Darlington’s Next Step for Technology

Darlington has never been afraid to use technology to help students learn better, to empower teachers, and to transform the way a school communicates. We have spent a lot of time on that last point, resulting in a school whose students, teachers and parents work with real-time information communicated online. We are still ahead of the curve in this area compared to most other schools.

Over the past few years, Darlington has turned its technology focus onto the classroom to provide students and teachers with better learning resources. We have made all campuses wireless, opened our classrooms to laptops, made carts of laptops available to classrooms, encouraged digital and multimedia assessments, implemented online class discussions, and outfitted “smart” classrooms with interactive whiteboards and reliable audio/visual equipment.

Although we have done well, I realized this past fall while talking to a group of seventh- and eighth-grade teachers that our students needed more. Seeing ways to integrate technology into a classroom daily, they had outgrown the concept of a shared laptop cart. Frustrated by class time lost to coordinating different kinds of computers and software, they had outgrown the concept of bring-your-own-computer. Confronted by so many technology options and daunted by the task of integrating ever-changing technology into lesson plans, they struggled to narrow their options and pick clear directions. At the same time, a revolution of personal technology was taking place in the form of mobile devices and we saw the benefit of bringing this technology into our classrooms to actively teach 21^st Century skills and leverage student engagement.

Seeing that we needed a clearer vision for making this alignment happen, we put together a team of teachers to create a set of recommendations for the school. This team worked from three core questions common to any school: what do we teach (curriculum), how do we teach (pedagogy), and are students learning (assessment). Our vision evolved around making learning personal, collaborating, critical thinking, understanding learning resources, developing active learners and inculcating a community of learners. We researched internally and externally, visited many schools, and met many times to condense our information into a set of recommendations that were meaningful to Darlington School. We came up with four:

1. Map digital and information literacy across the curriculum. We recognized that we were not consistently teaching these skills. To make sure our students learn these things for their applicability inside and out of class, we must specifically determine which skills are taught when and where.
   
   
2. Structure a prescribed system of professional development. Our teachers need support in adapting their teaching methods to a new generation of learners through integrated technology. Although Darlington supports teachers in their professional development now, this recommendation has three parts – A) to make professional development more goal-oriented, b) to create a structure for teachers to work in small groups that solve problems, and c) to provide more consistent support via dedicated technology integration staff.
   
   
3. An electronic portfolio for every student. Much as our online student records pages created a single point for communicating and analyzing objective information about a student’s measured performance, an online portfolio will create an anchor point for a student’s academic work, providing a place to store and share evidence of work showing more subjective progress. The portfolio will be student-created, create opportunities for differentiated assessment, reinforce information literacy skills, and provide a collection of work to take with them through their years at Darlington and on to college and work. Ultimately this will be an online showcase for a student’s work.
   
   
4. Technology must be in the hands of all students. The technology must be consistent for all students and teachers in a class to insure the focus is on learning not smoothing technological dissonance. Learning becomes more personal when it leverages devices we are familiar with using in our daily lives, whether those are laptops, tablets, handhelds or phones. Learning methods are greatly expanded, can happen outside of class to transform the use of valuable class time, and allows us to teach real-world projects and skills.

There are so many possibilities that lie within these recommendations that we also decided we had to figure out where to start and a pilot was the logical answer. Beginning next year, we will pilot in a very methodical way all four of these recommendations in grades 4 and 8. Some elements will also be piloted with grades 5 and 9.

One of the more visible parts of our pilot will be a 1:1 program in grades 4 and 8. Although we have been a Windows school for many years, our pilot will be with Apple devices. Fourth-graders will be issued an iPad at the beginning of school and eighth-graders will be issued a MacBook laptop. Eighth-graders will also be required to provide their own iPod Touch (or iPhone if they have one). There are specific reasons for these choices that I look forward to sharing in an upcoming blog.

There is so much I could share about this amazing planning effort, not the least of which is the wonderful contributions from the 33 teachers across all divisions and disciplines that helped. I will go into more detail on each of these recommendations and especially the pilot as I continue this blog. Most importantly, I will be documenting our progress as we go. Please let me know if you have any questions by commenting below or e-mailing me directly at seady@darlingtonschool.org. I will answer them directly or make them the topic of future blogs!