January 25, 2012 by mguhlin

iPad Roundup #iPad #BYOD Continuum of Control

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dECs3SRh8Xo\]

For someone who purports to not like iPads, I’ve certainly spent a lot of time exploring their use in K-12 schools! A quick review of iPad related posts I’ve written look like this:

Miguel’s Must-Have iPad Apps

iPad Deployment

And, I’ve also detailed my own experiences with the iPad as I explore it and editorialize:

Recanting iPad Gloom and Doom
Blogging via iPad Blogger App
iPad Experiments Day 1 and Day 2, Day 3
The Mark of Apple
Tricks to Gmail on iPad
The Road is Open
Getting Video and Audio onto your iOS device

Update: iPads vs Netbooks for a 1 to 1 deployment by Ben Grey

The reason for that is simple—although I have my preferences for the technologies I choose to use, I believe we need to find the right tools for the job. You can’t do that if you shut down dialogue and, as the Crucial Conversations authors put it, move to “silence or violence.”

The diagram shown above captures one representation of the Crucial Conversations silence or violence. My hand-drawn version of the diagram, which I drew based on my listening to the audio of the books, includes Mutual Respect, Dialogue, Trust in the grey circle where one finds “Safety” above and flips it sideways (not a major change, I know). As the authors point out, the longer it takes to travel back to dialogue and shared meaning, the harder it is to do so.

Source: http://goo.gl/iOY15

This comment is also relevant and I’m including it in the main post for now:

I was just showing my 13yo daughter the “Pool of Shared Meaning” diagram and we were discussing it. She made a neat observation. She pointed out that as we work on or build our relationships, our grey ring (safety, mutual respect, dialogue and trust) grows. And therefore, the frequency and likelihood of ending up in the red ring (silence or violence) reduces. So having a “wide” grey ring would mean that we have a “narrow” red ring…
What a great point! When we focus on building our relationships, we increase our capacity to build shared meaning in healthy, productive ways - instead of falling back into unhealthy, damaging habits like silence and violence.
Food for thought from my wise young woman… :-)

You can take a 33 question, “Style Under Stress” assessment for free. Since I’ve been working hard on my own skills, I decided to take the assessment today and saw this snapshot of where I’m at:

My Style Under Stress™ Scores

Silence

Violence

Masking

Controlling

Avoiding

Labeling

Withdrawing

Attacking

Silence Total

Violence Total

Check the chart below and notice which aspects of silence (masking, avoiding, or withdrawing) or violence (controlling, labeling, or attacking) that you use. All behaviors that move you toward silence or violence have consequences.

Source: http://goo.gl/is0P1

What does this have to do with iPads? Consider that planning and implementing ANY kind of change can result in stresses to your work relationships. It’s easy, as I pointed out in this post, to fall for the Sucker’s Choice (another Crucial Conversations term), an either/or proposition between two poor choices that involves trading one for the other. For example, if we’re going to do one to one, it has be done with iPads because our Community won’t settle for less than the best. The other option could be something less desirable.

“The possibilities for learning, student interaction and enhanced campus services that the iPad unleashes will all come at a price,” Kim says. “Nothing about a tool as wonderful as the iPad will lower the cost of constructing or delivering education.”

Source: Joshua Kim as cited in FastCompany article

It’s easy to fall into this trap because we want to provide the best to our children, we don’t want to admit that we’re “broke” as school districts. While the economy is solid, we can afford to skip this choice, or so we tell ourselves. The truth is more “wrinkly” than that.

One technology director recently wrote (anonymized) the following:

Teachers and students are using their personal devices as they have them, sharing when necessary. We also have devices available for checkout during the school day for those who do not have personal devices but need them for class.

This is one of those wrinkly issues, isn’t it? The first inclination of school technology directors in various locales is a continuum of control that looks something like this rough-hewn sketch (did I mention I flunked art in Kindergarten?):

Where do you think remarks like the following fall in on the continuum of control?

I just came from a discussion at [regional service center]. The topic came up about [state org] only offering 1-1 training using Ipads. The uniform response was how unfortunate that it is that this is the only approach being promoted. NO one was taking this approach, and all are saying the same thing. Relying only on apps, and trying to distribute them is a nightmare.

***

_“_Personalization of the device is key to the success of implementation,” shared one regional service center-based educator in Texas, “and people really embracing their use of it effectively.”

***

“Because teachers already used iTunes, they could manage the iPads themselves.”

***

We took the route of giving them the option to use their personal Apple ID. I really didn’t want them to have a work and a personal account. My thinking was if they already had an Apple ID they were already using iTunes in their personal life. I wanted the device to integrate into their life as much as possible, because I figured they would use it more and we would reap rewards from that.

***

…one of the biggest benefits of the iPad is the freedom with which end-users can explore and customize their learning. That is taken away the second you start managing their account centrally and selecting what they have on their device. We felt, that while it’s true there would be some loss with the apps when the person leaves, it’s much like a consumable workbook that we used to buy. For example, we spent over $120,000 in “materials” for ELA curriculum a couple of years ago. If we spend $50 per device (haven’t hit that number yet) on all 2300 devices we have, we’d be close, but not quite at that number. Also, when we purchase, we include a $50 app fee so that VPP cards are both with the purchase

How your district moves from one end of the continuum to the other is where the rubber meets the road in terms of leadership, isn’t it?

For me, it’s always about the HOW to get these kinds of conversations going. This is naturally a tough role for me, so I’ve had to work at nurturing conversations over time.

Miguel - Thanks for taking the time to post this well-written article. The more we share our frustrations and successes with mobile learning environments, the easier it will become for all! - Tammy Worcester on #iPad Deployment - Do Over.

I couldn’t agree more. We have to keep the dialogue open, and, in the case of some school environments, open it up again. Otherwise, implementing iPads is a nightmare.

Get Blog Updates via Email!

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Subscribe to Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org

Visit the Texas for Technology Enhanced Education

Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure