Follow these lessons learned to ensure a smooth tech roll-out.  By Daniel A. Rabuzzi

Selecting digital technology for your school or district is difficult, and implementing it to optimal effect is even harder. Technology adoption is categorically different from even textbook adoption because the technology doesn’t just replace elements within an otherwise enduring system of learning; it may fundamentally change the system itself—potentially altering how we learn and how we define learning.  

So the stakes are high, and the margin for error is slim. The high-profile debacle at the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2013 suggests just how poorly a rollout can go. And while Los Angeles is the poster child for poor implementation, it is hardly alone; a recent ed tech market survey concluded that 65 percent of student licenses were not used enough to meet any of the goals set by the product companies or school districts. Only $4,625 (5 percent) of a district’s typical $92,500 annual spend on a given product was fully used.

More broadly, implementing digital technology must be much more than “just plugging in the device”; genuine deployment means starting with the needs of the students and teachers and melding tech seamlessly into the means to reach their learning goals.  
This is easier said than done, of course, but at Mouse, we have nearly two decades of experience helping thousands of schools across the country deploy new technologies to improve learner outcomes. Our aim is to empower students as creators with technology, while easing teacher and administrator concerns. (As an example, Ashleigh Jensen, teacher-turned-education-tech-specialist for the Kuna School District near Boise, talks here about how she and her students work with Mouse.) What follows are some of the lessons we’ve learned.

• Agree First on the Purpose: Don’t let the tech tail wag the academic dog. What problem are you trying to solve by adopting a particular tech “solution”? Dr. Ruben Puentedura’sSAMR model (Substitution/Augmentation/Modification/Redefinition) is a useful framework, especially when he links it to Bloom’s Taxonomy. We’re also intrigued by what teachers are doing to use ed tech tools to help students meet the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core.
• Include Student and Teacher Voices: Whose purpose is it anyway? Students and teachers, a.k.a. your end users, often lead the way in using technology—let them define the purpose. Include them (and parents) formally and consistently in the process to frame the need, select the best solution, and to implement, maintain, and above all intertwine the tech with learning.
• Excite and Engage With Tech: This is a corollary to heeding the advice of your end users. Digital tech deployments in education often fall short because the tech in question is little more than a substitute (see SAMR) for techniques that don’t work well with paper and pencil. Many recent analyses confirm what our in-person observations indicate. For instance, a recent study of teachers revealed that only 33 percent reported that technology enabled students to learn content in a different way, and only 24 percent thought that it improved student engagement. A dispiriting finding of the OECD’s September 2015 study of technology in K­–12 systems across its 34 member nations is how little authentic engagement learners and teachers report with the tech that’s been deployed to date.
• Can You Make It or Must You Buy It?: The tinkerers, hackers, makers, and visionaries within your community may well be able to help create at least part of what your school or district needs, in ways that drive learning and improve student outcomes. Remember, if youbuild it, they may or may not come, but if they build it, they are already there and at home! For instance, read how the 200,000-student Hillsborough County Public Schools district in Florida sought student and parent input as they created a BYOD model: “We saw a spike in requests from students and parents to develop a BYOD program. Students were already using their personal devices on campus, and their parents were in favor of device use in the classroom. All Hillsborough schools have now submitted their plans to incorporate BYOD as part of the district-wide policy,” wrote Hillsborough administrators Anna Brown and Sharon Zulli.
• Embrace Ambiguity and Complexity: Digital tech’s binary nature should not be confused with the ambidextrous, multi-valenced effect on all that it touches. As the BYOD model indicates, districts will need to allow hybrids and yield some control in return for enhanced efficiencies. (Digital technology’s ultimate purpose may be to decentralize and democratize learning altogether.) Be prepared for managing within and toward VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity.
• Use Tech to (Re)think Literacy: For the first time since the introduction of moveable type, we all have a chance to redefine and reflect upon what it means to be literate. In short, far from sidelining the liberal arts, the rise of digital technologies puts the humanities once again front and center. Successfully implementing ed tech will mean re-immersing ourselves in ethics and metaphysics, returning to the philosophy of purpose and the common good that’s a primary aim of education. Mouse works closely with Mozilla and fellow Hive Learning Network organizations on mapping what web literacy should consist of. Mouse’s Senior Director of Learning Design, Marc Lesser, eloquently calls our collective work on digital literacy “building cairns.” And this is no “academic” exercise but a priority for cutting-edge businesses right now—see, for instance, virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget, Fortune senior editor Geoff Colvin’s Humans Are Underrated and Forbes journalist George Anders writing about the resurgence of the liberal arts in Silicon Valley and Alley start-ups.
• Experiment and Play: If you follow the advice that’s been given so far, you’ll find laughter and learning blooming in your classrooms—the result of students and teachers discovering and inventing together in ways that don’t play out to a script (and that should be okay!). I have recently been in middle school classrooms in New York City where the students decided to use sophisticated digital tools to tell the story of environmental challenges in their neighborhoods and propose solutions to policy makers. Another team of students constructed small robots in an attempt to clean their sidewalks more effectively. These are all endless autonomous experiments that are born from and support our natural curiosity and our organic urge to learn. Is your district ready for aerial robots, wearable tech, game design, virtual and augmented reality, arrays of sensors, the Internet of Things? Your students and teachers are. They already embrace VUCA, for they know what Stephane Mallarme expressed in 1885: “We are always at one with the instrument of our magic spells.”

Daniel A. Rabuzzi is the executive director of Mouse, a national youth development nonprofit that empowers students to create with technology to solve real problems and make meaningful change in our world. Mouse is committed to creating more diversity in STEM and opening opportunities for students from underserved communities across the country.

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