My social media marketing experiment and what it means for education.

OriginallyPosted on Edtech Digest
CLASSROOM 21 | by Greg Limperis
A few months, ago I was trolling Twitter like I used to do only occasionally. You see, there was talk in February in my district that we were short on funding and due to that shortfall there would be cutbacks at our central office in order to ensure the money needed would still make it out to the schools. With this in mind, I decided to look at possibilities for employment on Twitter just in case I needed a new position. While trolling through Twitter, I came across a Tweet from Vala Afshar, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Chief Customer Officer (CCO) of Enterasys. Vala and I go way back to my freshman year in my undergrad days of college when we were good friends while I was majoring in engineering. The next school year, I switched majors and we went our separate ways as engineering just was not my thing. That is a story for another time and place. Well, as time passed, Vala moved on to a very successful career at Enterasys and I have tried to follow it off and on, online. For those who do not know Enterasys, it does quite a bit of business in both higher education and K-12 helping to establish wired and wireless network and infrastructure solutions. You may have seen their name if you went to a Patriots game recently; they were awarded the contract to set up the Wi-Fi for the New England Patriots.
Well, while reading Tweets one day in late February, I came across an interesting one from Vala. At the time, Vala stated that he was looking for a social media specialist that would be paid a six-figure salary and that the position would help drive the social media direction for the company. The unique thing about this position was that he would only accept interest in the position through a post on Twitter, and that he would look solely at a candidate’s digital footprints and not at any paper resume. To me, this idea sounded intriguing and a possible new direction in the future for companies as they approach the recruiting process. While possibly looking for a new position, I thought as a Supervisor of Instructional Technology and an edtech leader online, it might be good for me to at least attempt to be part of this process so as to share with you my experiences as we, as educators and professionals, attempt to prepare our students for a future not so obvious anymore.
As technology quickly evolves, we in education are given the task daily to prepare our students for jobs today that do not even exist yet and to prepare them to work on devices not even created or thought of. The world has begun to change rapidly and we have the task to prepare our students for that world. What a better way than for me to take part in this process and to report back to you how it went so we can start to prepare our students for this world. The only problem with this philosophy was that I have little to no business experience. You see, I have been an educator for nearly twenty years now and my only experience with social media is what I have done with you people in my professional learning network the past five years. I had no experience leading the social media platform for any company — let alone in a position that commanded a six-figure salary.
Vala was looking for candidates to have a minimum Klout score above 60, a minimum Kred influence score of 725, a Kred outreach of at least eight, and more than 1,000 active Twitter followers in order to be considered. Many of these requirements I had through my website Technology Integration in Education but not through myself personally. If you were to look up my personal profile, at the time, you would have found that I was nowhere near there. At the time of the posting, I had not personally been active on Twitter and had no idea what a Kred or Klout score was, but was able to quickly Google it and found out that my site fit the criteria. As I read Vala’s post soon after he posted it online, I reached out to him telling him that it sounded interesting but without seeing what he was willing to pay a person for this position I felt that it might not be worth my time seeing what I was currently making. Vala informed me that I would be surprised that he was going to be offering a six-figure salary and, after a little bit of back and forth, he informed me that he would consider my website’s social presence in his search for a candidate as a reflection on me. In one of his posts, he also stated that he would reserve a spot in the interview process guaranteeing an interview for that person who had the most social endorsements.
Here is where the power of social came in. After spending five years building a social network online on LinkedIn and my own website, I reached out to my nearly 25,000 members of my various networks seeking their endorsement of what I do socially online. I was not looking for any endorsement of my character nor my work ethic but instead merely an endorsement of my ability to establish a social outreach. Many of them complied and tweeted out the necessary tweet to Vala in order to help get me an interview with the company even though I lacked any formal business experience outside of education.
During the time of vetting candidates by Enterasys, I made it my mission to raise my personal profile up to also meet the requirements for interview and not to rely on my website standings or on endorsements alone. I began to tweet more under my name and recommended to my followers on LinkedIn and in my group to now follow me on Twitter as well. By the time of the interviews I had raised my personal following to over 1,000 active followers and my Kred and Klout score to nearly or at where they needed to be. Thanks to all of the personal endorsements, I was also the candidate who secured the most endorsements, guaranteeing me an interview with the company, anyway. At the time, little did I know that I was one of 150 candidates and was whittled down to one of 15 finalists!
No resume was ever sent in and tweets were exchanged amongst candidates and Enterasys touting our digital accolades — from awards won, blog posts, websites created, groups formed, professional networks established, social outreach, work accolades and accomplishment — all found by Vala scouring candidates’ digital footprints. To me, this seemed like an ideal way to weed out unqualified candidates. It was also an excellent way for a candidate like me to know who my competition was because we either had to publicly acknowledge our candidacy online or Direct Message the company. I could see their digital footprint and they could see mine. I knew who the candidates were who were willing to publicly announce their intentions but not the ones who direct messaged Enterasys. I was able to see what my competition had done and compare it to what I had done. I also was able to see what I needed to do if I was going to compare to them.
For a month, it was a time to establish new connections, even with some of the other candidates themselves, as we waited for opportunities to interview with the company. We began to grow and learn from each other. The process was amazing. I was able to see their passion and they could see mine. By looking at what these candidates did for a current job and to see times of the day and days of the week that they were devoting to posting and sharing online digitally, I started to get a sense of who everyone was and what their passions were and what their work ethic was like. I got a chance to know candidates well before I even knew who they really were.
By the time April came around, I had established a few connections with other candidates for the position and we were wishing each other luck on our perspective interviews with the company. From Zachary Jeans to Ari Herzog, I had developed connections and friendships with my competition — all of this being something that would never have happened through the usual paper resume.
The process was exciting. I was invited in to interview with Enterasys and I spent a good three hours or so talking with various members of the company. I was given a tour of the facility and I was able to meet up with my old friend Vala. In the end though, I was not given the position. They hired Bilal Jaffrey who came to them with much more business experience than I ever could have had working in education for so long. And that was okay; he deserved the position. Although the process was fun and exciting, it was great to be on the leading edge of what I am sure one day will be the norm for hiring everywhere.
My eyes have been opened on how important it is that we help our students establish good digital footprints. We as educators have to prepare our students for a digitally social world, one that can no longer be ignored or we will simply be doing them a disservice. My digital footprint mattered. It helped me to become a finalist for a position that, in the past, I would never have even been considered for.
I have since talked with Vala and he agrees that this process is the way to go and that he will probably, from now on, only hire this way. The digital footprint tells you so much more about a candidate than two sheets of paper ever could. Nothing, of course, will ever replace meeting and talking with a candidate face to face, but, hey — I never said the interview process had changed, just how they decided to determine whom they would interview. I was a candidate thanks to my social profile, more than my “two pages of paper”. Our students will be, too. Decisions will be made about them as people Google their name. Are we preparing them for a world like this, or are we ignoring it and hoping that how they perform on standardized tests is all that matters?
Someday soon, I know I will be a part of the process where I am deciding on and selecting candidates for positions based on a body of work spelled out for me via the Internet instead of by two sheets of paper. The world is digital now, so let’s embrace it.
Thanks Enterasys, for the opportunity. I hope we connect again in the future really soon as we work together to bring about global social change.

Funding EdTech in the 21st Century

Out of Control

Origionally posted on EdTechDigest.com

 

The ever spiraling madness of funding, financing and technology
CLASSROOM 21 | by Greg Limperis

The times they are a changin’.  It used to be, the only thing you had to worry about budgeting for in education besides the usual cost in personnel, infrastructure and maintenance — was textbooks. I know, I have simplified this list — but let me digress. Today there is an ever growing need for schools to go digital, but how to do so and to fund it properly is a growing problem that is quickly spiraling out of control.  Let me explain.

You see, the talk in education is the knowledge that it is in the students’ best interest if the school or district could find a way to put an Internet capable device in the hand of each child. Yes, what we are talking about is the ever so popular adage “going one-to-one.” Just think of the possibilities. We give every child in our school or district a device that can connect them to the ever changing world instantly. From flipping the classroom, to MOOCs to virtual field trips and so much more.  The options are truly endless.  We can make learning, fun, engaging, personalized and well expensive.
Let’s face it, one-to-one is expensive and the ever popular question keeps popping up in schools worldwide, how do we fund it?  According to Doug Johnson of Educational Leadership magazine, in the December 2011/January 2012 issue, “schools in the United States spend a lot of money on education technology—estimated then to be $56 billion dollars—36 percent of which is spent in K–12 education.”¹
Just think of how much tablet demand has increased this number since then.  I am sure the amount has gone up.  Also, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2010, “total spending was $524.0 billion, of which $317.8 billion went to instruction and $179.0 billion to support services, such as school bus transportation and the operation and maintenance of school buildings and equipment. Per pupil expenditures amounted to $10,615 with great variation among the states. The District of Columbia led all states at $18,667 followed by New York ($18,618).”²
Looking at the statistics from the two links provided, that works out to be a staggering 26.5 percent of per pupil expenditure is on technology purchases. That is huge. With State and Federal Governments helping to defray some of this cost, coupled with CIPA regulations impacting e-rate funding, there is little margin for error. How do schools get this right and how do they do it without losing funding is the real concern.
There are so many unanswered questions. Which device is best and what do you give up or gain by using the device you choose? Do we have the infrastructure to support this initiative? Do we have enough broadband? Do we have enough access points to truly be wireless everywhere on our campuses or will we have dead spots? Do we qualify for e-rate funding?

With e-rate funding comes the ever added pressure of ensure you comply with CIPA regulations.  Often this fear of losing e-rate funding often can come to seem like educators are making “ill-informed policies that are widening the digital divide”. As Vala Afshar states in this same article:

The learning benefits of social media are far too great to restrict it out of hand by applying a conservative interpretation of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Instead, do your homework; gather data by talking with teachers, and test it first-hand.³

So we need to ensure we plan, talk with people and ensure we are compliant. We need to seek alternative forms of funding to fill in the gaps of what e-rate funding does not cover that leaves us coming up short in funding any new educational technology initiative. Competition for these funds is fierce. Can we get towns to raise taxes to cover it? Will parents agree to offset costs incurred by a one to one plan? Can we find unique ways to get the community to assist?
Ok, so let’s say we decide to go to a BYOD policy, new questions arise? What happens if I depend on a student to bring their own devise daily and they forget it, what can they use for the day? What happens if their device get broken, who will fix it so they can continue to participate with the class? How do I control what they bring pre-loaded onto their own device so it is not violating CIPA regulations and or is not a distraction or offensive to others in class? How well did we plan so our AUP is prepared for these questions? What do we do one a device goes missing?
As you can see, there is so much a school system needs to think about, plan for, and plan about before it even can approach funding these issues. It is no surprise why some just choose to avoid it all together with so much more that we have to worry about in education such as raising test scores.
It is going to take true leaders with real vision to see that we need to make these efforts, we need to do this planning, we have to talk and get everyone including parents, community and industry believing that if we want to move our students forward and to prepare them for the future, no minute can be wasted as we try to find ways to make technology funding real and sustainable.
“If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”  —Benjamin Franklin
—
Notes

^{1. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec11/vol69/num04/Stretching-Your-Technology-Dollar.aspx#fn1}

^2. http://blogs.census.gov/2012/06/21/education-funding-where-do-schools-get-their-money-how-do-they-spend-it/

3.  Are Your Ill-Informed Policies Widening The Digital Divide?, Vala Afshar, 4/15/2013, Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/your-illinformed-policies_b_3085514.html

Reluctant Time Travelers

Cross-Posted on April 11, 2013 by Greg Limperis

Life has changed, so why hasn’t education?
by Greg Limperis 
If I decide to dine out and I am not sure where, the first thing I do is google area restaurants on my smartphone—a few more taps and I’m making a reservation with the maître d’. If I’m shopping and grow curious about a particular product, I QR scan it and read up on all the details. When I’m simply walking about, if I see something I want to immortalize, I either snap a photo or start recording video. Further, if I want to share any of that, I post it through a tweet, a Facebook share, or I pin it on Pinterest—and, as you can guess, I use my phone to do it. Just sitting at a Patriots game these days is a whole new experience. Through my phone, I attach to their wireless network and engage with the game in all new ways. I check live stats of not only the game I am watching, but other games too, and I keep up with my fantasy football team. I sit (not necessarily at a Pats game) and read books, articles and magazines, tweets, websites and more from my mobile device. Life for my family and I is mobile—and smart.
Just like my own digital-age students, I too have become extremely mobile. All of my productivity happens either using my cell phone or the tablet I carry with me wherever I go. Although I came into this world as an early adopter of technology, I’m certainly not a digital native in the true sense of the label. I wasn’t born into a world of computers and mobile technology—but I’ve learned to adapt and mold with it. My students were born into this world where mobile devices are the norm. Owning one or, for many, owning multiple devices—is simply assumed.
Each of my three kids own their own iPod touch. My two oldest girls own their own Kindle e-reader and tablet. My youngest (six-year-old) son is always using my iPad. The kids share a cell phone with a digital plan on it—and my wife and I each own our own smartphone which they often use to access online games, digital content—or to research various topics. There was a time when my smartphone had a wireless tether on it that would be turned on and a wireless network was created anywhere we went. But these days, with the right plan, there is unlimited freedom to tap into the Internet.
Great expectations
My kids, as do many others, expect to have this technology available—and they use it constantly. They do homework on it, they use the calculator on it, they research topics on it and they watch countless videos on it.  They compete and collaborate with each other through their electronic devices. They are Face Timing and Skyping friends and family both near and far.
Distance and borders—which use to be a hurdle for us to overcome, have all but disappeared. Through the use of social networks, soon their digital footprint will be one that starts to build and inform others of who they are and what they are passionate about and what they do about those passions. In my home, we constantly have discussions about what this means and how important it is to be mindful of it. You can probably relate to all of this.
All in all, my children are being prepared for life in a digital age, and yet—when they step through the front doors of their schools they might just as well be stepping through a portal into a long-gone age.
You see, schools are not opening their arms so quickly to this digital transformation.  They aren’t allowing students thanks to federal regulation to access the Internet completely.  Responsible digital citizenship is not talked about on a regular basis.  They are not collaborating with others from far away places instantly or using mobile devices to instantly access a world of information.
The mobile devices they have from home are not welcomed in schools because educators are not always sure how to deal with them.  What federal regulations might we be violating? What access to inappropriate material might they gain access to? Who is on our network? What are they doing on that network? What do we do to ensure equipment is not stolen, broken or lost? 
I fear trying to answer some of these many hard questions. It’s often easier just to say that the device is not allowed or blame an inadequate network that would not support them in the first place. This route can be expensive. Do we bring someone in to help us improve our network broadband and give us monitoring capabilities such as what Enterasys can provide? Do we invest in giving our students mobile devices such as iPad minis so we do not have to deal with the BYOD concerns as much or is their a happy medium we can afford?
Meanwhile, our students…
While we sit here and debate these issues, try to figure out spending and budget, and reevaluate our ability to support a major switch in the way our teachers teach and our students learn—don’t look now, but we are losing our students. They are becoming increasingly disengaged. This is not the world they are growing up in. Opening a textbook, reading a chapter and then answering some questions using paper and pencil are foreign to them and not something that will help to create a love of learning.  We must think of change for education—and we must do it now.
I do not have a problem with my students bringing in their electronic device if it means they will be engaged, excited about learning, that they will carry a lighter backpack because I will not need to buy them notebooks, pencils, etc., as often. The heavy, outdated textbook in the backpack is something as a parent that I will actually be glad to see go. I want my child to see life for what it has become. I want their learning to become more digital, as it is at home. I do not want them tied to it at all times—but I do want it to be a possibility while they are away from me.
It is time for education to change and to get with the times before the times change again and education continues to be something foreign and outdated because a lack of leadership insists on playing catch up to a time and a life that is way ahead of it. I am sure we can figure this out more quickly than we have, if we all agree that the classroom of today should look very little like it currently does in most our schools right now.

Technology and the Transformation of Education by Greg Limperis

Technology has the power to transform the way we teach if done correctly. With the advent of things such as interactive white boards, document cameras, student response systems, laptops, tablets, webcams, video recorders, digital cameras, cellphones, cloud based software, the Internet and much more proliferating our classrooms, has technology transformed education as we know it?

According to Google, transform can be defined as to make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of. If we were to look back in teaching thousands of years ago till

Female students sitting in desks in a classroom at Lane Technical High School circa 1928

today teaching has always been a group of students led and instructed by a sage in the front of the classroom. During this time, the elder who had lived life long enough to gain knowledge, experience and education themselves often would sit with students, usually in rows and impart on them this knowledge gained. This classroom usually has had very little interaction with others outside of the four classroom walls and has gained all of it knowledge from oral and written sources provided by other sages in textbooks or passed down written material. Guest brought in to speak often would impart their knowledge on students and answer questions from them but that guest was often someone who lived close enough to them and gave them little experience of the world they were growing up in but instead gave them a more local view.

Fast forward to today into the world of technology. With the advent of lesser expensive ubiquitous Internet connected devices it is easier to think technology has transformed the way or teachers teach and our students learn, but has it transformed education yet or simply changed it. Walking through schools within my school district, I often hear from my teachers that the interactive white boards, document cameras and student response systems we have provided them have transformed the way they teach. They give me hugs when I show up to fix technology that is not working correctly for them and tell me they do not know how they taught before without it. As I look around my schools though I still see a classroom similar to the ones described to me in my searches over the Internet on the history of teaching. In many of the classrooms I have seen, the teacher is still the sage at the front of the classroom and students are still sitting in rows, but today the change is starting to happen. Transformation of teaching is coming.

In the advent of Web 2.0, sages are no longer the only proliferators of educational content. These days, everyone, everywhere as long as they have a connection to the Internet is able to be a creator of content. With access to things such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more, it no long only is the adult, sage, or elder sharing content. Today our youth are collaborating together. With the advent of cell phones allowing us to constantly be connected together, curating of content is instant and the sharing just as quick. Through text messaging, streaming video, live audio and visual conversation, and much more our students are starting to need to no longer sit in rows.

Modern day classroom of students collaborating together.

Students are starting to collaborate together to curate, create and share content. They are sitting more in groups as opposed to rows. Yes they are still learning from a sage in the front of the classroom, but more and more they are learning from each other. They are posing questions of each other and the world around them and they are starting to connect with people outside of their classroom walls and engage with that world and learn from it in real time. The barriers of time and distance are becoming smaller. Through an ability to quickly connect with people over great distances, learning no longer happens within the four walls of our classroom during the days and hours of education. Learning is happening twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year. If a student wants to learn something new, a teacher is helpful but not essential. The world is becoming our teacher. Today, it is not unheard of that if you want to learn about something the easiest way to get the answer is to “Google It”.

Our students these days have begun to ask questions not only of their teacher of each other and of the world around them. Access to a world of knowledge is becoming expected and learning from a textbook is becoming history. The day of one person conveying knowledge to a classroom of many is becoming a thing of the past. Today education has begun that transformation. Thanks to technology, students are starting to seek the answers to questions themselves more. Look at the study done by Sigatra Mitra on The Child Driven Education presented at TED where children were left alone with a computer an Internet connection an nothing else. There was no teacher involved yet they were still able to teach themselves something. How many times have you heard a child say they learned something through YouTube? Today you no longer have to go to a University to get a world class education. The world of the MOOC or Massively Open Online Course is allowing education to happen anywhere and any time and for students to not only learn from the experts but also from each other.

Today, the educators are moving from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side. Through the use of collaboration brought about by technology, students are starting to pose questions of each other and the world around them and they are no long turning to the mentor in the front of the classroom for answers but instead to each other. They are connecting in ways never before possible. The transformation of education has begun and it will be interesting what the classroom of the future will look like.

What Makes EdTech Leaders Great?

Cross Posted on EdTech Digest  March 19, 2013 
by Greg Limperis

Looking for edtech leadership? Look no further than these words of wisdom  
CLASSROOM 21 | by Greg Limperis
Education technology leaders these days are in high demand. If you are looking for great edtech leaders, it helps to know what qualities to look for before deciding to settle on any one specific candidate. According to a Harvard Business Review article in 2004, a great leader needs more than intelligence, determination, toughness and vision—they also need a high degree of emotional intelligence, that is to say, the must also possess self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill.
These days, great edtech leaders need to put many of those Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills to work as they should possess a digital presence as well. Great edtech leaders stay current in their field and have a view towards the future knowing what is coming next in educational technology so to prepare students for the world they are growing up in.
Currently, educators need to prepare students today for jobs that do not even exist yet and doing so requires appropriate tools. Knowing which tools are best to use and how to use them is the responsibility of all educators but educators need to get their guidance from their edtech leaders. A great edtech leader, therefore, needs to be part of a Professional Learning Network (PLN) in order to stay current. Great edtech leaders need social skills in order to do this well. Being part of a PLN requires many of the EIs mentioned above.
I can attest from maintaining my own PLN while working full time that it is hard work and it requires self-awareness. What I say as an edtech leader online impacts what others think and do in their own profession, so being aware of moods, emotions and drives — and their effects on others — is essential in leading both my own teachers and others globally.
To do this well, one has to have self-confidence in what they suggest and recommend to others as being in the best interest of all students. With so much technology to choose from and a limited budget often to lead with, great edtech leaders often need to remember to lead with a self-deprecating sense of humor. We have to remember that we are not going to change education overnight because of technology use — nor should we.
Great edtech leaders need to possess trustworthiness, integrity and reliability. Educators need to rely on the fact that you will be there for them. Not every educator has the same comfort level with technology as you possess, so remember to always make yourself available to him or her. A great edtech leader ensures that other educators know that they are there for them and that they will lead next to them versus ahead of them. With so much that changes with educational technology daily, great leaders need to be comfortable with ambiguity. Things may not always be clear as to where edtech is going, but knowing where the technology can get us is essential. This may seem ambiguous that one needs to lead but not know where we are going when it comes to edtech, but today it is essential that we stay open to change because in edtech, things will change.
Great edtech leaders need to possess motivation to press on even when it seems impossible to do so. With shrinking budgets, limited time and the current state of education, great edtech leaders continue to lead in ways they know best and to get our educators the tools they need. Looking at one PLN may help one find that there are cheaper alternatives, cost-saving measures and self-motivating ways to achieve the same goals.
One of the most important qualities of a great edtech leader is empathy. Remember that great leaders know the deficiencies of those they lead and help them to get the skills that will make them better. Realize that most educators need the assistance you can provide but often are either too busy — or too embarrassed — to ask for it. We as educators are often thought to know the answers to everything and admitting that we do not have them can be difficult. Showing others that you are human just like them and that reaching the goal is a common endeavor and not a trip they need to travel alone will help to win over the trust and support that great leaders need. Doing so will help leaders to support, enhance and retain great talent. Remember always who your customers and clients are, and in doing so you will have belief that what you are doing is in the best interest of all involved.
Lastly, great edtech leaders need to be proficient in managing relationships both within their school system and globally as part of their PLN. These days, educators need to rely on each other to make their jobs less cumbersome. Remember, the wheel has already been invented and we do not need to reinvent it. Someone else has probably already done what we are attempting to do and maybe has done it even better.
* * *
BE S.O.C.I.A.L.  Chief Marketing Officer @ValaAfshar of Enterasys describes being a social leader as being S.O.C.I.A.L.: Sincere, Open, Collaborative, Interested, Authentic and Likable. Great edtech leaders are also S.O.C.I.A.L. leaders. They use their emotional intelligence to make sure that they are leading together and not alone. As an African proverb says, “If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”

Flipping Education

  Originally posted on February 20, 2013on Edtech Digest

As education follows the rest of the world to the cloud, there’s a new paradigm on the horizon
CLASSROOM 21 | by Greg Limperis
Things have to change in education, and soon. Everything’s moving to the cloud. For educators, this means a change in their method of curriculum delivery. What could possibly delay such a universal education transformation in this country? Universal access. Every school needs it: broadband and WiFi. And where, in the Industrial Age, it was workers prepared for work in factories — today, we need prepared educators for a Global Information Age.
Looking back, during the Industrial Age schools needed textbooks. Printing presses and the shipping industry got humming so all students, no matter how rural or inner-city, could access similar curriculum cheaply. That meant infrastructure: roads, school locations and so on. Over time, this became reality. With advancements in the auto and shipping industries, every school sooner or later was largely able to get their hands on great, affordable curriculum.
Once again, we stand at a crossroads. Today, all of the great curriculum and other education resources that are and will be delivered will be stored in the cloud. Textbook manufacturing? Rest in peace. The advent of a digital curriculum is now upon us. But access to this curriculum? This requires broadband or satellite connections. And this has become the true challenge for our country: can we give equitable access to every school? As soon as every school has access to broadband sufficient to support streaming on memory-intensive content such as video, audio and animation, then the next real challenge will be to outfit every school with WiFi so as to make this content portable.
Low-cost hardware is here. The future is upon us. We’re simply waiting for education to catch up. But if we truly want to provide our children with 21^st-century skills, then we must give them a 21^st-century schoolhouse: broadband must reach broadly, to all schools. If we can do it with electricity, then there’s certainly no logical reason that we can’t do it with broadband and satellite.
Do we want to truly transform education? We need to consider our priorities. For example, do we want to improve more physical roads or should we be improving our digital highways? During the last Great Depression, we built highways across America. So why, during the current downturn, can we not put people to work in building our much-needed digital highways? We must give everyone the same access.
Accomplish this, and the rest will follow. Textbooks replaced with e-books, and an e-reader in every child’s hands. Tablets? The norm. The cost and savings to our environment will push the issue, and moving in this direction is even now becoming our only real choice.
Devices will soon self-charge and run on solar power. Schools will become places of light where windows provide classrooms energy. School hours will maximize daylight and schools will run all year deploying stored energy gathered on site as needed. Green school buildings will maximize sun, wind, water and waste. They’ll be cooled and heated more naturally through proper placement of campus-grown vegetation. Rooftops will be places for plants; solar-paneled building sides will help. Captured rainwater will also produce power. Schools will look like homes, rows replaced by open meeting spaces and comfy couches. Small, quiet rooms will provide undistracted study and work areas. And, last but not least, the learning day will flip: what can be taught in a lesson period will take place during free time or evenings. ‘Home’ work and practice will take place in school, ensuring understanding and competence. Group projects will be the norm on interactive tabletops.
Thanks to this new broadband access, parents will work from their smart homes while students will be given the option to connect from home a few times per week if needed; no longer will they be required to physically attend every day of school. Parental support will also be more readily available. A constant connection to the child will be common in this new network of learning.
Tablets will replace backpacks; WiFi classrooms will connect students to unlimited learning tools and resources purchased in bulk by state departments of education and provided as options to schools all feeding into a network of central super computers.
Student performance data will be stored instantly on these super servers at state level and will eliminate the need for most current-day data reporting. State testing will become a thing of the past, replaced by real-time data of student work instantly available to administrators through proper network access. One will always be up on what the child knows and how they compare to their peers.
Digital portfolios of student work will be the norm. A digital footprint for students will be like fossils left in bedrock. All of their work from all of their schooling will be stored and tracked so as to monitor growth and provide immediate intervention as needed. And where will all of this be stored? In the cloud. New positions will open up at the state level for tracking and flagging deficiencies noted in students through online work alerts, notices pinged to educators along with the appropriate customized intervention plan in support of that particular child’s digital learning path.
Teachers will never be replaced — they will, however, evolve. The teacher will become something totally different, a facilitator of knowledge, helping to ensure student learning is accessible and ubiquitous and showing each student the way forward along each student’s own self-selected learning path. It’s time we start to think about the future of education — and to know that, in that future of abundant learning choices and considering where we are currently, we have no choice but to flip learning.

The Digital Revolt

Who is with me? Are you ready to revolt? I am not talking about a digital revolution, I want a revolt. I am tired of hearing we are not ready for that. It costs too much. We do not have the money. That could be dangerous.

Every time someone talks about a new EdTech initiative, the naysayers come out. They have a reason for everything. The teachers are not ready. Our students might do something or go some place we do not want them to go. Where are we going to get money for that? It is not fair and it does not make sense.

Every time you naysayers come out and suggest updating your textbooks, did I or anyone else complain and say where are we going to get money for that so much that you ended up not doing it? Did I or anyone else complain so much when you loaded my child's backpack up with books enough that he or she could barely walk? Did that stop you from giving them work to take home? Did I cry foul at the cost of materials so much that you ended up not buying any? How about the time when you instituted a new curriculum? Did I ever tell you we could never do it because our teacher's were not ready? I think all of you know these answers.

So I ask you my tech supporting friends, why do we put up with it and allow others to refuse us to implement that which we know really will change the way our teachers teach and our students learn? How much could it really cost? How hard would it really be to get our staff and students ready for it? Would it honestly be any more dangerous for our students then if we pretended it did not exist and then allow them to go home and use it unmonitored and uninformed.

How about if we did this? Let's revolt together and come up with a modern day school. What would it look like? What would we keep and what would thankfully go away? Do we need the agrarian schedule anymore? Does 8:00 am to 3:00 pm for all our students even work anymore? Could we have school that started at different times for different people?

Let's do it. Let's start a school that has no textbooks or paper books. Lets give out students nothing but a tablet and some great apps. Lets make every classroom wifi accessible. Maybe we could even have a few laptops available too. If we did away with most of the paper print there would be little ink to buy. No printer to be repaired. No heavy textbooks to carry around. All there would be would is one tablet and possibly a laptop. Ok we can have some sheets of paper floating around here and there in case we need it. Students, family and community would all connect to the school through a LMS website builder like Blackboard Engage. All digital forms and anything that was once done on paper will now be done there.

There would be no expensive CAT 5 wiring to run everywhere. The building will be wireless with a staff, student and visitor access point to the network everywhere. Connectivity will be king. The school will be social. Students and staff will be encouraged to be social online. We will tweet. We will have digital footprints.

All of this will not go without any training. On the contrary. There will not be countless hours of curriculum training, meetings, etc. It will not be face to face training though because training will happen anywhere and anytime thanks to social sites, video conferencing and access to online collaboration tools and sites. Instead, we will invest heavily in great EdTech trainers who will be available for support for all of our staff throughout the whole building all day long. They will also be our technicians who can and also fix things for us as needed. They will be adapt at both the tech and the Ed side. Instead of staff meetings we will have app meetings. We will share great technology resources all the time. Anything business related can be said online. After all, time in education is precious.

The day and the classroom will be flipped. The course offering will be individualized to each child's needs. They will be online and customized. Their will alway be access to content, resources and results live and online daily.

How much money will we save if we do not buy textbooks. There will be no need for notebooks, whiteboards and or paper resources. There will be no two to three computers in the back of every classroom. There will be no student response systems, no interactive whiteboards and definitely no document cameras. Every student will have an iPad and a stylus. Each tablet will be loaded with word processing and note taking apps.

Students will be expected to add other app and software themselves just as we currently expect them to buy notebooks, pencils, pens and other resources to help offset the cost. The teacher will have a laptop to help them with larger more intensive work that is not able to easily be accomplished on the tablet. Content will not be blocked. The Internet will be completely accessible but there will be extensive training for staff and students from day one on leaving a digital footprint. What is an acceptable use of technology? There will be an Acceptable Use Policy and it will be followed. Violation of it will not be tolerated.

School will be engaging. It will be collaborative. It will be fun. Think of the possibilities. What if we knew nothing of school and we were to start building one today. What would it look like? What would we use? How would we fund it? Why not have corporate schools? Schools funded by companies producing the workers they want. Competition for the best workers brought about by their own schools. Couldn't we get some companies to invest in this. Couldn't we make it so kids wanted to come so much that they competed to get into it. The options here are endless.

We need to stop talking and start doing. What are we waiting for. Change will come if you wait. Why wait. Let's bring change to those who want to think or talk about it. I do not want to be a thought leader. I want to be a do leader. How about you?

It Isn't a Game Anymore

Origionally posted on Edtech Digest

Are we putting our edtech efforts in the right place?
CLASSROOM 21 | by Greg Limperis
Almost twenty years ago, I went to college for my Masters in Education. Back then, there were people like I am now: halfway through their teaching careers teaching students while they themselves had no (or very little) experience with modern-day technology in their lives. For many of them, cutting-edge growing up meant showing one’s vacation pictures via a slideshow or movie reel. The slideshow was not the kind we know today. It was a carousel of pictures projected onto a wall or screen with one loud, mechanical-sounding click at a time. They had very little experience using new digital cameras because, for most of them, film was still the way pictures were taken. Speaking of film, if one was lucky enough to grow up with video, then their experience was with a big-reel movie projector and not the VCR tapes that I grew up with.
I remember in my Masters course at Boston College being introduced to the concept of “teaching with technology.” My mathematics professor showed us how we could use an Apple II to plot points and make an object move around across the screen. This technology, as he would explain it to us, would help make plotting in math more engaging for our students. Personal computers and the Internet were just coming out in force and we were using them for research and typing papers — but there was little to no discussion on how one could use this device to better educate our students. We were not adequately prepared to teach with the technology that was, at the time, being simultaneously being purchased in schools for teachers to use.
I was one of the lucky ones growing up: we had a VCR in my house. Yes, we had slideshows, but we also had movies via video cassette—this was great! We had technology. I also had one of the first game systems to hit the market — I had a Colecovision. With that, we had the attachment to play Nintendo games as well. We were playing Donkey Kong, Qbert and so much more. When one of the first home PCs came out, I took my paper route money and I bought a Commodore 64. At an early age, I was introduced to DOS code, “saving to disk” — and so much more.
Years later, when I was given my first student-teacher classroom to teach in, I was lucky. Placed in a brand-new, state-of-the-art school with six computers per class with one on every teacher’s desk, in my first year of teaching full-time at that school I was also given a laptop and access to a school television studio. Don’t get me wrong — I wasn’t given much training on how to integrate all of this technology in my college teacher prep classes, and very little at the school I was at. If I was not that lucky kid growing up with all of this technology in my household, I’m sure I might have found implementing its use into my daily teaching a bit intimidating. I know my peers did. Yet, like most school systems then, the district kept throwing more technology at us with very little training.
However, it wasn’t their fault. Most of the district administrators didn’t grow up with technology, so knowing how to integrate it well into teaching was likewise foreign to them. As far as they knew, the training they were offering their staff was sufficient. Their staff would just have to figure it out as they assumed everyone else was doing. Colleges were not giving teachers the training they needed with technology, and neither was their district. Even if a staff member thought they did get adequate training, I am willing to bet it was fair at best.
Fast forward to almost twenty years later. Kids these days are growing up with multiple devices almost attached to them as if an appendage. They have cell phones, e-readers, tablets, laptops, computers, high-powered gaming consuls, netbooks, MP3 players and more. Not to mention DVRs, digital content, the cloud, and apps are all part of their daily lives. Their lingo includes words that didn’t exist when I was growing up, minus the cloud, but that meant those things in the sky on a crummy day.
Teachers these days are expected to be able to teach to these kids with instruments they are used to using much the same as it was for me twenty years earlier. Back then, we were given equipment with very little training on how best to integrate it into our teaching. For many of us, the same happens today. Students are coming out of college not being shown how best to integrate some of this technology because, in fairness, the professors training them simply didn’t grow up with it — and, for many of them, their knowledge on how best to integrate technology is also fair, at best. Districts are still throwing tons of software and hardware at our teachers. Though, leaders like me are doing much the same. Just the other day, I must have shared out almost one hundred sites, apps or articles about great tech integration without any way of making sure teachers would know how best to integrate these resources.
I couldn’t help but think while sharing them that our efforts are in the wrong place. My teachers have little extra time in their day. If they’re lucky enough to come across these resources, those who have the energy or luxury to look at them won’t even know where to start. When they had the time in college, they were never shown how best to use these tools — and if they were — then they are changing so quick, it is almost impossible to keep up with them.
We as professors, thought leaders and administrators need to do more. We need to become professional in how to integrate this technology and then when we do so, we need to get that knowledge in the hands of our teachers. We need to give them just as much professional development as we give them product. We need to start off all of our training when it comes to technology much the same as I start mine. One of the first things I say when I begin a training session is, “Please have me back out and let you learn it.” It’s also one of the last things I say. We need to make ourselves available when our teachers have time so we can give them the help they need. Our colleges need to get their hands on the equipment they possibly may use during a school year and they need to teach those prospective educators how to best integrate that technology on a regular basis. We need to lead by example. If we expect our teachers to integrate technology into their teaching, then we need to integrate it into our training just the same. We need to lead by example.
It’s about time we start to do more, give more, train more — and buy less. According to an article I read the other day, analysts think the edtech budget is about to burst. In my mind, that’s because, for too long, we’ve put money in the wrong place. We’ve made countless great products — many that do the same thing as others with a slight variation, yet so few provide our educators with what they need most — not options, but opinions. How we use the technology will far outweigh what technology we have.