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Where can we get the info about these conferences in Chicago?

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With the plethora of information in the world and all the different viewpoints on technology and pedagogy today, how can Edsurge be used in order to help get all the teachers and/or parents of a building on the same page?

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EdSurge - Education Technology News and Resources

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EdSurge is an independent education technology information resource and community. Find K12 and HigherEd Edtech News, Research, Jobs, Products and Events.

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When Los Angeles schools began handing out iPads in the fall of 2013, it looked like one of the country's most ambitious rollouts of technology in the classroom. The city's school district planned to spend $1.3 billion putting iPads, preloaded with the Pearson curriculum, in the hands of every student in every school.

Less than two years later, that ambitious plan now looks like a spectacularly foolish one. In August, the Los Angeles Unified School District halted its contract with Apple, as rumors swirled that Apple and Pearson may have received preferential treatment in the district's procurement process, something the FBI is investigating. Then, this spring, the district sent a letter to Apple seeking a refund, citing crippling technical issues with the Pearson platform and incomplete curriculum that made it nearly impossible for teachers to teach. If a deal can't be reached, the district could take legal action. (Apple did not immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment.)

Pearson, whose stock tumbled following the news, has publicly defended the curriculum it provided LAUSD, which included digital learning content for math and English courses ¹. LAUSD's director of the so-called Instructional Technology Initiative, on the other hand, denounced the material as utterly unusable in a memo earlier this year.

But while the the parties involved continue pointing the finger and picking up the pieces, the important question to ask now is what this fiasco means for the future of technology in the classroom. If one of the country's largest school districts, one of the world's largest tech companies, and one of the most established brands in education can't make it work, can anyone?

No one wants to be the next LA Unified.

Michael Horn

Experts who have been following LAUSD's troubled tech rollout say that while this does not mean education technology is inherently flawed, it does illustrate just how difficult a program like this is to pull off. Rather than proving these programs are hopeless, they say LA may have provided other districts and tech providers with an unfortunate, yet vivid, blueprint of what not to do. Learning from LA's mistakes, they say, is critical to ensuring that already resource-strapped schools won't continue spending precious funding on misguided programs.

"No one wants to be the next LA Unified," says Michael Horn, executive director of the education program at the Clay Christensen Institute. "I think that's healthy, and it will get people to pause and learn the bigger lesson."

'The Classic Case'

According to Horn, who also is author of Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools, Los Angeles is a classic case of a school district getting caught up in the ed tech frenzy without fully thinking through why technology is important in the first place.

"LA is emblematic of a problem we're seeing across the country right now," he says. "Districts are starting with the technology and not asking themselves: 'What problem are we trying to solve, and what's the instructional model we need to solve it?' and then finding technology in service of that."

At the crux of the FBI's investigation into LA's iPad program are emails exchanged between then-Superintendent John Deasy and executives from Pearson, in which Deasy expresses his excitement about being able to work with Pearson and Apple. The only problem is, the emails were sent a year before LAUSD started the bidding process with other vendors, indicating the deck was stacked before the district had a chance to vet other providers or come up with a comprehensive plan for using and managing the technology.

It's not unusual even in an above-board bidding process for districts to start by choosing a vendor, instead of first discussing how that technology will be used in the first place

That's an extreme example, Horn admits. But he says it's not unusual even in an above-board bidding process for districts to start by choosing a vendor, instead of first discussing how that technology will be used in the first place.

"A lot of schools get into trouble when the conversation starts with the vendor," Horn says. "Where I've seen these programs work is when the school starts off with its vision, and only once they've sketched out what the solution should look like do they go out to the hardware and software communities to mix and match to meet those needs."

The Milpitas Model

That was the approach that Cary Matsuoka, Superintendent of California's Milpitas Unified School District, took when he began bringing Chromebooks into district schools in 2012. Milpitas, a town of 70,000 outside San Jose, often is held up as a successful example of how technology can enable more personalized education, even in a district school setting, and that has a lot to do with how Matsuoka went about designing the program. In spring 2012, he challenged principals throughout the district to present a compelling answer to the question: If you could design the school of the future, what would it look like?

The goal, Matsuoka says, was to give principals and teachers the autonomy to determine what would work best for their schools rather than mandating change from the top. "Any time you control things from the top, you get compliance, where people just go through the motions," Matsuoka says. "We wanted to say: 'Here's the model. Come up with your version of it and go test it.'"

Any time you control things from the top, you get compliance, where people just go through the motions.'

Cary Matsuoka

It was through that process that Matsuoka realized having one device per student wasn't actually necessary. Instead, the principals proposed a rotation model, in which students would take shifts on the devices. "Part of that was about cost" Matsuoka admits, "but there's also the important question to ask, which is, what would you do if you had the one-to-one environment? How would you take advantage of that?"

Instead, Milpitas started with 2,000 Chromebooks, because they're less expensive than iPads and are cloud-based, so they can be centrally managed and updated. Now, the district has 6,000 Chromebooks for 10,000 students and may continue to scale, depending on which schools and classrooms could benefit from more devices.

The Curriculum Problem

But the abundance of expensive hardware wasn't the central problem in LA. It was Pearson's curriculum that proved most troublesome. In her memo, Bernadette Lucas, the initiative's director, wrote that less than 5 percent of students had consistent access to the content due to technical issues, and that some students had no access at all for months. As of March, all but two schools had stopped using the Pearson curriculum entirely.

In a statement to WIRED, a Pearson spokesperson said, "This was a large-scale implementation of new technologies and there have been challenges with the initial adoption, but we stand by the quality of our performance."

For Horn, such problems occur when ed tech companies design their software in a vacuum. "A lot of people will say, 'Our program works great when you use it for this long and in this way,'" he says. "The question is: Do schools use it that way?'"

You can make a change that makes sense on its own, but when it's introduced to the complex setting of a school, the net effect is negative.'

Max Ventilla

That's one reason startups like AltSchool are working on building schools and technology simultaneously. "It is so hard to be the setting in which a child learns in a school that if you don't run schools yourself, and deal with all the practicalities around everything from technology to lunch to transportation, you risk missing everything below the water line," says Max Ventilla, founder and CEO of AltSchool.

"What's tough about education is things are so complex and connected that sometimes, you can make a change that makes sense on its own, but when it's introduced to the complex setting of a school, the net effect is negative."

And yet, according to Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, the stodgy education procurement system isn't always set up to find the best technology solutions for schools, regardless of how that technology was designed. "There's a rising tension between the folks who want to move new tools and learning programs into school systems and a pretty archaic procurement system that can easily stand in the way," she says. "Smaller companies are saying, 'We just don't have a chance against the big companies."

Lake says that is the fatal mistake LAUSD made, but the district is not alone. "School systems in general do not do a good job on R&D," she says. "They're built to work with one or two companies that will provide a one-size-fits-all solution, and that's not how technology is moving."

Horn agrees, adding that while schools need more thoughtful ways of selecting tech vendors, the vendors need to be more thoughtful about selling to schools. "Of course device companies are trying to sell devices, but if they don't want this big blowback on edtech, then it'd be prudent to take a long term mindset and really help these districts think through a more strategic planning process before they implement the program."

Lake says some cities, like New York, have found ways around this procurement problem. In 2010, the Big Apple launched its so-called iZone program, which was designed specifically to connect startups and developers to the city's schools. "New York said, 'We actually have to cultivate a marketplace if we want to find these solutions," says Lake, who hopes to see more cities taking New York's lead.

Not Giving Up

Los Angeles, for its part, says it's not giving up on technology in the classroom. "We're still very much moving forward in technology and continuing to deliver devices to schools," a spokesperson for the district told WIRED.

For now, the iPads with Pearson's curriculum are still being used in 58 schools, but students and teachers are using them simply to access other apps. Meanwhile, after cutting short its initial contract with Apple and Pearson, last winter, LA's school board approved another $40 million for more iPads, as well as Chromebooks. Those devices aren't loaded with Pearson's content and are being used exclusively for testing.

The difference is now, under the leadership of Superintendent Ramon Cortines, the district is trying to learn from its mistakes and do some serious strategic planning before expanding the program further. The district has formed a task force, which will develop a new plan for using technology in the classroom and present it to the superintendent and school board next year.

Los Angeles has not given up on technology in the classroom.

The group has four key questions: What will students learn? How will students learn? What resources will be needed? How will it work? These are questions anyone can see the district should have asked long before it purchased a single iPad. But they are critical questions to ask, no matter how late they may be.

During the task force's first meeting in April, Cortines emphasized how critical this process was in a statement to members, "You have a monumental job ahead of you," he said. "We have spent more than $100 million dollars on this project and it is now time to regroup and develop a solid plan that allows us to move forward and leverage technology as a tool to improve teaching and learning for our students."
1. Update 2:15 ET 05/08/2015: This story has been updated to include an explanation of the Pearson curriculum.

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What Schools Must Learn From LA's iPad Debacle

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When Los Angeles schools began handing out iPads in the fall of 2013, it looked like one of the country's most ambitious rollouts of technology in the classroom. The city's school district planned to spend $1.3 billion putting iPads, preloaded with the Pearson curriculum, in the hands of every student in every school.

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500+ invitation only thought leaders engaging around personalized learning in grades K-12.
UNIQUE TRACKS
Conference strands centered on Vision, Research, Implementation, and Evidence.
FACILITATED COHORTS
Cohorts engineered to strengthen education leader network connections across the country.
THOUGHT LEADERS
Policy makers and entrepreneurs join ed leaders, bringing a diversity of perspectives to the experience.

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edsurge fusion conference edtech technology education leaders

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500+ invitation only thought leaders engaging around personalized learning in grades K-12. UNIQUE TRACKS Conference strands centered on Vision, Research, Implementation, and Evidence. FACILITATED COHORTS Cohorts engineered to strengthen education leader network connections across the country. THOUGHT LEADERS Policy makers and entrepreneurs join ed leaders, bringing a diversity of perspectives to the experience.

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On the floor of the ISTE conference, it's easy to meet educators and administrators from all over the country (and the world at large). You can discuss edtech implementation strategies, hear about favorite tools, and get to know those practices that teachers are excited to bring back to their students.

But while EdSurge paced the ISTE floor on June 25-28 in San Antonio, Texas, we decided to ask a slightly different question: What edtech trends, products, and buzzwords do you wish would retire-for good? From "blended learning" to digital worksheets, below are a collection of comments from ten educators about their biggest edtech pet peeves. Check it out on the EdSurge podcast, or scroll below to get right to the good stuff.

I Can't Stand 'Personalized Learning' and 'PD'
First up, Martin Cisneros (an academic technology specialist in Santa Clara), Jennie Magiera (ISTE keynote and former Chicago administrator), Blanca Herrera (Director of Instructional Technology at Saratoga Union School District), and Francisco Nieto (program manager at the Alameda County Office of Education and Technology) expressed frustrations over particular phrases or buzzwords-especially those that people hide behind. EdSurge: So, what are you sick of?

I've seen the phrase "blended learning" really used for, in my opinion, evil-which is essentially teacher-proofing the classroom.

I think that sometimes blended learning is used in a really beautiful way... but the phrase has become so muddied that I'd love to just get rid of it, really get rid of that pedagogy and really work towards pedagogies that celebrate teachers, celebrate human interaction and use technology as a vehicle-not a human robot replacement, Skynet type of thing.

I know of educators that are much interested in providing learning opportunities for students to learn about their passions, or about what they're interested in. Then, there are people that might just gravitate to it, to the phrase "personalized learning," because it is a term that is being used just so much.

There are people that might just gravitate to it, to the phrase "personalized learning," because it is a term that is being used just so much.

Just Because It's Digital Doesn't Mean It's Better
A contingent of educators expressed frustration over a collection of edtech tools that merely turn something fairly problematic, like a worksheet or a constant streams of quizzes, into a digital format (same item, just on a computer). Here's what Tara Linney (a tech coach over in Singapore with eight years of experience), Michael Cohen (the "tech rabbi"), Angela Estrella (an instructional coach at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford), and Stew Greenberg (director of EdTech at Hebrew Academy for Nassau County).

We did away with the scantrons a long time ago... and now we're just taking pictures of them.

I'm So Sick of This Hardware
Hardware is often the most expensive budget item for directors of technology to buy, so what should educators quit spending all of that money on? Educators Nicholas Provenzano (high school English teacher and a director of technology in Michigan) and Adam Bellow (educational technologist and co-founder of BreakoutEDU) are looking forward to saying goodbye to two items, in particular.

Technology needs to advance beyond the dongle.

I think Chromecast is amazing, and it is accessible and affordable, just to send that image up there to the entire class or have students quickly throw images up to the board for the entire class to see without the hassle of going up, plugging something in, getting the wires all done. That's lost instructional time, that's lost learning time. So, getting rid of those wires is a step towards increasing what goes on in the classroom.

Mary Jo Madda-@MJMadda-is Manager of Audience Development (previously Senior Editor) at EdSurge, as well as a former STEM middle school teacher and administrator. In 2016, Mary Jo was named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list in education.

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Tired Edtech Trends That Teachers Wish Would Retire: From the Floor of ISTE 2017 - EdSurge News

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On the floor of the ISTE conference, it's easy to meet educators and administrators from all over the country (and the world at large). You can discuss edtech implementation strategies, hear about favorite tools, and get to know those practices that teachers are excited to bring back to their students.

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Nestled in the orange groves of California's Central Valley sits a little district called Lindsay Unified that's getting a lot of attention. With 4,100 K-12 students, all of whom qualify for free and reduced lunch and 52% English language learners, the demographics is much like that in other rural public schools.

However, walk into any classroom and you'll find neither students nor teachers. Instead, you'll find "learners" and "learning facilitators." Nobody gets an "A" or an "F" on anything, and no age-based grade levels exist. Ask a "learner" what he or she is working on and you will get dozens of different answers. But each and every learner knows exactly what they are learning, whether they have mastered it, and what comes next.

"We didn't just make a tweak. We dismantled our entire education system," says Lindsay Unified Superintendent Thomas Rooney.

Also see: " How Lindsay Activated Change By Activating Their Community," by Thomas Rooney

Instead of starting with new technology, grand plans for innovation, or even money (though the district did land a $10 million Race to the Top Grant in 2012 as a result of its new initiatives), the district started five years ago with one very important question: what kind of learners did they want their kids to be?

But transforming a district is far from easy. While the community has embraced the benefits of the redesign, they are also trying to make sense of the challenges. Traditional measures, such as "proficiency scores" or improvements in API have yet to show big gains. But teachers are excited about other measures, notably a dramatic decrease in gang participation and suspension rates. For Lindsay's leaders, this is all just a single step in their journey to transform education as we know it.

The Past

"It used to be all about the teacher. Now it's all about us," says one 13-year old Lindsay "learner".

Five years ago, the district had some serious problems. In 2009, only 25% of students were proficient in reading and only 28% in math. While 76.5% of students graduated from Lindsay's one and only high school, the class valedictorians who enrolled in colleges in the University of California system were regularly stuck in remediated course work. Some graduates could not even read the local newspaper.

Rooney, a 14-year veteran of the district, is quite forthcoming about his district's past. "Part of the reason we are making this shift is because of the reality of what happens after graduation," Rooney explains. "In Lindsay, we have sent forth a lot of kids and young adults into the world who are not ready to be effective contributors to society... I say we own that."

Before the district began its redesign, the community developed a set of principles that would guide its next steps. They outlined everything from why they exist as an organization, to how they believe students learn best, and even a description of what a Lindsay graduate looks like. These plans were spread throughout the district, in a small church-like pamphlet, written in clear language for everyone to understand and own.

"We believe kids learn in different timeframes and in different ways," says John Caesar, Director of Technology and 21st Century Learning. "We are committed to these guiding principals and building a system that honors them. That's the key."

With their guiding principles in hand, they began to dismantle their schools and build what is quickly becoming a leading model for proficiency based learning.

Welcome to the Matrix

"We didn't just make a tweak. We dismantled our entire education system," says Lindsay Unified Superintendent Tom Rooney.

Lindsay calls its model a "performance based system," similar to what others call proficiency or competency-based progression of learning. Instead of advancing at the same rate, regardless of whether they know the material or not, students advance once they have demonstrated mastery of a specific content standard. Once they master the standards within a specific content level, they get to move up and start working at the next content level, regardless of their age or the time of year. Here's how it works.

The first things learners (students) do when they walk into a classroom is check a large matrix chart at the entrance, displaying the status of each student, the learning standards they've mastered and what they have yet to do. The learners navigate the matrix, finding their name, and their scores on each learning standard.

Once learners find the content standard they should be working on they turn to their "capacity matrix." The capacity matrix displays the content standards along with a list of evidence. Evidence can include assignment such as projects, questions from a textbook, or even role playing, which learners must show to their learning facilitator (teacher) to demonstrate they have learned the material and are ready to take the assessment.

While students work to gather evidence, the learning facilitator brings those on "teacher pace" (students who are progressing through content as expected) together to for a quick lesson on new content. Those falling behind receive one-on-one check in's; those breezing ahead are given freedom to keep going. Learning facilitators are continually grouping and regrouping learners in their classrooms based on where they are in relation to "teacher pace."

Once a student shows their evidence to the learning facilitator, that learning facilitator determines whether the learner is ready to take the assessment. They take their assessments on Educate, a digital assessment tool and Student Information System. After earning at least a "3" on a four-point assessment, the learner can move onto the next content standard until they have mastered all the content standards within a level.

With all learners at a different pace, learners are regularly moved in and out of different classes based on each student's individual progression. Administrators and learning facilitators spend at least 15 hours each week looking through the data, determining whether students should be regrouped according to their levels. In the high school, learners and learning facilitators could be re-grouped as much as every quarter.

Not every student has the same schedule and every situation is different depending on the student's social and emotional needs. For instance, one 11-year-old is working on a level eight, which is typically for 13-year-olds. However, he doesn't always connect with his peers at that level. Therefore, the administrators and learning facilitators have arranged to allow him to leave class early to have lunch with his peers.

And still, leaving the cohort model behind is a struggle for some. For instance, one 11-year old girl in a sixth level class was transitioned into a seventh level class once she'd mastered all her math content in the middle of the year. However, after a while she switched back. "I realized I'm an interpersonal learner and don't feel comfortable around the older learners so I decided I was capable of learning on my own so I went back to my old class where I learned level seven content on my own," she explains.

But what happens when learners are faster than the school can handle? Learners in the elementary schools who complete all level 8 material are driven to the high school to take classes at the appropriate level, and spend part of their day with older learners. And here's a bonus: High school students who complete all 13 levels before they turn 18 years old can spend time exploring areas of interest at the local community college for free.

Tools They Use

"We've built demand for the tech [first]," Caesar says, by creating a complex structure. "Now we put the tech out there and it gets eaten up. We don't have to convince our staff to learn how to use it."

"We didn't get held up on taking this on because we didn't have the technology. You don't need to have technology to personalize learning, though it does serve as an accelerator," says Caesar. "What it needs is a system to change practice and put the child at the center."

With this approach in mind, the district has been careful about adopting new technology. In many classrooms you will still see students working out of textbooks instead of Khan Academy. Paper posters displaying student progress still hang in each room, rather than students solely referring to the Educate platform to check their progress. Only a handful of desktop computers line the wall of most K-8 classrooms.

Caesar says the district deliberately delayed introducing technology. "We've built demand for the tech [first]," he says, by creating a complex structure. "Now we put the tech out there and it gets eaten up. We don't have to convince our staff to learn how to use it."

This year, however, the district is putting technology to work. Each student in the High School has received a school-issued Acer laptop. A smattering of software tools are also used throughout different classrooms including Socrative, Khan Academy, Lexia, FASTT Math, Fraction Nation, and READ 180. But the district's biggest technology endeavor is building a new learning management system that fully supports its now-established model.

The district is partnering with 3Shapes, an Alaska-based company and creator of Educate, to build a platform called Empower. The new platform will connect students with content standards, learning resources and digital assessments. It will also provide students with a learning community that will share what each student is working on to create better peer-to-peer connections. The district is currently working with 3Shapes to create a business model that would allow them to share the platform with other schools.

Impact

Is all this disruption and re-design paying off? For Lindsay, it depends what you're measuring.

Since 2009, scores have risen incrementally. The district has seen a 9% increase in the number of students (grades two to 11) rated "proficient" in English language arts (from 25% to 34%), a 4% increase in math (from 28% to 32%), and 14% rise in science (from 27% to 41%). Scores on the state's Academic Performance Index (API) have also made modest gains, rising from 644 in 2009 to 691 in 2013.

While the gain on the API outperforms the state average increase of 35-points, Lindsay's overall proficiency scores are still well below the state average. In California, average proficiency in math was 51% in 2013. In English language arts that average was 56%.

But test scores might not be the best metric by which to measure Lindsay's success. Because the state requires districts to test students at the level associated with their age, and not their abilities, the scores on state tests don't entirely reflect the level a student is working at. For instance, a 13-year-old student might have completed 80% of the content in 6th grade. However, she must still take the test for 8th graders.

"I had a hard time giving students content at a 4th grade level and testing for 6th grade. It doesn't feel right," says Washington Elementary Principal, Cinnamon Scheufele.

The district has been advised to apply for a waiver from the state, but has yet to do so because, according to Caesar, "We wanted to show how you can reform a district and its practices within the regulatory environment that everybody is within."

However, the district is seeing gains in other areas of school culture. Since implementation of the new model, suspension rates have dropped by 41% and gang membership has fallen from 18% to 3%. District officials see these metrics as indicators that students see school as a place for opportunity, support, and hope.

Whatever the results, dismantling a 150-year old system isn't easy. But students seem to be embracing their new opportunities, and embodying a new way of looking at their growth.

"It used to be all about the teacher. Now it's all about us," says one 13-year old Lindsay "learner".

One young student in the sixth level class explains "I was young when we switched but I knew I wasn't being pushed," says another, "But now I can be the best at something if I want. It's a nice feeling--to be capable of anything."

A group of rowdy boys in a level six math class explain how easy it was for them to make the shift to the new system, "It doesn't make me feel embarrassed," one learner says, "Everyone gets a "one" on something. It's ok to get ones. I can try again, and get help from my friends, and eventually I'll pass."

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How Lindsay Unified Redesigned Itself From The Ground Up - EdSurge News

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Nestled in the orange groves of California's Central Valley sits a little district called Lindsay Unified that's getting a lot of attention. With 4,100 K-12 students, all of whom qualify for free and reduced lunch and 52% English language learners, the demographics is much like that in other rural public schools.

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Are students able to collaborate on Otus ?

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Features

Mooresville, N.C., educators are emphasizing a strategy to link technology to achievement

The Brawley family name adorns about a half-dozen businesses around Mooresville, N.C., including a furniture store on the corner of Broad Street and Iredell Avenue, at the edge of a cute but quiet downtown.

The two-level white brick structure, a transformed agriculture depot bought in the late 1960s, still holds some of the time-capsule allure of the days when Jason Brawley's grandparents first bought the place and found leftover bales of cotton in the basement. Business goes on much the same as it did more than 40 years ago, when the roads south to Charlotte weren't clustered with housing developments and fast-food joints.

"They still do handwritten tickets, and they have not wanted to get into the future," Brawley says of his grandparents, who still own the store that he helps manage. "We finally got laptops a year or two ago. ... With bookkeeping and everything, I know [using laptops] would be easier. Luckily, I don't have to do it, so I don't have to worry about it."

But while Brawley spends his days in a world of cherry headboards and magic-marker price tags, his 4th grade daughter spends hers at school working with a laptop issued by the 5,500-student Mooresville Graded School District. Her computer is part of a "digital conversion" program that some educators hope is the wave of the future.

Yes, 1-to-1 laptop programs have become increasingly popular across the country, along the way drawing criticism that the results of those efforts are not justifying the substantial investments. But the Mooresville district, which in its fourth 1-to-1 year has stretched its program to reach all students in grades 3-12, appears to be a model of how to do it right, and in a community whose roots are more akin to Mayberry than the state's Research Triangle region.

Since the digital conversion began, the district has seen an improvement of 20 percentage points-from 68 percent to 88 percent-in the portion of its students who scored "proficient" on all core-subject state exams, in the subjects of reading, math, and science. Six of eight schools achieved Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, up from two of seven schools during the conversion's first year. And its 2010-11 graduation rate rose to 91 percent, up 14 percentage points from four years ago.

All of those gains have occurred while the district sat at 99th of the state's 115 districts in per-pupil funding, at $7,463 a year, as of last spring, not including about 10 percent of the budget that comes from funds for capital outlays, before- and after-school programs, and child-nutrition programs. And while Mooresville's population is by no means impoverished, the gains came during an economic downturn that has seen the proportion of the district's students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch rise from 31 percent to 40 percent since 2007-08.

Staunch opponents of assessment-driven education may dispute the merit of some of Mooresville's success. But other educators are asking how the district's approach differs from that of less successful 1-to-1 initiatives, why it's working, whether it can be replicated, and if it's worth the sacrifices to do so.

Mooresville's district leaders stress the reason for their success, in their eyes, is that their 1-to-1 implementation made up just a part of a districtwide reform to make teaching and learning more contemporary. And while the district hosts monthly open houses to welcome visitors interested in following the model, the leaders of Mooresville's conversion say only districts with leaders who see budget and procedural restrictions as obstacles to be conquered, not feared, are capable of pulling it off.

"We have visitors all the time," says Scott Smith, the district's chief technology officer, who was hired by Superintendent Mark Edwards during the conversion's planning phase in 2007. "When they leave, we're like, 'Yeah, they can do it,' or 'No, they can't do it, because they have the wrong person in charge.' "

Higher Expectations for Teachers

When the principal of Mooresville High School, Todd Wirt, took that job in November 2007, he did so bent on changing what he recalls as a "complacent" attitude among teachers and other staff members in a school where achievement data were average. As he walks the halls nearly four years later, he takes perhaps his greatest pride in seeing most of the same faces standing in classroom doorways.

"What's great about going from [68 percent] to [88 percent] in four years' time is, primarily, it's the same folks that were here four years ago," Wirt says of his staff. "The true leaders of the staff are the same."

While many school leaders wary of introducing new technology approaches cite teachers who may be reluctant to comply, by all accounts Mooresville's teachers were given little choice but to join a new culture where 6,000 district-issued laptops to students and staff served as the centerpiece of Superintendent Edwards' educational improvement strategy. Similar compliance was also expected in accompanying changes to curriculum, teacher collaboration expectations, and even staff conduct, all of which began to be implemented in the fall of 2008.

"I don't think 'threatening' is the right word-I think 'expectation' is the right word," says Judy Maupin, an 8th grade social studies teacher at Mooresville Middle School, who admits she rejected the 1-to-1 model at first. "The expectation is, 'Here is your laptop, and you will learn how to use it. You will make it an integral part of your classroom, and you will incorporate it into 21st-century teaching.' "

At the high school, Wirt charged each of his academic department chairs with unifying each department's curriculum during the year before laptops were introduced, and creating schoolwide formative assessments to test progress in that curriculum eight times a year.

Wirt also established the district's Capturing Kids' Hearts program, in which teachers are asked to greet students with a pat or a handshake, and open the classroom to details about the good things happening in students' lives, in an effort to make the school culture less teacher-centered. That program eventually trickled down to Mooresville Middle School, and in varying ways, principals say, Edwards has mandated collaboration-both electronic and face-to-face-between teachers at all levels.

Widespread staff attrition that was feared because of the digital conversion never materialized, administrators say, though Wirt suggests that layoffs that came in two waves-a large one after 2008-09, and a smaller one after last school year-may have been a blessing in disguise. Layoffs that occurred were strategic, rather than adhering to policies such as "last hired, first fired" that in many districts protect teachers on the basis of seniority.

"To be honest, this school was staffed incredibly well when I first came, so much so that I wasn't exactly sure what some people did," says Wirt, whose school has lost nine teaching positions between layoffs and attrition as part of an 8 percent to 10 percent cut to the district's operating budget since 2008. The district lost 50 to 60 positions because of those cuts, Edwards estimates, including 25 teaching positions.

"For some people, it was an opportunity to make some adjustments that needed to be made to our staff," Wirt adds.

Rebecca Snyder, the president of the local chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators, the state's teachers' union, took no position on the method of the layoffs, but said it was public knowledge that opposing the digital conversion would make a teacher more vulnerable.

But the proportion of turnover in the district's leadership has been greater. Wirt is one of six principals in the district's eight schools who were not on staff when Superintendent Edwards was hired in early 2007, though two just departed since 2010. Edwards, who previously led a 1-to-1 program as superintendent of the Henrico County, Va., school system, outside Richmond, brought in Smith from the Burke County, N.C., school system as his chief technology officer to lead the conversion. Terry K. Haas also came on board as chief financial officer in 2007.

"I think a lot of his decisions are based on leadership," Smith says of Edwards and his management. "You've got to have the right people on the bus, but not only that, they've got to be on the right seats on the bus."

Reallocating Resources

A summer institute has become an annual feature of the Mooresville district. That's where the district hosts others interested in learning more about its practices and also offers sessions for its own teachers-for example, on programs like iMovie and Comic Life-to learn or refine skills for their digital arsenals.

And every year, Haas, the finance chief, offers visitors advice, but no silver bullet, on how a 1-to-1 program lives within its means.

"It's really just looking at your budget in extreme detail and saying, 'OK, do we need to continue this?' " Haas says. "If it's not helping student achievement, and it's not keeping the lights on, do we really need to be doing this?"

Edwards estimates the district has eliminated 95 percent of its spending on print textbooks, thanks in part to state policy that allows districts flexibility in how they spend state funding. Those textbooks that remain typically reside in science classrooms and don't travel home with students.

The district has also reduced spending on calculators, encyclopedias, and maps, all resources that can be found embedded within a laptop and an Internet connection, says Haas. And it has reapportioned or cut positions for computer-lab coordinators.

Edwards says Mooresville spends roughly $200 per student per year on hardware, software, and maintenance costs for its laptops-which this year are newly unveiled MacBook Airs-with $35 of that covering digital content through subscriptions to services like Silver Spring, Md.-based Discovery Education's content service.

The district leases its laptops rather than buying them, selling its lease back after two or three years to a third-party buyer that refurbishes the laptops for resale, Haas says. And while Apple machines are typically priced higher than their PC counterparts, Haas and Smith both say the cost is made up on the back end.

"The thing about Apple is they own the hardware and the software. And it's user-friendly. And again, it just works," says Smith, who heads an eight-person technology department he says would need more staff if the district was PC-oriented.

"There's not nearly the technical issues to deal with on a Mac," he says. "So from a total-cost-of-ownership standpoint, I don't have to have as many people to help support it."

The district's 2010-11 total budget was $46.4 million, and district officials say parsing out expenses solely for the 1-to-1 program is nearly impossible because of its integration within overall district spending.

The district also saves money by resisting the purchase of e-textbooks from major publishers in most subjects; instead, it tells teachers to seek their own content and align it to the subject curriculum. Teachers are expected to share lessons with colleagues electronically via ANGEL, the district's content-management software, created by Washington-based Blackboard Inc., and all four schools in the district's 1-to-1 program each employs a technology facilitator to aid that process. The district's three elementary schools only began distributing laptops to its third graders this year.

Still, the job description for teachers is decidedly more labor-intensive even though Snyder says there are positive tradeoffs, such as the lessening of time spent grading.

"I would say the biggest challenge teachers have is the lack of time," says Marsha Rhyne, the technology facilitator at Mooresville Intermediate School. "It's a constant challenge for teachers to go out and to find new innovative resources and what actually matches the new curriculum they need."

But the scariest specter for districts looking to follow Mooresville, says Haas, may be that such a drastic change to the traditional model is usually a one-way portal.

"When you stop and think about all the things we would have to go back and purchase to be able to go back to the way teachers used to teach, if we didn't have the computers," Haas says, "going back is not really an option."

Following the Mooresville Model

Walk the halls at Mooresville High School, and you'll see more than a few T-shirts devoted to Blue Devils football.

The back of one depicts an aerial view of the new turf field and rubber track installed in 2008 at what last year was renamed Coach Joe Popp Stadium, after a local legend who led the school to its only state title, in 1961. The front of another reads, "Friends don't let friends go to Lake Norman," a jab at the local rival that sits only across town, but belongs to the separate, countywide Iredell-Statesville school system.

Allegiance to the town, and the school system, is big here-so much so, says the Mooresville district public-information officer Tanae McLean, that some people who purchase property on the edge of the town seek to have it annexed into the town limits. And among many locals, the school system's successes, including those in its digital conversion, are attributed to the liberty it enjoys as a one-high-school district and one of only 15 city-based school systems in the state.

"It allows them to make choices," says district parent and alumnus Jason Brawley, whose family owns the furniture store. "Growing up here and going through it myself, I never knew how good it was."

Mooresville's leaders, from Superintendent Edwards to his central-office staff to his principals, acknowledge that the district's modest size was a key factor in helping it change its culture and improve its achievement so quickly. Further, with the proximity of larger districts like the neighboring 20,000-student Iredell-Statesville system and the 134,000-student Charlotte-Mecklenburg a few miles south of town, Mooresville's reputation and relatively few open positions could put it at a labor advantage, with many of its teachers having jumped across district lines for their current jobs.

"A lot of people want to work here," McLean says. "On the flip side, ... we have a lot of our teachers who, let's say, if their husband takes a job somewhere else, they're highly employable" because of skills they've learned in the digital conversion.

Mooresville's school leaders also point to a growing list of districts, big and small, that are citing the district as their inspiration. The number of districts visiting at monthly open houses has been steadily increasing, with 17 attending a March event, according to the district's website.

Alan Lee, the superintendent of the 28,000-student Baldwin County school system in southern Alabama, brought more than three dozen of his staff to observe Mooresville in action at one of its monthly open houses. This fall, he launched a pilot for a similar program at one of his district's seven high schools, saying the digital-conversion model "may be the one last great hope for our nation."

Then there is Edwards, a soft-spoken but no-nonsense Tennessean who is in his third district as a superintendent, and whom Karen Cator, the director of the U.S. Department of Education's office of education technology, has praised for an ability to "set high goals and then maintain a laser focus on them."

In the Mooresville district, Edwards has assumed a role that at times resembles that of a university president. He established a private education foundation to help raise funds for district projects and has pulled in Mooresville's business community, especially during the digital conversion's launch.

Edwards helped persuade Lowe's Cos. Inc., which has its corporate headquarters in Mooresville, to contribute $250,000 in startup money toward installing a broadband Wi-Fi network in the district capable of handling 1-to-1 access, and also recruited local Internet provider MI-Connection to offer a $9.95-per-month home broadband service for financially disadvantaged students.

And in "Race City USA," whose claim to fame is serving as the home for more than a dozen NASCAR auto-racing teams, Edwards has gained national attention for his district, attracting PBS news cameras, Wall Street Journal reporters, and even an invitation to speak at a panel at the White House this past September.

Colleagues insist any such effort in other districts must be led by a superintendent in the same mold.

"He just doesn't allow anybody around him to make excuses or build obstacles," Principal Wirt of Mooresville High says of Edwards. "That's not his ride at all."

Vol. 05, Issue 01, Pages 14-19
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Features The Brawley family name adorns about a half-dozen businesses around Mooresville, N.C., including a furniture store on the corner of Broad Street and Iredell Avenue, at the edge of a cute but quiet downtown.

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We Believe

that every child is capable of college and career success. Summit Public Schools is a leading network of public schools that collectively prepares a diverse community of young people with the skills, knowledge, and habits to attain economic empowerment and success in a chosen concrete next step towards a fulfilled life.

We founded our inaugural school, Summit Prep, in 2003. Today, we are proud to operate some of the best public schools in the country, serving diverse communities throughout California and Washington states.

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Students apply their acquired knowledge, skills, and habits to exercises that broaden and deepen their passions and prepare them for what they'll encounter after graduation. Students participate in hands-on projects in class and eight weeks of expeditionary learning each year. Experiential learning exposes students to new career and volunteer pathways, while nurturing their sense of purpose.

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Summit Public Schools - Free public charter schools in CA & WA

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that every child is capable of college and career success. Summit Public Schools is a leading network of public schools that collectively prepares a diverse community of young people with the skills, knowledge, and habits to attain economic empowerment and success in a chosen concrete next step towards a fulfilled life.

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If you're in education, chances are you've heard the term "personalized learning." But what does that phrase mean? What does "personalized learning" look like from coast to coast, classroom to classroom?

For the last few years, we've collected stories written by educators--edtech coordinators, librarians, superintendents and others--from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. We called it The Fifty States Project, an initiative to showcase educators and their stories of supporting learning by using technology.

People took note, and now, we're back for the third year, rebooting the Fifty States Project for 2017, sponsored in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But this time, there's a twist.

Interested in being a part of this project? Apply here.

We want to celebrate the art, knowledge and best practices shared by educators across urban, suburban, and rural communities, wielding technology to make a real difference for kids-but specifically with regards to personalized learning.

From now through August, you'll see articles on personalized learning from educators in all 50 states, sharing tales and tools of the trade, which we'll add to this helpful guide.

We're looking for detailed examples of meaningful, credible practices to share--specific, actionable practices that other educators and administrators can adopt. We'll highlight the states as we find writers to represent them (see below). To kick off this year, we've got our first article from an educator in Alabama.

What are the stories about?

Want to see what educators have been writing about over the last few years? Check out past editions of the EdSurge Fifty States Project!

We invite educators to submit articles in response to one of the following prompts:

How do you define personalized learning? What does personalized learning look like in practice?

Describe the curriculum, instructional design, products and/or technologies that you have used to implement personalized learning.

How do we better prepare teachers and students to implement personalized learning?

Describe the challenges and/or solutions to implementing and assessing personalized learning in the classroom.

Who are the writers--and how can I get involved?

We invite educators--teachers, admins, and/or district leaders--to tell their stories about how they are implementing or integrating technology. If you work in K-12, we want to hear from you. Admire a colleague's work? Nudge them to write for us.

If we've already published a writer in your state, we invite you to submit an idea anyway. EdSurge is always looking for great stories, independent of the Fifty States Project. Interested parties can apply here by submitting a short paragraph about their practices or article idea. Or, you can nominate an educator you know with incredible work.

If you apply and are accepted, then we'll ask you to write your story. We'll polish your prose with a little editorial elbow grease and put it on EdSurge. And, added bonus, you'll get a Fifty States contributor badge (shown to the right) for your blog or profile!

Once again, we look forward to hearing your stories and including you in our collection of great educator voices. And if you'd like to join in the conversation and even share stories from your own schools and districts, Tweet with #Edsurge50. We'll periodically share them on the site!

Mary Jo Madda (@MJMadda) is Senior Editor at EdSurge, as well as a former STEM middle school teacher and administrator. In 2016, Mary Jo was named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list in education.

The project is supported in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributors alone and do not reflect the views of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Announcing the 2017 Fifty States Project: Personalized Learning Across the Country - EdSurge News

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If you're in education, chances are you've heard the term "personalized learning." But what does that phrase mean? What does "personalized learning" look like from coast to coast, classroom to classroom? For the last few years, we've collected stories written by educators--edtech coordinators, librarians, superintendents and others--from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

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Otus Otus is a K-12 Student Growth Platform supporting Standards-Based Grading, Common Assessment, Data Warehousing, & Progress Monitoring.

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What districts in  Illinois use this?

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Is there a way to set this up for an elementary classroom students do not have to join separate subjects in order to be a part of my classroom?