Mobile Learning Mindset: The Principal's Guide to Implementation: The Prinicipal's Guide to Implementation (Mobile Learning Mindset, 2, Band 2) - Softcover

Carl Hooker has been part of a strong educational shift with technology integration in schools since 1998. His education background, technical expertise and humor make him a driving force for this change. As director of innovation and digital learning at Eanes ISD in Texas, he helped spearhead a mobile learning program that put iPads in the hands of all 8,000 students across the district. He is also the founder of “iPadpalooza” (ipadpalooza.com), a three-day learning festival in celebration of the shift iPads have brought about in education and beyond. Hooker was named Tech & Learning magazine’s 2014 Leader of the Year, and he is a member of the Apple Distinguished Educator class of 2013.

Chapter  5: Identifying Stakeholders and Cultivating Ownership

Have you ever had a really good idea, but found that your friends were not on board? Early in my teaching career, this thing called the internet wasreally starting to take off. My wife and I were invited to hear a product pitch for something called “Peapod.” The founders of this web application said it would completely replace grocery stores in 10 to 15 years. The concept was simple: You would type a list of grocery items into a web form, and this company would send you food from their warehouse. With just the click of some buttons, you could have food delivered to your door. So, shoppers would no longer have to navigate tight aisles with a shopping cart?

Sign me up! I was so excited about the idea that I even contemplated taking a portion of my $26,000 yearly teacher salary to invest in it.

 
Then my wife pulled me aside and started asking questions. She wasn’t being negative, but she was also skeptical of this concept. What about people without internet? Where is the food coming from? Who’s checking the quality of vegetables and fruit? What if they are out of what I want? You get the idea.
 
Although automating grocery buying appeared to be a way technology could simplify the shopping experience, it came with many issues. In addition to getting my wife’s input, I decided to bounce the idea off my friends. They were all completely opposed to it. At that point, I started to really question my rationale and excitement for the product. If the people I trust and love have some real problems with the idea, I should respect and listen to their input. Turns out, my wife and friends were partially right and partially wrong. The concept of outsourcing grocery shopping would eventually catch on (more than 15 years later) with the advent of “Instacart” (www.instacart.com), but they were correct in telling me that this wasn’t a wise investment at the time.
 
They would have supported me even if I had chosen not to listen, but this could have damaged some of our mutual respect and trust if I didn’t express to them that I value their opinions by offering a solid counterargument aside from “I think this is a swell idea.”
 
While this is a personal example, school leaders should use the same philosophy when gathering input for a device initiative. Your grand idea may not be so grand when people who will be directly affected have some say or input. As a leader of a campus, you have the most influence on whether a mobile learning environment can really be successful. Part of your influence is making wise decisions while gathering the input of others. And this doesn’t just mean other campus administrators.

Variety Is the Spice of Life (and So Is Decision Making)
In the summer of 2015, my school board and superintendent tasked me with the challenge of finding ways to gather as much input on our mobile device initiative as possible from all concerned parties (students, teachers, and parents). While the name started out as a “Technology Task Force” (www. eanesisd.net/taskforce/ttf), I knew it had to be about more than just tech- nology. Sure, we had $5 million to spend on our “Student Mobile Device Initiative,” but that investment in hardware represented something much bigger than just devices. I asked that the task force be renamed “Digital Learning Task Force” to show that learning was really the point.
 
When the time came to pick people for the task force, the temptation may have been to load it up with other like-minded gearheads, but in reality, they were already on board with the philosophy of digital tools in the hands of every student. We ended up having an open application online that invited parents and members of the community to be a part of this next decision. More than 60 community members expressed an interest in filling one of the four to six spots we held for them on the task force.
 
In the end, rather than just simply taking the biggest tech advocates, we broke the groups into four sections (community member without kids, secondary school parent, elementary school parent, and a “mix/all level” parent who had kids at each level.) We had everyone from soccer moms to business startup dads apply, as well as teachers and students (even though the application wasn’t for them). After making our selection based on their own input and beliefs, we set out to seek nominations from campuses for a variety of teachers, too.
 
Involving Teacher Leaders
Again, we could have made a “lay-up” decision here and just picked the vanguard technology teachers for the task force, but we needed a wide variety of representation from all subject areas and more. Picking the right teacher is more than just picking someone with technology prowess. They must have both of the following traits: openness to trying something new, and being seen as vocal and respected leaders on their campus.

 
Teachers are the ultimate gatekeepers of technology use in the classroom. Even a year after our initial pilot, we had reluctant teachers or those who didn’t see the value in mobile devices. Some even told students to just put the devices away. Using the well-researched “innovator’s bell curve” from the 1960s (which has been updated a bit to the Technology Adoption Curve seen in Figure 5.1), you can see that there is a “chasm” of sorts that you need to cross among the early adopters to make it successful. Once the early majority is on board, the wave of change will overpower those in the late majority and even some of the laggards who may never see value in the devices. Laggards hold this belief for
a variety of reasons—fear, hesitation, doubt that the technology will work, or just that they feel their methods are already “successful,” so why change now?
 
Despite those two extremes, you still have approximately 70% of teachers stuck in the middle trying to figure out which way to sway (resulting in the classic bell curve).

How Will This Solve a Problem for Teachers?
 The middle group in Figure 5.1 represents the majority of staff. Depending on the experience and mindset of your staff, you will have a little more than 70% who are basically going to continue on their same path unless they see a
convincing argument for how having mobile devices will help solve a problem for them. They aren’t necessarily against having technology in their class (see the “Laggards”), but they may need some explanation or motivation to use technology that could disrupt their teaching routine.
 
This group is the most important to get on board because, as you can tell by the curve, once you’ve got both the early and late majority on board, the wave has crested and the laggards will almost be forced to join. So, how do you
go about showing that a mobile device initiative solves a problem for those teachers? You keep it simple.
 
When meeting with teachers in teams or as an entire staff, be sure to stress that there are many different ways to integrate technology in the class- room. From organization to formative assessment, showing them a couple  of different tools will help with this. Then set some minimum expectations that both “raise the game” of the teacher but also give them some relief. One
effective way I’ve seen this done is telling staff that they should pick “just one or two” tools to add to their arsenal for the year, and when they have...