This post orig­i­nally appeared on the iPads in Edu­ca­tion web­site.  
The post is authored by Sam Gliks­man    
Email samgliksman@gmail.com ; Twit­ter: @samgliksman

How Much Con­trol Do Schools Really Need?

One of the ben­e­fits of get­ting older is that you can reflect back on a time when things were done dif­fer­ently. Sim­i­larly, you can also clearly see when other things are essen­tially the same. Although the world around our schools is dra­mat­i­cally dif­fer­ent, many of the pil­lars of our edu­ca­tional sys­tems remain unchanged. Given the dra­matic and accel­er­at­ing trans­for­ma­tion in the world around us, it’s cer­tainly time to reflect upon how we con­duct the busi­ness of schooling.

Many have already started down this path. We acknowl­edge the clear need to move from “sage on the stage” teach­ing to stu­dent empow­ered learn­ing. We real­ize that our old con­tent deliv­ery mod­els of edu­ca­tion need to be replaced with more expe­ri­en­tial and dis­cov­ery based processes. We under­stand the lim­i­ta­tions of a text only approach and try to inte­grate dif­fer­ent forms of media. Now it’s time to revise another sacred cow that has been symp­to­matic of insti­tu­tional edu­ca­tion since its inception.

It’s time to let go of the notion that we need to con­trol stu­dent behav­ior. It’s time to real­ize that we can­not and should not dic­tate the man­ner in which stu­dents learn. One area where the desire for con­trol is clearly man­i­fested is our use of tech­nol­ogy in school.

Now before you fire up that impas­sioned response let me clar­ify that I’m not advo­cat­ing a com­plete hands-off pol­icy that gives stu­dents the free­dom to do what­ever they desire. There’s a clear dis­tinc­tion between “pro­tec­tion” and “con­trol”. Pro­tect­ing stu­dents from acci­den­tally get­ting a com­puter virus or being routed to a pornog­ra­phy web­site is important. Deciding what apps they use; pre­vent­ing them from man­ag­ing their devices; undue cen­sor­ship of inter­net activ­ity; using soft­ware to watch their screens dur­ing class — these are con­trol issues.

It’s ironic that we insist on cen­sor­ing and con­trol­ling tech­nol­ogy use. Out­side school tech­nol­ogy is char­ac­ter­ized by free­dom and empow­er­ment — the abil­ity for any­one to eas­ily access or pub­lish infor­ma­tion, con­nect with peo­ple across the world and uti­lize media for new forms of cre­ative expres­sion and knowl­edge expan­sion. Inno­va­tion leads to new tech­nolo­gies which in turn can nur­ture fur­ther inno­va­tion. How­ever that can only occur if we allow it…

• Tech­nol­ogy empow­ers stu­dents to explore and cre­ate. In schools how­ever it’s often used in the pur­suit of effi­ciency where we require stu­dents to use tech­nol­ogy in the same man­ner and with the intent that they pro­duce sim­i­lar results.
• We under­stand that they have vastly dif­fer­ent tal­ents and dis­tinc­tive learn­ing pref­er­ences. At home some use tech­nol­ogy in more struc­tured, log­i­cal ways while oth­ers grav­i­tate to more visual or cre­ative pursuits. Technology empow­ers them to find their own space as learners. In school we decide what appli­ca­tions they must use and we dic­tate exactly how they will use them — step by step — even in the face of our full under­stand­ing that stu­dents are far more expert at learn­ing and using tech­nol­ogy than teachers.
• The inter­net has enabled the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of infor­ma­tion — pub­lish, dis­cover and learn any­thing. Any­one can pub­lish. Every­thing is avail­able. In schools we attempt to strictly con­trol what they can see and do (yes, I used the word “attempt” — try Googling “ways to get around school web fil­ters” and see what you get).

Tech­nol­ogy is a prod­uct of change how­ever we often design our imple­men­ta­tions in man­ners that latch onto the com­fort­able old struc­tures we’ve always used. Teach­ers con­trol the class and it’s always been hereti­cal to sug­gest oth­er­wise. We there­fore decide what tech­nol­ogy stu­dents use and more impor­tantly, how they will use it — even though they rep­re­sent the first gen­er­a­tions in his­tory that are mas­ter­ing many of the essen­tial tools of every­day life before the adults that came before them.

If we know any­thing about the world out­side school it’s that it requires an abil­ity to adapt to change. We insist that mod­ern life requires grad­u­ates that are expe­ri­enced, inde­pen­dent learn­ers. School is the time to start devel­op­ing those skills. When we enable the use of tech­nol­ogy in school we should also grant stu­dents the inde­pen­dence and free­dom to use it their own way.

• We can and should allow stu­dents to man­age their own devices. Help them learn the rel­e­vant tech­ni­cal and orga­ni­za­tional skills, espe­cially as this has become a vital part of life out­side school.
• Loosen the Parental Con­trols. Allow them the free­dom and respon­si­bil­ity to man­age their school apps, set up their school email and more. Have some­one instruct them on best practices.
• Allow them the free­dom to find and use other apps as appro­pri­ate to their activ­i­ties in class.
• You can pur­chase some apps cen­trally but oth­er­wise ask par­ents to pur­chase the apps. There is an abun­dance of inex­pen­sive choices.
• A “Respon­si­ble Use” pol­icy should clearly state what is allowed and dis­al­lowed. The pol­icy should be signed by child and par­ent alike.
• Free­dom and respon­si­bil­ity come with con­se­quence. Define a clear out­come for inap­pro­pri­ate use and act upon it as required.
• Use a web fil­ter but set restric­tions loosely and only block cat­e­gories of sites that are poten­tially harm­ful. Ensure you have mon­i­tor­ing in place so you can track web usage if needed. The only skill strict fil­ter­ing devel­ops is the abil­ity to find ways to work around it … and they do. Rather than act­ing as “big brother”, set an expec­ta­tion of per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity and take action when the stan­dards aren’t met.

Most impor­tantly, encour­age cre­ative, inde­pen­dent and inno­v­a­tive use of technology.

• Allow stu­dents the lat­i­tude to express their knowl­edge in dif­fer­ent ways and with dif­fer­ent tools wher­ever pos­si­ble and sub­ject to your prior approval. The process of learn­ing should be more per­son­ally mean­ing­ful and motivational.
• Let them find and bring tools that they are most com­fort­able using.
• Give them the lat­i­tude to be teach­ers as well as learn­ers — when they invent, dis­cover or mas­ter some­thing new have them teach oth­ers and cre­ate tuto­ri­als that you post online.

Our desire for con­trol­ling the use of tech­nol­ogy is emblem­atic of a deeper prob­lem. Top-down insti­tu­tional con­trol isn’t a work­able model in an era where the mar­ket­place requires grad­u­ates to have skills for learn­ing any­thing, any­where and at any time. Fol­low­ing instruc­tion is impor­tant but there’s also an urgent need to develop per­sonal inno­va­tion — the sort of flex­i­ble, cre­ative thought and action that’s required to deal with a world of tumul­tuous change. Inno­va­tion requires that we open the metaphor­i­cal class­room win­dows and doors. Instead we still feel more com­fort­able keep­ing them closed. Is it about con­trol or are we more con­cerned with effi­ciency? Are we mak­ing deci­sions based on their needs or ours?

When­ever I dis­cuss iPad or BYOD imple­men­ta­tions in schools one of the first issues raised usu­ally revolves around prob­lems asso­ci­ated with man­age­ment and con­trol. iPads are dif­fi­cult to man­age on an insti­tu­tional level. That could be a bless­ing in dis­guise. Maybe it presents us with the right tim­ing and oppor­tu­nity to finally allow stu­dents to man­age their devices and develop their skills as inde­pen­dent and respon­si­ble learners.

Sam Gliks­man
samgliksman@gmail.com
Twit­ter: @samgliksman