Presentation to

PVCC
Introduction to Education

Examination of 5 of the top 10 IT Action Items

emphasis on #5 (iPBL’s)

by
Jeff Billings
The Metiri Group

http://www.metiri.com/resources.html
 The Challenge

• Kids are digital and they “Get IT”

• Too many educational organizations are

still analog, and don’t “Get IT”

• It’s 2006 - and the American Education

System’s clock is ticking
Tick, Tick, Tick

Change?
Technological Change??
 Where we want to be...

Where we’re going to be...

 Getting IT - #1 of Top 10 IT Action Items

#1) Put iBooks/laptops in the hands of

Students (24/7)

We can no longer imagine a work environment where executives, secretaries,

engineers, sales, all wait for their turn at the computer. Why then are high
school students only provided computers in an elective course, and
elementary students get their once a week shot in a “special area” at the end
of the hall? Computers must be ubiquitously located where the students work
and learn.*

* Wording loosely taken from Florida Department of Education task force on laptop computing....
 Getting IT - #2 of Top 10 IT Action Items
#2) BRIDGE - A relevant 7-12 education model of “bridging”
the instructional day with the growing tendency of students to
engage at home in online communities.

Make all homework, “testlets”, writing prompts and reports be done online in
“workspace” environments, similar to “MySpace”, “MyWorkspace” of IDEAL,
or Moodle (Learning Management System). Capitalize on multimedia
resources, such as; interactive web sites, streaming movies, etc.. Leave
traditional “classroom” time for analog instruction (hopefully, inquiry, and
project based, with minimal didactic, whole group, etc.), and enhance
instruction where possible with multimedia delivery (internet, projectors, etc.).

Original Concept - Jeff Billings

Online Workspace/Learning
Environments
 Getting IT - #3 of Top 10 IT Action Items

#3) Implement Gen Yes and Generation Tech

Gen Yes students learn to collaborate with teachers throughout the school to
create unique projects that integrate technology into the curriculum. Gen Yes
is the only U.S. Department of Education designated as “exemplary”, for
Professional Development of Teachers in Technology.

Generation Tech provides schools a proven system to create a sustainable

student tech support program. The concept leverages our largest human
resource (students), with the highest technology skill set (students).

Concept - http://genyes.com
 Getting IT - #4 of Top 10 IT Action Items

#4) Get Educators into Collaborative, Online,

“Social Networking” Environments

Teachers are classroom isolated. Principals are school isolated. Yet, the
organizational challenges of physical “inservices”, physical professional
development, and “prep” time, are too many. Shift to digital best practices by
going online in workflow and collaboration environments.

Deploy and integrate 21st - century tools, such as; audio/video conferencing,
blogs, podcasts, RSS, wikis, threaded bulletin boards, list serves, etc.. Move
from the web to Web 2.0 (Read/Write, interactive web). Time is too precious
- Tick, Tick, Tick.....

Original Concept- Jeff Billings

 Getting IT - #5 of Top 10 IT Action Items
#5) Project-Based Learning with a twist, Bring
PBL’s into the 21st Century with Information
Technology - “iPBL”

The world lives and works through timelines, schedules and deliverables (i.e.,
Projects). Education needs to provide curricular content, in only an
interdisciplinary format, and only using the model of projects. The research is
clear on Project-Based Learning.

Every student project should be conceptualized (thinking maps), researched,

managed, and demonstrated using information technology. High Tech High
uses “Presentations of Learning” and “Digital Portfolios”- makes sense to
me....;-)

iPBL Original Concept - Jeff Billings

High Tech High in San Diego lives this stuff and they’re good
 Youth - Our Clients

2005 - Survey of 8 to 18 year olds

6.5 hours a day with electronics
2.3 hours a day with parents

Kaiser Family Foundation - 2005

 Instructional Connection Gap

The InfoSavvy Group, as summarized by Apple Computers - 2003

As secondary educators wrestle with re-tooling in
the digital age, learning the IT culture/language,
and....
As secondary education struggles with Rigor,
Relavance and Relationships....

the World has become flat.

 WalMart
Remember when - “Made In America” was the
marketing pitch
5 years ago - 38% of products were made
overseaʼs
Today - over 70% of products are “Made in
China”
And, we sleep on......
Now we get, “Welcome to WalMart”
Shanghi of Past
Shanghi Today
 Itʼs Happening
In 2003, 25,00 US tax returns were prepared in India. In 2005, over
400,000

Over 90% of the interpretations of U.S. x-rays are now done overseaʼs

I took an online Cisco VoIP class from a company and instructor in

Saudi Arabia

Students can take AP Calculus online from teachers in India

Stanford University has entered the online high school market place

One of the fastest growing - Florida Virtual High School - 6 years - 77 to

33,000 students (part & full time), with 280 teachers (part & full time)
IT - The Flattener
For the first time in history

One can have an idea

Send to Singapore to design protoype

Send to Germany for engineering

Send to China for manufacturing

Send to Switzerland for banking

Send to New York for advertisiing

All done from Brazil

 Who will it be?
1600ʼs Spanish
1700ʼs Dutch
1800ʼs English
1900ʼs Americans
2000ʼs ???

Concept - http://www.daggett.com/
 The Solution
Educating our populace is our best chance
IT is the best catalyst to change our practices, shake
the status quo, and improve learning
 HTH is a model of a modern, 21st-century,
ubiquitous-computing, high school in today’s
“American Education System”

Let’s take a look to see if their model can

help and if it can be replicated....
 HTH Founded on...
• “No one knows who I am”

• “I don’t see the relevance”

Consistent survey answers by high school

students across the country, when asked
about their high school experience
• Nestled in San
Diego, in four
years, the model
has developed to
opening a series
of partner and High Tech High

sibling schools
 High Visibility

Oprah Winfrey Show

Funding from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Governors, Business Leaders, Educational Leaders
Press
• High Tech High

• High Tech Middle

• High Tech Elem. High Tech High International

• High Tech High

International

• Partner schools in
Texas, Chicago,
Georgia, New
Mexico
• Chartered by San
Diego City School
District

• Random
drawings of
applications
matching SDUSD
zip codes

• They’ve compiled
impressive
results
• When you walk the facilities, you see
learning, real learning occurring

• One of their common intellectual

threads is based on John Dewey,
“Understanding derives from
activity”

• Everything is about “projects”

 Based on Research
• High Tech High was started by several
education reformers who had compiled
years of research

• They have remained true to their guiding

design principles at HTH

• “Educational Entrepreneurs”
Three Design Principles

• Personalization

• Common Intellectual Mission

• Adult World Connection

 Personalization
Small schools (<400 students)
Small classes (<25)
Advisor (teacher) assigned to every student and
stays for all four years - at least once a year home visit
Team teaching - interdisciplinary - e.g., language/
physics
Loop teaching - 9/10 and 11/12
No Tracking - Heterogenous Groups
 Common Intellectual Mission
Talk the talk - Walk the talk
Live no distinction between “college prep” and “carrer ed”
The Curriculum “IS” Projects - Project Based Learning
Modified Block Scheduling - Projects - Schedule Busting
Performance/Rubrics & Authentic Assessments & Digital
Portfolios
Student as active learner - Teacher as Facilitator
All students demonstrate and defend their learning
through “Presentations of Learning”
Grade level advancement - Transitional Performances of
Learning
Ubiquitous Computing - Everywhere, yet transparent
HTH has reversed a 100-year history of separating
technical and academic subjects in American high
schools, by linking the two in a project-based
environment. All HTH students use technology to
engage in scientific, mathematical, literary,
historical, and artistic pursuits.
 Six A’s of Designing Projects

• Academic Rigor

• Authenticity

• Applied Learning

• Active Exploration

• Adult Connections

• Assessment Practices
 PBL
• Begin with the End in Mind – skills, standards, and habits of mind
• Craft the Driving Question – samples
• Plan the Assessments -- rubrics
• Map the project -- the scope
• Manage the Project -- project tools
Ubiquitous Computing

HTH - Presentations of
Learning & Digital Portfolios
iPBL

Ubiquitous Computing
Adult World Connection
“Some of our best learning occurs outside of school”
9th and 10th graders - “shadow” adult programs
11th grade semester internship (two afternoons a week) with a business or
agency
Substantial Senior Project on topic of interest or concern to the community
 3 years in a row,
Three years running - awarded ten, scores of
100% of graduates go to 10 - only school in San
college Diego to do so
80% - 4 year university score in top level on
20% - 2 year college state standardized tests
50% - 1st generation scored 2nd out of 100
attendees similar demographic
schools in California
 When I visited with some of their graduates (now in
college), I asked them how college was going. A statement
that stood out to me, was “college courses are like projects
and we know how to do those”.
 Presentations of Learning (POL’s) are embedded
everywhere
Every student maintains a digital portfolio
Mobile, wireless, ubiquitous computing
Mechanical technology (sabre saws, drills, glue
guns, materials, etc.)
Traditional Calendar: September - May
High School Starts at 9am
Teachers meet every day from 8am to 9am to
assess, plan, develop
HTH first school in California granted the charter
to certify their own teachers
Digital Portfolios
Projects
Robotics
 Assessment

HTH ignores the march of “high stakes

testing”
HTH focuses on continual “authentic
assessment” - continual rubrics of real life
applicability
From information to knowledge to third
order learning (engineering)
 Habits of Mind
Students Are Constantly Reminded

Significance - Why is it important?

Perspective - What is the point of view?
Evidence - How do you know?
Connection - How does it apply?
Supposition - What if it were different?
 Every student ponders his and other’s work with the
above habits, but can only critique if the criticism is
helpful, specific and kind
 Circular Seminar Halls

Following HTH
facility design
principles, the high
school includes areas
for; commons, specialty
labs, project rooms,
shared teacher offices,
outdoor learning
spaces, galleries, multi-
purpose seminar
rooms, and support
offices. From the entire
village housing High
Tech Middle, High
Tech International and
High Tech High, down
to the smallest
production area, it’s all
about learning.
HTH International with Country Logos
Open, Lighted, Commons
Shared Teacher Workrooms
Student Tables in Team Seating
 Summary
HTH molds curricular content and technology together in relevant
project-based learning, infusing ubiquitous computing as “iPBL’s”
HTH focuses on knowing their clients, from small school and class
size, to going to the student’s home
HTH exhibits best practices of schedule busting, significant
planning time, interdisciplinary teaming, and heterogenous grouping
HTH bridges the student world to the adult environment and vice
versa, with relevant business and community projects and internships
The time for the HTH model of secondary education is now and it
is replicable
The Metiri Group

http://www.metiri.com/resources.html
Questions???