Carteret Middle School, NJ

Executive Director of Federal Programs and Accountability Dayton ISD, TX

Dr. Philip Lacey

Director of Instructional Technology Services Niles Township High School District 219, IL

Joel Handler

Director of Technology Hillsborough Township Board of Education, NJ

George Lieux

Information Technology Facilitator, Professional Development Department Fort Smith Schools, AR

Erica Hartman

Supervisor of Technology Integration West Morris Regional High School District, NJ

Alice Owen

Mary Spiga

Former Executive Director of Technology Irving ISD, TX

Principal Carteret Middle School, NJ

Andrea Tejedor

Director of Innovation & Instructional Technology Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery CSD, NY

RESOURCES FOR LEARNING MORE: SETDA.org

AEPweb Blog

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) offers a number of relevant resources including the 2012 publication, Out of Print: Reimagining the K-12 Textbook in a Digital Age; a special section with news and updates on Open Education Resources (OER); and the State Education Policy Center (SEPC), a database of state policies related to education and technology â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including definitions and digital content policies.

The former Association of Educational Publishers (now the PreK-12 Learning Group) hosts a blog with news about education policy and educational software â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including periodic updates on state and federal initiatives related to digital content.

SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to the leading companies that are setting the pace for the digital age.

iNACOL

Relevant resources from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), a nonprofit advocacy group focused on blended and online learning, include: OER State Policy in K-12 Education: Benefits, Strategies, and Recommendations for Open Access, Open Sharing and a Fast Facts about Online Learning PDF.

CoSN

The Consortium for School Networking is the premier professional association for district technology leaders. For over two decades, CoSN has provided leaders with the management, community building, and advocacy tools they need to succeed. Today, CoSN represents over 10 million students in school districts nationwide and continues to grow as a powerful and influential voice in K-12 education.

K-12 Blueprint

K-12 Blueprint, sponsored by Intel and produced by Tech & Learning and Clarity Innovations, features a Digital Curriculum toolkit with success stories, tips and advice, checklists, and other resources for embracing digital content.