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The Future is Already Here: One Decade of 1-‐to-‐1 By: Holly Chesser Published: September 2012 Consider the cell phone. Twenty years ago only 12.4 million people carried a phone. Today, 75% of the global population has access to a mobile phone. Global saturation occurred in just two decades! The same is true in education where mobile learning has likewise become ubiquitous. According to NAIS’s 2012 Mobile Learning Survey, “mobile learning devices appear to be well-‐entrenched in independent schools, as three-‐quarters of schools are already using them, more than one-‐in-‐10 are actively planning to use them and the remainder are considering and researching their use.” The jury is no longer out: digital devices are interwoven into the fabric of our students’ lives in and outside of the classroom and will continue to remain so. But while most schools agree that the use of mobile devices can transform how students learn, the devices and models employed vary. 1:1 initiatives, BYOD pilot programs, Macs and PCs, iPads and tablets. Like independent schools themselves, there is no uniformity in approach. However, the pace of technological innovation can sometimes leave schools feeling as breathless as Alice in the Red Queen’s race, running only to stay in the same place. If your school is feeling the urgency to innovate, perhaps it would be helpful to look to another who’s been traveling on this path for some time.
Saint Agnes Academy-‐Saint Dominic School, led by Barbara Daush, in Memphis, TN is a progressive leader in incorporating educational technology into its curriculum and campus. In 2001, the school’s Dean of Technology, Bobby Ireland, brought a proposal to Barbara’s desk. If the school purchased 80 iBooks (Mac’s version of the laptop at that time), Apple would include 20 more for free. Barbara, who had been engaging her staff and faculty in brain based learning, embraced the idea, and, after extensively researching Apple’s educational initiatives, took it one step further, asking, “What if we were to provide an iBook to every student from 1st to 12th grade?” Bobby, whose expertise lies in instructional technology and training teachers,
hesitated, encouraging a more gradual approach. Barbara intrepidly countered that no one grade was more important than another. He recalls her words that set him on the journey he remains on today, “If this is the right thing to do, then let’s do it for all of the students.”
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However, Bobby understood that for the initiative to be successful it needed teacher buy-‐in. Right away, the school undertook an intensive professional development program focused on supporting its teachers. The first act was to provide each teacher with an iBook. In addition, two teachers who previously oversaw the Mac and Dell labs became full-‐time technology integration specialists, described more aptly as “lifeguards” for the teachers. Amy Moody, the head of the English department and early adopter of technology, left her post to assume leadership of the integration department. On hyper-‐drive, this team worked with teachers for a year, guiding them to understand how these digital devices could enhance collaboration, efficiency, and engagement. Assured the teachers were prepared for the upcoming launch, Bobby instructed his own tech crew to focus on making the technology work. He asked them to think of themselves as the power company: “When you flip a switch and the light comes on, you don’t think about the how and why; it just works.” He emphasized to his team that their sole focus was to eliminate obstacles so that teachers could concentrate on teaching and students on learning. Thoughtfully approaching every problem that came their way (and problems did come their way), the faculty and staff worked together to brainstorm solutions and to predict possible glitches. Using this team approach, they educated and prepared parents for the presence of technology in their children’s lives and taught the students how to assume responsibility for these new tools. Now 10 years later, SAA-‐SDS has received the Apple Distinguished School Award for the last five years in a row. But it’s not ready to rest on its laurels. Excited about running the Red Queen’s race, the school accepts the heady pace of innovation and embraces the cycle of feedback, evaluation, and improvement. Vice-‐chair of the Board of Directors for The Coalition of Lighthouse Schools, Barbara Daush, President of SAA-‐SDS, travels to Cupertino every year to hear what Apple has to offer next in education. Recognizing that technology gets continually better and cheaper, the school refreshes all of its devices every three years through a lease program with Apple. The school’s commitment to professional development led to the creation of spaces on campus like the CyberCafe complete with a flat screen panel where teachers can showcase their own lessons, engaging in collaborative lunch and learns with one another. The school also hosts mini internal iSummits for teachers to present to the whole school what’s working in their classrooms. As Bobby explains, our former professional development model was administration driven; now that teachers feel competent and supported, they have assumed control of their own learning. Always looking beyond the horizon, SAA-‐SDS built a Distance Learning Center, a scaled down model of The Zone at The FedEx Institute of Technology, University of Memphis. A 73 seat interactive auditorium, the Distance Learning Center allows students to engage with scientists
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from the Alaskan tundra or professors of anatomy at University of St. Louis. SAA-‐SDS recently won a grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation to create another Distance Learning Center solely for teachers and staff to engage in their own learning with speakers and experts around the world. Intent on focusing on collaboration not competition, SAA-‐SDS even hopes to include other schools in these opportunities, believing everyone can benefit from a shared approach. In August, Bobby Ireland began his 12th year as the Dean of Technology at SAA-‐SDS. Asked what one piece of advice he would offer schools seeking new forms of innovation, he responded, “Be fearless.” Looking back a decade, he remembers the anxiety the faculty expressed. They were afraid of losing control of the teaching process, of diluting their content, of no longer being sages on the stage. But, as Bobby explained, “Those are adult fears expressed by analog adults teaching digital children. We had to help them put their fears aside to meet the students in the environment the world was leading them. The students themselves were fearless. We have to model their attitude.” He emphasized the need for everyone to adapt: faculty, staff, administration, and parents. Questioned whether he could imagine putting the genie of technology back in the box, he replied, “No, who would want to? The genie offers us knowledge, collaboration, and creativity.” Technology has taken education into unchartered territory. No one knows for sure what technological tools or models will engender student learning most effectively. And frankly any tool that works well at the moment may be obsolete tomorrow. Perhaps, schools need to accept the words of UCLA computer scientist Alan Kay: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” SSA-‐SDS, under the leadership of Barbara Daush and the oversight of Bobby Ireland, has created its own future, and best of all, they’re willing to share it.