Will the Real KySTE Please Stand Up?

[Editor's Note: This posting was in anticipation of a "President's Talk" at KySTE 2012, the March conference of the Kentucky Society for Technology in Education.]

       I couldn’t resist a little research. The quiz show “To Tell the Truth,” from whence the title of this entry comes, had a simple format – three contestants attempt to convince a panel of celebrities that each has a single, specific profession, usually a very odd or interesting one. Only one, of course, is the real deal, the other two being impostors, making up what they didn’t actually know about their “chosen profession” in an attempt to throw off the panel, who would then attempt to guess which was the real professional. The quiz show was immensely popular, and has the distinction of having at least one original episode produced in all of the last 6 decades (according to Wikipedia). It ran for an astounding 24 full seasons.
And while I was on it, in preparation for our annual conference, I decided to do a little research on KySTE. KySTE isn’t quite as old as “To Tell the Truth,” but, as an organization, it is nearing the end of its second decade. One thing that KySTE has not done well is document itself, kept good historical records. I had a few names, and they produced a few more. As folks responded to my queries, I began to get a sense of this organization’s historical roots.
        Like a lot of Kentucky education initiatives, the original Kentucky Association of Technology Coordinators (KATC, the precursor to KySTE) owes a lot to the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA), passed in 1991. That act, amongst other things, established the Kentucky Education Technology System (KETS). KERA noted the importance of education technology, and the Kentucky Department of Education was charged with KETS’ implementation. KDE had focus groups in the early days of KETS, bringing together education technology professionals from across the state. KATC was formed, according to some of the early players, at the encouragement of Lydia Wells Sledge from KDE, as a response to, and watchdog of, this process.
        KERA also divided the state into 8 regions, and established the Regional Service Centers to help support school districts in their ability to implement KERA, and the reforms it instituted. The 8 Regional KETS Engineers (KDE employees) met with their regional district constituencies, a structure and habit which outlived the Regional Service Centers themselves, and served as the basis for the 7 regional technology organizations (plus Jefferson County Schools, large enough to be its own “region”) which still exist today.
       Hence, the historical origins of KATC (and hence KySTE) was as a service to district tech coordinators, in coordination with regional structures serving the same population at the regional level, as they attempted to implement and make sense of the goals of KETS – specifically the systems (email, student records, etc.) and infrastructure (wiring, Internet access, etc.) that KETS specified.
       But that isn’t the whole story.
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The Mission of KySTE... (Kentucky Society for Technology in Education) is to empower the educational community in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to infuse technology as an integral part of the educational process through advocacy and leadership, promoting educational excellence and supporting technology-based innovation.

        According to some of the earlier players, the seeds for a larger vision for KATC existed right from the start. In the mid-2000’s, two years of bylaws work, a name change, a mission statement, and affiliate status with the International Association for Technology in Education (ISTE) culminated in the formalization of a very much expanded vision. The mission statement itself (see at right) implies that technology is a change agent for how the broader business of education is done. As a direct result of this vision, KySTE’s membership, and the attendance at its yearly conferences, has grown exponentially, through the addition of a lot of other education professionals – most notably classroom teachers – who share in this vision, and implement it with students through their own practice.         KySTE seems poised, as is education technology in general, to move into the mainstream, to have a seat at the table of all meaningful discussions of education reform and change. This shift can also be seen at the regional level in some of the regional organizations’ meetings, and in the work of many district technology leaders. But, of course, any expansion of work and vision brings the possibility of historical connections becoming lost or frayed.
       In its very recent history, KySTE has taken two huge steps in attempting to widen its role. It has applied for true 501(c)(3) status, which allows it to receive tax-deductible donations and award grants. And, in anticipation of that status, it has begun to implement fundraising and vendor partnerships which will make such work possible. KySTE is poised to move to the next level. But what level might that be? And what, exactly, should KySTE become? There are three possible answers to that question.

1. An extension of the original KATC. One of the major strengths of KySTE is its continued connection to regional groups with a clearly-defined and familiar membership base, drawn primarily from district technology leadership. Through these regions, KySTE has been able to successfully balance a state-level presence with a connection to real practitioners in the field. Of course, a lot of KySTE’s new constituency does not participate in these regional organizations, because, in fact, many are in the classroom when the regional groups meet. In addition, as standard systems (email, student records) have been adopted, and many previous district-supplied capabilities (such as online content management) move to the cloud, many of the huge issues facing the early KATC members have largely disappeared.
2. A true education professional organization. The Kentucky Council of Teachers of English (KCTE) is an example of an organization which serves to support and advocate for a defined part of education: English/Language Arts. It is member-driven, and serves that membership through trainings and conferences. It partners with the Kentucky Department of Education to institute standards and reform relative to that defined part. Although education technology is certainly a “defined part of education,” “education technology professionals” might very well include everyone, making it difficult to define an exact constituency.
3. A service organization. The implication of true 501(c)(3) non-profit status is that of a charitable organization like The United Way. Such organizations have governing boards, but exist primarily to service a general population (rather than a specific defined constituency or membership), through services addressing an identified general population need.

Of course, these three visions of KySTE are not mutually exclusive, but a primary focus on one would substantially impact how it might implement its vision. With one grant already “in the wild,” KySTE’s grants and member services arm, branded as KySTE Outreach, is already in the business of attempting to implement KySTE’s vision.

        Let’s assume, for the sake of illustration, that KySTE wanted to implement a new grant program. Who should it serve? At what should it be aimed? Here’s what this might look like using each of the three models above…

1. KySTE’s first grant program (still in effect) offered funds to support training through the regional tech organizations, for use as each saw fit. The audience was clearly district tech leadership as reflected by the regional group membership, with no attention to membership in KySTE itself. That more closely matches the first vision above.
2. A grant for which only members could apply, regardless of regional affiliation (or professional status), and aimed at the defined mission statement of the organization, would reflect this second vision.
3. A grant available to any educator or educational leader in Kentucky, regardless of KySTE membership, would fit the third vision.

...and that’s before we even get around to discussing the specific goals of the grant!.
        KySTE is poised for great things. What sorts of great things will be determined by the membership and leadership of this organization. It won’t be enough to depend on history. It will depend primarily on hard work – on being willing to show up, to collaborate, to provide direction for change. Like any great organization, the vision of KySTE, the next level it will achieve, will be determined by who shows up and rolls up their sleeves.
In "To Tell the Truth," the goal of the panel membership was to successfully pick the professional from several impostors. In contrast, the KySTE membership has the luxury of defining the profession itself. So when they ask, “Will the real KySTE please stand up,” will it be you?
       [The conversation about KySTE’s history, vision, and future, continues at KySTE 2012. Look for the KySTE President’s Talk, “Will the Real KySTE Please Stand up?” Friday, March 9, 9:15 a.m. For a timeline of KySTE History, see our History page.]

Mobile Computing and the Polyester Leisure Suit

       In a recent posting on EDTECH, the international discussion list part of the Humanities Network (H-Net) at Michigan State for which I was a moderator, several participants voiced the opinion that mobile devices such as the iPad and smart phone are substantially changing the way we do things. That is, anytime, anywhere access to information and processing power are a game changer, a paradigm shift our students have already made. As educators in the 21^st Century, we would be foolish not to attend to these devices and their implications for learning.

       Maybe all of these folks who’ve drunk the iPhone/iPad Kool-Aid are on to something – maybe a piece of hardware really can have a substantial impact on human history and behavior. I was reminded of an old BBC program which aired in this country on PBS channels 40 years ago called “Connections” – a quirky British historian names James Burke, decked out in the ubiquitous 1970’s polyester leisure suit, traced how significant technological advances proved to be pivotal in historical events, such as the stirrup’s role in the rise of horse-borne combat and the Byzantine Empire. Of course, I had no idea whether these “connections” were being portrayed accurately. I was very much enamored with the idea of technology-driven change, caring somewhat less about the facts.

        In the context of the broad brush of human history, one can often easily identify some big technology game-changers. Some of them, like the piano and the telephone, were (at least from my perspective) almost entirely positive in their impact. Others, like personal transportation (and its dependence on the internal combustion engine), were a bit more of a mixed bag. But for the Twentieth Century, that list must surely include the computer, and, probably even more so, the Internet – the two providing a one-two punch impacting everything from creativity to warfare.

        So does mobile computing fit into such a grand category? Needless to say, we don’t have the benefit of historical perspective, since portable devices which support information access and multiple communications capabilities are a distinctly new phenomenon. One could argue that the so-called Arab Spring as a huge historical event owes a substantial debt to mobile computing. But one could also argue that that impact is really just an extension of connected computing – that the game-change was already in place before folks began carrying that power into the streets of Cairo or Tripoli in their jeans pockets.

        But when we look at the classroom, the argument gets even more difficult. Historically, universal education is a little more than a century old, and that change has been completely tied to that distinctly human cultural unit, the classroom. The classroom is a closed space with its own information ecology, its own community and social structure, and its own workflow. There is no question that the Internet has had a huge impact on information access in the classroom, but at this point in history, the classroom as a closed space in which education takes place remains virtually unchanged. In fact, most education technology approaches (the “flipped” classroom, the “intelligent” classroom are two) are quite comfortable there, since they reinforce the closed space nature of instructional practice in the classroom.

        So what would happen if mobile devices were the huge game changer their advocates are promoting? The difference between your parent’s laptop and your iPhone is not about “apps” (another word for software). It’s also not about the human-computer interface, since that will most certainly continue to change (from touch screen to voice recognition to gesture recognition). It’s mostly about mobility. But in a closed classroom, mobility has limited meaning. It might very well be that the classroom as a closed space is destined for the dustbin of history, but a lot of social change will have to happen before that. Almost everything else we’re doing in education (notably high-stakes testing and accountability) is dependent on the classroom and school remaining intact.

        So why the buzz? There are three reasons why personal devices are very interesting to policy people and other onlookers …

1. As a substitute for school-provided 1-1 computing. Many districts are exploring whether student-supplied devices might help them reach the utopia of every student being able to access and create information from their own device. Under this scenario, the decision to use personal devices is driven by simple economics (the district wants 1-1 computing, but can’t afford to purchase every student a device).
2. As a way of leveraging existing student access behaviors and habits. As mentioned above, many of the advocates of personal devices in the classroom are noting that students are already using such devices for learning. They speculate that these behaviors might be leveraged in the classroom.
3. As a way to blur the space-time boundaries of the classroom. Advocates of access/use patterns such as “hybrid instruction” have, as their goal, the ability of students to access and create content online, beyond school class time. Personal devices can help that happen.

        You might have noticed that only the third option reflects the fact that a personal device is mobile, thereby implying the greatest change in school/classroom structure. But what’s interesting is, if students are, in fact, allowed to bring their personal devices into school and use them, the results might very well be the same in any case -- the classroom will be "disrupted," regardless of the teacher's or policy-maker's intent.

        So is this a James Burke moment? Are we going to look back at this decade and say it was the beginning of the end of the traditional classroom? As I state above, my contention is that connectivity (not device) is the “stirrup” of this trend, but the smart money is to prepare teachers for #3, regardless of what else happens. That is, the classroom teacher must be willing to allow their traditional classroom structure to be disrupted, and, in many cases, learn a completely new teaching role which better utilizes the coming changes.

        But then, I never actually owned a polyester leisure suit…