York Region District School Board is a Leader in 21^st Century EdTech Initiatives 

(By P. Bennett and J. Steele)

The future of learning and business excellence depends on our ability to effectively use the most current information, resources and tools at our disposal. With a clear goal for student success, engagement and well-being, YRDSB is taking advantage of the proliferation of cloud-based resources and the more natural approaches to learning.

The York Region District School board recognizes that ‘Literacy in the 21st Century’ is the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable achievement, personal well-being and full participation in an interconnected and changing world community and has implemented programs to build that capacity for all their staff and students.

YRDSB has a comprehensive Wireless IT infrastructure consisting of more than 5,000 Access Points deployed across their 200 school and workplace locations. This infrastructure is designed for density and coverage.

And students and staff are using it!

BYOD has been in place in the School Board for some time.  On a monthly basis, there are over 130,000 unique personally-owned devices connecting to their network. Their teachers and students are immersed in a truly personalized, collaborative and relevant learning environment using YRDSB’s implementation of Google Apps for Education and their Learning Management System, Moodle.

YRDSB’s strategies for continued success and sustainability on their Digital Learning journey include implementation of their internal support structures, Literacy@ School, Blue Prints for Change and their Technology Decision Making Framework.

Editor’s Comments

A recent visit by Dell Canada staff to YRDSB’s Markville Secondary School in Markham,  Ontario illustrated the effectiveness of the 21^st Century structures that are in place.  Entire Departments of Teachers are given release time to participate in professional learning activities.  The school has a “21^st Century Classroom” that is equipped with modern education technologies and Teachers in the school go through an application process to be selected to be scheduled into this classroom.  I had the privilege of observing some Geography students working collaboratively on an assignment with a mind-mapping tool in one area of the classroom.  Other students were conducting Internet-based research, and yet others were focused on developing final reports for their group.  All students in the class were actively engaged in their learning!

At YRDSB there is a wonderful sense of shared vision and collaboration between academic and IT staff for enabling technology as an effective tool for transforming pedagogy.

Originally published in Dell Bits & Bytes in Education

Finding the Keys

"Imagine we were asked to learn in our parents classrooms... "

I read this quote recently and it made me think a lot about how much has changed not only in the last 50 years, but also in the last 5 years. I keep coming back to the year 2007 as being this great year of transformation for society and education. The introduction of the iPhone which led to the ubiquitous use of smart phones throughout our society changed the way we communicate, ingest information and learn. The smart phone turned everyone into a bit of a technology expert, breaking down some of the barriers and fear that many teachers had in the past. So I have been thinking a lot about what this means and what we need to do. What are some of the keys to a successful 21st Century classroom?

Understanding your role and purpose in a classroom.
In doing a quick scan of the internet, here are some of the names that pop up when you type in the greatest teachers in history: Herodotus, Aristotle, Confucius, Socrates, Jesus, Buddha, Pythagorus, Helen Keller, Mother Teresa, Jaime Escalante among others. The thing about great teachers is that they all bring something different to the table. Some are really tough, some are gentle, some are understanding, innovative, demanding, nurturing, energetic, student centred, teacher centred and many are a mix of all these things. It seems like the most important common quality is a deep passion for teaching and learning. Having the ability to either ignite the passion within students or dragging them there kicking and screaming. Looking at 14 Things Great Teachers do Differently, you see a few common strands. Teachers are the decisive element that make a classroom what it is, we need to have high expectations for everyone in the room (ourselves more than anyone), and more than anything we need to have purpose. These qualities are absolutely critical, but in many ways they are hard to touch.

So lets try to find some tangible stuff. There is a great point about having the ability to ignore trivial disturbances. How big is that statement as a teacher? This is one of the keys for me as a 1:1 teacher and figuring out our purpose as 1:1 teachers?

We need to have a solid sense of what we will expect of students and of ourselves when using devices. There will be some great innovations, trials and errors, mistakes, and progress. Hopefully we will all feel comfortable trying things, taking risks and bringing students, teachers and other experts into our learning. We need to recognize that every teacher and every subject will have their own way of doing things, and their own "perfect". The common elements that I would guess are different from our parents classrooms are flexibility, movement, change, fluidity and collaboration. An environment of support will be critical as well. This does not just mean that the technology "guru's" will need to run around supporting everyone (even though that is such an important part of this process over the long term). We need to recognize the support that we all need from each other to make the whole system better.

Still a little vague, and as teachers we like bullet points, so here is a first attempt at a list:
1. Be a great teacher first and foremost. With or without technology our students need great teachers.
2. Be willing to try and fail, learn from mistakes, share them and find positive solutions.
3. Ask a lot of questions, revisit and reflect on every lesson.
4. Enjoy the process of change rather than resisting it.
5. Plan ahead. The devices will enhance the learning when the students have purpose.
6. Variety is the spice of life. Try not to get stuck with a couple of ways of doing things or copying what works in other classrooms.
7. If you want success with these devices, be open to learning about them, get excited and then bring that excitement to your classroom. Have purpose.

Taking Stock: Are we Ready?

Stephen Covey talks about the importance of having a vision about what lies ahead, about what is coming. A clear vision is critical to understanding change and growth. As we move ahead we need to pause once in a while to look at those burrs that might threaten the health of our system.

A number of nagging questions keep lingering in the back of my head as we vault ourselves forward in the digital world. A lot of my critical questions centre around one question: what we are giving up?

Early on we are focusing a lot of our energy into promoting Google Apps. GAPPs is such a powerful tool for teachers and students and allows so many possibilities for collaboration, learning, and (for a few of us) it seems to be that last piece of the "paperless" puzzle. The applications with GAPPs are also very intuitive, easy to use and hopefully easy to apply in and out of the classroom. Its a great starting point to increase staff comfort with our impending new devices.

Yet, today I heard my first complaint about GAPPs from a student. "I have a doc for everything now, its just a giant mess. All my teachers seem to want to use it now, definitely lost its lustre". I was also starting to hit that early adopters wall where I felt like Big Brother overseeing a mountain of group and individual docs along with the hundreds of other docs that I manage in my department, my life and my work.

Coupled with GAPPs overload I have consciously been observing the changes in students (and myself) when they get that brand new shiny laptop or tablet. Along with that constantly buzzing smartphone, that shiny device quickly becomes the centre of the universe. They carve out new mass chunks of time in their lives almost immediately and with little questioning or consideration of what they are giving up. I asked a student how much time she spends on her two week old laptop and her response was: "outside of school? About 6 hours. I used to come home and watch some TV with my brother and then my Mom would usually tell me to do some homework at the kitchen table or I would not be able to watch a movie later on our tv. Now I have 4 tabs open on my browser for social media, two tabs for emails, one tab for an online tv show, music humming, and in the background is my school work. Whenever anyone asks I usually tell them I am doing homework. Out of that 6 hours, less than 3 are homework".

It is also interesting to observe students working on their devices. You can tell by their body language and expressions what they are doing. A smile is usually social media, a dazed look is usually YouTube or Tumblr, excitement and urgency is searching for a Prom dress, and leaning in and focused is sometimes that precious "work".

Modern educators, psychologists and technology guru's talk a lot about how students brains today are wired differently. Are they wired differently or are we just replacing huge chunks of our lives with a tunnel into the surreal? It was ironic because just after I finished this discussion a student handed me a survey about teen depression. Is a contributing factor to teen depression the rapid change that teens undergo in the digital world? That time where my student used to play with her brother is replaced by her laptop. The accountability of sitting down to do homework is replaced with more time "working" on her laptop. Instead of having a conversation with a person she is text messaging, on gmail chat and rapidly slipping between the keys and pixels in front of her. I am left wondering if we really know what we are doing to ourselves. It often makes me wonder if the genius of Steve Jobs will one day be viewed as the end of society.  That laptop or tablet is not giving much love in return. Again, what are we giving up?

I am not necessarily advocating a return to the "good ole days". Remember when we all used to play outside until sundown with all our friends? Wait we used to fill out endless handouts, copy off overheads in the dark and there were still fights in the schoolyard. We had our issues too. I guess I am pausing to reflect on what all this means. I was in a meeting today where someone was commenting on how our 1:1 pilot could be a model for the whole board. The person said "There is great interest in what our school is doing and it will become the model for how classrooms and schools will look in the very near future". The certainty made me nervous, mainly because it seemed like our "pilot" was going to become the model before we even did the pilot. I was also left wondering what this persons credentials were to make such sweeping and massive statements.

I am starting to ask more questions now because I am not convinced that we have talked enough about what has worked and what has not worked in "pilots" in other schools in our board and outside of our board. With the massive amount of money that is about to be spent in our building I am not sure that staff are going to be ready or if they want to be ready. Are teachers going to be expected to be exemplary teachers with technology? If they choose not to use these new devices will they be called dinosaurs? Are those of us leading the charge making time to do that tough research about how to best implement and design around technology? Are we going to support each other in the road ahead when many of us are mired in the minutiae of our daily lessons, tasks, smartphones and digital everything holed up in our four walls? Where does that leave people without a solid background in teaching, let alone teaching with technology?

That is not to say that everyone needs to be fully ready, and we are definitely learning as we go. But a nagging fear I have is that we will invest all this time, money and energy into this "pilot" only to have us looking back a few years down the road (as many schools have) wondering if it could have been better. Have we really explored what we are giving up? Where do we start? When?

These reflections started with Covey and will end with Covey. He speaks about setting goals and having players and coaches on the same page to allow for real, positive action to take place. Lets keep being fuelled by the energy of the positive adapters, but let us not forget about the silent majority that will in great part determine the success of this venture. Lets try to see the "improved" system we are creating before we make it by pausing now and again to ask ourselves some tough questions and what we are giving up.

The Coming Paradigm Shifts in Education Could be Massive

Driving Questions for a 1:1 Environment 
How is technology creating massive paradigm shifts in education? How do we adapt? How much do we adapt to trends in society? How much of a role do we have in shaping the future of education?

I use the word could in the title believing that things will absolutely be different, but things always seem to move at a slower pace in education. One question to ask is whether that is always a bad thing? Does education need to mirror what is happening in society? Do students need to use all the new devices to be able to compete in the brave new world? or are the varied critical skills they learn to make them more well rounded, creative, deep thinking individuals the key? For a school looking to implement a 1:1 device program we are collectively and individually asking a lot of these types of questions.

At a recent staff meeting a number of teachers on our staff brought up some really valuable and important questions regarding the role of technology in our classrooms and in our lives. Concerns around privacy, effective use of devices, the implications of technology on our teaching and on student learning and engagement spurred deeper conversations. All these things are not necessarily new questions, but what was new was a sense of urgency around the idea that education could change drastically and dramatically in the coming decade to the point where we might not recognize it.

It is becoming harder for educators to keep the outside world out. One teacher mentioned that they cannot compete with the production value of many of the lessons on the web. Our department often utilizes John Green's Crash Course Series, the Khan Academy, iTunesU, TED Talks and recently we have been introduced to The Big History Project which is an amazing online series of videos and activities that take students virtually around the world. Where do we balance this with our own teaching environment? Are we becoming managers and collectors of pieces of lessons from around the web? Would it be more efficient for teachers to pull from a huge bank of these superlessons? Will they become more standardized? What are the dangers associated with doing this? Importantly, where does the student fit in all of this?

With these questions in mind, I asked my grade 12 class during a "reading experiment" what they thought. I set up a simple reading activity that was done using any device students had (half the class was using iPads, the other half various kinds of laptops). I posted a PDF reading on Moodle, then each student worked in a "Digital Notebook" using a GAPPS document to record their thoughts. The students added me to their notebook and we went from there.

As a sidebar I spoke about how the role of the teacher can change, in that Google Docs allows teachers to be a part of a students homework if they want. In the past we would send students away at 3pm and expect work done at 8am, with little or no monitoring, assistance or input. Email changed that a bit. But Google Apps has done something very different. A teacher can pop in at 11pm (when most students seem to like to work on homework) and see where everyone is at, answer any questions or just observe the work unfolding. You know who is doing what, when and how. There are hundreds of side issues and conversations to be had about this (as teachers do we always want to be "working"? how do we manage student expectations of our time? what should we be expecting students to do at home? how do we build effective and purposeful learning activities for outside of the classroom? do students get frozen by having teachers dropping in on them while they work on their homework? Definitely a thousand cans of worms)

Back to the Reading Experiment. I asked a few students to use traditional methods (book and paper), some mixed modes (reading on an iPad and taking notes on paper or vice versa), and some to use tools they thought worked best for them. Some went to Evernote instead of Google Docs, some copied the article into their digital notebook so they didn't have to keep switching screens on their iPad or laptop. It was another interesting series of on the go mini evolutions.

My driving question is what is the quality of this type of methodology for students? and for teachers? Is it more efficient? Is the learning deep and critical? Would it be simpler to not use the devices? How do we manage 27 different approaches to one article reading? Should we? Basically, why integrate technology?

A few observations:
One thing that has changed in the last couple of years is that it seems that most students in my classes are comfortable consuming information on digital devices. It was not long ago that everyone lamented the demise of paper and books, whereas now many students can read a 20 page academic journal article on their phone or iPod.

The collaborative learning environment fostered by google docs is intensely transformative, but the environment needs to be created, supported and shaped by the teacher so that it really works.

Some students still really prefer traditional ways of reading and taking notes. But notions of traditional are changing. iPads are so easy to use that they blend into the background much more than clunky laptops. As teachers we need to really manage all the distractions (email, texting, entertainment, etc) that are housed on a single device. Oddly there was a lot of criticism of iPads because they did not multitask as easily as some devices. That is good. Students and Teachers are not good at multitasking.

A lingering area of concern: are we promoting abstract thinking and creation enough in a society that demands these skills in most fields? This leads us to questions about how we assess, what we evaluate and fundamentally how we are structuring each lesson and each day. More questions for another day...

Markville’s iPad Program: A Segway to BYOD

“Twenty-first century learners are always on, always connected.  They are comfortable multitasking.  They are multimedia oriented.  Their world is Web-based.  They want instant gratification.  They are impatient, creative, expressive and social.  They are risk-takers who thrive in less structured environments.”

Partnership for 21St Century Learners

Markville’s iPad program continues to expand and thrive.  At first, the devices were primarily used by the “tech savvy” teachers who were, in general, already familiar with their own personal iPads.  As more and more teachers have become aware of the iPads here at Markville, the demand for them has increased.  We currently have over 23 teachers using them.  This has created a two prong problem: supply and demand and, secondly, meeting the instructional PD demand.  Not bad problems to have!

The use of any new technology is a test of perseverance for every teacher, tech savvy or not.  There are always glitches and students are sometimes overly excited and off task at first.   As educators, we have an opportunity to model  perseverance for our students by using technology, revamping our plans when they don’t go well and trying again.  This is simply good pedagogy.  Our students will thank us for it and respect our efforts.

Part of the success of the BYOD initiative will depend on all teachers’ comfort levels with technology; if a quarter of the staff is not comfortable with technology, then the program will not thrive.  A measure of success for this initiative will be how often and, more importantly, how effectively teachers are asking students to use their personal devices in class.  The more we can do this year to get tablets and computers in the hands of all teachers, the more likely students will be asked to use their personal devices in their classes next year.  The learning curve for many educators will be steep.  The climb is in motion for most but, for those who haven’t started, next year might be tough.

Lastly, the above raises an important question regarding the grade 9 teachers’ consistent access to a tablet/laptop so that they can plan their lessons/programs accordingly.  What is the best way to get tablets into the hands of our grade 9 teachers who do not have their own to bring?  It comes back to helping and supporting all teachers to increase their comfort level and familiarity with tablets and the potential they offer to enhance programs. 

Overall, the iPad program is a great segway to the BYOD initiative because it exposes teachers and students to a tablet’s potential to enhance learning. This journey, first with iPads and then with the BYOD initiative, is a step in the right direction when it comes to meaningful engagement of our 21st Century learners.

 Below is a mind map made created using an app called Popplet.  It outlines some of the many meaningful ways tablets can be used to enhance student learning.

Looking at Where Markville Has Been!

Markville Secondary School History Departments' 

submission to Canada's 21st Century Interactive Classroom Contest.

www.markvillehistory.com

The Most Powerful Voice in Education!

The most powerful voice in all of education is that of the students.  To supplement Markville's contribution to the Broadband Imperative proposal, a student of the Markville experience has shared her thoughts around the role that technology has played in shaping her learning experience.  Too often we make decisions without listening to those that have the most vested in the process.

As a student, broadband/Internet access has greatly assisted in my learning experience. In my experience, it has helped me keep up with classes a lot easier, make it easier to communicate with teachers, and helped me further my education even beyond the classroom. Being a high school student, there are a few occasions on which I will miss a class or two- multiple field trips come up throughout the year and sickness has a tendency to sneak up on me. On these occasions, it's always quite hard to keep up with class lessons and notes. Normally, I would have to stay after school or durng my lunch time to get the lesson and notes, but with the Internet I can easily access the days activities through tools such as Moodle and online binders where teachers can post notes, lessons, and extra help sheets. With these, I can view the notes from home, looking over them on my own time. On top of helping with missed classes, it assists greatly to keep up with classes in general as many teachers use the online tools to post the nights homework and activities we should be doing to keep up. As a forgetful person, it is magnificent for me as it helps me remember what I am supposed to do. Furthermore, having Internet access has made it much easier to contact teachers when needed. When given homework I don't understand or a task I am unclear about, it's quite frustrating to sit there trying to decipher the concepts at hand. My parents are not exactly experts when it comes to highschool lessons, so it's hard for them to help me in these situations, and I'm usually on my own, but with Internet access I can easily contact my teacher when help is needed. There have been multiple times where I was completely confused by the homework, but was able to quickly email my teacher and get an explanation on what to do. I could complete my homework and be prepared for the next day, instead of having to take up class time have it re-explained to me then. Moreover, Internet us has helped me take learning into my own hands, asking it outside of just the classroom. With it, I have all the information I need right at my fingertips. I can easily look up more information on topics I'm interested, furthering my learn from just what's learned in the classroom. I can even sign books out from the library over the computer; you put in your card number and you can access an e book, on their database, for two weeks or so. It opens up so many doors and gives me the opportunity to take initiative in my own learning. Access to broadband/Internet has greatly impacted my learning expierience, making it easier to keep up with classes, to gain extra help from teachers, and to further my learning beyond what's said in class. It gives new ways of learning, teachers can use videos, power points, and new ways of teaching and getting across to students, and I believe it's a great tool in the learning expierience.

~Vanessa Nim, a grade 11 student.