I just (as in three days ago) read “Alive in the Swamp: assessing digital innovations in education” by Michael Fullan and Katelyn Donnelly, and it took me this long to process and really start to understand the implications for my practice, my school, and the system I’m embedded in. Change is scary stuff, and I think I have had to realize some paradigm shifting things about norms in my district, and the types of changes we would have to make and on what scale. Yikes! Are you scared yet? On the surface, this is just an awesome report. “Just” - as though that’s an easy thing to accomplish. Donnelly and Fullan have created what could possibly be the most useful index ever in terms of school technology purchasing, and if teachers and districts follow these suggestions, I would think the results would be positive at the very least, and revolutionarily transformational at best. I guess this is why Avi listed this quest and report as a personal favourite. Now I have to tell you, having it listed as the instructor’s favourite kind of set me up to be hypercritical. I’m a skeptic by nature, and my main method of concept attainment includes a lot of non-examples. For instance, I can best understand what a good school system is by examining all the poor examples in detail. It’s the way my brain works. I’m a bit of a Novi that way (or a NOlie, if you want to extend the characterization to a version of myself). As a result, having this article orient my attention with the question “What does good look like” from the beginning was excellent, as I could use both their positive examples and their negative ones to build a fuller understanding. I worked slowly through the report, taking detailed notes and coming up with at least as many questions as conclusions. It took me hours to read. It took me days to digest. As someone who is normally a fast worker, and a quick thinker, this was different. And it was frustrating. And I think I have left the process transformed. Let’s have a brief nerdy interlude for a minute. I was confused by the central metaphor of “the swamp”. It distracted me. I felt like it was an awesome title, but maybe that was all it was - why include a metaphorical underpinning if it’s not actually underpinning anything? Why refer to the swamp of technological innovation and choices if you aren’t going to flesh it out? Why not just call this “Sustainable Innovation Decision Making Index”? So here’s the sense I made of the swamp. Remember in Star Wars Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back), when Luke has to go to the Dagobah System to find Yoda and learn how to use the Force? He ends up on this murky, steamy swamp planet where Yoda has been exiled, and the whole planet seems to be a manifestation of Luke’s inner turmoil. In order to prove himself as a Jedi, he needs to pull his spaceship out of the swamp - use his mind to pull it out of the muck and mire (i.e. his own turmoil and confusion), and then he can get on with the business of helping the Rebellion stop the Emperor and Darth Vader. I think that as educators, we have to use our minds to make informed decisions, and we have to be able to pull the useful technology out from amidst the muck of the swamp and use it to move forward with the business of saving the universe from the evil forces of the Empire. Or change the prevailing systems to be better for learners in the 21st century, which is basically the same thing. (I probably could have extended this metaphor to Lord of the Rings too, which is my other go-to hero’s journey metaphorical framework). The fantastically practical and easily applied index that Fullan and Donnelly have devised is the method that many of us can figure out which tech needs to be raised up, and which can be left in the mud. I love their focus on pedagogy, which I think is far too often left behind when it comes to tech decision making. They seem to be my credo soul mates when they talk about teachers as change makers, and using education to unlock the passions of the learner. They have enough inspirational, positive, and exciting ideas to get the YESlie in me jumping up and down in excitement, and enough of the flip side to balance it out, and even have my skeptical NOlie side nodding her head in agreement. What a masterpiece. After three days of digestion and contemplation, here’s what I’m taking away from this piece, other than a deep desire to delve in and find out more. Several words stood out to me: stickiness, viral, culture on one end of the scale, and interface, data analysis, and system on the other. Add these together with pedagogy, and here’s what I came up with: Image created using Piktochart The combination of what I’ve called “Cool Factor” - those elements that get everyone on board and excited to sustain the technological innovation - with “Usefulness” - how “delightful and easy” it is to use the technology - with a solid grounding in Pedagogy, are what will, in my mind, keep us “alive in the swamp” and enable us to make revolutionary change in educational systems that benefit teachers and students alike using rational and systematic decision making.
Ultimately, I think it is up to the leaders in our school communities to create this culture and these conditions for success. This is the paradigm shift I alluded to earlier on - I don’t think I really understood how important it is for all of these parts to function together - and how important a role the school leadership plays in this. We can have some teachers on board and excited, but without the ongoing training and support, it will be difficult and perhaps fall to the wayside. Without a current pedagogy behind these innovations, we risk sustaining the status quo but with a more expensive price tag. This is what starts to be scary for me - does this mean I need to take more of a leadership role in my district? If one person working independently can’t affect large scale change (which the authors suggest is necessary for change to be sustainable), then will I have to step out of my comfort zone and start wooing others to my cause? What does this mean for me as a person and a teacher? (Cue existential crisis.) Finally, I have taken some immediately actionable learning away from this quest and report. We need to be able to answer WHY an innovation is pedagogically sound and HOW it will improve teaching and learning before we get excited and try to roll it out. I feel like a more informed consumer of educational technology, and I have some big ideas to ruminate on as well. And I might have to watch a little Star Wars in my spare time to renew my trust in the hero’s journey towards educational reform and positive, lasting change.
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Leslie McCurrachEnthusiastic Learner. Avid Gardener. DL Teacher. Archives
March 2018
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