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The freeze-thaw method of technology integration.

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

This post springs from 3 things:

  • My experiences as Director of E-Learning
  • Discussions I’ve had with James Michie and Nick Dennis about #edjournal
  • A conversation I’ve just had with colleague Steve Bailey about ‘cloud’ apps from a records management perspective

The further down the rabbit-hole I go, the more reports I read, and as I talk to increasing numbers of educational technology leaders, I’m realising how problematic my actions as a standard classroom teacher actually were. Why? Well as a ‘maverick’ my actions on a small scale could potentially have undermined the larger-scale roll-out of technology in that institution. I acted in a somewhat cavalier manner to legal issues and could potentially have affected cultural acceptance of educational technology writ large.

I’m going to propose a 10-stage ‘freeze-thaw model’ of technology integration. It goes something like this:

  1. Draw up a list of minimum specifications.
  2. Explore the app/service/solution that has most traction.
  3. Talk to people who can do ‘due diligence’ regarding the legal side of things (especially terms & conditions, service level agreements)
  4. Do some small-scale testing with a pilot group.
  5. Agree upon how the technology is going to be used.
  6. ‘Freeze’ it – i.e. no more new features for a given amount of time (e.g. a term or academic year)
  7. Discuss new features and have pilot groups.
  8. ‘Thaw’ it – let people play about with a sandbox and go through due diligence again.
  9. ‘Re-freeze’ – i.e. add features and then freeze for a given amount of time.
  10. Repeat.

I’m aware that this goes against almost everything I’ve done before. For example, at the Academy I just opened up all of the tools available with Google Apps Education Edition to see what people did with them. I was pleasantly surprised. But, leaving after a year I didn’t have to deal with the data security, workflow or sustainability aspects of this.

Any type of project that is successful is sustainable in some way. I see the freeze-thaw model as a way of encouraging responsible experimentation. 🙂

Image CC BY jenny downing

A useful way to categorise educational technologies.

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

On p.189 of Lankshear & Knobel’s New Literacies: Everyday Practices & Classroom Learning (2006) they cite the work of Naismith, et al. who suggest plotting commonly-used educational technologies onto two axes: static-portable and shared-personal. What they neglect to include is a graphic, which would have made a lot more sense.

Let me help them:

Educational technology classified

Interestingly, schools seem to be fine with technology that fits into the bottom-left space, but not with the top-right. Why? :-s

3 ways Google Wave could be used in the classroom.

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Google Wave logo

So you’re an educator who’s managed to score an invitation to Google Wave. You’ve had a play and it’s all very nice, but how could it be used in education?

Before I go any further, read these:

Google Wave conversation

Here are 3 ways I think Google Wave could be used by students for actual learning rather than just playing with something because it’s cool.

1. Empowering learners

There was a great presentation at the TeachMeet that accompanied the Scottish Learning Festival this year. Fearghal Kelly talked about his experiments with giving one of his classes more ownership over their learning. He ran them through the learning objectives and the content they would need to cover and then the student co-created and collaborated on planning what exactly they wanted to do.

Google Wave would be great for this as it allows wiki-like editing but is more threaded and conversation-like. The whole wave can also be ‘replayed’ to see how the thinking of the group evolved over time. It’s something I’d definitely be trying if I had a GCSE or AS/A2-level class… :-p

2. Student feedback

The most powerful learning experiences are those where students have ownership of their learning. That’s been dealt with above. But that’s of no use if students don’t know how to get better in a particular subject or discipline!

That’s why I think Google Wave could be used as an Assessment for Learning tool. Learning as a conversation could be shown in practice through having an individual wave for each student/teacher relationship. Alternatively, these could be small group and ability based to enable peer learning.

I can imagine waves being used for ongoing learning conversations once Google Wave becomes a feature of Google Apps for Education. I’ll certainly be experimenting with it for that purpose! 😀

3. Flattening the walls of the classroom

One of the really exciting things about Google Wave is the ‘bots’ you can add to automate processes. One of these bots allows for the automatic translation of text entered in one language into that of the recipient.

Whilst language teachers may be up in arms about the idea of ‘not needing’ to learn another’s language, I think it could be fantastic for removing barriers for worldwide collaboration. Imagine the power of students having the digital and wave-equivalent of ‘penpals’ in various classrooms around the world.

Now that really would ‘flatten the walls‘ of the classroom. 🙂

What excites YOU about Google Wave’s potential for education?

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