Baby Steps: Preparing for a One-to-One Device Program

One-to-one, or one device assigned to one student, is a growing phenomenon in schools across our nation. Some schools are already wading through the uncharted territory of tablet programs, laptop programs, or other pilots. Meanwhile, many school teachers are still checking out computer labs and laptop carts and the idea of a one-to-one program feels like something pulled from the tales of Never Never Land. This article shares the experiences of a Virginia middle school as it implemented such a program and focuses on future steps librarians and staff can take to further develop this meaningful shift.

School-wide Planning for a Grade-level Pilot

In the 2013-2014 school year, our school participated in a grade level pilot program, issuing individual laptops to 7^th grade students. In order to make any pilot successful, members of the school community have to plan for an intentional change. At the time, I was an instructional coach working with teachers across content areas and worked with colleagues to solve problems. I had a first row seat as the staff worked through the stages of troubleshooting, sharing philosophies, and developing policies and procedures that put everyone in the building on the same page.

The principal initiated the process of school-wide change in the spring of the previous school year. First, she restructured faculty meetings to include time for research on other pilots and any data they collected. Staff looked at feedback from pilots like Project Red and brainstormed adjustments and new ideas that were unique to our building needs. Then the principal looked for support at the county level, requesting laptops for teacher checkout. This allowed teachers to familiarize themselves with the devices their students would use. Teachers received professional development on Google apps for education and Blackboard, a course management system. Professional development was delivered school-wide, while other training was offered on a personal basis to meet the needs of an individual teacher or professional learning community.

In the fall of the pilot year, the principal strategically shifted all other devices and laptop carts to individual grade levels. It was almost as if the whole school had shifted to a school-wide one-to-one program overnight. The critical difference was 7th graders had newer, higher functioning equipment that they were allowed to take home. Other grade levels had the former laptop carts that were older and less reliable and couldn’t be taken home. Throughout the year, the 7^th grade team acted as a discussion panel sharing their experiences throughout the division. Teachers from other schools peppered them with questions on behavior management, Blackboard, flipped learning, Google apps, teacher planning, interactive assessments, and so much more. Their feedback helped other schools troubleshoot and plan for their own implementation programs.

By the 2014–2015 school year, our staff was prepared to implement this school-wide. With the full one-to-one integration underway, we made substantial changes to our technology procedures. Since we expected laptops to break down or be sent away for repair, the school instituted a loaner cart. This was housed in the media center and required a sign-in process. The school also formed a committee of grade level team leaders with a technology integration focus. The team worked through procedures, adjusted expectations, generated professional development ideas, created student feedback surveys, and one lead teacher even developed an entire series of online cyber-safety lessons that students completed prior to bringing their devices home. All of these changes became entry points for collaboration between the librarian, teachers, and the administration.

Implications for the School Library Program

So what did all this change mean for the school library? The one-to-one program meant that the physical boundaries of the library were about to collapse and its territory was about to extend tremendously.

During the grade level pilot, the Library Media Specialist (LMS) took several important steps. First, she began experimenting with her Virtual Learning Commons (VLC). Since students could use the databases from their classroom without necessarily visiting the media center, she began redesigning her landing page. The LMS selected Symbaloo, a digital bookmarking tool that presents itself as colored tiles on a grid versus a linear list of text and links, as an organizer for this page. We created a Symbaloo webmix, customized to student needs. It included carefully selected tools to which students and teachers needed quick access, including Discovery, Brain Pop, Duck Duck Go, Sweet Search, ebooks, databases, and our public library. This was critical because students would be using materials from their classrooms without her assistance. They needed to navigate independently and not get frustrated with a complicated click path. Second, since teachers had a school assigned Google account, the LMS also experimented with creating a Google website and learned how to use Google forms to collect data tied to her goals. By the end of the year, we were experimenting with other educational web 2.0 tools such as easel.ly to create infographics that could be tied to her annual report. The critical key to the LMS’s success was diving right into the applications and programs that students would use. While she started with tasks related to her own professional development such as collecting student data or publicizing circulation statistics, she was learning skills that could be transferred into a daily lesson with ease.

In the 2014–2015 year, when the one-to-one program encompassed all three grade levels, the LMS further adapted her school library program. She restructured her learning space, removing all of the older, bulky desktops. She removed the study carrels, replaced them with flat tables, and only kept four flat screen desktops at standing work stations for quick catalog access and two laptops for guest use. The LMS maintained and updated her Symbaloo webmix and began adding tiles that featured pathfinders for students researching careers or current events in science. She also redesigned the database page on a Google site with descriptors and words in bold so students could easily determine the best resource to use whether they were working from home or school. The LMS’s goals expanded to include collaboration with a history teacher who wanted to teach information skills through reference ebooks and databases. Together they collected pre-assessment data through Google forms and hoped to collect final data through a student-produced screencast of a successful database search. The LMS offered to curate resources for several teachers that were working on projects. When the library was overbooked, she streamlined digital resources so students could use them without a mini-lesson from her; and whenever possible, she offered to visit classrooms instead.

Once laptops reach the desk of every student, instructional design changes. The LMS sent our language arts department weekly resources via email that were timely and related to our one-to-one implementation and our Writing Workshop units. She also supported differentiation by teaching specific technology skills in small groups. At one point in the year, she took a small group of students and walked them through the steps of uploading book reviews to the library catalog. As our school dove deeper into the digital seas, the LMS responded to changing needs, found entry points to work with different PLCs, and looked for new opportunities to support teachers and students. Her strategies fostered collaboration between teacher and librarian and served as a model for my own future service.

Implications in the Classroom

Change in one sphere of the school has an immediate impact on the work completed in another sphere. I note the teacher changes just as much as the media center changes because the teacher-librarian relationship is a symbiotic one. Seventh grade teachers involved in the pilot ventured on a steep learning curve. How would technology impact instruction?

The initial pilot required teachers to experiment with different learning tools and nearly every teacher’s first steps began with uploading content to Blackboard. In the process, they discovered that everyone wanted to design their course their own way. Therefore, the school’s principal required consistent landing pages that featured a school-wide agenda template. This helped 6th, 7th, and 8th graders navigate with some expectation of consistency as they switched from one digital learning space to another. Teachers were able to regularly incorporate additional educational resources such as: Quia, Newsela, and library databases. These tools were no longer restricted to days when they could sign out the laptop cart so they became a regular component of instruction. As a result, learning began to shift towards greater inquiry with fewer students passively consuming and more students creating. These changes were important. If students were already using web 2.0 tools regularly in the classroom, they no longer needed that “getting started” mini-lesson in the library. They need mini-lessons that probed deeper and allowed more inquiry or opportunity for student creation.

When a staff undergoes a major shift in instruction, teachers need time to process, plan, and reflect, and that often means less time for everything else. In my case, I left coaching and joined the school’s staff as a 7^th grade teacher in the year of the building-wide one-to-one integration. As I returned, I was quickly reminded of how little time there is for everything. Educators embarking on one-to-one need time to experiment, reflect, and adapt. The LMS should expect to see some moments of teacher excitement, frustration, and moments where a team is completely overwhelmed; being aware of this roller coaster of emotions can determine the success of an entry point.

On the curriculum development end, teachers at the school began searching for dynamic, web-based resources to upload to Blackboard. They wanted to take advantage of the technology and needed content that brought learning to life in a manner that was different from traditional lecture or Word documents.  This growing need for dynamic instructional resources is formally captured through the Substitution-Augmentation-Modification-Redefinition progression, better known as the SAMR model (Schrock). The first two stages of this progression are often labeled the “enhancement model,” where digital resources merely augment or substitute for traditional resource formats. (Using a Word document, for example, is not radically different from a photocopied document). The latter two stages are considered the transformative stages, where using a device actually changes the dynamic of learning into something deeper. Oftentimes, teachers simply have to start at the substitution level. Our teachers progressed rapidly, however. By the second year, they wanted simulations, carefully curated resources, and engaging content reading materials. Understanding the SAMR model can help a librarian understand a teacher’s progression of growth, assess his or her readiness for new resources, and sell services more effectively in a one-to-one initiative.

Adjusting to a Growing Trend

When schools initiate a one-to-one program or even a modified one-to-one program, the educational landscape changes and the school library program must adapt. Both teacher and librarian have to learn new programs, applications, and search for new resources. It is important to acknowledge that it is okay to start at the substitution level of the SAMR model when you begin a one-to-one initiative. Sometimes the educator’s first step is simply learning the platform he/she is using to house curriculum. Collaboration at this level truly starts with a compassionate understanding of what each party is doing to adjust to the new change.

Below are entry points for any librarian whose school is about to embark on a one-to-one program. They come from my experiences and personal reflections of what I would do in my future service as a school librarian.

• Re-examine your virtual learning space. If this space is a virtual version of your library, does it fully represent the scope of your program?
• Experiment with the same platforms that teachers are expected to use.
• Join PLCs to learn about the digital problems and solutions teams are discussing.
• Anticipate the learning opportunities created when students no longer need “permission” to visit your physical library and can visit virtually throughout the day. Then plan ahead for student-friendly access.
• Create tutorials or flipped content as an alternative to a traditional face-to-face mini-lesson.
• Curate content-based resources that represent a mixture of text, simulation, interactive game, video, and audio.
• Consider joining your school’s technology committee. If your school doesn’t have one, is your administrator willing to start one?  A collective party of teachers, librarian(s), and administrators is the best problem solving force for working through building level technology procedures, clarifying expectations, sharing ideas, and creating avenues of feedback or assessment.
• Sell new services. Sometimes librarians have to convince colleagues who are more reluctant. How will your services shift?  Proactively plan for needs that might increase or services that should change.

Whether your school is currently in a pilot or about to start one, devices are headed your way. Technology will continue to enter our schools through BYOD policies or other initiatives. Even if it starts with one classroom or a grade level, the school librarian has to consider how increased access to a device shapes learning. In a one-to-one program, the virtual learning space becomes just as critical as the physical one. The way a librarian organizes, designs, and uses this platform to engage with learners determines the boundaries or extension of a program.  What role can the library play in that learning?  It is up to the school librarian to answer this question to initiate powerful change that is meaningful to our stakeholders.

Works Cited

Schrock, Kathy “SAMR.” http://www.schrockguide.net/samr.html (accessed December 8, 2015).

Originally published in School Library Connection (February 2016).