TechCHAT: Nick Smith

The TechCHAT series invites teachers, media specialists and other educators from across the country and around the world to share how they’re using technology to enhance instruction and student learning. Contact us about sharing your classroom tech ideas and lessons learned.

Nick Smith is director of marketing at Learning.com, which partners with 2,700 school districts to serve a total of 3.8 million students globally.
 

What are Learning.com's three main instructional goals? 

• Integrating technology into core subject-area instruction;
• Building students' 21st-century skills such as digital literacy, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and collaboration; and
• Differentiating instruction.
   

What products have been easiest to implement when teaching digital literacy on such a large scale? What are some challenges of presenting unified learning objectives to a diverse population of students? 

Learning.com’s 21st Century Skills solutions were developed with ease of implementation for busy districts in mind. Our EasyTech solution really is “easy” for educators to implement and students to use while they develop these crucial skills. Since its engaging, interactive online lessons are all self-paced and can be done on any computer, laptop or tablet device, there is a lot of flexibility in scheduling the instruction and management of student progress tracking. Our Inquiry solution for integration of these skills provides classroom teachers with a turn-key solution to help them get started with project-based learning and technology instruction – even if they are new to both. Finally, Learning.com’s new Digital Citizenship App only requires districts to provide students an access code and instructions for the app. Students do the rest – they complete the three lessons and quiz, and their completion shows up automatically for the District Coordinator on Learning.com. The app truly provides a quick, easy-to-implement way for districts to address online safety instruction while meeting e-Rate requirements at the same time.

One of the challenges with helping young people develop these skills is addressing students with wide variations in existing skill levels. Many students already have some level of technology literacy when they start the school year, but need further instruction on using these great tools for learning, as well as college and career. Learning.com assessments and skills pre-tests help with this, since they automatically assign targeted instruction to students to differentiate their learning path based on their specific needs. Learning.com’s platform has several ways for districts to automatically manage their school and class rosters via SIS integration and other automated tools.
 

How do you evaluate your success? 

One key area where we see success with our solutions is districts that use one of our assessments along with our curriculum solutions. For example, when a district uses our 21st Century Skills Assessment pre-test at the beginning of the school year, they get a clear picture of their students’ strengths and areas for growth. When they use this data along with our recommended scope and sequence resources to address these areas using our curriculum, their post-test results at the end of the year show significant improvements in student skills. In addition, we regularly reach out to our customers to conduct interviews, surveys and focus groups, to learn how we can improve our existing products and those in development.
 

What supports do you offer educators throughout the implementation process? 

We offer comprehensive professional development services and teacher implementation resources; many of these supports are complimentary, in addition to our free technical support services for all customers. From free weekly training webinars, online tutorial videos and “How Do I?” guides, to customized on-site training, Learning.com offers many supports for successful implementation.
 

Share some stories from workshops, such as “Technology in the Classroom” and “Digital Literacy.” Where have you needed to troubleshoot with users or improve the workshops in some way? In what ways have they proven to be successful? 

Technology in the Classroom PD is focused on helping teachers to understand what true technology integration is and how to build it into what they currently do in their classroom. After a day of learning about integration strategies, the SAMR model and what it means to take a project-based approach to integrating technology, teachers have reflected that they now “get it.” Because integration can be challenging for teachers with limited resources, we assist teachers in understanding how to modify what they have and how to find pre-created lessons on the Learning.com platform.

Digital Literacy PD provides teachers and administrators with a solid foundation in understanding what digital literacy is and why digital literacy skills are so important for students. Once this foundation is built, teachers and administrators are able to better “see” how to identify and build lessons that address digital literacy skills. The application of the skills is as important as the learning of the skills. This workshop helps participants begin to build the bridge between (1) teaching and learning digital literacy skills and (2) demonstrating digital literacy skills.
 

How have teachers noted Learning.com’s ability to help them save time in the classroom?

Over the years, the computer lab has been phased out of many schools, and the responsibility of teaching digital literacy has fallen on the classroom teacher. The positive feedback we receive most from teachers is that Learning.com helps them weave technology into what they are already teaching. Another way our solutions save teachers time is that they are self-paced and prescribe individualized instruction without additional prep work.
 

Discuss bringing tablets into the mix. What were some challenges? Are there any challenges that remain? How has tablet learning fared compared to traditional computer labs? 

Initial challenges of a BYOD initiative were ensuring that all students actually had devices to bring and that those students knew how to use tablets as an educational tool. With 1:1, a challenge is to ensure that there is standards-aligned digital content available from a district level so that the use of tablets can be seamlessly woven into the curriculum. Specific challenges we see often include making content compatible with multiple devices and ensuring that apps are downloaded and installed correctly on devices. Tablets provide greater flexibility for technology use in any classroom, but may initially lesson the sense of control that a computer lab provides.
 

What prompted the creation of an app on digital citizenship? How are ethical concerns prioritized and taught?

Our market research showed us that districts planning to implement a 1:1 or BYOD device initiative in the high-school and middle-school grades needed a way to address online safety, cyberbullying and other digital citizenship concerns. Educators were also looking for a way to address these skills quickly and easily. We asked multiple educators and district leaders which digital citizenship topics were the most important to address with students. This was to ensure that districts could meet e-Rate requirements, proactively help prevent student problems related to cyberbullying, and be able to “certify” that students were ready to use these devices responsibly and safely.

Based on this careful market research, we provide three lessons covering online safety awareness, ethical use of digital resources and cyberbullying awareness. Students take these self-paced lessons on their smartphones or tablets, and then must pass a final quiz to ensure their understanding. Once they pass, their completion of the instruction shows up automatically for the District Coordinator on Learning.com via an automated report, which can also be used to show e-Rate compliance.

Article by Jason Cunningham, EducationWorld Social Media Editor
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