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How technology is operationalized as a component to support and facilitate the Evergreen personalized learning model - and not the other way around.
This REALLY isn’t about the technology and devices.
This REALLY isn’t about the technology and devices.
Your peanut butter is in my chocolate! Tech and Ed alignment is critical.
Your peanut butter is in my chocolate! Tech and Ed alignment is critical.
In Evergreen, IT and Teaching and Learning work arm in arm, and structure their organizations in parallel to intentionally blur lines between the two groups. The relationship streamlines decision-making, and ensures that resources are aligned with learning outcomes. The structure allows the district to be nimble, responding thoughtfully, and efficiently to meet student and staff needs.
LMS means component-based ecosystem.
LMS means component-based ecosystem.
Learner diversity and spectrum of teacher proficiency with tech as a design tool meant that Evergreen needed to think differently about resources, including where to place emphasis and energy. In a district that had technology existing in pockets, and hadn't seen a system-wide upgrade in many years, teacher familiarity and comfort with devices was everywhere along the spectrum. Recognizing the range of adult learning in this area, the district adopted a digital learning ecosystem made up of all of the tools a student and teacher would need to build and support a personalized experience amplified by technology. The EPS LMS is made up of components with which to build and move learning:
- Assessment Tools - Tools that students and teachers can use to monitor growth and proficiency.
- Blending Platforms - Three platforms are provided for teachers to blend learning experiences for students. Google Classroom, Hapara, and itsLearning each give teachers an environment to move learning out to student, but at increasing levels of sophistication according to teachers' proficiency and comfort with the concept and tools.
- Curricular Resources - Tools that provide the building blocks of a learning experience. Components include resources for core instruction, supplement, and intervention. Resources are primarily student-facing and most contain a data output component students and teachers can use to monitor individual proficiency.
- System Tools and Resources - Access to student information systems, professional development resources and help desk.
Technology should be like air - it’s there when you need it, but you don’t need to think too much about it.
Technology should be like air - it’s there when you need it, but you don’t need to think too much about it.
A shift in how teachers and students use, and have access to, technology required rethinking the concept of the resource in the system. The notion that technology should no longer be a "thing" but just an extension of how people in the system do their work was a mindset change. As Derrick Brown, CIO, characterized it to his department, technology should be like air - you need it to do what you do, but you shouldn't have to think about it, and it should be there when you need it. This also meant that with ubiquitous access came a necessity to be platform agnostic. Preceding the purchase of devices, learning needs were identified in collaboration with the teaching and learning side of the house, including teachers and students. What resulted was a purpose-aligned acquisition of tech, driven by future teaching and learning needs in the system.
STORIES FROM THE FIELD
STORIES FROM THE FIELD
How has a shift in culture changed the service model for IT? Derrick Brown, CIO
IT and Ed Tech audio clip.mp3How a delay in technology deployment may have spelled success for schools. Dawn Harris, Principal
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