A Tale of Ed-Tech in Three Cities (Part Three)

A Tale of Ed-Tech in Three Cities (Part Three)

Our third example sheds light on a large scale technology acquisition process.  

After years of budget cuts and a few modest capital projects, the Mirage school district realized their K-12 schools were missing out on many benefits that could be facilitated by technology. With digitized learning materials in mind, a district committee proposed equipping every student with a mobile device. The committee weighed the advantages of a bulk purchase of equipment that would facilitate internet access for every student. 

It was no surprise when a district-wide policy of one tablet per student quickly gained support from the district. Mirage planned to adopt this common strategy and reduce the digital divide. Funding was appropriated from several budget areas, and monthly fees were created so families would help support this universal access for every student.

As part of the implementation plan, teachers were asked to identify in their curricula where tablets would provide opportunity for individualized study. Teachers deferred to technical specialists in this decision process. Our previous cities had teachers leading this process.. see (Part One) and (Part Two)

The Mirage district's committee recommended iPads and that was put out a tender. Modest budgets meant a 4-year payment plan for the district. The contract was completed, and the world for the students of Mirage changed. The decision to move ahead with 1:1 adoption created optimism.  Families stepped up to pay the fee.  The responses pointed to a successful technology transition.

When the tablets began to arrive it became apparent that there were several families unable to pay the monthly fee for the tablet. The District conceded that public schools should not mandate the fees, and agreed to waive monthly payments for those families who could not afford them. When other families reported being unable to pay, those families were also provided with free tablets.

Fast forward to two years later.. a Mirage High School student was interviewed on the radio and asked what impact these tablets had made on their education process.  She responded, “Well it’s very helpful when you’re submitting an assignment, and you’re late, and you can submit it online without printing.” The 2 minute student interview didn’t last long enough to discover whether other benefits were achieved.   

A few weeks later, a district technician was interviewed privately and described the changes she observed at schools.  Since the 1:1 policy came into effect, students no longer went outside to play at recess or lunch. Instead they lined up on both sides of the hallways, staring at their tablets, watching videos, texting, or even worse.. sexting.  The hallways are an eerily quiet now with few children speaking to each other... they’re often silently perusing 'social' media.

This raises a question, “Should access to technology in a school be limited to specific activities where there’s a clear advantage, or should we assume that K-12 students will make the best use of time and equipment on their own? Given the multitude of distractions, a careful strategy might work better.

While technicians are often assumed to be on board with district-wide initiatives like this, their burden is worth a special mention here.  When the above technician was asked about the impact on tech responsibilities, it became clear most technicians were stressed. Support of all of the new tablets was an unplanned increase in work. Worse, the district cut two tech positions in order to fund the tablets. The repairs were a challenge - tablets were constantly being dropped, resulting in cracking or breaking, and the techs were not afforded the proper equipment to effect repairs. Technicians were taking screens apart using a hair dryer, with poor results if the dryer paused too long. When the school lab computers needed admin work, and the tech’s laptop failed, admin suggested she should use her mobile phone to do her work, desktops were off the menu. The technician was unwilling to use a 5” screen for full days configuring and troubleshooting. She held out for a replacement desktop. 

Next, several teachers were asked about the benefits of the tablets, with results similar to student interviews. They explained that assignments can more easily be submitted, and that some web sites were assigned for research. The teacher feedback was generalized and didn't indicate that a new standard had been reached in delivering the curriculum outcomes. One teacher indicated it was great for their subject, facilitating a different level of creativity with students creating video projects.

The funds invested in this initiative were significant. Budget restrictions meant digital textbooks were not purchased, it was hoped that enough (content) would be available online. Indeed there is unlimited content online but one spends time sorting through the garbage, and for some reason garbage floats to the top just as readily as valuable content.  

What seemed to be missing were comprehensive and high quality interactive textbooks, the kind that a teacher can leverage day after day for years, with all topics aligned with the curriculum outcomes, interactive exercises and tracking... These kind of quality tools are not available for free online. There’s little evidence that publishers can afford to give their expensive work away.  

Better due diligence up front, and thorough analysis of all technology acquisition processes after integration is a necessity if we are to consistently get much more out of these kind of investments. This real work needs to be in the budget too.

Process of Tech Integration:  District Top-Down Decision, Broad Intended Use, High Volume Tender:

• The strategy was agreed on by district members at the beginning of the process, and was not subject to much scrutiny
• The strategy was limited to the selection of hardware, and sourcing
• Prior to tendering, there was little effort made to consult with classroom teachers about specific curriculum objectives, i.e. what impact the solution being tendered would have on achieving the desired curriculum outcomes
• The committee credited with proposing this strategy was not accountable for the return on investment of this large expense, nor were they paying for the training/usage time, or the sustaining of that technology in the future.  
• In contrast, had teachers been involved in the decision process they would have been held accountable for achieving more outcomes, and teachers would have been expected to learn from the process.
• To justify the large spend in the proposal, the democratization of the internet was touted. In retrospect very little was done to develop a modern skill set with risk students, because very little real skill was developed. Lasting self confidence in one's potential for achievement, and the initiative to master new skills comes from students being challenged in a systematic, careful way, to build foundation skills and knowledge they understand is valuable, and can measure.
• It’s likely that these funds invested, by virtue of not being productive in a tangible way, removed the opportunity for later more effective investments, such as comprehensive blended learning software that addresses outcomes.
• No consideration was given to whether the technology needed to be mobile, or would be ‘better’ if mobile. The district was unaware of the growing evidence that controlled access to technology for a limited time, for specific purposes, is the most efficient way to ensure net positive results.

Published Results: The district went on record to say this large scale project did what it was intended to do, it made the internet available to every student in every district school. Students on average spent more time with technology than they did prior to the investment.  That's where their post-analysis stopped. But a closer look reveals more, The primary use of the tablets by students was to conduct internet searches, post or view Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, Vines, watch movies, and play online games. On the plus side, sometimes students used the tablets to make their own video to communicate some part of a project. Approximately 10% of High School students spent some time creating a web site. Students have become more capable using browsers and google to search for information related to their work (and play). Students became comfortable taking pictures and making videos. The skill level was nominal on average, and it should be noted that video capture skills can be mastered by the average four year old. A closer look shows that these positives could have been achieved at a much lower cost.

It’s difficult to assess an ed-tech project’s success in less than a year.  A clearer picture forms after 2+ years.  A relevant question in the Mirage district is, “What improvement in student development was achieved, and in which specific subject areas, and how?” In the case of Mirage, the answer is in the ether because there were no targets prescribed at the outset, and because the software solutions were not selected in a prior benefits analysis led by teachers. Contrast that with our city in (Part One), where an experienced teacher led the integration of comprehensive blended-learning MusIQ software, and subsequently her classes were able to deliver a level of skill previously not achievable using traditional classroom strategies alone.

Another relevant question is, “What detrimental effects has unlimited access to the technology (internet, videos) had on development?” This article points to adverse effect of extended access on social skill development, motor skill development, and emotional development. It seems likely that many cities experience similar draw backs and may benefit from reducing exposure time. 

A related question, "Why Mobile?" Windows 7 refurbished desktops are worth considering for classrooms, that would limit access to classrooms and outcome-related activities. Desktops typically sport 17” monitors for each student, for better productivity and a total system cost of $75!  It’s true that video creation is easier on a mobile device with a camera, indicating a tablet over the obsolete PC, but in the (limited) cases where video capture is actually valuable to student learning outcomes, can’t video capture be accomplished by sharing the average student or teacher phone? Editing can be done better on the PC..

“Is new hardware smart for schools? and "Why bulk purchase?” In terms of the bulk purchase, does anyone imagine that school districts are saving money making bulk purchases of new tablets? It’s not logical since price per performance is dropping quickly on all devices. So, what’s the rush to purchase thousands exactly?  Windows 7 refurbished notebooks are now available for under $100 and this option would better serve the vast majority of low income households where internet is not available. 

Sure, refurbished business computers are less exciting as hardware devices, they are used after all. But refurbished desktops and notebooks have additional advantages in that they are much less expensive, they last longer than tablets and they won’t be stolen.  If one needs to use mobile devices for some reason, why not a $120 stick PC with Windows 10, which can be plugged into any HDMI 17” or greater monitors in the school classroom (with a refurbished cost of $25 each). Larger screens are more productive. The mouse and track pad are both older pointing devices, but they offer better resolution (than fingers) and are more effective and efficient for many types of work.

Is "mobile tech" more politically correct than notebooks?  Why? Can educators get better value for students and the school from refurbished resources? Techs might present concerns over refurbs, but many businesses are taking advantage.

70% missed cost savings on hardware aside, why did the new tablets in the Mirage not have a big impact on the learning process in most, if not all of the subject areas?  We found that where one or two apps were used per subject students were not heavily impacted by apps that were used for short periods. The reliance on narrowly focused apps was a direct result of comprehensive software not being a focus during the due diligence process. In addition there was no ongoing plan for high quality software to be used.  There was no plan to ensure the expensive hardware would have a significant long term impact on specific knowledge and skill development.

Cost effective and time effective use of technology is subverted when students use narrowly focused software apps that take time to learn to and use but don’t have a significant impact on outcomes. Students use these apps for a couple weeks, and forget. The skill gained with one app, if any, is often not transferable. Then students need to get familiar with yet another app?!  This transition quickly adds up to a material waste of classroom time.. teacher time.  Now the teacher has to try to keep track of what objectives are addressed by each app, and whether that's more efficient than some other method.. much better if there was -one- comprehensive, aligned app that had a major impact.  Imagine if one week of classroom time is wasted in a year (that's about 1 hour of wasted time per week). If a single school has 50 teachers, and an average teacher salary of $50K, this waste adds to $50K+ per year! This waste is definitely going to occur without a focus on the proper use of high quality comprehensive software. As a bonus, if each teacher uses 1 or two comprehensive pieces of software, across multiple years, that leads to a lot less for technicians to maintain.

How can a school district avoid ending up with a low return on investment like Mirage? 

Mirage used false economy to justify the large purchase.  Instead, why not choose the software as the priority, and go smaller and delegate the technology selection to individual schools?  Provide criteria on which access to funding is assessed, and provide funding based on merit, or return on investment.  

Careful integration of comprehensive blended learning solutions by the classroom teacher, into the existing program is what’s needed.  To accomplish that, due diligence for each course at each grade level needs to be completed up front on exactly what software features and content address the desired outcomes, and how effective the learning process is with the software.  

It follows that interactive software, not hardware, should be the primary consideration in any technology purchase, because the software addresses outcomes. 

We can guess this 'bulk-purchase of hardware' strategy persists primarily because a teacher-led technology selection process is more complex than picking the hardware device, and also because teachers are -busy- day to day.  Maybe teachers need to use PD days to contribute more to this process..

Efficiency in teacher training, class planning and delivery is a good reason to focus on comprehensive solutions. Efficiency in student training is another.  A teacher can’t be switching between different software every ten minutes, nor do they have the ability to stay ahead of a multitude of products. Nor will students benefit from switching between a number of software apps in a single subject.

While it makes sense to get the least expensive hardware available, that savings is small compared to the classroom efficiency resulting from proper use of the right software. Good quality blended learning software keeps students engaged in the long term, focused on outcomes and enhancing the learning process at every stage of learning.

The Mirage school district purchase is a true story in every aspect except the name of the city. If you look, you will find a 'Mirage' process used in every state, and incredibly it will often be celebrated...  There's a lot of real work to do if districts are going to raise the performance standard for ed-tech investments.