What We're Not Getting About Tech Integration

Technology integration will not save schools.  It will not make teachers into super-teachers.  It will not raise the IQ points of students or necessarily their test scores.  These are feats created by human expertise and interaction.  But, what it will do is to help maximize the potential of every person in the building with access and that is why it is important for our schools.

At every turn in history, whenever advancement comes, it is pooh-poohed or treated as charlatanism.  Reading and writing evolved from being evil, to being useless, to being revered.  And, we can see the same pattern emerge over time with many other things that we now overlook as "normal" in our every day lives.  Yet, here we are again, facing another innovation with the same drudgery that school officials looked upon at the introduction of pens and papers to classrooms, and we ask if technology is necessary.

Technology integration provides opportunities that have not existed previously times and has the potential to create real innovation in our concepts of instruction and schooling.  Unfortunately, we seem to lack the imagination to really embrace this.

Time.  Is the most valuable thing in schools, and there isn't enough of it.  You can't get more time, but you can free more of it up.  Technology integration has the ability to automate processes that take time away from administrators, teachers, and students.

File sharing instead of copying.  Auto-reviewing instead of personal review.  Data dashboards instead of data review and collation.  Feedback systems.  Responsive systems that create individualized paths.  Videoconferencing instead of driving to meetings.  Collaborative documents instead of downloading, meeting, uploading, and repeat.

And, what can you do with the time?  Anything that you would like.  Additional time has the potential to improve student achievement and outcomes, and it is the number one thing that everyone says that they need to improve student outcomes.

Enhancement and augmentation.  There is more than one way to skin a cat and individual differences matter.  We talk about literacy and numeracy but we deny many of the aides available by skipping the technology.  Interactive texts, multiple representations, and responsive platforms are available but not in use.  Each of these innovations has some type of research base that demonstrates that they improve student learning and can serve as effective interventions, but we're not using them because we don't have the technology.

Even more interesting is that these aides are available to ALL students and not just students with disabilities, which opens us up to the possibility that literacy and numeracy as we know them will continue to evolve with people using a variety of strategies that maximize their own skills and abilities.  We can expect that this will become a challenge to "traditional" notions of literacy and numeracy as well as to assessment.

Will colleges or workplaces care if students prefer to listen to a text, read a text as its highlighted, or to watch a video version if the student can demonstrate comprehension?  So, why do we?  Will colleges or workplaces care if students write texts using combinations of speech to text applications and grammar correction apps if the product is good?  So, why do we?

Technology integration makes it possible for everyone to rely more on their strengths and to supplement their weaknesses.  Hence the catchphrase, "there's an app for that".

Hybridization of the school-world and the real-world.  Technology allows us to reach beyond our immediate spaces.  We can find information.  We can connect with others.  We can recognize shared problems and solve those problems together.

This isn't to say that our teachers and students should be engage online at all times but to point out the vast number of prospects that are available simply by having the technology available.  In the past few years, we have already seen the ability of young people to contribute innovation to different fields (http://www.oddee.com/item_99064.aspx).  We see heartwarming stories of students able to reach out to their real life mentors and celebrities who make a difference in their lives, and, more importantly to interact with those individual academically, enhancing and solidifying their academic experiences.

We preach that we want this to be a norm, but we aren't necessarily providing the tools to make it a reality.

As important as technology integration is, we can't overlook people.  The people usage of technology in our school is what defines the value of the integration; however, without the technology, how will schools ever advance?  We are in a learning phase in schools - a phase that unfortunately lags behind the world that we are trying to "prepare" our students to enter.  Colleges and workplaces are technology integrated already, and we already see the innovations that occur happen quickly and frequently.  Colleges and workplaces are not static and are being defined by adaptability - an adaptability that we are not preparing teachers or students for.  And, among the least prepared, will be our low-income students whose families can't afford home technology or continuous, uninterrupted access to smartphones, which are looked upon by many as a "staple" possession.

So, we may not know everything there is to know about technology integration or it's impact on school outcomes, but we do know that the world will keep progressing technologically, while our schools may or may not.

As an administrator, I've been questioned about my focus on technology in schools, and I can share this with everyone.  This year, my school went 1:1, and I have seen a slow evolution building in our classrooms - I see more students engaged, I see teachers changing their approaches to teaching (because they can), and I see collaboration, not only among the adults, not only among the students, but also between the adults and the students.  It starts off small and then it starts to spread.

From what I have seen, I do not believe that technology integration, by itself, will improve my school's outcomes, but I do believe that the people, in my building, using that technology, will.  And, that their success will come as a result of me believing in them and providing them with the tools and space to innovate.  Every day that I walk into the building, I am just beginning to see what is possible and that is what many people do not get about technology integration.