Success or Failure? You Choose

I was recently honored to participate on a panel at SXSW (South by South West) in Austin, TX.  The panel's purpose was to articulate the power, success, and necessity of private-public partnerships especially as it relates to ubiquitous broadband connectivity, access to rich, interactive digital content and tools, and the most obvious - a "learning for all - whatever it takes" mission for learning.

My role was easy - drive home the reality that we already know more than we need to "get this done".   The "game changer" is leadership.  A key component to leadership is vision.  I firmly believe and practice that vision is more than an ability to articulate a picture of the future, an ideal state, or what the work looks like completed.  Vision must be compelling, motivating, captivating, and most of all the vision must be clear.

When President John F. Kennedy challenge our nation with the mission of sending to, landing on and returning safely to earth a man within a decade, he casted a vision that no one had ever done before.  There was no "best practice", "research base", "expert consultants", or "model" to replicate.  Rather, the vision inspired a sense of imagination, curiosity, creativity, and innovation.  The vision certainly had critics and those who questioned the cost, but the vision created unprecedented opportunities for learning.  This more than anything was and remains today, “mission” critical.

The learning from what didn't work was more important than what did work.  

Before I leave the 1960s and the vision of President Kennedy, I turn to his brother's paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw's quote to affirm the role of leadership especially as it relates to what is desperately needed to realized the power, the promise, and the vision of universal connectivity, access, and results of, for, and by digital learning.  Robert Kennedy said,

"Some me see things as they are and ask, 'why'. 

I dream things that never were and ask, 'why not'."

Being critical, the landscape of digital implementation initiatives has more failed examples than successful.  There are several reasons for the failure of these initiatives to meet or exceed their promises or "best hopes".  First, most schools and school systems started with the wrong questions.  What device do we want?  What can we afford? 

These are important, but they aren't where you start.  The most important question is centered on student learning.  What do we want students to know and be able to do as a result of teaching and learning?

Schools and school systems have failed to adequately address this question.   Those that have are much further along and are the success stories that are being told.  This is as it should be.  However, too many school and school system leaders are not addressing what they should. 

In what can only be called a "race" to keep up with the "Jones", the acquisition of devices without first addressing and therefore thoughtfully, intentionally, and deliberatively planning the following will result in failing to transform teaching and learning.  Ultimately, wasting resources, trust, and the future of our young people.

Too critical, possibly? 

Here's what must be addressed before device select and deployment.

1.     Assess infrastructure and ensure bandwidth, Wi-Fi density, and etc. are not just adequate but able to ensure the assumption you will have 100% of your users using uninterrupted - any time and in any space. 

2.     Assess and address the capacity, competence, confidence and capability of the instructional staff to integrate, convert, and transform teaching and learning with digital tools, interactive digital content, instructional methodologies, and clear learning outcomes. 

3.     Assess and address community awareness, understanding, and support.  Work with community officials to assist with the learning initiative especially as it relates to ubiquitous connectivity and its power to educate all irrespective of the age of the learner.

4.     Adapt, adjust, or amend local policy to include constant, consistent digital literacy, digital citizenship, parental responsibility, the district's role in monitoring not just acceptable use but public domain social media and etc. to ensure safe, responsible, and productive teaching and learning.

5.     Identify, plan, and implement a learning management system to integrate or support transformative teaching and learning, digital tools, interactive content, on and off line learning, social media, and other collaborative teaching and learning tools.

6.     Lastly, device selection – what device will drive, leverage your learning initiative producing the results you and your community desire?

Above all else, assess your position on innovation. Do you want to be successful?  Of course you do, we do!  Decrease the opportunity for failure by addressing the aforementioned.