NBOA Forum: Successes and Failures When Innovating

[Demetri Orlando]

At the NBOA Strategic Leadership Forum we discussed successes and failures when innovating with new technologies. What can we add to this list?

 

Successes

• When scaling up an innovation, start with goals in mind & with proof of concept
  • What's broken, in need of improvement, or untapped?
  • e.g. What will iPad do for your students?
  • Establish measurable goals
  • demonstrating proof of concept with pilot projects
• Admin team leading/modeling desired practice
  • "Eating our own dogfood"
• Faculty use of online tools (e.g. Summer Reading Discussion Site)
• "Building a culture of supported risk-taking" (~Tim Fish)
• Low-cost, easy-to-use tools
• Collaborative endeavors
• Projects or tools that embrace a social-emotional component
• Working with all your faculty, not just the tech-savvy crowd
• Robust and multi-pronged approach to professional development
  • summer workshops for faculty led by faculty
  • tech goals part of each teacher's PD plan, tied to evaluation
  • sending teams to conferences
  • celebrating and sharing successes at faculty meetings
• Reliable, high availability of tech staff, network, and systems
• Networking to learn from others
• Faculty partnerships & embedded technologists, teams, coaches
• Involving all stakeholders
• Outsourcing complex projects, network security 
• Internet and Phone Redundancy
• Importance of an IT leader who understands academic ecosystem

 

Failures

• expensive and complicated systems
• closed systems with high barriers of entry
• one size fits all approach
• over-stressed or over-stretched tech leadership, faculty, or learners
• bolting technology onto existing programs and expecting different outcomes
• unreliable or low-bandwidth tech staff, network, systems
• operating in a silo
• tech dept/faculty "us vs. them" relationship, or the “culture of no”
• Smartboards used only as projection devices
• TabletPCs being expected to replace paper textbooks overnight

 

Other panelists' points

• Professional Development is the new strategic plan.
• Gradual introduction of big concepts.
• More money for professional development than tools.
• Venture Capital concept-Pilot a lot of things- find out which ones stick.
• 10% time (Google model)

~Frank V. Aloise & Pete DiDonato, SCH Academy

• iPads supporting administrator walk-throughs (capturing evaluation data) of classroom teaching
• Pensacola 1 to 1 initiative

 

Teacher preparation programs that align with "transformation" of pedagogy

• High Tech High Graduate School of Education
• Abilene Christian