Requirement: Supporting the deployment of learning technologies
Statements about your involvement in supporting the deployment of learning technology might relate to providing technical and/or pedagogic support to teachers, advising on (or re-designing to take account of) technical and usability issues, developing strategies or policies, managing change, providing training or other forms of professional development, securing or deploying dedicated funding and so on, all within the context of the educational use of learning technology.
For evidence, you might include the overview section of a strategy document, meeting minutes, summaries of student feedback, testimonials or witness statements from other colleagues, for example.
Reflection / Description
Evidence
Description
The precise nature of the support I provide as Head of eLearning changes depending on the circumstances and has to adapt to meet particular needs. This can sometimes be very simple like assisting a student struggling to complete a task with an unfamiliar application, or indeed quite complex and serving a variety of needs across a whole project. Recently one of our curriculum areas put a case together to have a visualiser to support their teaching. I provided assistance in helping them articulate the features and functionality they required from the device, translating that into choosing the right make and model, providing an induction training session with the device when it arrived (together with pointers to online support resources) and subsequently in-class support for those staff who requested it.
The nature of the support can include:
The role that’s demanded of me at these times can flip between coach, mentor, guide, knowledgeable or critical friend, expert and support desk.
Reflection
Providing support for learning technologies is a fine balance between addressing a teacher’s (or student’s) pressing and immediate needs, given the usual urgency of their need to have matters resolved, and helping them to become a more self-sufficient, independently capable user of digital technologies, with a greater sense of agency. Few are yet at the stage where there first port of call in resolving a problem is a search engine, or to turn to a support network (either physical or online) for a solution. The intention was that during the project, the teachers involved would begin to form a community of practice which would stretch across the two schools, thereby being able to share their successes and problems, drawing support from, and inspiring each other. This has not proven so straightforward, even for those who are co-located; time to meet and share experiences (when not scheduled) is difficult to find amongst all their other commitments, whilst communicating asynchronously through online media, for many has yet to become an integral part of their common practice.
A key aim for learning technologists and those who support colleagues using learning technologies, I’d argue, is to help them move further along the spectrum of capability and independence.That’s to say to help them become more technologically and pedagogically aware and adept, but to help position themselves in a such a way that they’re able (and willing!) to undertake that personal and professional development for themselves.
A project we undertook a while ago served as an exploratory introduction to the world of touch-screen technologies and one-to-one devices. Not in a position to be able to afford the (then) recently launched iPad, and seeking anyway a device more akin to the smart phones our students were increasingly becoming owners of, but without the attendant difficulties they presented, we opted for the iPod Touch. We bought sufficient for a class set plus their form tutor, who were to have sole use, 24/7, for an academic year.
The planning of the project, securing funding, and technical aspects, together with the fact that this was to be a joint project across two schools perhaps provides much to discuss, though perhaps extends beyond this core area sub-section.
I’ll therefore restrict this ‘Evidence’ section to how ‘support’ was provided within the scope of the project.
Support began prior to the launch of the project with the students. Lacking sufficient funds to equip all teachers of the target group (this was a Y7 class with 15 different teachers)with their own iPod Touch, I nevertheless wanted to ensure they had hands-on before the project launch, so each teacher was given one of the iPods to explore in the fortnight prior to, and over the summer break. Prior to receiving the ir iPod, they were provided with a document outlining the background, scope, aspirations, expectations and resources of the project (in lieu of being able to gather them all at a meeting) and serving as a brief introduction to the device.
They collected the device itself at a time convenient to them and were given a brief technical introduction (this was technology that was completely novel to approximately half of them,who at that stage didn’t possess a smartphone) together with the following document. In order to provide some ideas of learning activities they might use the devices to support, yet in manageable chunks, I elected to produce a ‘recipe’ booklet - for some, the paper-based print-out was more appropriate, but for others who were further forward in their digital capabilities, there was a web-based version. Sadly this was created using Posterous to maintain consistency with the pupil site I created to support the project - Posterous allowed emailed submissions of posts and easily and efficiently handled media and other attachments; ideal as a collection point for work and ideas the pupils produced. Posterous is no longer with us unfortunately*, so the two sites have gone too. Some ‘recipe’s’ were tied to a particular app or curriculum area, but the intention was that an idea used in one specific curriculum context might stimulate an idea for staff in another area.
Ongoing support and further inspiration during the course of the project was supplemented with feedback from teachers (and pupils) from both schools through the Posterous site. This feedback continued right through into the summative report following the project evaluation which can be found here. As a support resource, it could be argued that and evaluation report comes after the fact, however what we learn in one project can and should inform one’s future practice, so our project evaluations are made available to colleagues through the admin section of our learning platform. This project did indeed serve as a useful learning experience which informed the steps we have taken as we more recently procured and deployed iPads within school.
*Although Posterous is no longer with us, the 'Wayback Machine' at the Internet Archive managed to capture a snapshot which, although difficult to navigate and not fully populated, gives a flavour of the project.