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

A lack of measurable benefits from large investments in education technology has come to light as recent studies reveal poor results are common. How can we improve the process?

It seems like we’re just scratching the surface of the benefits we can realize using technology in the learning process… so why aren’t we consistently hitting these initiatives out of the park by now? It’s been twenty years since the first wave of education technology breached US school systems… still too many big mistakes. Wasted resources slow down the future adoption of the more effective solutions.

The process we use to evaluate benefits and justify investments needs a lot more work. If you're focused on value, would you say we’re transforming education by giving every K-12 student a tablet?  The implied benefits aren't measurable.  We shouldn’t predict that simply having a tablet will measurably improve the quality of education. Data doesn’t support this wishful thinking, and intuitively we know successful education is a complex process that requires teacher creativity (work). We can predict that if investments are not tied to specific learning objectives, and if teachers are not playing a central role in the investigation, real benefits from ed tech investments are unlikely to magically appear.

The following case studies from three different school districts illustrate reliable strategies for ensuring significant benefits from every investment.

The first city on our tour is a community on the outskirts of Atlanta called Flowery Branch.  Four years ago a veteran elementary music teacher discovered software that looked interesting. The teacher wasn’t familiar with the publisher, nor was she skilled with computers. The teacher thought this might help her granddaughter, so she purchased and set up the software and watched as her granddaughter became captivated by endearing animated composer characters.

 Each week the teacher spent some more time with her granddaughter, and soon noticed the granddaughter was eager to spend time with the endearing composer characters, playing the skill-developing games, improvising, listening and learning to play new pieces. After a few months of steady development and continued interest, the music teacher contacted the publisher to inquire about whether they had something practical for classroom use. She was provided with a list of materials for a comprehensive blended learning program for music.

 It was exciting for the teacher to imagine the entire school developing significant instrumental skills, but it didn’t seem possible… she had never heard of that being done successfully. The teacher did see enough progress with her granddaughter to justify trying this out in her classroom though. Budget constraints limited her school’s purchase to a partial lab. The number of classes she could expose to this new approach was also limited to students in grades 3 &4 only. By the end of the year, real progress was made with music objectives, and very positive student responses motivated the teacher to continue.

Over the next three years the teacher gradually increased the scope of what she was doing, and she found students continued to be engaged and successful. Learning to read music, play piano, improvise and compose is traditionally a very challenging process. But the comprehensive multi-year nature of the software, and the fact it is closely aligned with her music literacy program objectives made it easy to integrate into her existing program. Having a portion of each class that reliably kept students having fun and focusing, a using a tool that was properly sequenced and helped to assess students, made her job noticeably easier. But what exactly were the benefits to students?

With respect to the impact on the learning process, the immediate feedback from the software at every stage helped provide thousands of iterations of encouragement and adjustment students needed to build confidence with instrumental music skills. The software provided this intelligent feedback in a way not remotely possible for one teacher using traditional-only strategies. Today, after four years, the entire school from Kindergarten to Grade V is engaged in this process as part of their weekly music class. Each student develops the ability to read music fluently, play piano with both hands to an intermediate skill level, improvising and composing. The addition of piano did not diminish the development of singing skills, rather piano skills increased student interest and rate of learning in singing… and other instruments. In grade four students now pick up a second instrument to learn, either the guitar or drums. By grade five, with piano playing skills still increasing, students now form small rock bands, and play in bands with each other. Perhaps the biggest impact came from the student enjoyment of the process, enhancing interest in learning music in subsequent years. This remarkable result at Flowery Branch can be reliably replicated in other schools in the district because the results are measurable, and because it's proved practical for the classroom teacher.

Many practicing music teachers consider the objectives impractical in a group class, since most are still using traditional-only strategies that became popular in the 50’s and 60’s. It’s hard for conservative music teachers to change direction, or even spend time looking… there are so many potential time wasters. But in this case the risk was mitigated by more up front work. The effective application of technology was led by a thoughtful teacher looking to provide key specific benefits to students.  Another clear benefit from this investment is the education of other teachers in the district.

Process of Technology Integration: Single School, Organic Growth using Properly Aligned Materials:

• The teacher was focused on learning objectives and carefully investigated interactive tools and identified a solution that could have a significant long term impact on the learning process
• The effort began within the means of the school, additional investment was negotiated after the technology was shown to be successful. Annual costs were in the order of $1500 per year
• Teacher identified core advantages (increased student engagement, thousands of iterations of intelligent individualized feedback required for the development of instrumental music skill)
• Teacher did not over-rely on software, the proper balance (2/3 traditional) enhanced interest
• Success in elementary led to long term benefits for middle school band teachers, who were excited to have so many fluent music readers / performers enter their band program in grade 6
• Teacher continued increasing her comfort level with the tools, and her creativity with these tools steadily raised the quality of the music program.

Result: A low-cost enhancement to the music program measurably strengthened students’ foundation in music, and dramatically increased students’ confidence and interest in continuing the study of music into middle school. Overall improvements in academic achievement and attitudes towards learning were observed. The teacher integrated a comprehensive, multi-year blended learning solution without losing any key learning objectives. The teacher competed successfully for resources, and her success will inspire other teachers to identify potential gains. The teacher experienced personal growth that led to improved results, and set a new standard for her music program. It’s a legacy for student development in that school for many years to come.

Conclusion: One reliable way for technology purchases to provide strong lasting value to students, is to make a detailed teacher & student cost/benefit analysis and test. In this case, cost & risk were kept low in the first year test, benefits related to curriculum were found to be high, and scope was increased.

Related Discussion: Choice of hardware brand and volume discounts are secondary to success in the above story. The priority was careful identification of ‘gains in the classroom’ which only occurred after judicious selection and trial of comprehensive software tools. Once it was known these tools significantly impact the learning process over several years, it’s easy to find an economical way to grow the program. Why is there a focus on hardware? Is it that we want to get started with hardware, which seems risk-free and simple? Then worry about software...? But does hardware make efficient use of class time?

Since teachers’ salaries are costly and students’ time is limited, is a hardware analysis reasonable justification for an ed-tech purchase? It may look like we’re accomplishing a lot by purchasing a tablet for each student, after all students and even parents celebrate the idea… until the results are measured. There are no short cuts to implementing a high quality blended-learning program. Good decisions involve detailed analysis by teachers and hands on testing.