Problem Statement

“Should we force our Digital Native kids [to] learn our old ways, or should we Digital Immigrants learn the new?  The answer, I believe, is obvious.  No matter how much the Immigrants may wish it, Digital Natives are not going to go backwards. (30-31, Prensky, 2006)” 

With the exception of the very youngest, most teachers at my focus school would, like me, be considered Digital Immigrants in Marc Prensky’s discussion of preparing students for 21st Century success.  How then could I assist teachers in gaining the knowledge and abilities needed to integrate the available technology that is so critical in preparing their students for skills they will need in the future?

Cycle One of my action research served as the foundation for my inquiry.  During this cycle, I asked the question, “Will identifying staff needs for technology training provide a viable baseline for promoting an increase in the use of technologies already present on campus?” To first identify the staff needs, I decided to use an online survey of classroom teachers in my focus school.  This instrument gathered information including how often hardware and software was being used, asked participants to self-assess their competencies, and to identify obstacles preventing technology integration.  It also asked participants to determine technology’s greatest impact in their experience.  Additionally, I measured attitudes toward using technology, and  surveyed best practices already in place.  This data, I felt, would assist me in designing better opportunities for teachers to experience technology integration in the curriculum and in their professional practices. 

Cycle Two of my action research considered whether providing opportunities for professional development would increase teachers’ knowledge base for technology incorporation.  Using the data from Cycle One, I collaborated with grade-level groups of teachers to create an agenda for half-day sessions of hands-on technology training crafted to address their needs.  Teams selected their training days and participated during school hours with substitutes paid through technology professional development funds.  With preparation geared toward the agenda for each group, teachers met in a relaxed, technology-rich environment to explore and practice the hardware, software, skills, and concepts outlined in our discussions.  Each session ended in a period of written reflection in which participants expressed what they had learned, how they planned to use the learning, and how I would know that they benefited from the technology professional development.

While Cycles One and Two of my action research focused primarily on assessing and meeting the needs of teachers in my school, Cycle Three turned attention to accountability for learning.  With survey data in hand and professional development provided, would teachers use their new knowledge, experiences, and skills to increase student engagement, plan innovative means for producing content delivery, create more efficient ways to communicate within the learning community, and utilize more effective management practices with technology tools that are currently available to them?   The purpose of my action research project is to increase the use of available technologies for instructional purposes in elementary classrooms, and evidence and actions from Cycles One and Two provided a strong foundation to consider as a lead into Cycle Three. 

Cycle 3 Question

Will professional development opportunities crafted to meet the needs of teachers translate into changed practices related to technology integration?

Actions, Cycle 3

"The great aim of education is not knowledge but action." --Herbert Spencer

My request to teachers as they left their professional development sessions during Cycle Two was to let me know how they were actively applying their learning and how I could support them in technology integration.  Soon afterward, I followed up our learning time with emails that explained answers to their questions I was unable to answer during the learning time.  This served to keep the information fresh, to remind teachers that I was listening and active in their learning, and offered them an opportunity to report questions and comments.

At first there was a flurry of questions, comments, and reminders.  They told me more about what they thought they could really use and their plans to integrate them into their classes.

“I plan to take advantage of the Math and Science TMDS [Texas Math Diagnostic System] for creating assessments and for online activities with my class as reinforcements.”—Marta V.

“My goal for myself is to use technology beyond what I am already using at least once per week.”—Valerie T.

“I enjoyed learning about some of the useful features in Lotus Notes.  I now have my spell check working and need to set up my signature.”—Amy G.

“We learned a lot of useful information which I have already begun to apply.  I was even able to convert our taped music onto CD.”—Sandy D.

“I am very interested in using the Mimio.  I am thinking about using it during a video streaming to model note taking.  I am used to stopping the streaming [video] and telling them what to write.  With this I could show them.”—Teresa O.

“I really enjoyed getting to work with TurningPoint software.  I have felt comfortable using PowerPoint, and it really surprises me how easy it is.  I like the fact that we can keep the correct answer saved.  I would like the opportunity to spend more time on creating these slides because they can serve as a review or even a pre-test.”—Rebecca S.

“As a follow-up, can you continue to be available for trouble-shooting and helpful hints?  As you learn new things about Power Pak Pro and TurningPoint, you can share these with us.”—Lydia P.

At this point, I found myself checking in with teachers through email, but primarily by walking the halls and stepping into rooms when I saw technology in use.  This is how I contacted second grade teacher Lisa D. who was especially interested in using the Mimio with her class.  She was the pioneer who checked out the equipment from the library and first asked for my assistance in brainstorming uses and practicing setup so that she could do it all herself.  Lisa used the Mimio as a collaborative tool for students to demonstrate their thinking for math exemplars.  Several students had sections of the dry erase board on which they could diagram their thinking processes.  They signed their work, and then using the print feature, Lisa printed the collection of diagrams for students to keep in their math notebooks demonstrating a variety of approaches to one problem.  This exercise taught Lisa several lessons which she brought to me including the fact that the Mimio which reads sound waves of the dry erase markers could not read two students writing at the same time and that sections completed by students who used the lighter colored pens sometimes printed too lightly for archival purposes.  Lisa continued using the Mimio to collect brainstormed ideas when her class began talking about creating animal PowerPoint presentations.  Because the boards could be saved and printed, she was able to share the class thinking with students who had been absent.

Kindergarten teacher Michelle S. had previously written, “I liked the idea of the Mimio board but I’m not really sure how much I would use it in kindergarten and it seems like a lot to put together, but it's very cool and I can see where we would benefit from it in faculty or staff meetings with teams.”  After seeing Lisa D. using the technology in second grade and talking to her, however, Michelle and Amanda T. decided to collaborate and try using the Mimio with their combined kindergarten classes.  I visited with Michelle and helped her to set up the equipment the day before her activity since I would not be on campus the following day, going over basic operations and reminding her that our “expert” Lisa was across the hall if she and Amanda needed help.  These kindergarten teachers used the Mimio as a tool for displaying an interactive website with choices the children could make.  Though they reported a few difficulties in using the equipment at first, both teachers were pleased enough with the result of their lesson that they documented it with photos and determined that they would consider the display equipment as they planned future lessons.

The fifth grade teachers were especially interested in using the interactive TurningPoint voting devices in their classes.  As a part of the follow-up, I had loaded the TurningPoint software on each of their desktop computers so that they could create interactive presentations from their desks.  Melinda G. was the most interested to use the system with her class.  While part of the presentation worked for her, Melinda was disappointed that the grid indicating which devices had responded during the presentation was performing erratically.  Instead of voter number one indicating its vote on the grid, whoever pressed an answer choice first showed as number one.  She came to me for help, and we worked together without much luck to resolve the problem.  Because of her disappointment, Melinda turned the equipment back in to the library and did not attempt to use it again.  I persisted in working through the problem, however, and finally discovered a solution shortly before school was out for the summer.  I told Melinda in person about my discovery and emailed the solution to her asking for her promise to try again with her next class in the fall. 

First grade teachers who had never used the laptop computers with their classes soon began integrating them into their language arts curriculum.  Because I had told them that the second grade teachers taught their students how to use the laptops effectively, the first grade teachers met with the second grade team to form a class-to-class partnership.  Rachel G.’s first grade students began using laptops from Lisa D.’s second grade class with student guides to assist along the way.  Rachel documented the partnership with photos of her first graders working with their second grade mentors.

It wasn’t until after the half day of training that third grade teachers decided to implement technology presentations in their student-led spring parent conferences.  Using PowerPoint, the group of five teachers assisted students in demonstrating their learning in a presentation for their parents.  This became an integral part of the talking points for the conferences.

Fourth grade teacher Gigi S. decided to go beyond the professional development learning and came to me asking what she could do differently with her students who were about to research important events, places, and people of Texas history.  She wanted to do something new that hadn’t been tried before, so together we created a plan for research and presentation of information in the form of podcasts as an online Texas Audio History Museum.  Gigi, her student teacher Maggie, and our librarian Emily assisted students in using NetTrekker along with primary resources to complete their research, but because Gigi was not familiar with podcasting, she created a small cadre of students who learned from me to use Audacity to record their podcasts.  The students then became the directors of the project, recording their classmates’ voices, helping them to select and integrate background music, and save the files in MP3 format.  I uploaded the podcasts to the web, writing RSS feed.  This project was documented in a digital story scripted and recorded by students.  The project was recognized by the district as an example of best practices in technology, and the student digital story was presented at a district-wide meeting of technology specialists and was uploaded to the district website for educational technology. 

Through all of the technology integration attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) teachers made during Cycle Three, I made a point to show my enthusiasm for their actions without regard to how simple or complex they were.  It was the effort and follow-through that I wanted to reward.  I used email communication to offer congratulations for their efforts and to encourage them to continue in light of any problems they may have encountered.  In addition, I publicized their successes among other faculty members and to the principal in an endeavor to promote an eager community response, not solely supported by me.  It was important, in addition, to continue making a physical presence in classrooms and responding immediately in person as well as by email or phone for questions, troubleshooting, and to view successes.

Reactions

The first noticeable response I saw in teachers was an increase in willingness to take a risk.  As we had worked side-by-side in Cycle 2, they noticed that I did not have an answer for every question that they had and that sometimes the hardware or software didn’t work exactly as I had planned.  We talked through the problems, however, and I tried to demonstrate to them that I could work through the problems, sometimes reading through manufacturer help files, sometimes calling outside experts for assistance, and sometimes just trying repeatedly until that moment came when the solution appeared.  Additionally, I continued adding sets of directions in the Technology folder on our network’s shared drive for using equipment along with the librarian who wrote instructions for using some of the equipment from the library.  Teachers knew that if all else failed and there was no one available to help, they, like their students, could fall back to reading instructions. This made them realize that they could follow the same steps, and with my help, the help of other pioneers and experts on campus, working with new hardware and software didn’t seem like such a big risk after all.

With individuals taking these risks, the use of technology had a sort of domino effect among teachers.  I won’t say that there was a huge fire lit and that it consumed the campus, but among the grade levels, teachers began to notice others embracing new practices with technology.  A third grade teacher whose daughter was in fourth grade and participated in the podcasting project wrote to me saying that she, too, would like to integrate this kind of learning into her plans.  She continued stating that she never thought to do those things and usually ended up planning the same types of learning experiences from year to year.  Her suggestion was that I add to the Technology folder on the shared drive a list of ideas that teachers could use as they plan units together.   This seemed like a good idea, and I told her that I would start the list and hoped that it would become a collaborative effort as others added what they were already doing along with new ideas from workshops, conferences, and professional reading.

Almost immediately, my efforts to increase the use of technology increased the workload of the librarian who said that suddenly there was a rush to check out equipment that had remained dormant for some time on her shelves.  She didn’t feel prepared for the numbers of teachers wanting to use digital cameras, display projectors, laptops, or TurningPoint kits.  She wrote:

The technology training definitely made teachers more aware of the technology available on campus.  They are now much more comfortable with the technology and request to use it on a regular basis.  Equipment that had been lightly used in the past is now used on a regular basis.  There has been such a demand for data projectors, laptops, and digital cameras that the items are often booked for weeks in advance.  It is a juggling act to try to provide the technology each teacher requests at the time they need it for instruction.  Teachers frequently must reschedule their lessons for a time when the technology they need is available.—Emily G., Librarian

Because of this unpredicted need, Emily and I have had to work on a long-range plan for acquiring and refreshing more of the equipment in demand.  This included looking at the library and technology budgets, now feeling that we had a better sense of what our community needed and wanted to use in the classrooms.  We also had to revisit our calendar and policies for checking out equipment so that it could be more evenly distributed and available for more users on an equitable basis next year.

Parents became excited about the learning that their students were doing toward the end of the school year.  Second grade teachers who had started by using the Mimio and continued integrating more technology said that their parent groups wanted copies of the products their children had completed including original audio books they created by scanning hand-drawn photos, inserting them into PhotoStory3, then recording their voices reading the text they had created.  Because the files were too large to email and we didn’t have a budget for that many CDs, we made checkout copies of the files so that students could take them home, parents could make their own copies, and return the original to the teacher.  One parent was so excited about the podcast project that she sent an email with the link to her son’s former teachers, one of whom works on my other campus.  This teacher sent me a complimentary note and copied it to the principal who now wants me to lead the same project on her campus.

Answering the Cycle 3 Question

Will professional development opportunities crafted to meet the needs of teachers translate into changed practices related to technology integration?  The clearest form of evidence is the dramatic increase in the checking out of a range of digital tools following the work with teachers.  Anecdotal evidence points toward a change among many teachers’ practices in both their professional responsibilities and especially in classroom technology infusion.  Based on the questions, comments, observed activities, and student products produced since the end of the professional development sessions in Cycle 2, I believe that there has been a marked increase in incorporation and in enthusiasm for learning new applications for technology equipment and software.  As long as the creative uses continue to build new ways of teaching, it is likely that the process of sharing these changes will continue to inspire other teachers to take the risk to integrate technology with their lessons.

Additionally, the comments and questions which I have received during Cycle 3 have shown me that teachers are, in fact, thinking about and applying their growing knowledge and skills in new ways preparing for next year.  On the last day of school, I used the TurningPoint response devices in a game with teachers in which they voted to decide which teacher’s photo matched the funny “secret” about her.  While the game was enjoyable, this became an opportunity for talking points during which I could demonstrate how they could apply this same technology in their classrooms during the coming year.  Administrators reported to me that teachers could be heard in small groups planning ahead how they would begin using the resource.  Keeping the available equipment in sight, making continuing education available, providing assistance that is easily accessible, and promoting enthusiasm remain at the forefront and seem to be key in changing practices of teachers as they integrate technology.

Reflective Thinking

The road not taken in Cycle Three is something that I will continue to think about as the next year approaches.  My greatest disappointment working through this cycle was in not being able to bring the teachers back together again in groups to share their learning and successes.  This had been the pinnacle of my plan, and had been discussed and calendared for a day of vertical team meetings with the building principal, but as the school year wound to a close, timing just didn’t fit my needs and what I felt were the needs of the community.  The team day was tabled in favor of field day.  Sharing and reflecting together, I felt, would have brought some closure to what we had done together, and at the same time open another door for next year’s planning.  In retrospect, I have learned that I cannot force fit everything I want to do neatly on a calendar and expect that the entire school will revolve its schedule around my ideas.  Additionally, however, I have realized that I should to be more aware of timing if it is essential to make things happen and also be more insistent when it comes to proving the importance of what I planned.

Perhaps the greatest realization that I have had is not so much the fact that teachers are or aren't using their knowledge, but that they want to infuse more technology into their learning experiences with students.  They are coming to me to ask what more they can do, are watching each other's lessons and are asking, "Can I do that, too?"  This is where I want to be at this point.  I have noticed that there is a culture of interest and building vision.  I’m learning that not only does the teacher interest help them to construct vision, but it increases my enthusiasm for continuing to plan new ways to build an environment in which the technology we have present on campus can increase efficiency in professional responsibilities, renew an interest in crafting engaging lessons using technology, and promote the educational community awareness of expertise among its members.

At this time, while I feel pleased with the overall result of my action research, I continue to wonder what kind of response from teachers constitutes success.  If only one or two teachers in a grade level use the training from their professional development, was it worthwhile?  If teachers do not use the exact training, but have a renewed enthusiasm and intent to integrate technology into their lessons and professional lives, is this measured as success?  In other words, should I expect to see a revolution, or is a slow groundswell a good sign?  Because most educational changes in my experience happen very slowly and are moved by a relatively small group of forward-thinking educators, the results of these actions have appeared to follow the same path with perhaps a bit more dramatic effect, and will hopefully continue into the coming years.  I believe that as teachers attend meetings and conferences where they share their successes, as they move from one campus to another becoming part of the leadership there, and as parents spread the word of engaged learning using technology, perhaps this relatively small groundswell will grow in making a difference in the larger community.  My research has provided enough evidence that this hope keeps my enthusiasm alive.

Preparing for Future Action

Can I close the book on this action research?  The answer is a resounding no.  First, I plan to begin the year with the vertical team meeting that I was not able to include in Cycle Three.  This will serve to begin the new school year with a review of what we did last year and to show the new teachers some of the possibilities.  This will offer a time as well for the new teachers to share new ideas that they have for our technology that they might lead in our learning community.

Digital stories like the those told during the podcasting project might be a great way to illustrate how teachers at my school have begun using more technology as a result of the professional development time we've had and as a product of the momentum/interest that the professional development created.  What a great way to begin the year in 2007-2008 exhibiting some of the success stories of learning from this year.  With the fourth grade Audio Museum story already showcased on the district website, perhaps I can encourage the second grade teachers to work with me on a digital story showing how they have used the Mimio whiteboard to enrich student learning. 

As I continue my own learning, I will be interested in maintaining the professional development with teachers at this school, bringing new possibilities for technology integration to light, building on the successes from this year.  It would be wonderful if they could begin to provide learning sessions for each other as well, highlighting their own expertise.

I will, as well, offer the same opportunities to the other school that I serve, using the same practices which produced positive results in Cycles One and Two, and follow the results for acquisition of skills and integration in Cycle Three.  This is indeed not the end, but a beginning for more and better use of technology in schools.

References

Prensky, Marc.  (2006) “Don’t Bother Me Mom, I’m Learning!” St. Paul, MN:  Paragon House.

Technology Use Survey Data (Excel Workbook from Cycle 1)