Q2 | 2019 | ISSUE #3
5 Steps to Buying K-12 Tech
We’ll help make the tech purchasing process less overwhelming.
(Home)Work-Life Balance for Students
How to keep your students engaged between school, relationships, and free time.
What is TechShell?
Learn more about the TechShell Partner Program and what it entails.
Featuring:
An interview with Todd Wesley, the Lakota Local Schools Chief Technology Officer, on how he keeps his students EMPOWERED. see pg. 6
06 13 17 Empowering Student Learning with Tech
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5 Steps to Buying K-12 Tech
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How to Help Your Students Maintain a Good (Home)Work-Life Balance
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What is TechShell?
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K-12 Tech Humor
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About K-12 Tech Director Magazine K-12 education is going through what could be considered a digital transformation. Studies show that students who use devices such as iPads and Chromebooks at school are more engaged in their classes and receive better test scores. K-12 Tech Director Magazine brings you the latest and greatest news, articles, insights, and best practices for educational professionals that work in this digital age.
IS AT THE HEART OF THE TECH REVOLUTION, SHEPHERDING IN A NEW GENERATION OF DIGITAL CITIZENS THAT BECOME TOMORROW’S GLOBAL LEADERS.
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Empowering Student Learning with Tech
How Todd Wesley and Lakota Local Schools are expanding the role of technology in the Ohio townships of West Chester and Liberty Township.
Somewhere at the intersection of technology and student learning lies a new breed of K-12 leaders. They’re focused on evolving approaches and outcomes that directly support student learning, wellbeing, and life preparation surrounded by a supportive community of learning. Gone are the days of K-12 technology leaders speaking only to internet speeds, cabling, programming, support stats, how many devices in their district, blended learning, and buzz words. For the past few years, we have been at the dawn of a new era of student learning, where technology isn’t the magic pill that drives instruction, it supports its transformation towards meeting the needs of every child. At Lakota Local Schools in the Ohio townships of West Chester and Liberty Township, new leadership ushered in new priorities for the almost 17,000 student district’s technology team to support an inspiring new strategic plan. “When our new superintendent arrived, he went on a listening tour for over a year, gathering input from all of our stakeholders, and as the needs began to take shape, it became very clear the exciting expanded role technology would play in our district’s future,” said Todd Wesley, Lakota’s Chief Technology Officer.
focus areas: 1) personalized learning for students and staff, 2) future-ready technology, learning, and experiences for students, 3) a true cross-district sense of belonging that we are all in this together, and 4) financial sustainability, something we have taken pride in through our sustainable approaches.”
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...it became very clear the exciting, expanded role technology would play in our district’s future.
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Intro
Wesley set out to build a new vision with his colleagues and teams to execute the instructional technology areas of this plan, and the #WEareEMPOWERED initiative was born. “EdTech today is the marriage of technology and curriculum in support of student learning. This required all key players at the table, from digital and professional learning to curriculum to principals to teacher leaders. Our goal from the very beginning was to ensure student personalized learning remains at the core and to build out from there. While there is a large role for technology, this is not a technology only initiative. This is about personalized learning experiences for our students, empowering their ideas, interests
Vision “The feedback culminated into the creation of a new district strategic plan with four key 6
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Ed Tech Today is the marriage of technology and curriculum in support of student learning.
Execution WEareEMPOWERED is made up of three key areas.
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First, innovative instructional approaches rooted in research and support of personalized student learnand self-expression, and empowering their learning ing. Led by the district’s Director of Professional and through purposeful technology, along the way,” he Digital Learning, dedicated Innovation Specialists said. “We don’t see this as a technology, curriculum, (known as “Team Inspire”) work directly with Lakota’s school, department, etc. initiative. We are all building 900+ teachers to provide ongoing, embedded prothe starting line and the track for the future of stufessional development. As well as support and asdent-centered education at our district. By taking the sistance in the core areas of successful personalized labels off, there has been a real sense of community learning such as support for instructional technoloin this journey and we all come together to celebrate gy. “Instruction continues to shift almost as much as the amazing things our students and staff are doing technology, so providing these dedicated supports as part of this initiative.” for our teachers is critical to their success, as well as our students’ success.”
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Second, through district-provided devices, students and staff have access to key digital learning components. These include the Canvas learning management system, Google and Microsoft productivity suites, digital learning and assessment tools, and art, music, and video creation tools to expand student expression opportunities. “While there was much excitement around going 1:1 for all our secondary 7
students in just 4 months, there was almost as much excitement around the opportunities these tools would offer our students and teachers for years to come!” Wesley said. “And by implementing a new app and website selection process, we are able to vet the data security and alignment before our students and staff put them into practice. Equally important, by leveraging free programs for schools, collaborative discounts, and purchasing in bulk, we were able to design the program in alignment with long term funding sources to ensure sustainability. Furthermore, our 1:1 program was shaped so that after junior high, the devices are repurposed for our K-6 schools, created at least a 2:1 ratio for our younger students, expanding that sustainability K-12 and ensuring or increasing our ROI.”
tional areas of our schools, and while books are still an important staple of learning, these spaces now include so much more for our students and staff. We now have flexible furniture, video conferences, 3D printing, Virtual reality stations and green screen video production areas, along with tech support,” Wesley added. “These spaces have been a huge hit with our students and staff and the flexibility has allowed for endless events, multi-class learning and individual creativity as well as studying. This space will continue to evolve through student and staff voice and innovations in learning and technologies and we
Third, the WEareEMPOWERED initiative provides innovative spaces at each school to drive innovation. The Media Centers at each school were reimagined as Innovation Hubs. “These are the biggest instruc8
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This space will continue to evolve through student and staff voice and innovations in learning and technologies and we look forward to adding more options!
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look forward to adding more options!” These three areas have combined to lead purposeful transformation that will continue to take shape with the feedback that Lakota has received from students, staff, and parents. “With student and staff voice being such a big part of this initiative, we have been very pleased to receive the responses we have in just the first year. The vast majority of our student, staff, and community feedback has been very positive, and the new opportunities created for our students have been amazing to watch flourish. But even when we receive constructive criticism, it’s very helpful since it represents something critical to one of our stakeholders, and that is just as valuable,” said Wesley.
Lessons Learned With any large initiative, there is always room for improvement. “We didn’t get this right overnight. It took several passionate
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discussions by dedicated staff and countless planning sessions with key members of our district, regardless of their department, title or school and several pilots. By creating small pockets of actual teachers and students innovating instruction, with or without technology, allowed everyone to see it in action and experience it in small amounts. Ease into it, if you will, which seemed to decrease the stress of change. It also allowed us to identify what worked and what didn’t and fine-tune as we scaled up. “My biggest suggestion to other districts looking to transform their approach without getting caught in the technology first, technology vs. instruction traps, etc.…leave the past at the door, start with a clean slate. Define your why as a district-wide team, define clear action items and funding at all levels. Work in teams, not department silos, to design new processes and approaches. Continue to collaborate and most importantly, support each other. Working directly with our curriculum team, our principals, our teachers and teacher leaders, our support staff and our
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Working directly with our [staff] to see this come to life has been very rewarding...
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executive team to see this come to life has been very rewarding…we have amazing people supporting this vision! “I would also be remiss if I didn’t include the great resources we used to building and execute WEareEMPOWERED. Organizations such as ISTE, Future Ready Schools, Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools, CoSN, area and national school partners, and our Twitter PLNs have been amazing resources.
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“Lastly, communication and clear messaging have been extremely important. We developed a brand, logo, social media and community communication strategy, and most importantly a T-shirt. I’ve seen students, teachers, administrations, support staff, teacher leaders, parents, volunteers, and national education influencers and leaders all wearing our WEareEMPOWERED T-shirt…It’s been an amazing journey--been there, done that, have the T-shirt. And there will be plenty more cause we’re just getting started!”
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5 Steps to
Buying K-12 Tech
There is a mind-boggling universe of tech devices, tools, and solutions that each Tech Director has to account for, plan for, research, and purchase. This process is overwhelming for even the most seasoned veteran, who knows that the risk is high, but the budget can be low.
It’s not always about the newest, most hyped solutions. You want to strictly stick to “2.0” or higher solutions that have already been market-tested and revised – those solutions that support learning in the classroom, enhance instructional best practices and pragmatically impact student achievement.
The district leaders always want to know that the budget they provided for these purchases will be utilized pragmatically, with no surprises that break the bank later. To make the process of tech purchasing go smoothly, there are five steps every tech director should take:
A second factor to consider is how the technology or solution can be used to support student learning needs across multiple subjects. Virtual reality headsets are seeing major year-over-year gains in percentage adoption by districts. These headsets give students the ability to visit ruins in Greece, travel the solar system, or see 3D models come to life. Almost every class can benefit from that type of spatial learning, which means the investment in technology will transcend all classrooms and all classes, making it a widely used asset.
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Match your technology with your district’s documented goals and educational standards.
With limited resources and time to complete the product research, many school districts rely on a singular person researching the recommendations. This person will often conduct limited to consumer-style research on known e-commerce sites and search engines. This research is focused on product features as stated by the manufacturers, which map to their perceptions and mental constructs. The main consideration should be the most mission-critical district needs that are solution-based, rather than feature-based. These solutions should have a fantastic record in the K-12 space, with multiple points of customer evidence supporting it. The customer evidence, combined with adequate professional and personal reviews let you find a tech solution that has a successful track record of addressing those needs.
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Make sure your solution has interoperability planning.
While technology explodes in school districts around the world, Tech Directors must go above and beyond to ensure the security of students using enhanced interoperability solutions. This means building out the appropriate infrastructure at a district or regional level to host and service a variety of different schools with the same (high) levels of security. Huge amounts of services, apps, and data can be processed efficiently to protect student privacy. Schools that want to be future proof and forward-thinking educators are expecting the demands of exponential growth in tech-based solutions. With the daunting list of digital solutions growing annu13
ally, there are key considerations around having centralized computing and storage in one unified ecosystem, all managed through a single interface or platform. This type of integrated ecosystem gives districts much better efficiency and greatly lowers the risk of downtime, stolen information, forgery, and other negative actions.
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Manage your implementation, service, & support.
When new technology is introduced into the digital ecosystem the district has in place, the people doing that need to make sure they have a very clear vision for how they are going to handle implementation. This combines market research, best practice studies, and having the appropriate staffing and digital resources to complete the ecosystem. When the ecosystem is implemented and the result is considered complete against annual goals, the vision for continued service and support needs to be implemented in a way that satiates the end-users. Tech Directors should build, implement, and deliver (often with teacher or student partners) a continuous set of training as needed to ensure smooth adoption and usage. These tech directors already know how the ecosystem works at a high level. At the service level, they need to identify the various talking points for how that solution will benefit the classrooms they are responsible for. These technology usage goals eventually become the crux of pragmatic, wide-spread,
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effective use. This also allows Tech Directors to plan for any future challenges or problems, so they can address it with both faculty and students as their sounding board and compass.
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Communication with educators as purchasing partners.
Tech Directors are thinking about‌ well‌ tech. Educators will be thinking about the utopian end scenario. In consideration of tech being adopted, Tech Directors should be partnered with educators (from the classroom to the boardroom). Educational professionals have years of insightful knowledge about their districts’ needs and can be beneficial partners in informing purchasing decisions. And if they are seen as true partners in the overall solution decisions, they are 10 times more likely to support and implement the product in the classroom, as well as staying on as a partner in perpetuity. Finding common ground with them should be easy, as you are representing different components that need to overlay against a set of needs, wants, and critical criteria. This is generally an easy agreement to make against the backdrop of budgetary constraints.
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Communication with parents and students as purchasing partners.
If the tech solution depends on parental and student adoption, they need to be involved. Also, similar to how you should handle educational professionals, they also need to be overly communicated with. They are the ones who will work with the solutions daily. They are the ones who digest online services and become active digital citizens. They are also the ones who have to purchase any extra peripheral equipment such as laptops, tablets, and subscriptions. Q2 | 2019
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The digitization of education is taking place in schools all over the world. As such, the tech directors must make decisions and investments with regard to information and telecommunication technologies.
We Can Help.
Help Your Students Maintain a Good (Home)Work-Life Balance ing her homework for a week. He found that on most evenings, the homework took more than three hours to complete. K-12 students are more burdened with the real-world than ever before, and the stress they are incurring is tantamount to what adults are experiencing in the work world.
With every graduation to a new grade comes an increased workload throughout virtually all subjects. There is more reading, more papers to write, more projects, and more experiments. There is also more worry concerning more complex scholastic systems to learn, and the increasing burden these students have to shoulder. Worst of all is the dreaded unstoppable increase in homework. Multiple critically acclaimed anti-homework books fill store shelves. Documentaries, such as “Race to Nowhere” show homework as one aspect of an overwrought, pressure-cooker educational system that constantly pushes students to perform and ultimately kills their love of learning. The New York Times has run front-page articles about the homework restrictions adopted by schools in Galloway, NJ, describing “a wave of districts across the nation trying to remake homework amid concerns that high stakes testing and competition for college have fueled a nightly grind that is stressing out children and depriving them of play and rest, yet doing little to raise achievement, especially in elementary grades.” A petition for the National PTA to adopt “healthy homework guidelines” on change.org got thousands of signatures overnight. The Atlantic featured an article called, “My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me,” by a father and writer who joined his middle school daughter in doQ2 | 2019
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Admittedly, there is a fine balance between having kids learn life skills that will help with their “adulting” later on in life, and letting kids be kids. Beyond the classroom, there is the expansive world that kids are deeply immersed in; sports, games, social activities, and family. As kids have more and more to shoulder at school, psychologists are becoming increasingly concerned about the physical and psychological impact of the workload. Subsequently, they are pushing for more and more regulated work-life balance among students to prevent the impacts of stress. This concept has been around for eons with working adults but hasn’t been prevalent with K-12 students. So… what exactly is work-life balance for students, and how can you implement and enforce it in your district?
What is work-life balance for students? Stated very simply, it’s the practice of allocating time, focus, and resources effectively between scholastic
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responsibilities, relationships, and leisure activities. This is a great life skill for students to have, so they can learn how to balance their lives at an early age. Beginning to balance work and life while still in elementary, junior high, and high school enables your student body to maintain peace and harmony later in life when working in chosen professions, starting families and taking on increasingly stressful roles and responsibilities.
How to find work-life balance for students: Before districts can implement work-life balance, there needs to be a collection of decision-making criteria and data points relevant to the specific district, as compared against the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) norms, which give us a good look at trends in homework for nearly the past three decades. This looks at homework averages which range from “none assigned” to “greater than 2 hours”. If you find your data shows that your students are below the normal averages, you might already be on the right track. If you find your data shows that your students are inline with the normal averages, then you would want to adopt the general best practices for homework regulation. If you find your data shows that your students are skewing high on the number of hours spent nightly on their homework, then you know you have a significant adjustment to make with regards to regulating policies that limit those hours as much as possible. This means implementing a vision, direction, and policy from the top-down, and having teacher acceptance and adoption at the classroom level. 18
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