Making it Personal(ized)

Download free ebook @ ISTE

Personalized learning, as a teaching approach, is gaining a lot of traction in the education community. In fact, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) just published an ebook on the topic. You can download a free copy of Personalized Learning: A Guide for Engaging Students with Technology, or you can purchase a hard copy. Either way, it is a great read on the what, the how, and the why of personalized learning.

I find it easier to understand personalized learning when I start with a compare/contrast with individualized learning. Individualized learning, which is fundamental to good teaching, focuses on the instructional needs of students. Personalized learning is an approach designed to go beyond individualized learning and to include learning activities which consider students' interests, goals, and styles of learning.

The authors of the ISTE book describe personalized learning as, "An invitation for educators to create opportunities for learning that take advantage of the digital skills most students already possess. Personalized learning is specifically tailored to each student's strengths, needs, and interests while ensuring the highest standards possible. This approach is a major paradigm shift from the traditional "one-size-fits-all" approach to education. Personalization encourages educators to be more flexible, so that students can become more invested in designing their own personal learning paths. Students engaged in personalized learning at their various paces are given access to tools and feedback that motivate them to capitalize on their unique skills and potential."



In practice, personalized learning requires several things to be in place:
1. Students need ready access to computing devices.

2. IT needs the capacity to ensure a wireless infrastructure that is ready and robust.

3. Teachers need ongoing high-quality professional development.

4. Teachers and students need easy access to high-quality digital materials.

One example of matching high-quality digital resources to student interests and needs is the way Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) has adopted the use of Gooru Learning. The Gooru Learning web application allows teachers to create and share collections of high-quality web resources with their students and with other teachers. Supported by powerful partners (Google, CISCO, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others), Gooru's pledge is to be free forever. RUSD has recently partnered with Gooru to help kickstart RUSD's personalized learning initiative. RUSD's vision of personalized learning is to, "Prepare students to become purposeful contributors to a global society through learning experiences that promote student ownership of the path and pace of their education." Part of their approach is to develop personalized learning plans featuring vetted digital materials place into topic-centered collections by teachers. 

Ancient Civilizations Gooru collection

Ms. Smith teaches ancient civilizations for RUSD. She has used Gooru to create collections on the topic of early Egyptian civilization. Those collections include documents, images, videos, questions, webpages, and interactives. She can then assign all or some of a collection to all or some of her students. Additionally, other teachers from RUSD (or from anywhere!) can assign the same collection or make a copy of it and customize it for their own students. 

Riverside Unified understands the power of personalization. RUSD teachers are learning that, like the ISTE ebook explains, "When used correctly, the technologies and techniques of personalized learning allow for greater autonomy, engagement, individualization, and differentiation than ever before, while giving students more active, responsible roles in their own learning.

Dennis Large
educator & learner
@dennislarge

Learning Goes 1:1 @ Coachella Valley USD

The Coachella Valley Unified School District boldly deployed an iPad for every student this year. From kindergarteners through high school seniors, all 18,000 students of CVUSD were able to get an iPad checked out to them for the year. The CVUSD staff acknowledges that the road to a 1:1 implementation is not always smooth. But through hard work, perseverance and belief in what they are doing, the teachers and students have made great strides in using this technology to enhance teaching and learning.

I visited CVUSD's Cahuilla Desert Academy (CDA) on May 29th. On that day, a group of educators from across southern California were given a chance to see middle school students using their tablets to transform learning in their classrooms. The morning started in CDA's high tech library media center with presentations by several students. And the visit ended with presentations from Superintendent Dr. Darryl Adams, Director of K-12 Technology Michelle Murphy, and Mobile Learning Initiative Administrator Isreal Oliveros. In between those times, the group was able to visit many of the classrooms and see the technology in action. All of the visitors that day were impressed with the overall integration of technology into the curriculum.

In particular, I was struck with Mr. Ham's 7th grade biology class. Like many 7th grade science teachers in California, Mr. Ham had his students dissecting owl pellets. However, Mr. Ham's students were also engaged in a transformational use of technology. These students were using their iPads to capture snippets of video during each stage of the process of their owl pellet project. So by the time these students had gone through the process of dissecting the pellets, sorting and classifying the bones, and reconstructing the skeleton of the small mammal eaten by the owl, they had compiled a video montage of the entire process. Then they could then narrate their video in oder to deepen their understanding of body structures and to share their learning. With permission from Coachella Valley USD, here are a few of the final students video projects:
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

During his presentation, Dr. Adams pointed out the importance of having access to technology available to every student in the district. He stressed that the students in his community deserved no less than what students in higher wealth communities have access to. It was a powerful sight to move from classroom to classroom seeing students engaged in their learning.and seamlessly incorporating technology into their activities.

Dennis Large
educator & learner
@dennislarge

Scholar+ at Perris Union High School District

Image used with permission from PUHSD

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to visit the Perris Union High School District to learn more about their innovative Scholar+ program. I had heard great things about this new program which included a 1:1 device per student program using Chromebooks. Fortunately, the team at PUHSD was very open to sharing what the program is, what the thinking was behind the creation, what the challenges have been, and what the next phases are. I met with Joseph Williams (PUHSD’s Director of Technology), Charles Tippie (Assessment TOSA), and several members of Joseph’s IT team.

As soon as the group started talking about Scholar+, it became obvious that this was more than a Chromebook purchasing plan. These folks did their research. They brought together a stakeholder group, they read journal articles, reviewed national reports, met with local experts, and even visited districts in other states. Then they wrote a comprehensive plan that starts with stating their desired outcomes, covers the goals and instructional tools, outlines the professional development, and discusses the required infrastructure. Finally, the plan examines how to fund the devices. PUHSD provides an iPad for every teacher and a Chromebook for every student - all 10,000 of them! When asked about the impetus for going to a 1:1 model, Joseph cites the research and pulls up the quote from the National Education Technology Plan that ended up on page 1 of the PUHSD plan, "Ensure that every student and educator has at least one Internet access device and appropriate software and resources for research, communication, multimedia content creation, and collaboration for use in and out of school."

Joseph and Charles also point out that a good deal of time was spent on just coming up with the name for the program. It was important to the entire stakeholder group that the name be reflective of students and learning, not technology and logistics. Scholar+ was adopted as the name. A logo was designed, and each of the Chromebooks has that logo etched on the top cover.

Why Chromebooks? At the risk of oversimplifying Joseph’s response, it seemed to come down to price point and flexibility. The district had adopted Google Apps for Education back in 2010, so Google’s Chrome OS on the Chromebooks was a good fit. And at around $300 per device, the district was able to jump into a full 1:1 model. The model includes checking the devices out to students for 24/7 usage during the school year. And there is even some early stages of discussion around letting students take the devices home over the summer. There is, of course, some breakage and loss. But what they have learned so far is that there is not very much loss, and they spend far less on replacing these devices than they do on replacing textbooks.

Additionally, the Scholar+ team liked the versatility that the Chromebooks gave them in terms of preparing for SBAC and gearing up for the Common Core in general. Though the devices would help immensely with SBAC testing, the team felt it was important that the devices not be perceived primarily as assessment tools, but instead clearly be seen as devices for everyday teaching and learning in the classroom.

Dr. Diana Walsh-Reuss, Riverside County Associate Superintendent of Schools, and Jenny Thomas (Program Specialist with CTAP Region 10) joined me on this visit. All three of us walked away feeling impressed with: 1) how thoughtfully the whole Scholar+ program had been put together, and 2) how serious the team was about the data they collected on the impact of the program and how it could be improved. While the program was developed to help infuse technology into the classrooms, the focus was kept sharply on students and on learning.

Dennis Large
educator & learner
follow me @dennislarge