Looks Before Leaping

Image Source: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1223/577718504_85445c18b9.jpg?v=0 "Looks before leaping," should be the description of every education administrator. It doesn't mean that you're not going to leap, or that you'll stop, but that you take a long look before leaping. Due to the disconnect in many school districts between curriculum and technology departments--which find themselves spinning their wheels in tandem, parallel to each other, often headed in different directions without visible, tangible benefit to those they serve--"looks before leaping" might provide a measure of assistance in resolving issues. In the wake of No Child Left Behind, school districts found themselves investing in expensive programs--integrated learning systems that drilled/tutored children in the hopes of doing a better job than the poorly trained teachers. These sizable investments yield little results, however, as noted researcher Henry Becker has pointed out. The writing lesson today is a simple one. It highlights one possible approach to sending a message no one wants to read/hear. Here's the scenario:

The Curriculum Department for your school district has decided that to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), it needs to implement a costly, technology-based intervention. Your team of directors/coordinators realizes that the technology-based intervention is being ordered without a real grasp of the technology infrastructure challenges at the school. Simply put, the equipment in classrooms is not capable of running the software or too obsolete to run the client software. While everyone on the team is aware of the issues, how do you present this information to your supervisors who proposed the purchase and now have a pending purchase worth half a million to a million dollars in the pipe for School Board Approval? You're the only one who sees the issues clearly enough to articulate them. Everyone is looking to you. What are you going to do?

Well, one of your possibilities is to write an email or memo to the supervisors who may end up like the Emperor with no clothes. One possible response appears below:

Please note that VendorName REQUIRES—requirements from VendorName attached to this email--X, Y, and Z. Targeted campuses for VendorName lack the equipment to meet these basic requirements. However, there are other factors to take into consideration that have not all been addressed in anticipation of this implementation. The SchoolDistrictName, as you know, seriously needs to upgrade its infrastructure in K-12 to ensure successful use of ANY technology-based intervention system.

Additional Attention needs to be given to the following areas:

Area #1 – Hardware Requirements

• SchoolDistrictName's Curriculum Department needs to complete a Request for Technical Support for affected campuses to ensure that computers at those campuses meet minimum requirements

Area #2 – Network

• VendorName needs to be contacted and asked if their web-based program will work with/without a persistent wireless Internet connection.
• VendorName needs to be contacted regarding the use of a caching system, if one would work or not or even whether it’s appropriate.
• Bandwidth requirements (for example, VendorName single user requires at least XX kbps of bandwidth).

Area #3 – Account Management

• VendorName needs to support automated account management and maintenance including 24-hour secure FTP uploads
• The Student Information Archiving needs to be notified of requirements
• VendorName needs to identify how authentication of student and teacher logins will occur.
• VendorName needs to respond as to whether student ID # can be used as the student login with password generation
• VendorName needs to clarify whether data transfers are encrypted or open.
• VendorName, since it’s storing confidential student performance data, has to sign the agreement form to keep data confidential and to return that data to SchoolDistrictName if/when VendorName’s services are no longer needed.

Area #4 – Software Requirements

• Identify Minimum Browser
• Identify critical browser plug-ins/add-ons
• Identify minimum operating system for Windows (e.g. Windows XP has been identified) and for Mac OS X (e.g., Mac OS X.4 Tiger has been identified).
• Identify client software that needs to be installed on the computer

Again, I strongly recommend against moving forward issuing payment to—or implementing--VendorName until concerns in these critical areas have been dealt with.

Welcome Amazon Kindle Readers!

What a thrill to welcome Amazon Kindle readers to EduWrite Blog ! I hope you'll take a moment to leave a comment when you have the opportunity! I'm also delighted to share that my Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org Blog also appears on the Kindle:

My Copyright WebQuest

Some of my best writing, I did when I was unemployed and doing consulting for several regional service centers. That work was the Copyright Webquest, which actually paid out several thousand dollars...probably my highest paid gig ever! Can you tell how much fun I had writing this? Introduction "Uhh," I started intelligently, "I want to make a class set of these." The CopyMax guy looked at me like I was nuts. Then, politely, he reminded me about copyright law. Of course, I nodded my head, how could I have ever thought to make class sets of Slave Dancer for my students to read?

Like many educators I know, I've always felt the way that Maureen Pilgrim, a librarian, a Guardian of Copyright Law, shared with me in her presentation on the Big6: All ideas are stolen, modified to look like they’re not stolen, and shared among thieves.

Of course, that attitude can get you in lots of trouble. After all, violating copyright law didn't seem to hurt anyone when I first started teaching...but now, violating copyright law appears to have serious legal consequences for all. Whether you stack VCRs to make a quick copy of a Disney video, use CD-Recordables to make copies of songs off the Internet, existing music CDs, or educational software, it is clear that times have changed. But, as always, changing copyright law remains a gray area for most of us. What exactly is copyright and how does it apply to us? How can I teach my students to do work with technology that protects intellectual property and does not stifle creativity? In the space of 60 minutes, you're going to grapple with these questions and more.

The Task

To develop an understanding of copyright law and how it applies to you, you need to develop a thorough understanding of what you are allowed to do under copyright, and, what you are not allowed to do. One way for you to get there is to critically analyze a number of copyright scenarios and discuss them from multiple perspectives. That's your task in this exercise. If you're short on time, patience, or want to try a different way, you may want to review the presentation and then take the online quiz. By the end of this lesson, you and your group will answer these questions:

1. What is meant when someone says, "That's copyrighted" and what is fair use?
2. What is the best way to limit district liability in regards to copyright violations?
3. What does copyright law say about including copyrighted multimedia in educator and student products?
4. How do you get permission from the copyright owners to use their materials?

The Process You have several choices for getting the information you need to respond to the 4 questions above. You will need a copy of your district's acceptable use policy and, if they have one, their copyright & software policy. You can find some sample policies in the Resources section. Below are your 3 choices:

• You can view the presentation, //The Quest for Copyright Understanding// (or sit through it as someone else lectures to you). You can also get the PPT version.
• You can continue on to Step 1 of this WebQuest and complete the concept builder activities in a group (most fun way to do this), then take the Copyright Quiz.
• You can visit EducationWorld and read their excellent materials on Copyright and then take the Copyright Quiz I've put together for you.

Divide the whole group into small groups of four. Each small group member will assume one of the different roles shown below: The Copyright Author: You've spent over a year developing a collection of thematic lessons that are correlated to state and national education standards, incorporate videotape, your original artwork, and some really great ideas. Your publisher has just notified you that they believe your copyright is being violated, but rather than pursue the issue themselves, they've asked you to put your talents to work at designing a guide for teachers who want to use copyrighted materials in their classroom. A little angry at the creative uses other teachers have put your work to without compensation, you begin.... The School Administrator: In your mind, the best use of technology is the one that results in the least amount of litigation. You've heard from your campus librarians that several teachers are developing web pages that use copyrighted images, sounds, multimedia (like MP3 music clips) and you are concerned that it won't be long before you are embroiled in a lawsuit. You just want to stop the Internet and can't wait for this fad to be over. You decide to analyze school district policy to see how the district may have missed the mark on copyright policy. Begin... The Librarian: As a guardian of copyright law, you're a bit scandalized by the wide-scale copying of copyrighted materials in your school. You are in charge of your school's software checkout program. Teachers come to you to check out the installation CDs. Right now, the system is a mess. Even though you know who is checking out the software, you're not quite sure how teachers are using the software. Begin... The Technophile:** What a wonderful thing the Internet is! Last night, you downloaded MP3 music via your high speed cable modem and burned it on a CD with your CD-Recorder. The school computer doesn't have the right software to do graphics editing, so you found the pirated version on the Web, downloaded it and installed it on your computer and everyone else's at your grade level. Now, all of you can work on the End of School Memory Project. Begin... [lots of stuff goes here but has been cut out]

Conclusion

When you're done discussing what you have learned, it is hoped that you will have understood the importance of copyright law and where you stand as an educator, as well as developed some strategies for adhering to copyright law and sharing your understanding with your peers and students.

Technology Related Assessments

Expecting people to complete technology related assessments--or assessments of any kind--can be daunting. Below is an email to accomplish that, addressed to campus principals:

Administrators and instructional staff play a pivotal role in determining how well technology is used in our schools. Acknowledging that role, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires campus administrators to achieve acceptable performance on standards-based performance profiles of technology user skills as defined by the state. On April 14, 2009, achievement of this performance was mandated by the Texas Education Agency and deadline for completion is May 15, 2009.Reporting deadlines for NCLB also necessitate updating of LOTI information.

Two educator assessments are to be implemented, including 1) The NCLB Administrator Assessment for campus principals and 2) The Levels of Technology Implementation for classroom teachers. These electronic, paperless needs assessments provide critical data related to long range technology planning for [removed], as well as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funding. Results of the two assessments will be shared with teachers, and aggregated at both the campus and district level through meetings with principals and campus instructional coordinators.

ASSESSMENT #1 - NCLB ADMINISTRATOR ASSESSMENT FOR CAMPUS PRINCIPALS Timeline for Completion is April 27- May 15, 2009.

The Administrator Self-Assessment will measure the administrator’s level of practice for each standard based on their selection as to the level that best describes their practice. Campus administrators may be defined as campus principals and assistant principals. Individual administrator assessment data will be held confidential.

The process is as follows; note that this assessment will not be available until April 27.

1. Go to [removed] and click on the STaR Chart Assessment graphic to begin the assessment. A tutorial will be available online at [removed]
2. Complete the Self-Assessment prior to May 15th.
3. Campus principals failing to complete the assessment by May 15th will be contacted to ensure 100% completion reporting status.

TEA mandates 100% completion of this assessment.

ASSESSMENT #2 - LOTI ASSESSMENT FOR CAMPUS TEACHERS, CICS, LIBRARIANS Timeline for Completion is April 21 - May 30, 2009.

The Levels of Technology Implementation (LOTI) Survey is a consistent set of measures that accurately reflect the progressive nature of teaching with technology. The LOTI survey has been employed nationally and internationally to assess tens of thousands of classroom teachers’ level of technology implementation. Completing the questionnaire will enable your school to make better choices regarding staff development and future technology purchases. It will also enable the District to respond to the questions “What impact is technology having on student academic achievement? How has technology funding for professional development changed teaching practices?”

Teachers will be expected to login with their Outlook email account name (e.g. if your email is “[removed]” then your LOTI login is “[removed]” and birth month/day (e.g. 1022 if you were born October 22).

So as to ensure smooth implementation, you are urged to put the following suggestions into practice:

• The administration window for the needs assessment is April 21-May 30, 2009. The needs assessment is available online at [removed]
• Identify the target audience of the assessment:
• Who has to complete the assessment? Teachers, Campus Instructional Coordinators and Library Media Specialists will need to complete the LOTI Assessment.
• Who does not have to complete the assessment? Counselors, nurses, paraeducators need not complete the LOTI Assessment.
• Administer the needs assessment during Faculty Meeting time. It is a 15-20 minute survey. Since this needs assessment only takes 15-20 minutes to complete, and requires a computer per teacher, consider using computer stations in your computer lab(s) and library. The needs assessment can also be taken from any computer—on or off campus—with high-speed Internet access.
• Encourage those uncomfortable with using technology to pair up with staff who are more comfortable. While each will take the assessment individually, they can also lend a helping hand.
• It is important to note that this needs assessment may not be used for PDAS appraisal purposes. Only aggregated results will be available to principals, although teachers will be able to see their individual assessment totals.
• Rely on campus technology representatives to facilitate all professional instructional staff to take the online assessment. Also be aware that you can rely on the Office of Instructional Technology Services’ staff. You can reach the [removed]

Deadline for Completion is May 30, 2009.

Should you have any questions, please contact [removed]

When Disaster Strikes--Maybe Not

During the swine flu scare, my secretary asked a question that set me on edge. "Miguel, some of the people using the computer lab downstairs are coming from district where there have been reported cases of swine flu. Should we be disinfecting the lab computers?" While the swine flu turned out to be not as bad as feared, at the time, it was clear something had to be done. To that end, to satisfy the perception of need, the following was sent to all campus principals:

Although there are currently no confirmed cases of Swine Flu in [removed] County and consequently no restrictions for the area, we understand there may be concerns related to disinfecting objects used by multiple people such as computer equipment.

As a preventative measure, we encourage all campuses to disinfect all computers as well as keyboards, mice, and headsets that see frequent use in our schools. An alcohol based disinfectant, such as Lysol disinfectant wipes, should be applied to all computer equipment at the end of every school day.

Below is a listing of general tips that should be taken when cleaning any of the components of a computer as well as tips to help keep a computer clean:

1. Never spray or squirt any type of liquid onto any computer component. If a spray is needed, spray the liquid onto a cloth and then use that cloth to rub down the component.

2. When cleaning a computer, turn it off before cleaning.

3. Never get any part inside the computer damp or wet.

4. When cleaning, be careful not to accidentally adjust any knobs or controls. In addition, when cleaning the back of the computer, if anything is plugged in, make sure not to disconnect any of the plugs.

Cleaning the computer helps to prevent the spreading of germs. Therefore, you are encouraged to disinfect all computer equipment at least once a day.

For additional information, please contact [removed].

How did your district handle it?

Reaching for the Heart: 5 Tips for School District Communications

...the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing...It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

--Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense (1776)

"Jesus Figueroa tells trustees: 'My hair is not hurting anybody. My hair causes no students to be held back in their eduation.'" So reads the almost 140 character tweet sent by SA Express News writer, Michelle de la Rosa (http://twitter.com/mmdelarosa), who often covers local San Antonio school issues using Twitter.com, a social media tool. The challenge to Figueroa's long hair reaches a school district's school board (in San Antonio, Tx), only to see an eventual capitulation by that Board, "Unanimous board vote to grant Figueroa special dispensation from grooming policy. He gets to keep long hair and stay in regular classroom." (Read the rest of the story online at http://tinyurl.com/dfu7bp). Even if you cannot attend the Board Meeting, you are transported there, following electronic bread crumbs, or "tweets." Several districts, like Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD and Kerrville ISD, embraced the use of Twitter--a micro-blogging tool--during the alleged Swine Flu Epidemic (a list of Texas Twitterers appears online at http://mguhlin.wikispaces.com/txtwits). In the past, school districts have perceived media attention as invariably negative, rejoicing whenever positive stories can be had. Press releases, strategic presentations to special community groups and advocates are only a small part of what is possible. In fact, those approaches may even be superfluous to what is really possible with social media tools. Yet, time and again, school districts step back from encouraging their staff, students and parents from using social media. Failure to embrace these tools leaves school districts open to attacks, but times are changing--parents are fighting back using social media. "Activist parents now have," points out Dr. Scott McLeod, "a bevy of new tools and strategies to help facilitate their agendas and they are not afraid to use them. School organizations are going to have to get used to this new state of affairs in which parent activism and criticism are more public, permanent, and far-reaching." This article is about how school districts can use social media tools and connect with the global audience, circumventing the traditional media to get the real story out there. As such, this article focuses on 3 points and offers a few tips for using social media:

1. Refining our perception of what constitutes "Communications and PR" in a highly connected world
2. The power of story to unlock what makes your heart beat and overcome the Knowing-Doing Gap, which approaches the question of why knowledge of what needs to be done frequently fails to result in action. (Pfeffer and Sutton, The Knowing-Doing Gap, 2000 as cited in Dennis Sparks article, Reach for the Heart as Well as the Mind, online via free trial at http://tinyurl.com/m36a29).
3. How social media can be used to share your story.

REFINING OUR PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES "Seek out change," advises a noted journalist, Jeff Jarvis. He goes on to point out that in addition to seeking out change, organizations need to find the opportunities in that change, as well as deal with the hard problems it brings instead of side-stepping them. In virtual space, if you're not sharing content, if you are silent, your absence signals your unwillingness to embrace the hard problems. In an online world, silence is failure. Our classrooms, our schools, our school districts are defined by the stories we tell about them. Traditional media spend little time on these positive stories. They are drawn to the conflict, the fear, and what constitutes the real story. And, their failure to recognize that the audience is no longer listening, but also, creating content that they are more apt to pay attention to using social media, has had a profound impact on newspaper sales. People know that they can find the truth that is real, authentic, openly shared and transparent via new venues. While staff freedom of expression via social media is tightly controlled by District Communication Departments because the stories aren't as positive as the slick flyer or press release says it is, muzzling the one group of advocates, who really know what is happening in schools, has severe consequences. Imagine the San Antonio, Tx district with a student with long hair. How could the school district have managed information sharing differently with the Community? To do the work of district communications requires a different attitude and/perspective. That's why in my school district, I have a page of videos (http://itls.saisd.net/lead)--created in spite of the teacher resistance that we are "tooting our own horn"--that describe some of our initiatives and celebrate student work. As an educator, I do not want my word to be the last word on what is going on in my school district. I want that last word to be spoken by an innovative teacher, a student's voice developing a project, a parent sharing what the work of education means to their child. As a citizen-journalist, as a person who has embraced social media as a way to share the exciting actions being taken by educators around me, I also see an important need for K-12 educators to tell "their" story, sharing what is happening at their schools, in their classrooms, in the offices, as openly and transparently as possible. My bias is that I believe that most educators live in fear of speaking up, fear of losing their jobs, being censured, being called into their supervisor's office or at Human Resources and asked, with the force of temporal power lurking behind each word, "So, tell us. What do you really believe and why should we continue to employ you if you're going to say this about us?" Instead, anyone with with the temerity to be transparent about the work they are doing should be celebrated and applauded. “Sharing is THE threat,” shared Mark Pesce at a recent conference (Source: http://tinyurl.com/6bgkj2). One of the key points of his talk was that in his ”honest and human act of sharing, any of the pretensions to control, the limitations, or power are revealed as completely collapsed and impotent.” As school district leaders struggle to lead, it is clear that though each of us has a phone that grants access to powerful, disruptive technologies, we choose not to use them. While students share ideas and information about everything under the sun, leaders are unable to have real conversations about critical issues. THE POWER OF STORY "All the education in the world is worthless," writes an 18 year old blogger at the A Boundless World blog (http://tinyurl.com/qt5a4q), "if you never unlock what makes your heart beat." He goes on to share in a must-read article about schools and education, that grades don't guarantee success. Instead, that passion, determination and positive attitude equal success. These are ideas that are emerging from the masses of K-12 and adult learners who work in our systems. Their expectations for what education, what school should be like, are changing dramatically from where we have been. That story of passion captures readers and raises a question for Communications Directors in school districts--if your readers have infinite choices available to access information, why would they want to read your dry, boring, canned version of what happened when they can sign on via a Twitter stream and read what happened as it happened with none of the gory details left out? These changing expectations have implications, not only for the educators that work or administer learning occurring in classrooms, but also for school district administrators who feel the pressure to represent change to a wider audience as positive, enabling, and encouraging. The problem is, press releases, powerpoint presentations to select groups, traditional media interviews that provide the video/sound byte that will be broadcast on YouTube...are often ineffective. At a TASA 2009 Midwinters Conference, the presenters of a workshop on using social media pointed out that, "Traditional communication tools have a limited life and as such are limited relationships. Even public meetings…a meeting tonight about school boundaries is limited to that room right there." (Listen to a podcast of this presentation here - http://tinyurl.com/blgljw). While the presenters have not achieved the pinnacle of social media control (which presents a paradox), transforming the underlying organization in ways that tap into the full power of social media, I applaud the way they’ve been transparent about their efforts. The question I’m left with isn't, “How can we can better navigate this process in school organizations?” but rather, how can we trust and empower our educational community to share the compelling stories that are a part of every day work? SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS - SPREADING THE CULTURE VIRUS "While you’ve been hiring consultants to create a slick corporate intranet, establishing policies about who gets to post what, and creating a chain of command to ensure that only appropriate and approved materials show up on your...home page," points out Seth Godin in his book Meatball Sundae, "your engineers, scientists, researchers -- ...even the marketing folks -- have been creating little Web sites for their own use." Meatball Sundae is a book I urge every school district communications staff member to read since it gets at the heart of the problem school districts face. You can't take advantage of social media unless you re-align your core approach to storytelling and sharing ideas/information to the new tools available. One way to accomplish that is to think of social media as a "culture virus," a term coined by Jim Stogdill in a presentation on open source software and government. Jim suggests that a culture virus has the potential to carry community, transparency, and collaboration across the various, traditionally impermeable boundaries - with community participation as the carrier. That is, the more you activate the community, the greater the spread of the virus. Why would you want to spread such a virus? The benefits to a school district would include culture emergence as "community participants find their perspectives, their worldviews and psychographic profiles spliced in with those community norms--things like transparency, collaboration, and a strong bias toward meaningful participation." While there are many social media tools available, here are some core ideas that can get you started in creating content that is engaging and will bring readers back. Think of the use of social media tools at all levels of your organization as a culture virus, a way to empower members to meaningfully participate in the work. Instead of three or four central office administrators trying to control what gets reported in your district, you have an army of people working 24 hours a day sharing what works, what doesn't, what's popular, what's not with a world. No matter what you do, this level of participation will get you noticed and may help bring shipwrecks to the light of day, while providing opportunities for organizational change. How does any organization achieve the change it desires so that new ideas (e.g. culture virus norms) aren't just being grafted onto an "old-world" thinking (e.g. school district adds a superintendent's blog to their site but it is authored by the communications director and the district lawyer, not the superintendent) organization? To begin sharing the culture virus, someone--preferably someone in a leadership position--has to embrace the fundamental principles of meaningful participation, increased collaboration and transparency. Then, you have to encourage the use of social media tools. Here are 5 tips for K-12 educators, communication professionals or not, inspired by Social Media Explorer similar blog entry:

1. Engage Your Audience with Your Content: Content that hasn't been prefabricated, is lifeless and written in third person, but is authentic, transparent, open about success as well as failure will be read by your constituents. Start with a story, including audio, video, avoiding being limited by one format or another (e.g. text, video, audio). Blend all of it in so that you reach more people through a media medium that they are interested in. The multimedia portions--audio and video--can be downloaded and put on iPods and MP3/MP4 players. What a great way for students, community members and staff to find out what is going on from others in their organization. At the risk of being imperfect, here is one example of a blog entry that tries to put some of these points into practice: http://tinyurl.com/lqkjdh and a more traditional eNewsletter approach - http://tinyurl.com/laxjao
2. Make Content Sharing Easy: Press releases on a web site just do not work anymore. Traditional web sites that can't be subscribed to using RSS feeds or that allow email subscription are dead sites. Many web users just aren't taking the time to come back to your site, instead preferring to subscribe to content that will come to them via Google Reader, Twitter.com updates to their phone, and more. Use a blog (e.g. Wordpress), and add plugins that make it easy for people to share your content with others. Some sharing tools include Delicious.com, Diigo.com, Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, Facebook.com, and Twitter.com. If you're not familiar with these sites, then know that your audience may already be using them to share content about you that you may not like. The solution isn't to block those sites in schools, but to encourage their appropriate use. Most blog platforms and tools enable you to add easy to share/save tools. To get the result on the blog entry in the link shared in Engage Your Audience with Content, I used a Wordpress Plug in (a list appears here - http://tinyurl.com/queo9t) called Add to Any.
3. Create a Content Calendar: In your District, there are many wonderful things happening that your community wants to know about. Unfortunately, providing print copies of short articles via email or in print do not allow you to explore everything great that is happening and share it easily. However, online, you have an unlimited number of pages and a global audience. Why not create a content calendar that enables you to map out with a calendar what you will be sharing with others online?
4. Define and Build Relationships: While it may not be popular to follow your local news reporters via Twitter, it is critical that you do so. It is critical because you can raise their awareness by the engaging content that you are sharing about your school district. While they may want to focus on the negative, you can mitigate the effect of their tweets by building a relationship of trust and integrity through the stories you share about your district, your campus, and your classroom.
5. Make Offline Available Online: Every speaking engagement, each meeting is an opportunity to share your ideas. Avoid the mistake of creating content solely for online or offline audiences. When you create offline content--a conversation with parents at the morning coffee meet-n-mingle with the principal--take the time to write about it, maybe even debrief a parent in a one on one conversation. "What did you think about our morning coffee meeting? How did it impact you?" Take the time to share what you're doing online.

CONCLUSION In one of my favorite quotes, Clay Shirky shares (http://tinyurl.com/34a5ts) that "In high-freedom environments, people use social tools for fun. In low-freedom environments they use them for political action." Will you encourage your staff and students to learn how to appropriately use social media tools for fun, or will you be on the receiving end of their use? I suggest that many school districts today are feeling the brunt these tools because they are "low-freedom" environments. It's time to change. Shall we begin together?

Bearing Sad Tidings

Ever have something go wrong in your educational environment? If the answer is YES, then you may be struggling with how to write about the tough stuff. I've found the secret to sharing bad news involves:

1. Admitting what the problem is and how it came about. If it's your fault, then admit it as baldly and as plainly as possible. If you don't know why, say so. This is where you take responsibility.
2. Share what you did to fix the problem and what the resolution, if any, was.
3. What other options exist and what you can do to accomplish it.

Here's an example of a problem involving an Apple Blog/Wiki server. The problem is as simple as the wiki user group isn't showing up. Even if you don't know what a wiki is, you have to admit that this email is unambiguous in sharing the struggle with getting it to work. This email--and this involved a follow-up phone call--is addressed to the users of the wiki system who directly suffered the loss of data:

As two of the most active users of Apple wikis, I regret to inform you that we've run into a bit of a problem with the wikis you have created. I apologize for not responding to you about this issue sooner; I honestly thought I was on to a solution that when implemented would yield positive results. Since I appreciate the loss of significant information you had in your wikis, I've taken the liberty of copying my supervisor, [name removed], so that he will be aware of the challenges we face. BACKGROUND Sometime in the last week--you probably know exactly when better than I due to your usage--the wikis went offline. After researching the Apple web site and support area for wikis, as well as consulting with a colleague, it appears that this may be a bug in the Apple OS X Leopard Server. I do not know this exactly but it is my best guess after scouring the user support areas for wiki. While your wikis still exist and, the wikis refuse to appear in the list of groups. To try and restore the group user list, I've taken the following steps:

• Consulted with [name removed], who no longer is employed with us but setup the server initially and is a certified Mac server person. His suggested fix did not work.
• Consulted with the District's Technology Department staff as to what they could do to restore the wikis. Neither is comfortable enough with Mac Servers to provide the needed support to resolve this issue. I spoke to both of them last week about this issue specifically.
• Spent several hours reading and reviewing solutions myself to trouble-shoot the wikis' disappearance, encountering other unanswered requests for help regarding the disappearance of the wikis on OS X Leopard Server after updates.
• Worked with a Mac server administrator in another district to see what his opinions might be.

In short, I do not entertain any hopes of seeing your wikis come back to life in the next week or two. In fact, pessimistically, I would say they might not come back at all. That's worst case scenario. I will be making greater efforts to connect with other educators using Apple Wikis to see what they have done or if they've encountered this problem. Pursuing those leads may take us through what remains of the school year. SUMMATION At this time, I cannot recommend continuing with the wiki solution. As such, I recommend that you consider use of any one of the following solutions:

• Use the wiki in your Moodle. While not as "open" as the Apple wiki, this solution can be easily supported.
• Use Wikispaces.com. Advertising is removed for education users and they provide excellent, no-cost support. While I am leery of posting content on outside hosting providers, aside from Moodle wikis, I do not have another option to offer you at this time that is as easy or friendly as the Apple wiki.

Please accept my apologies for the inaccessibility of your existing data. Thank you for taking the time to read this short note.

In this email, you can see that the author followed the basic formula outlined at the beginning of this post. Have you written any communications that followed it as well?

Twitter - Educational Apps

This past week, I found myself sharing Twitter as an educational app, a way to tap into the network of learners around the globe. Here are some of the Twitterapps that really caught my attention as usable in education while reading this fantastic wrap-up of the 25+ Incredibly Useful Twitter apps (I also have to point out that this is a great list article!):

1. Just Tweet It - It was created to make it easier for people using the popular micro-blogging service Twitter to find other “Tweeters” with similar interests. I can imagine sharing this with educators who are just starting out who need help finding other edubloggers.
2. Hashtag - Hashtags are an easy way to track a specific topic or event such as the San Diego Fires using the Twitter network. You can encourage people attending a conference or learning event to share what they're learning about and then track them all using hashtags.
3. TwitterMail - When you provide your Twitter credentials they supply you with a TwitterMail email address. For instance abcdef1234@twittermail.com. If you send an email to that address it will be posted to Twitter.com. Also you can receive your latest twitter-replies automatically by e-mail. This might be great for educators who live behind the "Berlin Wall;" you know, access is blocked by content filters in an effort to "protect" anyone from using the web inappropriately but with the more disastrous effect of preventing anyone from using it all. You can email your twitter updates out and receive them.
4. StrawPoll - Run your own poll on twitter with the new StrawPoll Platform, where you can use your own Twitter account to ask the questions you find interesting. Do your own surveys using Twitter...what a powerful way to get answers from your network of co-learners.
5. TweetBeep - TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter! Put in a keyword or website, and get emails when others tweet it! What a great way to tap into the conversation about education and reform without actually having to sit there and watch it happen as it happens.

Be sure to read 17 Ways to use Twitter and the Big Juicy Guide to Twitter (probably find out more than you ever wanted to know!)

Turning Up the H.E.A.T in 21st Century Classrooms

I love the writing in Dr. Moersch's LOTI Project: Targeting 21st Century Skills and Improved Student Achievement booklet, which replaces the traditional letter-size paper handouts. Dr. Moersch writes:

Many schools are inundated with curriculum initiatives, state mandates, and technology infusion programs designed to improve instruction and promote student academic success. The last thing they need is another new initiative to add to a litany of reform efforts. What makes LOTI Different? The difference is that LOTI (levels of teaching innovation) is designed to harness the power of your existing programs into one united effort to assess, plan, implement, and sustain a systems approach to improved student achievement using 21st Century teaching, learning and leadership.

You can also watch Chris share his perspective on this in the video below. What I like about the writing is that it appeals to educators who are overwhelmed by a barrage of initiatives (that often appear as separate and distinct from each other) can use the assess, plan, implement and sustain systems approach to make sense of it all. Seems simple, doesn't it? But in practice, it's far from it.

Click the image above to start watching Dr. Chris Moersch share about how to TURN UP THE H.E.A.T. with Levels of Technology Implementation. Kudos to Larry Stegall and Tonya Mills for their video recording and editing work!

HEAT is an acronym for...

HIGHER-ORDER THINKING

* Students taking notes only; no questions asked

* Student learning/questioning at knowledge level

* Student learning/questioning at comprehension level

* Student learning/questioning at application level

* Student learning/questioning at analysis level

* Student learning/questioning at synthesis/evaluation

ENGAGED LEARNING

* Students report what they have learned only.

* Students report what they have learned only; collaborate with others.

* Students given options to solve a problem

* Students given options to solve a problem; collaborate with others

* Students help define the task, the process, and the solution

* Students help define the task, the process, and the solution; collaborations extends beyond the classroom.

AUTHENTICITY

* The learning experience is missing or too vague to determine relevance.

* The learning experience represents a group of connected activities, but provides no real world application.

* The learning experience provides limited real world relevance, but does not apply the learning to a real world situation.

* The learning experience provides real world relevance and opportunity for students to apply their learning to a real world situation.

* The learning experience is directly relevant to students and involves creating a product that has a purpose beyond the classroom that directly impacts the students.

TECHNOLOGY USE

* No technology use is evident.

* Technology use is unrelated to the task.

* Technology use appears to be an add-on and is not needed for task-completion.

* Technology use is somewhat connected to task completion involving one or more applications

* Technology use is directly connected to task completion involving one or more applications.

* Technology use is directly connected and needed for task completion and students determine which application(s) would best address their needs.

5 Essential Technology Tools for Campus Administrators

Note: Only 3 essential tools are shared in this first installment of a three-part series.

“Miguel,” a superintendent in a district I was

visiting asked me, “could you develop a CD highlighting the top 5 technology tools to make a principal’s life easier?” I was flabbergasted. A CD? You mean, a compact disc? Who uses those anymore? The ubiquitous web makes it possible to access a wealth of online resources. Sure, a simple CD with free, open source tools would be useful, but there is so much you can do with free, online professional learning tools. As such, my response was simple:

5 Technology tools to make a principal’s life better are not CD—compact disc—based because they are not software. CD-based tech tools wouldn’t go far either since 99% of principals don’t have Active Directory installation rights. Yet, this list provides the opportunity for extended conversations.

But that kind of response does not go too far with a superintendent. You have to highlight solutions, not just counter with problems. Of course, one would want the content to be self-paced and enable administrators to work their way through it as their schedules permit. Here is a short list of topics that could be addressed in the context of a Moodle, which is a course management system. You could just as easily organize this in a wiki but Moodle makes it convenient because of the interactive questionnaire and discussion forums (View screenshot of Moodle).

Although each topic in the Moodle course I organized for the superintendent in question is a face to face class by itself, there are ways to accomplish this course online! You can actually preview one example of an Administrators’ Academy online (login as guest)!

1. Assessing Technology Implementation in Campus Classrooms
2. Building Interactivity into Your SlideShow Presentations
3. Surveys, Forms, and Spreadsheets - Data Collection Made Easy, and, though it’s beyond the scope of this month’s article, these additional items:
4. Putting Your Best Foot Forward, Online with Blogging and Podcasting
5. Facilitating Online Learning Conversations with Moodle

Although there are many more technology-related tools that administrators could use, these are some of the ones I have found most useful for campus administrators.

Let’s explore these briefly below:

1 - Assessing Technology Implementation in Campus Classrooms

“Is it possible,” asked the superintendent in my story, “to put together an assessment our principals could take so that we could identify other areas for professional development?” There are a variety of technology assessments that could be used with administrators. Although I definitely endorse the use of Dr. Chris Moersch’s Levels of Technology Implementation (or, the new name which is the Levels of Teacher Innovation), sometimes it is necessary to accomplish your own assessment within the District. Many school districts are forced to report on this data due to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funds that they use in their district. For the description in the Moodle, I wrote the following:

This short assessment will help you gain insight into areas of strength and weakness, and enable you to better determine what professional learning opportunities you can seek out in the future. It will also help the District prioritize and customize professional learning for you.

For the purposes of the district in question, I adapted a sample technology self-assessment tool from Massachusetts and embedded it—with a few minor modifications—in a Moodle using the Questionnaire module. The Questionnaire module makes it easy to share surveys with staff and collect data, then view that data in graphical format. For example, here is a screenshot of the Massachusetts questions and responses (only 1 just so you get a feel for what it looks like):

In this case, it is important that administrators learn that they can use in-house district tools to gather information. However, it is a simple matter to use other tools as well to collect information. Finding the right assessment is also a matter of finding one that is valid and reliable, not just a series of questions designed by a committee. In those situations, only the LOTI Assessment will do.

2 - Building Interactivity into Your SlideShow Presentations

“How did you add audio to your presentation?” is a question that I often get now when I share narrated presentations with administrators. There are several ways to accomplish that, however, I like to share my favorite top 3 solutions according to degree of difficulty. They all work in essentially the same way: a) You send them your presentation; b) You add audio to your presentation if possible; c) You share the “embed” code on a web page so that the slideshow will play on your campus or district web page.

1. VoiceThread.com - This is my favorite, free tool to share. VoiceThread enables your viewers to add audio, video and text of their own. What a fantastic way to recognize the work that is being done, and invite recognition of that work done by your staff by others! When working with campus administrators, be sure to share the VoiceThreads4Education.wikispaces.com web site with them. There are a few examples of administrators at the district and campus level sharing their presentations.
2. MyPlick.com - This is a wonderful tool that allows you to upload your Powerpoint presentation, then, if you have it, send in audio you have recorded. When working with the presentation, you listen to your audio and advance the slide show at the appropriate moment. When you are done, MyPlick actually remembers and when played by a visitor, plays the audio in sync with your presentation slides. Amazing! (Thanks to Steve Dembo at http://teach42.com for this tip!).
3. Slideshare.net - This is another slideshow sharing tool that I use with great frequency. You can also add audio to Slideshare so that it works in a similar way to MyPlick.com.

There are various other tools available but this is a short list of some great ones.

3 - Surveys, Forms, and Spreadsheets - Data Collection Made Easy

Ever had to collect a lot of information from campuses, wanted to do it electronically but instead ended up with lots of emails flying back and forth with Word or Excel spreadsheet documents attached? And then, someone has to put it all together some way or another? Skip that.

You’ve probably already heard of GoogleDocs and it’s built-in spreadsheet function. You make a spreadsheet, GoogleDocs takes your column headings and makes a form that people can fill out online. When you view the data, it’s already arranged in a spreadsheet. You just send out the web page link to the form, and people fill it out. It once was incredibly difficult for non-techies to do this but now it is very easy, so easy that students are learning how to do it all around the world.

To facilitate your creation of GoogleDocs for information-gathering, set up a GoogleDocs area just for your District’s use. Campus administrators love it because setting up a spreadsheet is something they know how to do, and turning that into a form people can fill out is a cinch with GoogleDocs. One thing you should avoid using GoogleDocs—or any online tool that your District does not host on their own servers—is secure, confidential data. But most of the data campus/district administrators collect is not confidential.

Here is one example of a district using GoogleDocs (login as guest) to collect information. Note the two videos at the top of the page give you an overview of GoogleDocs and how it can be used in K-12 education by students and staff. How to get started and what success looks like:

• GoogleDocs enables you to turn your new spreadsheet into a web-based form others can fill out. All data submitted goes straight into your spreadsheet, which you can work with online or export as an Excel spreadsheet, HTML document, PDF, etc. And, you can make all of these formats available as the results for your participants!
  • Examples #1 - TechSalaries: What should your tech director be making?
    • Respond to Survey
    • Spreadsheet of Results
    • Results as HTML/web page
    • Results as Comma-Delimited format
    • Results as OpenDocumentSpreadsheet readable in OpenOffice or NeoOffice
    • Results in MS Excel format
    • Results in PDF

If you do not want to use Moodle and the Questionnaire Module, consider these 10 alternative online poll/survey sites you can take advantage of, all at no-cost:

• Poll Daddy - http://www.polldaddy.com/
• Cool Web Toys - http://www.coolwebtoys.com/
• Vizu.com - http://vizu.com/
• Blogflux - http://www.blogflux.com/
• Quimble - http://quimble.com/
• SurveyMonkey - http://www.surveymonkey.com/
• Zoomerang - http://info.zoomerang.com/
• Survey Gizmo - http://www.surveygizmo.com/
• Ballot-Box - http://www.ballot-box.net/
• Easy Poll - http://www.easy-poll.com/

Collecting information via the Web has never been easier! Make sure your campus administrators know how to do this.

Conclusion

As you can probably surmise, organizing this content in a Moodle makes it easy to track campus administrator participation, as well as to stay in contact with them. I hope you will take a moment to share your top technology tools for administrators with me via my blog at Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net for inclusion in next month’s installment of this article.

Broadcast Learning: The Power of Network Learning

What if you could broadcast learning at will via the Internet to a world of learners? How would that change your conception of learning? What if you could interact with people, not only face to face in your workshop, but also halfway around the world? What if your workshop participants could participate in a conversation with those other virtual participants, all of them discussing the broadcast learning going on? Pretty exciting, no? I still remember my first exposure to broadcast learning technologies now available via the Internet. The power of pro-sumers, individuals who create as well as consume...but we might call them "prolearners," as Vicki Davis suggests, instead, as learners who not only are docile consumers of knowledge, but also, active creators of it.

Image: FlashMeeting screenshot with Paul Harrington in the foreground.

My adventure began quite simply one day at work. On October 11, 2008, I had the opportunity to "sit-in" on Vicki Davis' UStream session on Wikis (http://k12wiki.wikispaces.com). The session was announced via Twitter (http://twitter.com/mguhlin), an instant messaging tool that allows you to follow what hundreds of others--in my case, educators--are doing. Someone shared the link and I was off to see this new broadcast learning technology. It was a lot of fun listening in on her workshop. I got a real sense of being there, even though the only person I could see was Vicki. Sometimes she was on screen, sometimes she wasn't. I also had fun tracking the backchannel conversation going on; the backchannel was a conversation about Vicki's presentation available via Twitter. According to Wikipedia, Twitter is a...

...free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application.

My second experience came the next day when I attended a workshop. Attending a workshop for Texas educational technology coordinators in Fall, 2007, I decided to flip my computer around, aiming the built-in video camera directly at the speaker, the State Educational Technology Director for Texas. I announced the availability of the presentation on the email list for the technology coordinators group, and immediately, participants from hundreds of miles jumped in to listen and chat about what was going on. My next experience enabled me to broadcast a spotlight speaking presentation with a colleague (Wes Fryer, SpeedofCreativity.org). Though we had a packed room of educators, we had a worldwide audience waiting to not only receive, but give back, to share their knowledge on the topic.

This is the world our children have at their fingertips...this article presents a few solutions you can use at little or no cost in your school district. Others have recently proven the value of broadcast learning at local conferences that took on an international flavor, such as EduCon 2.0 and the Colorado Learning 2.0 Conference. Another notable example includes thousands of students from around the world listening to Pulitzer Prize winning author sharing about George Washington, the United States' first President and Commander-in-Chief.

TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FOR EDUCATION

Broadcast learning sounds so one-way, so uni-directional. Yet, the truth is that the learning IS interactive and multi-directional. There are a variety of tools available for use, most of them involving access to a computer that has built-in video camera and a microphone. In minutes, you can be broadcasting, even via wireless connection, to a worldwide audience. Two types of tools exist; those hosted by third party providers and those that you host yourself on your own server. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on solutions that are available at no cost. There are expensive solutions, yet these are often eschewed in the educational community because of their expense.

Free hosted solutions include the following, of which UStream.tv is the clear winner. I'm not going to discuss all the options because only the first two are appropriate for K-16 education (although educators are encouraged to carefully consider the use of these technologies, preview them prior to use to ensure avoidance of adult topics with youngsters).

1. UStream.tv - This is the top pick of free hosted solutions because the creators are making an intentional effort to capture the attention of educators and encouraging educator uses. Often hosted solutions--because of their broad appeal--allow anyone to put content online. Often the content can be inappropriate. UStream.tv also allows downloading of recorded video in popular video formats, such as FLV, WMV, MP4 and MOV. Concerned about others viewing the video? You can restrict your viewers to only those you invite, essentially creating your own live interactive video broadcasting platform.
2. E2BN FlashMeeting - FlashMeeting is based on Adobe Flash and requires pre-booking. It works quite well, as I once had the opportunity to observe a presentation from Teachmeet in Scotland. One person speaks (e.g. broadcasts) at a time, while others contribute using text chat, a whiteboard while waiting for their turn to speak. It is less spontaneous than UStream.tv since events must be scheduled but may be an option for those for whom UStream.tv is unavailable.

Other less education-friendly interactive video platforms include Blip.tv, Kyte.tv, and Operator11. Of course, you can always opt for a commercial solution such as Wimba.com, Elluminate.com, Persony.com, and Yugma.com (check out this handy comparison chart from NERCOMP, sent to me via Twitter.com/cmduke for some commercial solutions). However, educators often lack the funding for these types of solutions. If free and/or commercial, web-based hosted solutions like those mentioned above are not an option in your District--for whatever the reason, such as the desire to create a walled garden approach--you can also setup your own solution using free, open source solutions. As mentioned in a previous article, you will want to setup a server that can handle Moodle course management software. Once you have your Moodle server setup, you will want to use DimDim. It bills itself as a browser-based web 2.0 service that allows anybody to share their desktop, show slides, as well as talk, listen, chat, and broadcast via webcam.

TALES FROM THE FIELD: LARGE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT

Working in a public school district where school closings due to budget shortfalls are now a reality, while at the same time trying to avoid embarrassing situations, I encouraged my team of education technologists to consider 3 different solutions for use on our network. Those solutions included 1) FlashMeeting; 2) UStream.tv; and 3) Moodle with DimDim installed. FlashMeeting, although it worked for us, turned out to be cumbersome due to the lack of spontaneity of learning. UStream.tv was still to wild a technology that could be used inappropriately by students and others, even though we had excellent examples of how it was being used. I still recommend UStream.tv's use at conferences and workshops as an easy way to broadcast and engage learners. However, the solution may encounter some obstacles in K-12 environment. Moodle with DimDim was one solution that actually worked on our network, allowing us control over the content. We were able to hold meetings online with chat component, not unlike UStream.tv.

CLOSING POINTS

Broadcast learning has quickly become a reality. Simple lectures can easily be converted to powerful opportunities for engaging learners. Carefully consider integrating these technologies into professional learning approaches in use in your school. Some quick tips on implementation include the following: 1) Encourage the workshop facilitator/speaker to actively use built-in chat technologies, or Twitter, as a way of keeping in touch with the audience. This "backchannel" conversation can yield important insights into the speaker's content, and allow learners to move from "sit-n-get" to prolearners (professional learners who create as well as consume learning); 2) Assign a moderator that will serve as the liason from the audience at-large to the presenter/speaker. Like a National Public Radio Press Club meeting, questions and contributions are collected by key staff and shared with the speaker. This minimizes the distractions the speaker will have to endure.

CONCLUSION

Learning at a distance can be powerful. As technology directors, our goal is to facilitate learning that goes beyond passive consumption of content to active engagement, the development of creative, collaborative learning that connects learning opportunities with creative contributions by learners. Interactive video platforms like UStream.tv and other technologies that allow us to connect with each other can help us tap into the power of networked learning.

About the Author

As director of instructional technology for a large urban district in Texas, past president of the state-wide Technology Education Coordinators group in one of the largest U.S. technology educator organizations (TCEA), Miguel Guhlin continues to model the use of emerging technologies in schools. You can read his published writing or engage him in conversation via his blog at Around the Corner.

How To Manage Your District's Learning Opportunities

by Miguel Guhlin

Source: Leigh Blackall

"Your support in Technology," shared the Human Resources Associate Superintendent in an email, "is the reason that we are able to realize these initiatives. Thanks so much for your help." Of course, she was referring to the Clerical Assessment Battery (CAB), a screening program for new job applicants to the District. It's implementation would save the Human Resources Department time in assessing clerical job applicants.

Development of the CAB module—using Adobe’s Captivate program—took 3 weeks and half dozen meetings with the Human Resources Department. The program was developed and deployed within our school district's learning management system. Since deployment of the CAB, my district has partnered with PBS TeacherLine to license and re-deliver an electronic graphic organizer course. Teachers login into the learning management system--which we call ePath--and participate in a facilitated 100% online course. The course is taught through the use of a course management system; the system we use is the free, open source CMS known as Moodle.

When we announced the course, two days later, the course had 59 teachers registered and registration requests continued to pour in. The enthusiasm for online courses that don't require a physical, face to face meeting is palpable in districts where there time is lacking.

Using NCLB Title 2, Part D funds, my district will be investing in InfoSource and PBS TeacherLine courses. The InfoSource provider provides teachers and administrators with access to ISTE National Education Technology Standards (NETS) aligned content. The benefit is that teachers can work their way through the content 100% online, checking in with a district facilitator only when they encounter problems. After completing an assessment, a feedback form on the workshop, they are granted a certificate for successful completion and earn professional learning hours. All of this is handled 100% online via the District's Learning Management System.

School districts need to be able to provide and manage consistent professional learning opportunities that are scalable, platform independent (web-based), as well as allow for interface with your district's data warehouse and other systems. When considering how to manage your district's precious learning opportunities, you need to give thought to several questions:

1. Knowing that everyone needs to participate in professional learning, how do you currently manage that?
2. How are you going to help people understand the benefits of managing your district's learning opportunities?
3. How will the learning management system you select help your end-users manage their own learning?
4. What online content can you find, or develop, that will meet the needs of your learning community?
5. How do you get started?

It is with that last question in mind that we will begin.

How do you get started? In my school district, it took three tries to "sell" the idea of a learning management system. The superintendent at the time could not understand how a learning management system could transform how professional learning opportunities were handled in the District. Imagine every department in your district, each with multiple secretaries managing paper sign-in sheets, faxed registration forms, payroll for workshops...a nightmare of wasted time and paper. Yet, that was the reality in my district before I proposed--with other directors--acquisition of a learning management system. An LMS can manage professional development at the regional, district, and campus level. While a web-based, database-backed system might work well within an area that has the "techies" to support it, what about sharing it with other departments? Departments such as Human Resources, Transportation, and, especially, Curriculum & Instruction, also have a need for managing professional learning. In fact, the Food Services Department with 500 cafeteria workers, nurses, counselors, district police, and bus drivers were traditionally left out of professional learning opportunities. Or, worse, included but left to fend for themselves when it came to tracking and providing reports. With Federal Program evaluation reports expecting hard numbers as to how many staff participate in professional learning, would it not be nice to have that data at hand rather than make rough estimates? How are you going to help people understand the benefits of managing your district's learning opportunities? It is critical that you bring as many stakeholders to the table to discuss how they manage professional learning. In my district, when I brought the secretaries together, it was obvious to them that the District was completely disorganized, that errors were being made, and they were desperate for a solution. However, bring these problems up to the directors of each department, and you would see shocked faces. Since they were dis-engaged from the daily, grueling work of tracking hundreds of pieces of paper per secretary, they had no idea what was happening. In addition to "putting the skunk on the table," it's also critical to calculate how much time and money is spent by staff on the current system--and how many staff that actually affects. If your district is spending thousands of person-hours on managing paper, each staff member creating their own tracking and certificate issuing system, couldn't that money be better spent on a system that uniformly addresses all the issues?

LMS Key Components Administration/Management/Support Centralized Program Information Centralized Scheduling Easy management of educational resources Assessment of Learning Effectiveness Easy addition and management of learner portfolio components Ease of tracking external professional development offerings (such as in-house, off the shelf, customized solutions) Login/Password access when appropriate Online forum/support for synchronous/asynchronous courseware Automatic Emailed Confirmation of registration, changes in status or courses Interface with external professional development components and SCORM compliant Interface with course management system (e.g. Moodle) Interface with broadcast learning tools (e.g. Wimba) Professional development for administrators and sharing best practices in using a Learning Management System Pre-Curriculum/ Staff Needs Assessment/ Skill Gap Analysis Registration & Payment Tracks progress of the learner through a program of study Forum for learner collaboration Displays web-based Course Catalogs and allows for print versions Curriculum Provides tracking of synchronous/asynchronous professional development components Provides for synchronous professional development models Allows participants to see where they are, what they are registered for, as well as how much they have completed in relation to their goals.

Managing Your Own Learning

"How can I better manage staff who need professional learning to improve?" asked one principal. "I wish I could highlight an area of need in a staff member's armor and then assign professional learning to help them."

To facilitate this manage your own learning approach, consider the following essential elements of a learning management system:

• Support for the creation of multiple professional learning paths, also known as a "learning paths," that different positions can follow. Depending on the complexity of your organization, how wide an implementation you choose to make this, it should be straightforward to create learning paths for your staff. For new teachers, a learning path might include sexual harassment training, discipline training, lesson planning, information problem-solving strategies, and then a wide range of choices. For principals, the learning path might include the teacher options as well as how to assess the level of technology implementation (LOTI), STaR Chart, and getting along with your superintendent.

It is also important that the system allows staff to be a member of multiple learning paths based on there specific job requirements. A principal would be assigned the generic principal's learning path whereas a new principal would be a member of this learning path as well as a new employee learning path established by Human Resources.

• Online registration and certificate tracking: At its heart, a LMS is a database that should allow online workshop registration, setting up of classes, tracking of student participation, as well as administration of classes and workshop content. It should be expected that workshop participants and facilitators are automatically contacted regarding the status of a particular workshop. Also, participants should be able to un-enroll from a workshop given time but prevent un-enrolling to foil attendance tracking.
  
  
• Report Generation: As a principal or department head, or even superintendent, getting an email outlining how many staff have completed a particular strand of training is critical to implementation of a new district initiative.
  
  

What online content can you find, or develop, that will meet the needs of your learning community?

In the first two years of implementation, my district was grateful for a comprehensive professional learning solution that could be shared with other district departments. However, eventually, I started to wonder, How can we provide 100%, anytime/anywhere learning opportunities to staff? Of course, the way to accomplish that is to purchase content. And, purchasing content can often be less expensive than developing your own.

Some essential elements of online content to consider:

• Content-Design: It is also important that a district's workshop session facilitators be able to add content to the LMS. The more flexible an LMS is in allowing the addition of external content, the better. The LMS should also be forgiving if the content added isn't necessarily SCORM compliant.Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) makes it possible for online content providers to create and share their content modules with learning management systems. SCORM is the standard, although there are others. Find out more about SCORM at Source: Got SCORM?.

Some learning management systems provide access to custom curriculum development tools, while others require that you build your own and make these items SCORM compliant. A hidden cost of a learning management system implementation is the development of content.

If one considers the cost of developing content, you could easily see a $50,000 cost for development in a variety of areas, for example, Human Resources. Each department might want to invest in a staff member who would serve as an LMS content developer. This content developer would have to be familiar with high-end tools, be able to script video clips, and work with a variety of formats.

While some districts might want to move this into the domain of Instructional Technology, should the cost, time and effort involved be the responsibility of one department or multiple? What approach your district might choose to take, it is clear that having a content development team is important as we look to web-delivered options to meet the increased demand of training EVERY staff member. After visiting one school district, one IT director decided it would be worthwhile to develop her staff's skills in how to develop online professional development modules.

One district in a large Texas city paid $50,000 to develop a module. The vendor worked with the district on a module for new staff entering the district. Since the bandwidth of the district isn't robust enough, the content is saved to CD-ROM. The district pays $2 per user for content it helped develop but a vendor content development team put together.

The question that comes to mind is, Do you really want to spend $50,000 per module when you could invest the funding in your own staff? The home-grown solution is always best, at least, until the staff are offered a higher paying job in the district next door.

• Support for Multiple Course Formats and Assessments: A learning management system should provide support for multiple course formats including instructor-led, web-based, and other external approaches to course implementation. A key feature of a learning management system is its ability to track how staff development occurs, as well as assess growth. Assessment can take place in a variety of ways, either through the documentation of the addition of evidence to a session participant's portfolio, a multiple-choice or true-false quiz, or completion of an electronic tutorial.

To Host Your Own Solution or Not

Let me be brief--I do not recommend hosting your own solution. And, while this is not a comprehensive list of features you should look for in a Learning Management System (refer to KEY COMPONENTS), one last element you should look for is whether the solution can be purchased and hosted on your own servers, or whether it will need to be hosted on the LMS parent company's servers.

Choose to host--or not--and you affect the long-term price of your solution (might cost more to start-up but be less over the long-run as you pay maintenance fees rather than hosting fees). With a learning management system, it is easier to let the vendor host their own product, while the school district hosts its own content (e.g. video, audio, documents).

In an increasingly inter-connected environment, if you are going to use content from online content providers (e.g. InfoSource, Element K, PBS TeacherLine), make sure that your contract has provisions for working with your learning management system (and make sure your LMS vendor is on board from the start). Also, be careful to avoid content providers who lack an interface to your learning management system. While these providers may have great content, you are taking a step backward if you purchase their services without being able to track your staff's learning efforts.

Some Learning Management Systems have relationships with content-providers--such as Element K and Books 24/7--that grant users access to an almost limitless supply of online courses, tutorials and books. Want to learn how to use Adobe's Creative Suite? Not a problem, the courses and textbooks you would use are online. Yet, the increased benefits of having these resources may impede successful hosting of the solution on district servers.

Another consideration is that you may not have the MySQL, MS SQL--or other database--database administrator you need to successfully manage the solution. The cost of hosting your own solution is prohibitive, and even if you were to choose a lower-end LMS, you might sacrifice access to content.

Selecting the LMS

Making the right decision depends on several factors. The first is the technology infrastructure your district has. The second is the content the LMS has pre-packaged for you as well as the ease with which you can add your own content to the LMS. The third is the LMS's flexibility in delivering the content, and administration of the program.

The more third-party content an LMS has, the more likely you'll pursue a vendor-hosted solution with re-occurring costs depending on the number of users. Cost estimates for LMS with over 1800+ hours of online courses, and supporting up to 5000 users are in the $30K-$40K range. You could probably get a barebones LMS for $25,000. While this seems expensive, these solutions allow you to manage your district's professional development--not just IT or HR, but ALL of staff development that takes place in the district.

Similar costs for solutions that you host yourself might be in the $250K start-up range with re-occurring costs of $40,000 per year, all depending on the hardware and software you have available to host the solution.

Making the right decision about choosing a learning management system is really about finding the LMS with the right content that meets your district's needs. It's also about investigating how much of an investment you're willing to make in regards to content development.

Since a learning management system affects everyone in your district at a variety of levels--supervisors, employees, department heads, and those responsible for content development and delivery, it will be important to get approval, support and funding from all stakeholders.

You will also need to ask a few other follow-up questions. The key during implementation is buy-in from the superintendent and other central office staff; it cannot just be one department pushing it out to staff.

Some other steps you might consider taking:

1. Establish an implementation timeline.
2. Integrate the learning management system with existing information systems, especially Human Resources.
3. Develop learning paths and match learners to their appropriate path.
4. Acquire, develop, and/or link to learning resources.
5. Select appropriate technologies to deliver learning.
6. Require accountability and incentive systems to ensure learning.
7. Create and manage the learning content.
8. Analyze the return on investment.

Learning management systems certainly offer a lot. But, is K-12 ready for them? What is the return on investment? In my district, the return on investment question goes before the School Board soon.

Although my district has about 54,000 students, 9000 employees, and will have to pay an annual cost of $47,000 for its learning management system, the cost is worth every penny. When you consider how much time is spent by countless staff working through the paperwork, it's clear that schools are well-served by learning management systems.

School districts work hard to train their staff in multiple areas but may not know simple answers to questions such as the following:

• how many people have been trained;
• what training have they received; and
• was that training effective?
• how much time was spent in online professional learning vs face to face meetings?

Without answers to these questions it is difficult to plan and staff appropriately and respond to staff needs. A well-implemented and maintained LMS will help provide the answers to these questions and keep school districts working together and moving in the right direction.

About the Author

As director of instructional technology for a large urban district in Texas, past president of the state-wide Technology Education Coordinators group in one of the largest U.S. technology educator organizations (TCEA), Miguel Guhlin continues to model the use of emerging technologies in schools. You can read his published writing or engage him in conversation via his blog at Around the Corner.

Request for Proposal Guidelines

The following is a recommended--albeit not complete--list of considerations for a learning management system. While a request for proposal should be carefully developed by your district's purchasing department, it is hoped that these guidelines aid your development of an RFP.

System Requirements

1. The system specified must have an architecture that supports scaling to (NUMBER_OF_STAFF_IN_YOUR_DISTRICT).
2. The system(s) specified must support YOUR DISTRICT'S STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEM used by the District.
3. The system is web-based.
4. The system includes secure, encrypted web-based access for staff.
5. The system(s) specified must be able to connect Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) data sources.
6. The system allows for the local hosting of the data and the LMS application.
7. The system provides data import and export capabilities in non-proprietary formats (e.g. CSV)
8. Application provides for the import of pre-existing staff development schedules and staff data.
9. Application offers an interface with other external professional development components and existing third-party proposer software applications.
10. Application provides sharable content object reference model (SCORM) or web standards compliance, as well as allowing the easy addition of non-SCORM compliant resources (e.g. multimedia presentations, web pages, video clips in Flash,AVI,WMV, MOV,MP4 formats).
11. Comprehensive documentation, both hardcopy or PDF, and online help, containing program features and software support.
12. Technical support hotline is available from 8:00am-5:00PM, Monday through Friday.
13. Technical support hotline is available through a toll-free telephone number.
14. An after-hours technical support point of contact is available for urgent situations.
15. The system supports web-based access for retrieval and input with web component running on Microsoft Internet Information Server or Apache web server.
16. Application is password protected using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security.
17. The system is designed and coded to be 100%, 32-bit client/server.
18. The system must support and allow the use of convention Cut/Copy & Paste functions, with or without the use of a mouse.
19. The system must not require specialized in-house maintenance, operating personnel, or network engineers.
20. The system must implement a "plug-n-play" method of installing only the desired module(s).
21. The system must be fully integrated, with all modules sharing a common database.
22. The software must be able to execute on and take advantage of, i.e. make use of all available processors, on a multiprocessor server.
23. System is Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) compliant.
24. System provides an audit trail of all data changes.
25. A printable or exportable audit trail report is available of all data changes.

Application Features

1. The system(s) specified must allow the establishment of learning paths that school district staff can follow.
2. The system(s) specified must provide a multi-level approval path for approving course request (e.g. Faculty member requests a course, principal is the fist level of approval, area superintendent is the second level, etc. until final approval).
3. Application will provide the ability to determine, in summary fashion, daily attendance for a multi-day class, e.g. 3-day class, some individuals only attend two of the three days. This information is needed in a report and data file format.
4. Application will not allow entry into a course, when the maximum number of students in a call is reached, except by manual override.
5. Application provides automatic and manual scheduling of staff development requests in accordance with course offerings.
6. The system provides for automatic notfication of staff development session status.
7. The system provides assessment and reporting tools for staff development offered.
8. The application's printing module provides for pagination of all printed materials.
9. The system provides for automatic notification of staff development session status.
10. Application provides for centralized administration and management, as well as scheduling.
11. Application provides--or allows for interfacing with--an online forum (e.g. Moodle) for synchronous/asynchronous courseware.
12. Application provides for displaying web-based catalogs and printer version.
13. Application provides class data by participant's name or number in a viewable or printable format.
14. Application allows participants to see where they are, what they are registered for, and how much they have completed in relation to their learning path goals.
15. Application allows for facilitation and tracking of face to face and virtual sessions.
16. Application provides for email notification of cancellations, scheduled reminders of upcoming staff development, and other user-defined events.
17. This application supports alpha, numeric, and special character grades, within the same system.
18. The program screens are customizable with the District logo.
19. The system must include access to setup options for all modules in one common setup screen, no matter which modules are installed.
20. The system must allow the user to access the participant maintenance module without leaving the grade reporting area, or existing the main system.
21. The system must allow the ability to search for participant by name, ID, or employee #.
22. The system must provide participant demographic information.

Printing Capabilities

1. The system has the ability to print all reports in black and white.
2. The system must have the ability to print all reports to a printer or to an ASCII file.
3. The system must allow reports to be customized, selecting only the data elements needed, and excluding others.
4. Reports are customizable with the District logo.
5. The system must allow the user to sort printouts by name range, data range or course range.
6. The system must allow the user to enter/modify the headings on reports.
7. The system has the ability to pull all certifications for a student.
8. The system is capable of creating PDF files.

Proposer Services

1. The proposer will provide best practice approach(e) for varied implementations and applications.
2. The proposer will provide an evaluation design for measuring implementation integration and use.
3. The proposer will outline an implementation plan.
4. The proposer will outline a District advertising plan for LMS.

Written Responses Required

1. What kind of infrastructure is required in the District for your product to operate successfully?
2. What is the minimum available network bandwidth for your product to operate?
3. What operating system requirements are mandated by your application for Intel-based computers?
4. What are your system's browser requirements?
5. How many simultaneous connections can the LMS support?
6. Is the product server-based?
7. How is management of user accounts handled?
8. Can the District use a 3rd party reporting tool to query the product databases?
9. Can participants search for specific learning resources?
10. Can participants register themselves?
11. How do participants know if a class is available and if their registration request is accepted?
12. Can participants monitor their own progress from a self-service interface or central page to see where they stand in regards to training?
13. Is there an easy to add external documents to the participant portfolio?
14. Can system access be based on organizational hierachies?
15. Does your product provide a facility for pre-training and post-training assessment?
16. Can your product be used to maintain the mapping of skills to jobs and competencies to training?
17. When using these mappings, can your product identify skill gaps?
18. Will your product record and track various professional certifications?
19. Can the catalog mix online with instructor led training?
20. How are instructors added to the system?
21. How are facilities (training locations) added to the system?
22. Does your application automatically identify conflicts and issue warning notifications to participants? Administrators?
23. How many standard (pre-defined) reports are available within the application?
24. Will the District have the right to reprint all manuals/training materials associated with this system without additional cost to the District?