“Designed as an effort to raise awareness about the importance of being digitally resilient in the 21st Century Classroom and to help teachers new to technology understand that even digital veterans have computer meltdowns, Epic Tech Fail Day authors should write short pieces about the struggles that they’ve had in their work with technology…and then share lessons learned from their disasters. “

Having been in education for nearly 20 years, I’ve certainly experienced my share of technical failures.  My personal best (or worst as the case may be) occurred last August and left quite an impression on all concerned.

Out of the Box Day: An Epic Tech Fail

For those who may not know, I work at a JK-12 independent school with a 1:1 Tablet PC program in grades 7-12.  As the middle school instructional technology coordinator, I am responsible for helping organize our 7th grade Tablet deployment, more commonly known as “Out of the Box Day.”   As anyone who has experienced the joys of computer deployment can attest, Box Day is a hugely important endeavor, made even more so for us because it’s the first official event of the year and serves to welcome new students and parents to the School community.   Our faculty and staff endure months of planning and preparation, countless meetings and emails, endless revisions to the orientation wiki, and untold pressures to ensure that everything goes according to plan.

The plan, in simple terms, involves students, parents, and faculty gathering together to hear some inspirational remarks from the Division Head, Academic Dean, and yours truly, then dispersing into smaller, more manageable groups for basic training.  When properly implemented, the plan leaves students feeling comfortable with the Tablet, parents confident in their choice of schools, and the faculty and staff energized for a new year of teaching and learning.  But, to paraphrase Robert Burns, “The best plans of men and mice often go awry.”

Having dutifully listened to the prerequisite speeches and instructions, our students’ persistence was finally rewarded; at last they received their Tablets and were directed to log in to the network.   However, instead of being greeted by the familiar Windows chime they were instead presented with a  blank blue screen and rotating hourglass.  One minute passed, then another.  As the clock steadily ticked and the hourglass spun, anxiousness gave way to apprehension; nobody could log in and no one knew why.  The students were terribly disappointed, the teachers openly frustrated, and the tuition-paying, Tablet-leasing parents extremly wary.  Out of the Box Day was dead in the water but the show, as they say, had to go on…and it did.

As our Epic Tech Fail unfolded across campus, extraordinary teachers rose to the occasion, asked the students and parents to be patient, and formed their own versions of “Plan B.”  As they waited for the login script to finish,  they lead discussions on responsible use, electronic etiquette, learning in the digital age, and anything/everything else the students and parents wanted to know.  What could have been a complete waste of time became time well spent.  Finally, after nearly 20 minutes, the Welcome Screen appeared, a collective sigh of relief was heard, and we moved forward.  Adjustments were made, the schedule was maintained, and everyone left feeling comfortable, confident, and energized: mission accomplished.

Image Source: www.flickr.com/photos/leoprieto/ CC Attribution

A few days later we learned the cause of our login issues; someone had inadvertently plugged both ends of an Ethernet cable into a switch, thereby creating an infinite loop and flooding the network with traffic.   At the time, we did not have the proper tools in place to detect such a problem; today we do.  We also learned that having a “Plan B”  when using technology is essential, even when “Plan A” must be carried to completion.  Our Box Day agenda this year includes a list of topics that can be addressed should unforseen problems arise.  Perhaps the greatest lesson, though, was the simple reminder that although the technology of our 1:1 program sets us apart, the character of our teachers is what makes us stand out.

Image Source: http://www.vella-zarb.com

Sadly, family bedtime stories have long since faded into childhood, but yesterday I was reminded of the blind men and their elephant after reading The End of Techno-Critique: The Naked Truth about 1:1 Laptop Initiatives and Educational Change in the Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment. This brief yet important piece, by Mark E. Weston and Alan Bain, directly addresses  technology’s failed promise to transform and improve modern education.  While the article focuses on 1:1 programs because of their prominence, the shortcomings of laptops are not unlike those of any and all other initiatives.  In summarizing the scope of the issue, the authors conclude:

The body of evidence shows that the existence of scalable and sustainable effects from educational changes, innovations, and reforms – technological or otherwise – although frequently assumed remain an unrealized goal within education. In the field’s prevailing paradigm, efforts at improvement, as promising as they may appear, too often are co-opted, diluted, or diminished to generate any widespread effect on teaching or learning.

Anyone connected with education could cite numerous and varied reasons why schools suffer the effects of “co-opted, diluted, or diminished” efforts.  Weston and Bain suggest the causes are rooted within the  “autonomous, idiosyncratic, non-collaborative, and non-differentiated teaching practices that largely remain uninformed by research about what it takes to significantly improve student learning and achievement.”   Expressed another way, teachers, administrators, students, and parents typically only perceive part of the teaching-learning “elephant”.

Not unlike the blind men, we tend to focus on what is nearest (and by extension, most important) to us, effectively limiting our perspective to the reality at hand.  If the metaphor seems strained, consider your daily professional interactions and obligations.  Do they truly reflect an understanding of and involvement in the whole of teaching and learning, or are they merely a part of the “big picture” that only someone else sees?

From Technological Tools to Cognitive Tools

In How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, Bransford et al consider technology in terms of cognitive tools that shape and extend human learning.  In this environment, laptop computers are holistically integrated into a school’s  teaching and learning process.   According to Weston and Bain, such a setting requires establishing six distinct components:

• One, the community comprising the school – students, teachers, school leaders, and parents – must have an explicit set of simple rules that defines what the community believes about teaching and learning.
• Two, the school community deliberately and systematically uses its rules to embed its big ideas, values, aspirations, and commitments in the day-to-day actions and processes of the school.
• Three, all members at all levels of the school community are fully engaged with creating, adapting, and sustaining the embedded design of the school.
• Four, the embedded design generates feedback from all members of the school community: teachers, school leaders, students, and parents.
• Five, the interplay of rules, design, collaboration, and feedback make it possible for the school community to develop an explicit schema—a shared conceptual framework for practice—that defines interactions for the community members in their pursuit of learning.
• Six, guided by their use of their schema, community members demand systemic and ubiquitous use of technology, as opposed to idiosyncratic and sporadic use of technology described in the research on many 1:1 computing programs.

While I may not subscribe to every aspect of the self-organizing school concept, I do believe that developing a community-wide understanding of teaching and learning is an important first step in improving education.  At first blush this may seem obvious if not unnecessary; what school would profess to lacking such a shared vision?  Such an endeavor goes far beyond a simple mission statement or strategic plan, however.  Defining what a school believes about teaching and learning is to define the school itself, to see and comprehend all the parts of the elephant.

Just think what a bedtime story that would be….

It All Starts With Deployment

Tablet deployment, otherwise known as Out of the Box Day, is a critical first step and sets the stage for the entire year.  Our approach last August was to address the parents in a large-group setting while the 130 students were broken into three groups and given a 90 minute hands-on introduction to their new Tablet.  Although effective from a logistics perspective, our “divide and conquer” method created inconsistencies in the message/information provided.  To improve, this year we are keeping the adults and students together for the entire deployment.  Everyone will gather together for a few brief remarks regarding the program and then be divided into small groups, parents accompanying their children, to receive the computers.  Our goal is to ensure that everyone is invested in the initiative and on the same page regarding rights and responsibilities, policies and procedures.

Digital Literacy is Effective

The trimester-long Digital Literacy course proved an effective foundation for the 1:1  initiative.  Students enjoyed learning alongside their teachers, OneNote, iFolder, and Interact improved organization, and while not every youth is a digital native, by the end of the year all had achieved some degree of technology fluency.

Although some of the topics were more popular than others (e.g. nearly everyone enjoyed Photoshop but few were enthusiastic about citing sources), all found their way into the seventh grade curriculum at some point during the year:

• OneNote: An Electronic Notebook
• Website Evaluation: Be a Critical Consumer
• Delicious: Social Bookmarking
• Effective Search Strategies: Keywords are Key
• Effective Search Strategies: Alternative Search Engines
• Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons: Rights and Responsibilities
• Photoshop Elements: Basic Image Editing
• Flickr: Photo Sharing Made Easy

The course will be offered again in seventh grade this fall, new teachers and the eighth grade faculty will be invited to attend, and the curriculum will expand to be more inclusive of emerging 21st Century Literacies.  Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future we’ll have outgrown the need for a Digital Literacy course because it will become part of the fabric of our academic program.  Until that time, though, it will continue to exist and evolve to meet the needs of students and teachers alike.

Digital Citizenship is Essential

Our Digital Citizenship program was one of the more challenging aspects of the Tablet PC initiative.  It began with the best of intentions but as the year wore on and the pace of school quickened, it became increasingly more difficult to find time to engage students, teachers, and parents on this vitally important topic.   At present we have an advisory-based foundation  and over the summer the Academic Deans, my Upper School counterpart, and I will develop a spiraled approach for grades 7-9.  The key to success is in engaging all the stakeholders and that is no small task.  Appropriate, responsible behavior is essential, however, and we have an obligation to guide our students down the path of ethical and informed technology use.

Rethinking Curriculum

There have been innumerable articles, essays, blog posts and the like regarding technology integration.  And while there is nothing wrong with integrating technology into the curriculum, a truly contemporary learning environment is only achieved when technology has become integral to the curriculum.  This progression from “adding on” to “embedding” to “integral” requires rethinking the knowledge and skills our students need and leveraging the full potential of a 1:1 environment.  A shift of this magnitude takes considerable time and careful planning, and I hope that in the coming year we can have richer and more frequent conversations regarding teaching and learning.

Moving Forward

The road map for the second year of our program is still being shaped, but it will surely include connecting parents and students during deployment, refining the Digital Literacy course, reviving and expanding Digital Citizenship, and rethinking our approach to curriculum.  The recently completed Academic Technology Plan can guide us in our efforts and I’ll address the importance and potential of that document at a later date.  In the meantime, everyone connected with the program should be congratulated for a job well done; the first year is behind us and we have good things to look forward to this fall.

The Stylus Matters

Choosing the Tablet PC, with its stylus and ink-enabled applications, was a somewhat controversial yet immensely critical decision for our 1:1 initiative; we felt the ability to ink was truly a “lynch pin” for success.  The $2400 question on everyone’s mind was whether the pen was worth the price.  Given that approximately 98% of our students use the stylus (and feel comfortable doing so) would suggest that the stylus definitely matters.  Whether taking notes, filling out simple forms, solving complex math problems, or editing images with pinpoint precision, the ability to use the pen as an input device makes the Tablet a more versatile tool for learning than either a traditional PC or Mac laptop.

Image courtesy of http://www.small-laptops.com

No Expectation of Privacy

In addition to the Tablet, the second “lynch pin” in our program is DyKnow.  More than a simple note-taking tool, DyKnow consists of two distinct components; Vision and Monitor.  DyKnow Vision fosters interaction and engagement in the classroom.   DyKnow Monitor is a management tool that helps teachers maintain control in a digital environment.  While the vast majority of students felt DyKnow was an effective tool for working with information during class, they overwhelmingly disliked being monitored.  This should come as no surprise; everyone enjoys their privacy.  Middle school students (and adults for that matter) should understand, however, that there is no expectation of privacy in a digital world.  Hopefully as responsible use becomes more ingrained in our school culture, students will become more self-correcting in their online behavior.

Digital Notes Rule

The first lesson in the Trimester 1 Digital Literacy course was devoted to using OneNote as an electronic notebook/binder.   Since that time, 95% of students have continued to use OneNote and more than 85% feel that it improves their ability to take and organize notes.  The flexibility of typing and/or writing, adding images and audio, changing pens, highlighters, and page lines, and having all resources searchable from one  location are major benefits of digital notes.  As one student exclaimed, “OneNote RULES!!!!”.  Regardless of the tool (Evernote is a popular alternative), when students take higher quality notes, they learn more.

Image courtesy of http://www.microsoft.com

Digital Texts Need to Evolve

We used electronic texts in seventh grade science, history, and world languages.  The science book was simply an online PDF, the history text was a website with supplementary links, and the language program included a CD-ROM with extensive multimedia files installed on the student machines.  Not surprisingly, students generally did not care for digitized versions of traditional textbooks; they found the navigation difficult and toggling between screens ardous.  The audio and video files used in Spanish and French were much appreciated but many students still opted to purchase a hard copy of the book.  Until digital texts evolve to include richer content and greater ease of use, paper textbooks will have their place in the backpack.

Collaboration and Participation Rise

One of the issues that arose repeatedly during the early stages of our 1:1 program was that of student-teacher and student-student relationships.  Specifically, there was concern that computers would become communication barriers in the classroom and lead to isolation.  Due to thoughtful planning and an intentional approach to teachnology, teaching, and learning, however,  such is not the case.  Approximately 70% of students indicated they were more active participants and worked more collaboratively this year than in the past.  I think of all the survey results, these findings are perhaps the most significant because they (1) refute the stereotype that students in “laptop schools” stare mindlessly into their screens all day and (2) suggest we are shifting to a learning environment where students are actively engaged with the teacher and each other.

Points to Consider

While by all accounts the student surveys indicated our first year was very successful, they did raise some points worth further consideration.  Roughly 20% wished their teachers would use the computer more frequently, across the board, in all subjects.   Nearly 35% feel that being able to use their computer for personal use distracts them from completing their school work.  A very small but vocal percentage of our students are not enamored and/or fluent with technology and would prefer, as one stated, “if computers would just go away and we could use pencil and paper again.”

There are no easy answers to these issues, but tomorrow the faculty will have an opportunity to provide their feedback on the program.  It will be interesting to see how they respond and what insight they can provide as we seek to improve.  I’ll share their thoughts later this week, but in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to know more about our student reflections.

• Information Management and Research
• Digital Citizenship
• Communication and Collaboration in a Global World
• Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Design

While these themes have served us well thus far, they are, in many respects, incomplete in addressing the needs of today’s learners.  For our students to succeed once they leave our care, they must be equipped with the knowledge and skills required of 21st century citizens; they must become literate in the contemporary sense of the word.

The 7th grade Digital Literacy course illustrated that literacy is as much about the journey as the destination, and the path to becoming functionally literate has changed since we took our first steps.  While our four themes certainly point in the right direction, recent conversations within the School community and the education profession at large suggest that we need to examine the concept of literacy more closely.

An Issue of National Prominence

Whether referred to as “21st century skills” or “21st century literacies”, the over-arching issue of 21st century learning is one of national prominence.  This month’s edition of Social Education, published by the National Council of Social Studies (NCSS), is devoted to Developing 21st Century Skills.  As noted in the magazine’s overview,

Recent events have made one thing clear: there is no historical force that guarantees American success in the twenty-first century if Americans lack the knowledge, skills and competence needed to deal with the challenges that face them in the United States and the world. As social studies educators, nothing is more important than providing our students with these capabilities.

Today marks the conclusion of the annual conference of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).  This year’s theme,  Because Shift Happens: Teaching in the 21st Century, and this month’s issue of the Council Chronicle each emphasized the importance of rethinking our approach to literacy.  NCTE’s online feature, More Thoughts on 21st Century Literacies, includes this observation from Ernest Morrell:

[There are} three major differences between 20th and 21st century literacies: vastly greater communications technologies in the 21st century, such as the Internet, laptops, and iPods; rapidly changing demographics, with an increase in Latino and other minority populations; and a change in how students are expected to process information—critically, rather than simply regurgitating what they have consumed.

Earlier this month, Education Sector’s Elena Silva published Measuring Skills for the 21st Century.  Silva’s work provides a good overview of the need to teach complex thinking skills, examines several models for articulating 21st century skills,  and explores new assessment models. As Silva states in her report:

It is an emphasis on what students can do with knowledge, rather than what units of knowledge they have, that best describes the essence of 21st century skills.

While these are but three examples, it's worth noting that they all (1) come from reputable, national organizations, (2) were published within the last month, and (3) reflect a measure of consistency because they reference and build upon established frameworks.

Frameworks for 21st Century Skills

ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards have long served as a guide for improved teaching and learning.  As their website states,

ISTE standards for students, teachers, and administrators help to measure proficiency and set aspirational goals for the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to succeed in today’s Digital Age. Our proven leadership in developing these benchmarks and providing guidance in implementing them has resulted in broad adoption of the ISTE standards in the U.S. and in several countries.

The NETS for Teachers were revised in June of 2008.  The Student Standards, shown below, were a major influence is crafting our four 1:1 themes and describe, "what students should know and be able to do to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world."

Literacy requires mastering a skill-set, and the enGauge 21st Century Skills from the NCREL/Metri Group offers another model that articulates these important skills.  As their Skills Briefing states,

Advances in the cognitive sciences show that learning increases significantly when students are engaged in academic study through authentic, real-world experiences. The enGauge 21st Century Skills build on extensive bodies of research – as well as on calls from government, business, and industry for higher levels of workplace readiness – to define clearly what students need to thrive in today’s Digital Age.

Their four focus areas, Digital-Age Literacy, Inventive Thinking, Effective Communication, and High Productivity, "should be considered within the context of rigorous academic standards.  They are the bridge to authentic, intellectually challenging work by students."

A third, more detailed approach to defining literacy comes from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.  Their Framework for Learning includes both student outcomes (as represented by the arches of the rainbow) and support systems (as represented by the pools at the bottom):

The four student outcomes, Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes, Learning and Innovation Skills, Information, Media, and Technology Skills, and Life and Career Skills, when combined with the accompanying support systems, form a comprehensive model for defining and achieving 21st century literacy, the importance of which cannot be overstated:

Every child in American needs 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders in the 21st century. There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces. To successfully face rigorous higher education coursework, career challenges and a globally competitive workforce, U.S. schools must align classroom environments with real world environments by infusing 21st century skills into their teaching and learning.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

Although there is a demonstrated need for redefining literacy, and established frameworks can provide guidance, the complexity of the issue and process can be overwhelming.  The urgency heard from NCSS, NCTE, and others will not transform education until literacy can be easily internalized and applied.  To that end, we must adopt a literacy framework that meets the needs of our students.

Defining Emerging Literacies

Our Middle School academic leadership has been discussing the concept of 21st century learning, as have our counterparts in the Upper School.  A cohort of their teachers has reviewed the aforementioned resources and tentatively organized/categorized them into seven "Literacies of a Lifelong Learner":

• Basic Literacy
• Habits of Mind Literacy
• Visual/Media Literacy
• Information Literacy
• Intercultural Literacy
• Citizenship and Ethical Literacy
• Network Literacy

This schema, though early in its development, is a very thoughtful attempt at formulating "talking points for our internal culture."  Since we are a part of that culture, we need to consider how literacy, regardless of how it is framed, lives within our division.  As such, I would encourage you to spend some time reading and reflecting on what it means to be a literate student, and teacher, in 2008.

• OneNote: An Electronic Notebook
• Website Evaluation: Be a Critical Consumer
• Delicious: Social Bookmarking
• Effective Search Strategies: Keywords are Key
• Effective Search Strategies: Alternative Search Engines
• Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons: Rights and Responsibilities
• Photoshop Elements: Basic Image Editing
• Flickr: Photo Sharing Made Easy

As I stressed at the beginning of the year, a single course that meets eight times will not make anyone “literate” in the contemporary, digital sense.  Hopefully it was a good springboard, however, for utilizing these tools/techniques in the classroom and building our collective knowledge and skills.

Because this course was new and in direct response to our 1:1 Tablet PC initiative, students and faculty completed an end-of-course survey.  The results provide some keen insight into how well “Digital Literacy” met the learners’ needs and raise a few questions concerning how best to proceed in future years.  Eventually the complete survey will be shared internally, but for now here are a few of the key points I gleaned from the feedback.

Students Enjoy Adult Interaction

One unique aspect of this course was that the 7th grade faculty attended class with the students.  While I had hoped to establish a true culture of collaborative learners, the degree of student-teacher interaction was quite uneven.  Some sections were very participatory while in others it felt as though I were teaching two separate classes/groups simultaneously.  Survey comments indicated that the students enjoyed learning alongside their teachers when they could interact with them.

7th Graders CAN Be Organized

Anyone who has worked with adolescents (and boys in particular) knows that organization can be a challenge.  Colored tab dividers and multiple spiral notebooks are unmanageable for many of our students.  However, our shift to using OneNote for notetaking, iFolder for file storage and backup, and Interact for submitting and retreiving homework has helped more than 90% of our students feel better organized and in control of their learning resources.  Hearing students exclaim, “I like taking notes and can find all my stuff” is a rewarding (and previously unique) experience.

Online Texts Need to Evolve

While OneNote, iFolder, and Interact received near unanimous endorsements, opinions on online textbooks varied.  When asked if electronic textbooks were as good as or better than traditional books, students exhibited a range of responses:

Some e-texts are simply PDF versions of the hardcopy text while others include helpful links and multi-media.  Electronic texts will need to evolve toward the latter if they wish to be embraced by students and faculty.

Not Everyone is a Digital Native

Although we like to generalize that today’s students are indeed “Digital Natives” as Marc Prensky describes, we must acknowledge that this axiom is not applicable to all.  A small but vocal percentage of our students are not enamored and/or fluent with technology and would prefer, as one stated, “if computers would just go away and we could use pencil and paper again.”  While I don’t foresee that happening here any time soon, we should make an effort to identify and support those who, despite their age, are “Digital Immigrants” like ourselves.

Back to the Classroom

With rare exception, students and faculty felt the Digital Literacy course was a good addition to our curriculum and should be offered again next year.  While I am happy to assume that teaching responsibility, for the course to truly be effective requires that the themes I present find their way into other classrooms.  Learning to search effectively, evaluate websites, cite sources, manipulate images, and all the other skills take time and a meaningful connection to content to master.

Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future we’ll have outgrown the need for a Digital Literacy course because it will become part of the fabric of our curriculum.  For that to occur means that although the trimester has ended, the learning must continue.  Class, as they say, is dismissed…but certainly not over.

In framing our 1:1 program, we indentified four “themes” that will guide our thinking with respect to curriculum and instruction:

• Information Management and Research
• Digital Citizenship
• Communication and Collaboration in a Global World
• Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Design

Incorporating these four elements into our daily practice will go a long way toward ensuring that we are fostering a contemporary learning environment.  To this end, our Middle School is utilizing a three-stranded approach to the themes that includes a Digital Literacy course, classroom teachers, and our advisory program.

Digital Literacy 101

During the initial planning phases for 1:1, it quickly became apparent that the knowledge and skills of our students and faculty varied considerably.  Seventh grade is a major entry point for our school, and we welcomed a number of new teachers this year.  Recognizing the importance of consistency and the need for in-house professional development, the Digital Literacy course was conceived.

Meeting once every six days, all 7th grade students and faculty will cycle through a series of nine lessons that address fundamental aspects of digital literacy.  While teaching an entire grade level (10 sections) is a challenge, having students and teachers working together as learners in the classroom is a unique and invaluable experience.  As I explained on the first day of class, “The adults in this room are not here to observe; they are here to participate.  You will all learn with and from each other.”

Although the syllabus is based on our four themes, there is a heavy emphasis on Information Management and Research because those skills were identified as (1) of critical and immediate importance for students and (2) not being well understood by the faculty.   Starting later this week, I will share the results and details of our efforts as each lesson unfolds over the course of the trimester.

Digital Citizenship: A Way of Life

Digital Citizenship is perhaps the most important and difficult theme to effectively address with a school community; so many ideas, so many shareholders, so little time.  Wanting a sustainable approach that involved students, teachers, and parents, we are building a year-long advisory program based upon the work of Gerald Bailey and Mike Ribble.  In their book Digital Citizenship in Schools, Bailey and Ribble identify nine elements of Digital Citizenship that will guide our efforts:

Student Learning and Academic Performance
1. Digital Access: full electronic participation in society
2. Digital Literacy: the process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology
3. Digital Communication: electronic exchange of information

School Environment and Student Behavior
4. Digital Security & Safety: electronic precautions to guarantee safety/physical well-being in a digital technology world
5. Digital Etiquette: electronic standards of conduct or procedure
6. Digital Rights and Responsibilities: those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world

Student Life Outside the School Environment
7. Digital Commerce: electronic buying and selling of goods
8. Digital Health and Wellness: physical and psychological well-being
9. Digital Law: rights and restrictions

Each month, advisors will introduce one of the nine elements using the resources we’ve collected and created.  The conversation will then be carried home, and parents and children will explore and discuss the issue on a more personal level.  Taking this family-based insight back to the classroom, advisors and students can then relate how the 7th grade as a community understands and practices good digital citizenship.  Hopefully this school-home-school approach will make digital citizenship part of the fabric of our school’s culture and a way of life for our constituents.

Classroom Teachers: The Key to Success

For special courses and programs to truly be effective and have a lasting impact, they must find life within the content area classroom.  Our teachers are developing goals for the coming year, and our curriculum and pedagogy are evolving to reflect the resources at our disposal.  Change will not happen overnight, but the steps we’ve taken thus far show great potential.

We have adopted The Big6 as a unified research strategy.  Students are using blogs and wikis to communicate and collaborate in and out of the classroom.  DyKnow is emerging as an effective note-taking and formative assessment tool.  Systems modeling, digital cartography, storytelling, and a host of other tools/techniques are becoming part of the everyday Middle School experience. We are laying the groundwork for a 21st century education.

Begin…the Rest is Easy

As the year progresses, I’ll be using this space to share some of our stories from the classroom.  In time, I think we’ll find that instead of viewing our efforts in terms of three separate strands, the lines will blur as connections are established.  In the meantime, however, we have our plan and are prepared to see it through.  It may seem like a daunting task, but as I read in a fortune cookie not long ago, “Begin…the rest is easy.”

School has started…it’s time to begin.

More than a simple note-taking tool, DyKnow consists of two distinct components; Vision and Monitor.  DyKnow Vision fosters interaction and engagement in the classroom.  As described on their website, Vision allows teachers to:

• Instantly transmit prepared or extemporaneous content to student computers for annotation
• Spark discussion by broadcasting a student’s screen
• Empower students to lead class and share work from their seats
• Poll students to quickly assess understanding and receiving immediate feedback
• Save class notes and audio recording on a central server where students can access and replay them anytime, anywhere

DyKnow Monitor is a management tool that helps teachers maintain control in a digital environment.  DyKnow’s website highlights some of Monitor’s many features:

• View thumbnail images of student screens
• Block non-curricular applications and URLs
• Lock the keyboards and mice on specific computers
• Take remote control of a student’s workstation
• Monitor lab or mobile computers using class rosters, computer locations, or both
• Reduce administrative requirements while allowing hundreds of computers to be monitored in wired and wireless environments

This summer, DyKnow completely updated their user interface to give it a more “Office 2007-like” feel and the learning curve for utilizing Vision and Monitor is very gentle.  Courses are pre-populated, log-in credentials are consistent with other school applications, and notebook are saved to our webserver.  Anyone comfortable with the Tablet PC can start creating content within minutes and PowerPoint users can import existing work with one mouse-click.  From the student perspective, learning to use DyKnow only takes a few minutes; it is truly a user-friendly application.

The ability to change the lecture/note-taking enviroment from “human photocopying” into human dialog, the formative assessment capabilities of Vision, and the management features of Monitor make DyKnow a “must try” for anyone involved in our 1:1 Tablet program.   If you missed the training sessions this summer and/or would like more information, please check out the DyKnow overview video and let me know when you’d like to give it a try in your classroom.  I think you’ll find the experience will be of great benefit to you and your students.

Although Interact is a full featured elearning platform something akin to Moodle, at this point we are utilizing it solely for collecting and returning student work.  Of the many options available, we selected Interact because it is simple, secure, and being web-based, will even work for teachers and students who aren’t part of the 1:1 program.

Document exchange through Interact is similar to working with e-mail attachments but with a few major advantages.  First, when students upload homework to their Interact course(s), they have a time-stamped, electronic record (and copy) of their submitted assignments; no worries about lost e-mails or missing attachments.  When teachers are ready to begin grading, student work for each course can be downloaded en masse as a zip file; one “save as” collects all the students’ assigments.  When the individual documents are opened and inked (i.e. graded), the student’s name is automatically appended to the file name; no worries about keeping track of what belongs to whom.

Getting started with Interact only takes a few minutes and ultimately will save time and materials as we move toward an efficient, paperless environment.  For more information, you can follow this simple tutorial or contact me for further assistance.

iFolder: Backup and Remote Access

Remote access and data backup are two of the most important issues in any mobile environment.  Network shares, drive mapping, and VPN can be cumbersome, however, and systems that don’t work smoothly won’t get used.  Novell’s iFolder system offers an elegant, free alternative.  As described on their website, “iFolder is a simple and secure storage solution that can increase your productivity by enabling you to back up, access and manage your personal files-from anywhere, at any time. Once you have installed iFolder, you simply save your files locally-as you have always done-and iFolder automatically updates the files on a network server and delivers them to the other machines you use.”

Once configured, any local folder can be converted to an iFolder.  Fom this point, there is no learning curve; users simply work with their files and synchronization occurs automatically.  Unlike some backup solutions, iFolder only syncs the data that has been changed, and users can create and share folders with each other.  If disaster should strike and a computer needs to be reimaged/replaced, the iFolder data will download to the new machine upon startup (having experienced this myself, I must say the process couldn’t be any easier).

It Only Works If You Use It

Although iFolder is a nearly fool-proof system that even our youngest students can use, it only works when files are saved in the correct location.  As we migrate to this new tool, we must remind our students (and ourselves) to put data where it belongs.  Losing important files is a hard lesson that nobody needs to learn!