If it were up to us and our administration, our students would have 1:1 devices with internet access provided at home. All of us know that many low achieving schools have been able to turn everything around by providing technology access to students. Revere High School, for example, changed from a low performing school to one of the highest achieving schools in Massachusetts in only two years by making such implementations, according to Dr. Lourenco Garcia's "A Working Model for Blended Learning in an Urban School."
However, it's not just providing the devices that could cause this kind of change. Revere High School realized this. In addition to providing 1:1 devices for students, they also adopted blended learning, and ensured that each of their teachers is trained and certified to do it. According to Garcia, “Adopting a blended learning environment requires taking a holistic look at the entire school community -- students, teachers, staff, and parents -- and making changes that allow each of these groups to buy into the shift.”
The real difference was convincing everyone-- teachers, students, parents, and support staff--to get on board with the decision. Right now, this isn't exactly happening at our school. Some teachers implement technology whenever possible; the 6th grade science team frequently has students demonstrate their learning by creating PowToons and presenting them to their classmates; the 6th grade social studies team runs Edmodo to allow students and parents with internet access to see what is happening in their classrooms; other teams in different grade levels are also making strides to integrate more blended learning into their curriculum. Administration tries to mandate technology use at every opportunity; our department and the math department must use Holt McDougal Online during our weekly computer lab time (which is actually a decent resource), but they don’t believe any other resource is worth our time. Of course students want to use technology whenever they are allowed to (even though it's usually not for educational purposes). My students constantly ask me if they can use the computer for the approved games when they are finished with their regular work. However, we don't have the resources to implement 1:1, and we also don't have the resources to provide internet access at home to provide a flipped classroom, like Revere High School did, so we run into problems when it comes to getting parents on board, as well as integrating technology use outside of the classroom.
This doesn't mean that we can't still encourage a change among our own team and among our own students. We have on-school resources, similar to Revere's "Learning Commons" (although we just call ours the "Media Center") that could allow us to increase our students' use of technology and our own use of blended learning. Many students already go to the Media Center before school and at lunch to do Teenbiz. The Media Center also has two other computer labs which, although booked each day, are not being used outside of regular school hours. Why can't we use this same resource most students are already familiar with to encourage our students to access our learning platform outside of the classroom? We might have to put in a bit of time before school or during lunch to facilitate (after all, she cannot be in each of the three labs all the time), but the resources are there if we are willing to ask and put in the time. If we would only let the Media Specialist know what we wanted, I'm sure she would jump on board.
As I have said before, we can no longer allow our limitations to dictate our students' success. We know that access to online or blended learning is important today. We may not have the best and most advanced resources, but we do have resources, and more importantly, we have a staff that really wants the best for our students. If we never ask for help, it will never happen. We need to be willing to take some chances and ask for what we need. We just might get it.
