When we say the word “plan”, it elicits meaning that implies structure and conformity.  When I create a lesson plan, it is understood that I will follow certain steps to meet a desired outcome.  I use plans to help deliver objectives and some of these plans have succeeded and some fell flat. The one thing each plan had in common was the environment in which they were delivered.  I never considered writing a lesson plan that laid out steps for creating a new learning environment and I’m not talking about teaching a class outside.  Educators work within the confines of a class and follow a set of norms created within the confines of a larger institution.  The individual who invented the prototype to the iPod did as well.  Before I continue, let me say that Apple did not really invent the iPod.  This happened in 1979!  Kane Kramer, a british inventor, was awarded the patent but could not renew it in time for mp3s to become a reality.  Apple finally gave credit to Kramer due to a 2008 patent lawsuit against the company. (Costello, 2013). 

Back to the iPod...Apple’s crack team of developers responsible for the iPod blossomed out of Apple’s most stagnant period.  Microsoft and PCs were financially spanking Apple.  Steve Jobs began changing all of that when he returned to lead the company (leading and running are different).  Steve did something only successful leaders do.  He transformed the Apple product instead of installing reforms within the structure of the company.  When a CEO or Superintendent  reforms their practice, it’s due to market shifts but Steve single handedly shifted the market by transforming the way we interface with media. (Yarrow, 2012) This can be a lesson for education leaders...if we have any.


We’ve seen what innovation and creativity do to society.  Thank you Bell, Edison, Einstein, Guttenburg, Watt (steam engine)!  We couldn’t have done it without you!  I bet these creative innovators had a few things in common.  They probably had the rare ability to give themselves permission to do what was possible.  They also thrived in an environment that offered the essential resources necessary to succeed. Whew! Lucky for them.  I like to argue that Beethoven was the Roger Waters or Jimmy Hendrixs of his time and would fit in with the likes of Metallica and Jimmy Page.  Although this argument makes my wife, who is a professional violinist red in the face, she reluctantly agrees because he had a piano for his environment and not the electric keyboard or guitar.  I’m listening to Beethoven’s 9th symphony and it rocks!  I’m getting off topic.


What does all of this have to do with a tech plan?  A tech plan is not going to create innovation but it can build an environment that promotes it.  As our economy metamorphosises and our society becomes dependent on whatever structure that crops up, our schools remain based in a plan that was designed to poop out assembly line workers.  Sony no longer makes walkmans and Kodak no longer makes...anything really.  However, we still produce assembly line workers.  Why? Our plans are afraid of upsetting someone. The list of innovators included in the previous paragraph probably put a few people in the unemployment line at first.  Imagine how many careers were born as their ideas became cultural realities?  After referring to the inherent differences transformations have with reforms, Ken Robinson points out the employment plight of the youth and why our education reforms have failed to give them the resources to succeed.  (2011)


In conclusion, a tech plan should offer an environment for students to be creative.  That’s easy and hard.  I can deliver the goods but if an educator and a student thinks that is all that is necessary, they will both fail.  Tools must be used properly.  The environment must provide for this and the tech plan should offer this to both educators and students.  In order to transform how we develop our society (that’s what education does) a tech plan should be a bit psychopathic.  in other words, it shouldn’t be afraid to break down a system that is ineffective even if there is a tech specialist that might need to be retrained.  If you’re wondering why I used the word, “psychopathic” please listen to this NPR podcast with Jon Ronson about a study of psychopathic tendencies of successful CEOs. (2011)


References:


Costello, S. (2013). Who invented the ipod: The story may end at apple, but it begins in the 1970s. Retrieved from http://ipod.about.com/od/understandingipodmodels/a/invented-ipod.htm

NPR. lA phychopath walks into a room. Can you tell? Podcast.  http://www.npr.org/2011/05/21/136462824/a-psychopath-walks-into-a-room-can-you-tell
Robinson, K. (2011). Out of our minds. Chichester, West Sussex: Capstone Publishing Ltd.


Yarow, J. (2012, December 09). How apple really lost its lead in the 80. Business Insider, Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-really-lost-its-lead-in-the-80s-2012-12

Building a Professional Community

A quality tech plan must incorporate a recipe for tech integration that includes the community members who will be affected by such a plan.  Larry Anderson and John Perry Jr.  make the case for “involving all stakeholders” (1994) in the process.  This offers the school district supervisor to delegate responsibilities to the appropriate experts in the fields.  Embedded in this process should also be peer review with realistic guidelines that reduce applications that are too lofty in practice.  The team should set realistic time frames and target dates (1994) for writing their part of the plan.  It’s easy to want to impress with short time frames but when considering length of time, variables affecting the outcome should be recognized and taken into consideration.

Formulate and Embed the Plan into the Curriculum

A quality Tech Plan will apply technology throughout the curriculum.  Adopted technology and the professional development that goes with the technology can and should be implemented at different times as not to overwhelm those that must deliver it (teacher).  

Establish Effective Professional Development

Here is where tech plans most often fail.  Teachers of all tech level abilities will be implementing this plan and will need comprehensive training and the pace at which technology evolves complicates this matter.  Without ongoing support and adequate funding, technology will sit on the sidelines.  As long as teachers are isolated in their classrooms and are not connected with appropriate role models within their own school, technology will not be used in the way the tech plan intended it to be used.

Assessing The Plan’s Effectiveness - Are Change Orders Possible?

An effective plan allows for itself to evolve.  This will be researched based and driven by a strict philosophy that, “there is no such thing as a failed student...only failed instruction”  I know this is a large generality but it should remind those who design the plan that if a teacher is failing to implement the plan, then the plan should adapt to incorporate the teacher’s learning needs.  Of course this philosophy relies on every teacher meeting the professional standards set out by the institutions that train aspiring teachers and the districts and schools that hire them.  There will always be teachers that do not apply to these standards once hired and this philosophy would not apply to them.

Ethical and meaningful action research will be built into certain elements of the plan.  Any results that demand modification will be honored and the appropriate personnel will begin designing the amendment.  If at all possible, independent research outside of the district will be commissioned.  This is dependent on cost since contractual consultation can be more expensive.

The Plan is Built Around SUSTAINABILITY and Ethics

That’s right, it’s in all-caps.  A successful Technology Plan must provide adequate funding and teacher training that is adequate.  Many district plans have goals that are designed with good intentions but do not take into account adequate funding and the need for sustained leadership.  What happens to the plan when Superintendents come and go?  Will there be enough Instructional Technology Teachers to support the classroom teachers. Is there enough funding or substitute teachers to support professional development?  How can we effectively design a culture that puts a great emphasis on meaningful PLCs?  

For example, a tech plan can incorporate “lesson studies” where teachers observe other teachers delivering a particular lesson with embedded technology. The teacher group (plc) critiques and revises the lesson until a quality lesson has been designed and each member of the plc can deliver the lesson with great accuracy.  This might not be explicitly stated in the plan but the plan should offer room for decisions such as this to occur.

Ethics will play a large role in foreseeing the future use of technology.  There is an opportunity to see the classroom differently.  There is also an opportunity to redefine the role of the classroom teacher.  I could make an argument for replacing the grade level system with a Response to Intervention (RTI) system where every student receives differentiated instruction based on their learning style.  Rather than having grade level teachers, we would have content standard specialists.  How many students sit in a classroom unchallenged or confused?  If they can soon design prescription drugs based on our unique gene makeup then we can deliver education in a way that is optimized for every student.  Many educators see this as a threat to our culture of learning.  They might be right.  A great deal of philosophy and ethics should carry into all decisions when delivering knowledge.  

Designed to Support Students and The Common Core with Common Language and Computer Literacy Applied in a Cost/Benefit Comparison

Technology can respond to some of our most difficult challenges.  Many of our schools are growing while our budgets are shrinking.  This is a cultural and political problem that our tech plans should not have to tackle but we are too often cradled with this burden.  We should have twice the teachers in our schools and there should be no want for resources designed to uplift and support our future employers, employees, parents, leaders, and perpetual learners.   Our culture should be based on this preventive philosophy.  Instead, we react to changes created by a culture that is based on an archaic industrial-based learning system. We wonder why our jails are overcrowded all the while defunding early childhood education.  Until we can address fundamental flaws in our political and cultural decisions, we must as educators make plans to contain this problem.  

A heroic tech plan will find ways and means to increase the success of students even if the student-to-teacher ratio widens.  Not to find ways to reduce the amount of teachers we have in the schools but to combat the cultural degradation of knowledge, concentration, ethics, and early childhood learning.  

Reference:

Anderson, L. S., & Perry, J. F. (1996). Technology planning: Recipe for success. Informally published manuscript, Mississippi State University, Retrieved from http://www.nctp.com/tp.recipe.html



  

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