12 Keys to Technology Integration

The 12 Ways Your Instructional Technology Coach Can Help!

1. Ensure the basics: Develop an entry-level edtech introductory course to ensure a formal and consistent level of technological understanding across the staff complement. You may even find this is one of your most popular courses.

2. It’s not about technology: ISTE calls it “thoughtful pedagogy”, and is an essential, some would say, foundational concept for IT coaches. There will be many, many lessons and teaching methods that work well in your school. Implementing technology for technology’s sake will not only be unpopular with teachers, but quite possibly pedagogically damaging.

3. Expect resistance: As a person passionate about education technology, you may be surprised by how resistant many teachers can be to the change. Start slow and focus on the enthusiasts among the staff complement, and work from there — perhaps by presenting your successes at staff meetings and other workshops to entice further interest.

4. Mix it up: Try using different formats such as: workshops, individual coaching, just in time, drop in hours, presentations during staff meetings/department meetings, or developing a video library or channel.

5. Stay up to date: Many of the teachers will expect you to be bang up-to-date with all emerging edtech trends. Perhaps consider sending out a monthly emerging edtech newsletter to keep teachers engaged in what your role is.

6. Encourage collaboration: Teacher-centred professional development is a hot topic, as many teachers grow weary of the same PD workshop circuit. Build platforms where teachers can collaborate and share experiences, questions and ideas.

7. Ensure your own PD: Keep learning and reaching out to other coaches in your area; focus on the fact that ITC is a growing area, and that continuous learning is as much a part of your job, as it is the teachers you coach.

8. Focus on the teaching, not the teachers: Many PD programs make the mistake of trying to develop teachers, rather than develop and improve teaching. Make sure that all your programs are focused on the ultimate goal: improving students’ learning outcomes.

9. Align with the school’s mission: You may find that some school administrators consider your role to be “plug-and-play”, a sort of one-stop, all-encompassing technology enabler. Making sure that you are part of the development and communication of the school’s mission and beliefs, also ensures that technology is integrated into the teaching culture, rather than an add-on.

10. Get granular: You may be surprised by what you can learn from one lesson. In Japan they have a teacher development model called “Lesson Study”; a deep enquiry into one particular lesson, by a study group of a few teachers. Practice-based professional development is quite rare in the US, however there is a tranche of evidence to show that researching certain lessons, as a teacher group, studying its impact and refining it based on the group’s observations is a powerful way to not only improve the lesson, but indeed the teacher.

11. Create attractive courses: Use a high-quality LMS to develop a library of attractive courses your teachers can take in their own time. Think of interesting titles such as: Digital Citizenship for Today, Using Social Media to Teach or Mastering Emerging EdTech. And don’t be afraid to use the same LMS teachers regularly use for teaching.

12. Try co-teaching: Far from being resistant to having you in the classroom, you may find many teachers will welcome you to co-teach a class that is newly integrated with technology. This is not only a great way to observe how your students (the teachers) are handling the technology, but will also help you to understand the day-to-challenges they face.