Archive for the ‘Educational Technology’ Category

Groundbreaking Research Findings: Project Red Early Results

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Project Red’s early results are in. They provide a peak into what is happening in technology rich school environments around critical success factors.  Findings directly speak to ‘Race to the Top’ criteria of ‘Teacher and Principal Reform’ which is 28% (highest value) of the grading criteria.

It is recognized that properly implemented ubiquitous technology (UT) in schools positively impacts student achievement, transformation of teaching and learning, and the overall education system’s efficiency/cost effectiveness.

One of the Project Red goals is to identify models of best practice in UT schools that lead to the above findings.  We are seeing preliminary trends in technology rich schools relative to leadership, professional learning for teachers and administrators, funding, problem-based teaching and learning, ed tech sustainability and funding.

Following is an overview of these initial findings.

Teacher Professional Learning in Technology Rich Schools

Seventy-seven percent of the UT schools indicated that teachers’ professional learning has been very well and adequately implemented.  To transform from traditional to student-centered teaching and learning, the professionals need consistent, high quality opportunities to grow and learn how to make the shift.  In these schools, this has been clearly a top priority.

Rate of Effectiveness of Teachers’ Professional Learning in UT Schools

Use of Problem-Based Learning in Technology Rich Schools

Twenty-six percent of UT schools engage problem-based learning activities many times a day and daily.  32.3% do so on a weekly basis.  Problem-based learning is a strategy for integrating 21st century skill development within curriculum and instruction.  This technique engages collaboration, projects, high level thinking and strategizing within content areas.

Rate of Problem-Based Learning Use in UT Schools

Principal’s Professional Learning in Technology Rich Schools

Leadership is the single most important factor for transforming schools.  To lead the required changes, unique professional growth experiences are needed.  It is significant that the Project Red identified UT schools demonstrate strong commitment to the principals’ ongoing training opportunities.  Thirty-eight percent of UT principals are engaged in ongoing professional development.  11% participated in short or long term courses.

Principals’ Professional Learning In Technology Rich Schools

Funding Sources for Technology Rich Schools

One hundred percent of the identified ubiquitous technology schools are funded through the district’s operating or capital outlay budgets. 38% are funded through state or federal competitive grants.  Demonstrated here is ubiquitous technology schools’ district or school level commitment of existing funds to implement the vision.  Allocation of operating and capital outlay budgets indicates internal control for present and future funding.  Reliance on grants (soft money) to fund these initiatives comes with greater uncertainty for long term sustainability.  Grants are not long term resource solutions and rely on others’ decision making to provide funding to districts/schools.

Stay tuned as the Project Red team continues to provide early insights into this groundbreaking research project!!

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Project RED Partners with Project Tomorrow

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Project RED has just announced a strategic partnership with Project Tomorrow, well known for its Speak Up surveys, in which the two organizations will review common results with an eye to creating a richer data set with information from both sources.

“We are looking at how teaching and learning practices by both principals and teachers lead to improved learning and financial savings,” says Jeanne Hayes, one of the co-authors of Project RED. “Partnering with Project Tomorrow makes sense since we can compare the difference in learning practices as described by school principals with opinions about school technology by their student respondents.”

According to Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, “Since our goal is to prepare today’s students to be tomorrow’s innovators, Speak Up has always focused on students’ aspirations and views on technology in learning. We believe comparing the Speak Up survey findings to those of Project RED may lead to some interesting comparisons of technology-rich schools to others.”

Both surveys are offered online with Dec. 2009 deadlines. Take the Project Tomorrow survey by Dec. 23 and the Project RED survey by Dec. 31.

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Groundbreaking Research: Project Red Early Results Are In!

Monday, December 7th, 2009

by Leslie Wilson

Project Red’s early results are in. They provide a peak into what is happening in technology rich school environments around critical success factors.  Findings directly speak to ‘Race to the Top’ criteria of ‘Teacher and Principal Reform’ which is 28% (highest value) of the grading criteria.

It is recognized that properly implemented ubiquitous technology (UT) in schools positively impacts student achievement, transformation of teaching and learning, and the overall education system’s efficiency/cost effectiveness.

One of the Project Red goals is to identify models of best practice in UT schools that lead to the above findings.  We are seeing preliminary trends in technology rich schools relative to leadership, professional learning for teachers and administrators, funding, problem-based teaching and learning, ed tech sustainability and funding.

Following is an overview of these initial findings.

Teacher Professional Learning in Technology Rich Schools

Seventy-seven percent of the UT schools indicated that teachers’ professional learning has been very well and adequately implemented.  To transform from traditional to student-centered teaching and learning, the professionals need consistent, high quality opportunities to grow and learn how to make the shift.  In these schools, this has been clearly a top priority.

Rate of Effectiveness of Teachers’ Professional Learning in UT Schools

Use of Problem-Based Learning in Technology Rich Schools

Twenty-six percent of UT schools engage problem-based learning activities many times a day and daily.  32.3% do so on a weekly basis.  Problem-based learning is a strategy for integrating 21st century skill development within curriculum and instruction.  This technique engages collaboration, projects, high level thinking and strategizing within content areas.

Rate of Problem-Based Learning Use in UT Schools

Principal’s Professional Learning in Technology Rich Schools

Leadership is the single most important factor for transforming schools.  To lead the required changes, unique professional growth experiences are needed.  It is significant that the Project Red identified UT schools demonstrate strong commitment to the principals’ ongoing training opportunities.  Thirty-eight percent of UT principals are engaged in ongoing professional development.  11% participated in short or long term courses.

Principals’ Professional Learning In Technology Rich Schools

Funding Sources for Technology Rich Schools

One hundred percent of the identified ubiquitous technology schools are funded through the district’s operating or capital outlay budgets. 38% are funded through state or federal competitive grants.  Demonstrated here is ubiquitous technology schools’ district or school level commitment of existing funds to implement the vision. Allocation of operating and capital outlay budgets indicates internal control for present and future funding. Reliance on grants (soft money) to fund these initiatives comes with greater uncertainty for long term sustainability.  Grants are not long term resource solutions and rely on others’ decision making to provide funding to districts/schools.

Stay tuned as the Project Red team continues to provide early insights into this groundbreaking research project!!

Posted in Educational Technology | 1 Comment »

Project Red Presentation from the Technology & Learning 2009 Conference in Denver

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Learn more about how Project Red is Revolutionizing Education.

With your help and participation:

  • We’ll see dramatic improvements in student achievement — statewide.
  • Education Technology funding will be substantially increased and will be a standard line item of budgets, less susceptible to whimsical cuts.

Join Project Red by encouraging schools and districts you are associated with to take the survey.

Click here to view the full presentation.

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Which State has the Most Technology-Rich Schools?

Monday, October 5th, 2009

It’s not California.  In fact, California, our most populous state, has fewer than 2% of schools with computing devices available for most students.

States with the most technology-rich schools:

  1. Texas
  2. New York
  3. Florida
  4. Ohio
  5. Illinois

“It is not surprising that Texas has more high-technology schools than anyone else. Their leadership in using technology goes back to the early 90s and has continued since then, “ said Jeanne Hayes, one of the authors of the Project Red initiative. “What is more surprising is that California, with 12.5% of the U.S. student population, has so few schools in the database. “

The Project RED Team is conducting a national survey of schools with computing devices for almost every student to see if teaching and learning practices are changing with the infusion of technology.  If you are a school principal of a technology-rich school, please click here.

Not surprisingly, the top-ranked states have very large student populations;  in fact, these five states enroll 29% of all students in U.S. schools.

States with the highest percentage of technology-rich schools:

Rural states with a history of distance learning seem to have invested more heavily in computing devices for each student than most.

For all fifty states,  5% of schools  have invested in computing devices for  each student.  In South Dakota, on the other hand, 24% of schools have made this investment.

See where your state ranks on technology-rich schools. Click here to see the chart.

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Transforming Schools for the 21st Century

Friday, September 25th, 2009

by Leslie Wilson

We know the imperative for schools to ‘build’ their 21st century teaching and learning environments. This change for schools is tough stuff. If you are a pioneer in the use of robust technology integration then you are likely familiar with the complexities. This isn’t the kind of mission you take on because it looks good or it is the ‘next big thing’.

You know that your school must transform to be a viable preparatory ground for today’s and tomorrow’s students. You know that these students will enter a rapidly changing global marketplace. They need to be prepared to engage and succeed.

It isn’t easy work. In fact, it is wrought with chaos, trial and error, adjusting, clarifying and problem-solving-much like the ‘real’ world. Those engaged in this work are overhauling education’s culture. It can be agonizing on many levels. Teachers, using a variety of technology tools and resources, are regularly learning new techniques and experimenting as they hone their craft. Administrators champion the vision. They must be visible supporters who model meaningful technology use, participate in finding resources, support and ensuring ongoing professional learning. Technology personnel work at a fevered pitch to ensure consistently functional networks, manage trouble-shooting protocols, hardware, and software. Success depends of the careful weaving of this team.

You are significantly changing the culture of education. You are guided by where schools need to go not by where schools have been. It’s a messy process. You can’t look back at ‘how things used to be’ (rearview mirror gazing). The speed at which information moves dictates your looking forward and forging ahead (the window of the future).

So what helps this process? How can you expand your critical mass? How can you help others ‘care’ enough to move their school into the future? Following are a few ideas.

  • Consistently communicate about education technology goals, at all levels.

  • Collaborate a shared education technology vision among stakeholders.

  • Include ongoing funding/resources as part of that vision.

  • Engage skeptics by listening to and addressing their issues.

  • Identify unfounded reasons for dissension and disapproval by providing facts and research about education technology and the global marketplace.

  • Help recalcitrant staff identify their fears and encourage them to take risks.

  • Provide opportunities for disbelievers to observe teachers and students who have successfully integrated technology, curriculum and instruction.

  • Create cadres of teachers who support and problem-solve with one another as they increasingly implement technology tools.

  • Provide for formative and summative evaluation of education technology efforts. Honestly report findings and adjust where needed.

Key considerations in the impact of culture change are: the kind of education technology being implemented, who and how many are involved, leadership capacity, stake-holder understanding and buy-in, short and long range planning, goals and sustainability. No one person in the school/district/state can facilitate these factors. It must be a collaborative, ongoing team approach.

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Technology Tools – The Need for Transparency

Friday, September 25th, 2009

By Leslie A. Wilson

“The most profound technologies are those that disappear, that weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable in it,” said Mark Weiser, 1991, in “The Computer for the 21st Century” in Scientific American. Today’s learners, tomorrow’s job candidates, will be assessed on knowledge and skills needed in an information-driven market. A focus on the development of high quality ‘information-age adept’ works is crucial to the country’s future. This helps us realize why ‘meaningful’ versus ‘low level’ technology application in the classroom is important.

Students exiting high school and higher education need to demonstrate proficiencies not only in technology tool usage but in relevant applications. That relevancy will come about only when teachers have seamlessly woven appropriate tools with curriculum and instruction. High quality, ongoing, scheduled professional learning in this focused area is essential.

Postman (1996) said that technology should be used as an object of inquiry. It is important to understand how we might use technology and also how we are used by technology. We need to embrace technologies that are specifically useful because the design qualities call on higher order thinking and problem solving….where students have reason to explore and to learn by discovery. Technology that calls upon students’ investigative, research and exploration can be well guided by the teachers. In the same sense, technology can be used to solve many difficult tasks such as data analysis, synthesis and program development.

Educators are fortunate to be honing their practice during the information age. It is a time of opportunity to facilitate remarkable student access to discovery and knowledge exchange, communication, self-directed learning and instructing. We recognize those as the ever-present and discussed ‘21st century skills’.

Applied to real-life contribution, these 21st century talents are key to the future of individual’s success and to our country’s competitive edge. There are ever emerging technologies that empower classrooms to be learner-centered and controlled, self-paced and directed, any time, and anywhere. These technologies provide the chance for ongoing assessments, interactions and teacher feedback to individual learners. These authentic learning environments are the foundation of education transformation.

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Really ‘Retooling’

Friday, September 25th, 2009


by Leslie Wilson

We educators throw around terms such as ‘transformation’ and ‘reform’ when discussing the need for meaningful integration of education and technology.  The heart of the matter is that those who are truly engaging ubiquitous technology had to rethink and REALLY retool their craft and skill set to successfully move into the 21st century market of expectations.  They have created innovative practices that run parallel to what they knew as past pedagogy.  Brain research tells us that when adults purposely develop ‘new’ habits, they cause new brain cells to emerge which brings about new, innovative thought processes. These are significant for 21st and 22nd century classrooms.

Consider the fact that traditional education settings and practices (those from the 19th and 20th centuries) had been indoctrinated across schools’ community boundaries.  Rote routine became a country-wide ‘habit’.  All that became comfortable and held anticipated routines. The introduction of technology, let alone seamless integration with curriculum and instruction, created discomfort and territory unknown.  The innovative practices brought about by the fusion of education and technology creates many possibilities.  Those lead to wonder and creativity which are crucial 21st and 22nd century skills.  One can understand the significance of teachers’ modeling of these qualities among their learners.

Researchers from the ’60s found that by puberty, humans’ brains shut down half of their original capacity for collaboration and innovation for problem-solving.  I believe that educators who have jumped into the education technology frontier have built their professional capacity to such a high degree that their new ‘habits’ around teaching and learning are truly compelling and moving the education profession by leaps and bounds.  It is this scenario about which educators speak when discussing ‘transforming’ and ‘reforming’ schools.  Retooling and building new ‘habits’ have been crucial to the education industry.

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