Who drives the agenda?

One of the more interesting questions is who drives the technology agenda in our schools? When asked, and I am not certain it is asked often, the question is often quite challenging.

1) Is it driven by technology?

Technology itself is not the solution. It is a part of the tool-kit. If there is one takeaway from the DER, it is that hardware and software are not sufficient to drive change.

2) Is it driven by individuals?

We need technology leaders in our schools, of that there is no doubt. But they are no sufficient in and of themselves. I once heard a technology leader being described as a lighthouse. Though an apt description, it highlights why a lighthouse is not enough - a lighthouse shines the way, but does not move the boat. That requires a ship, an engine, captain and crew.
The real danger here is that individuals who are technology leaders can get burnt out, ostracised or disillusioned if left to lead alone. More importantly, what happens when they leave?

3) Is it driven by principals? 

Principals are the true everypersons of schools. They swap from WHS leader to curriculum leadership to human resources to any number of other roles... all in the space of a single staff meeting. To assume that they technical knowledge and time is sufficient to implement change is impractical, and as above, to leave it up to a single individual is fraught with danger.

4) Is it driven by systems?

A running joke in IT is the programmer who is asked how long a project will take. He thinks three hours, says three days and by the time it is on the strategic plan it's three months. Systems, due to their nature, are slower and more difficult to respond to change. More importantly, should systems drive agendas for change in school? This is the tension of good governenace that plays itself out in all organisations with a governing body. Particularly, in our Catholic schools, the concept of subsidiarity plays a central role.

5) Is it driven by research? 

Researchers research. However, educational research... well... as the saying goes: "Everything works somewhere, and nothing works everywhere". Therefore, as Dylan William rightly points out the right question is, “Under what conditions does this work?”. Assuming that all research is easily generalisable is a poor application of the research. #Mr_Cornwall if you want to fight me on this one.

6) Is it driven by what others are doing?

My wife tells a humorous anecdote. When we first were dating she made me roast lamb dinner. As part of the preparation she cut about 1cm off each end of the roast. I was curious as to why. She said it was what her step-mother did. Later we asked her step-mother why she did that and she replied that she had done it because her mother always had. When we asked nanna, the response was as hilarious as it was illuminating: her butcher's rolled shoulders were always a little bit too long for her little oven at the family home, so she had to shave the ends off which she cooked separately as sandwhich meat.

The often quoted line "The most dangerous phrase in the English language is 'we've always done it this way'" should have a companion line that says "The second most dangerous phrase is 'Well it worked for them'".

As the comments for educational research indicate, generalising research is fraught with danger and equally generalising experiences has the same issues.

7) Is it driven by other considerations?

Do parents drive the agenda? How much is the cost to parents involved in the decision making of BYOD? Do students drive the agenda? How much do we consider their needs? Does funding drive the agenda? How many technological purchases were made by the need to utilise available funding?


So what then?

I would propose that there is a model that is both aware and agile. I would nominate context as the crucial issue for any school. Schools that say "my school couldn't" are working from a context-aware framework. The challenge is knowing what is real and what is not.

Some important question for context are:
* How do our current learners learn?
* How do our current teachers teach?
* What is the TPACK of our teachers?
* How supportive is our community to change?

From here important questions become:
* How do we want learners to learn?
* How do we want our teachers to teach?
* How do we increase the TPACK of our teachers?
* How to we build a more agile community?

There is no part of this process that is about a principal, a technological leader, an agenda, a system, a research report, a parent, a student, or a different context. Simply put - it's about all these things.

Furthermore, inquiry needs to be disciplined. This isn't singularly the field of educational research. Every teacher is a leaner and a researcher-in-action. Everyone needs to be disciplined in their inquiry as to what works best in their context, be it the context of their school or even as narrow as the context of their classroom. This may mean breaking down the questions above until they are specific to the classroom and the individual student.

We know that technology should be integrated into learning. Any discussion regarding technology in schools should equally be integrated with the context of the school.