Royal Treatment Interview — Vail School District, Vail, Arizona
by Ken Royal for District Administration Magazine
“I interviewed Vail School District’s (Vail, Ariz.) Noah Tonk, senior English teacher about classroom podcasting and teaching with technology, his principal, Trisha Pena at Cienega High School about what was happening in the school and throughout the district, as well as Matt Federoff, Vail’s district technology director about pushing the technological envelope in schools. The district has about 9,200 students across 16 different sites, with over 700 certificated staff.”
DA: “Noah is doing what many districts would love their teachers to do with podcast. Share what you’re doing in the school and at Vail to make this happen.”
Tricia Pena, principal Cienega High School: “In our district I’m finding that I’m networking with colleagues across the state. The Vail school district tends to be leaps and bounds ahead of most school districts because of our Computer Literacy Incentive Program (CLIP). And that is a district-wide program whereby the district budget allocates earnings for teachers to either get a laptop or a desktop when they show proficiency in seven technology competencies. And with that program it has set up teachers to be more technology savvy than what I find across the state.”
DA: “So Noah is not the exception but more the rule in your district then?”
TP: “Noah is an exception in that he is extremely tech savvy, and goes out to find best teaching practices coupled with technology. So Noah with use Web casts and podcasts, and his latest — a Wiki. One of his strengths is that he shares with his colleagues. So, yes we work in the district to get laptops in the hands of teachers. It’s the norm to see PowerPoint presentations in our classrooms by teachers and students. So what Noah does, he’s an impetus for change in saying to his colleagues to take their PowerPoint further by saying this is what I do with a podcast, this is what I’ve done with a Web page. Now, I would say 50 percent at our school have a Web page and so Noah is bringing up his podcasting and his Wiki and a few more teachers are experimenting with that. Teachers are seeing how powerful the technology is for delivering instruction, captivating the interest of teens and the individual learning styles of students. Noah has created an environment where students can review lessons at anytime, or catch the class if they were sick — he’s created an open door that I want shared amongst all high school teachers and eventually filter it down to the middle school, because these are great techniques. Noah will be leading some staff development. We all, administrators and teachers, walk around with our laptops and the district is all WiFi.”
DA: “What software are you using in class?”
Noah Tonk, senior English teacher Cienega High School: “I use ProfCast to sync my recorded lecture audio with PowerPoint or Keynote slides to create QuickTime movies for podcasting. I use RapidWeaver for Web publishing, and currently experimenting with Wikispaces for educators.
I’m learning things all the time. I was just introduced to a program called Jing, which allows me to record audio and anything occurring on my desktop, so I can actually show teachers how to use something by recording video of myself doing it on my own screen and it took me less than five minutes to learn how to use it.”
DA: “Noah, how is your classroom set up? What do you do on a daily basis to use this technology with your curriculum?”
NT: “Well, fairly seamlessly, it pretty much works the way it does in other classrooms — mine just happens to have a microphone present. The students are facing each other to facilitate effective discussion in round table conversations. Their objectives are on the board, they’re aware of what they’re doing each day when they come in the room. The big difference between my classroom and other classrooms is that students can hear it at home at eleven PM.
Sometimes I’ll set up the classroom, where I’ll put the microphone in the middle of the students.”
DA: “So, students can either pull it up on a computer or download it to an iPod?”
NT: “That’s correct. They can open it up directly in a Web browser, download it as a file, and then open it in QuickTime, or they can use iTunes to actually subscribe and then whatever the latest podcast is, will be downloaded to their computers.”
DA: ”Is there anything educators should be aware of in order to do what you’re doing in their classrooms?”
NT: “One thing that should be noted is that I’m very conscious of our responsibilities for students’ federal privacy rights. Some would like to have me record video of my students, for instance reading Macbeth in class — I won’t do that. I cannot post images of students or anything I do that directly identifies their names. Sometimes I end up recording multiple podcasts, because something happens in class that identifies the student directly.”
DA: “Yes, I did see all of that information posted on your Web page. What else are you doing besides podcasting your lessons?”
NT: “We’ve been using a Wiki to do a research project regarding novels we’re reading right now. The students are researching the Internet, recording class notes and working in groups to develop other products and posting it all in a Wiki environment to let students in all three of my AP sections, for example, can access their work for exam review. I also regularly check out one of our mobile carts, which contains 30 laptops. The role of technology is to supplement the instruction. We make certain that the students understand that the goal here is to learn and fulfill the objectives.”
DA: “So, you feel that this is something any teacher could do with a laptop, PowerPoint and a microphone.”
NT: “Absolutely, I have to tell you that I know nothing about writing code for the Web, other than copying and pasting. If it takes me longer than ten minutes to learn how to use it — I don’t have time for that.”
DA: “Noah, what’s next? What else would you like to have happen?”
NT: “I want technology to be easy enough for all teachers to use it. What I want is for students to be able to log in to an online environment, access lessons, because my goal is to make it easy for the students to help themselves. I think we all want technology to be more convergent and to make more sense.”
DA: “Any other technology being used across the district?”
NT: “We also use PowerSchool and now upgrading from PowerGrade to PowerTeacher by Pearson, which makes parent/teacher conferences more productive, because parents know the grades before they show up, so now we can spend more time on interpretation. It makes for a more productive conference environment.”
DA: “Yes, I noticed that while listening to your podcast lesson on The Four Types of Sentences. The sense of your enthusiasm for what you’re teaching and student reaction and responses is obvious.”
NT: “It has always been my belief that teaching is not teaching unless learning is occurring. And I think that my students are demonstrating that they are learning. Matt Federoff has established what he is calling the teaching technology specialists teams throughout the district, where every school has a few leaders of technology who are willing to come together and share recent discoveries and determine ways to introduce those things to the community a large, so that other teachers can perhaps see how easy it is to use or how well it works to reach the students. Matt supports instruction around here. If a teacher sees something that would really impact teaching and students, all you have to do is e-mail Matt. He’ll let everyone know about it, and if he thinks it’s worthwhile — and he fully supports purchasing that sort of thing.”
Matt Federoff, district technology director Vail School District: “I’m really blessed here in that I have two teams, one of which works for me as technology specialists — making sure everything is up and running, and another made up of classroom teachers like Noah and receive a stipend from me, to meet with me on a regular basis. That team gives me feedback for what works and what doesn’t work. It’s good because my own team is not the direct consumers of our services. They don’t take grades and attendance, to use the military metaphor, they are not the point of the spear — teachers are. I want to know that we are delivering what teachers need.”
DA: “What’s the ratio of staff to sites?”
MF: “I have a full time person at every site and three additional district employees — 16 people in my department.”
DA: “How do you insure the safety aspects of all the new technology? Noah seems to have a good handle on that, but as a district technology director how do you deal with it?
MF: You really could, in a sense, think too much about that. And I think we get paralyzed pretty rapidly. In a sense, it has not been that great of an issue for us. Both our student code of contact and AUP are reasonably expansive enough. Intentions count for a great deal. So I like people like Noah, because I can create this fertile field, but they have to do the planting. I don’t want them stifled. IT has power in what it enables — not in what it controls. I need to make sure that there is no institutional barrier to moving forward.”
DA: “You’re using Macs?”
MF: “Yes, we’re a Mac Shop, and we have laptops for those teachers who pass the six competency exams we set up. What we’ve done for ten years, where a teacher has to take and pass six competency tests and then we give them a laptop. At the end of the third year, we sign the laptop over to the teacher — and it’s theirs to keep. After another year — basically every four years through CLIP (Computer Literacy Incentive Program), teachers can get a new computer. When they get the computer, they have already proven that they can use it. When it gets earned, it becomes established. When you go to faculty meetings, all the CLIPPERS have their laptops. I don’t believe in handing out laptops like playing cards. Because our teachers earn them, and have proven that they know how to use them, our program is successful.”
DA: “What else are you working towards at the district level to change the way curriculum is delivered?”
MF: “We’re working on a project to digitally map out electronically what we already have — curriculum, objectives, what needs to be taught and when. We’re now mapping it out electronically on iCal, so that when you click — you go to a whole new set of pages — a Wiki — with a whole set of standards, performance objectives, exactly what has to be taught but has activities, model projects, and links to relevant Web sites. We want it to be this rich collection, so that with a click every teacher will have exactly what they need to teach and make standards-driven instruction as effortless as possible. The teacher clicks on the link in their iCal and all these resources pop up with everything they need to teach that standard, including a couple different variations. We’re going to make this, with teacher input, as rich and flexible as we can.”
DA: “Thank you ALL for your time and your wonderful comments. This may offer some direction to those needing some help getting started, or incentive to those who have said that it can’t be done.”
