I was excited to see Ciampa’s (2013) mobile technology and motivation article as a reading for this course as I’ve used it as a major source for a paper in ETEC 511, as well as an influential model for my research proposal in ETEC 500. This reading is a great indicator for seeing how mobile technologies can impact student motivation for learning and involvement in the classroom space, as well as an exploration of pedagogical growth and how reciprocal teaching can occur between students and adults in a learning community.
My school context is likely an anomaly when compared to other public schools who typically wrestle with the “technology cart” issue. My elementary school was the first in the district to purchase iPads, and of course, we initially had them in a cart and they were wheeled around to share across the school. Teachers also got iPads around the same time and were encouraged by administration to take them home and “play”. Apple ID and passwords were no secret; anyone could download anything within reason that they wanted to try, paid apps included. Some teachers got really into using them and they booked them out all the time. There was increased interest when administration offered to purchase even more devices. As a result, we ended up hosting the first two 1:1 iPad classrooms in the school district, one at the Grade 2 level and one at the Grade 5 level. Those teachers were not young, but experienced, with over 20 years and 30 years of service, respectively.
The remaining devices were filtered into classrooms across the school as even more were purchased by our parent group and administration. (Keep in mind this was a major focus of our school’s mission and vision over that time period – we weren’t made of money; we made sacrifices in other spots and we’re a small school of only 10 classes.) Each classroom “pod” (2-3 rooms around the same grade levels) had access to anywhere between 10-15 iPads. Some pods opted to split them up so they always had a smaller group in their room to access at anytime. Total autonomy was given to how this was done and it seemed to result in very successful and laid back collaborations around device bookings.
Over time, the types of activities that have been done with the iPads have shifted. I have witnessed (and helped along, as a coach) teachers who were predominantly using iPads with their students for highly directed and predictable work such as memory games or math drills. When these teachers began to blog and use social media with their students, there was a shift in the value of student-created work vs. students consuming content in order to better provide an accurate window into the learning community. As a result, students were encouraged to be more self-directed, ask and research their own questions on a topic, engage in online commentary, and connect with experts over media like Twitter (I.e. Olympians, authors, etc.). Kids started creating Genius Hour projects and screencasts talking about their thinking and learning out loud – great artifacts for teachers as both formative and summative assessment pieces. I saw students shift from being told which apps to use to getting to choose them on their own, developing their understandings of technical workflows and pathways (saving to the cloud, importing from camera roll, etc). And, of course, parents absolutely RAVE about the classrooms that use these tools because they get to see far more into their child’s day than ever before. There were and are many positives that we have seen through mobile technology integration in our community.
Of course, it’s not all roses and rainbows in a mobile-enriched school. Management is a major issue for our school with so many devices. Sometimes things don’t work and teachers need to set aside a device or move on to Plan B right in the middle of a lesson. For example, we’ve had issues with individual devices and ghost storage, where the device will appear with maxed storage, even though there is no reason for it to do so, resulting in students unable to save their work. The major downside to mobile technologies is that you need someone around who is able to troubleshoot these issues and provide solutions to students and teachers who work so hard to integrate them. What you don’t pay for in print materials, you might end up paying for in human resources. The support provided to Natasha in Ciampa’s (2013) study is no joke; so far as I’ve seen, it’s necessary for ongoing success of mobile integration.
With all that being said, we have seen a wonderful shift in our learning context that will hopefully continue in years to come. It’s not always perfect, but it’s always growing. This is all thanks to supportive leadership, teachers who are willing to work hard at professional development, students who are open to supporting teachers while they (both) learn, and a parent community who is very open to us taking a crack at technology integration and digital publication with their kids.
References
Ciampa, K. (2013). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation.Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82–96. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcal.12036/epdf
Victoria!!
I think it is so cool that there was wide open access and support. When I first got my District issued iPad, our school did not have wifi. I was like being given a Porche without the keys/fob. Ten months later we got wifi (some of us had been using our cell phones as “hot spots” to get connectivity).
Half of the resistance we (TLs) get when introducing technology to teachers results from the very evidence of support your teachers were given from the start. That is so the way it should be.
Thanks for your post,
Keri
Keri,
Thanks for your comment. And WOW. Talk about lack of support – no WIFI?! All I can think about is that Maslow’s Hierarchy diagram with “WIFI” tacked on to the bottom of it!
I have found that a very big part of supported mobile learning environments is the school administrator. In our case, he was not only a huge supporter of technology, but he went to lengths to hire other teachers who aligned with that vision. In turn, a community is created where the administrator is not necessarily the one promoting technology-infused learning, but the teachers are. Brilliant, in my opinion!
The success story of how your school deployed technology means that people believed in how technology can change the educational process and put effort to move through the cultural change process. We have a very challenging project two years ago with a school that wanted to deploy 2000 iPads in one shot. They had the entire infrastructure and hardware ready along with the MDM (mobile device management) and all the requires software. Yet the experience was painful simply because they did not take it one step at a time. Teachers were forced to use the technology regardless of their readiness level. Many teachers resigned “good teachers” because they could not handle the stress. The school did not put proper policies to manage the cultural change. Now they went back to a reduced number of iPads and they are changing the method of deployment. I think if deployment of technology succeeds it is only because the school management knows how to introduce the technology and manage cultural change
Hi Nidal,
Absolutely – cultural change takes effort and A LOT of empathy from leadership for teachers as they initiate the large and neverending learning curve with mobile technologies.
I’ve always heard about frustrations with very large iPad or other mobile roll-outs. It is almost as if leadership assumes the teaching skills are there or that they will change quickly as a result of having access to the technology. While that is true for some people, others, as you said, will become overstressed by the ever-presence of it. I find the best ways to institute change is to work with those who believe in the change model first, then the fence-sitters, then eventually the late adopters come along. Of course, not everyone is going to change dramatically, and some might not change at all. That’s something else to consider when undergoing this process.
I thought your admin’s encouragement to “play around” may have been why your program was so successful, and something that Nidal’s school probably lacked. In my experience (at two schools that each purchased a mobile lab of iPads), the teachers who already had a propensity to use technology (for example, a teacher who is doing a Master’s in Education Technology – whatever that is!) use them while the rest ignore them, because they have no idea how they’d incorporate them. In one of the Assignment 2 videos, someone said you have a PD each month in BC? It really seems like B.C. is more enlightened about giving teachers time to figure things out, rather than trying to pile on more and more work to placate taxpayers who think we have it easy because we get summers off!
Hi Nidal.
what a perfect example of what not to do. Such a waste of resources and loss of good teaching. As you said, those who quit were good teachers, but couldn’t handle the stress. Support is so critical, But it has to meet the teacher where he is, not from a universal, artificially created standard. Even with LMS at UBC, it is available to every instructor, but only the instructor can decide how he/she will use it. There may be a pressure from a Department Head or a Dean for a better/increased used of technology, but it is never for everyone equally.
Natasha
Hi Randy,
I absolutely agree that play was a huge factor in our program’s success. The challenge we are facing now is to enforce that play as /continual/. You know how some teachers just want to ‘figure it out’ and then that’s how the tool is used forever… the next step is that realization that technology is ever-changing and we need to continually explore and flex to those changes.
As for the 1 PD/month, that probably depends on the district. Our district utilizes an inquiry-based model, where our old method of one district-given PD day per term got changed into several 80 minute blocks across the school year. These happen with students having late starts or early dismissals and then staff have an opportunity to collaborate on an inquiry project of their choice. Many at our school infuse technology into those projects because it is readily available, but we are also welcome to focus on things that don’t. But that’s just our district; each one will have a different model… so I’m not sure which one that person is representing.