Names & Titles: Hank Thiele, Chief Technology Officer; Ken Wallace,
Superintendent
District: Maine Township (IL) High School District 207
What are your big-picture tech goals for your district?
Thiele: We support whatever direction the district is doing
in terms of instruction. Our district is exploring the ideas of data teams,
professional learning communities, and trying to figure out which instruction
is affecting achievement. Technology is part of that—making sense of the
data, sorting it out.
What changes are you taking to achieve these goals?
Thiele: We’ve built a collaborative environment in which all
teachers have tools in their hands all the time. We provide laptops and are
making tools such as Google Apps available so they can access them from
anywhere. All the tools are very user friendly and available, regardless of
device. Whenever we look at a tool, we break down any tech barriers that stop
anything from moving forward.
What are the biggest challenges in your day-to-day life
and how do you manage them?
Thiele: We are concerned about technology equity. Our three
high schools have different demographics and needs. We have to level the
playing field; that’s at the top of the list for me.
Wallace: For a number of years, we’ve been giving devices to
families who need them as we replace them. But you can’t plug in all the gaps;
we can give them a device but not the networking capability.
Thiele: We have a 1:1 netbook pilot program with the neediest
group. The teachers talk with the students about free hotspots and where to
connect so they know where to go. The kids can also go to our library.
Wallace: We are also working on what our curriculum should
look like in the future, and how we should deliver it. How can we tap into the
multitude of real-time, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art sources out there
instead of from a book? What will that look like?
What separates us from other districts is that we use a
teacher-leadership model. We were one of the first Google spotlight districts.
We grow our own expertise from within. Within each department there are
multiple leaders so Hank doesn’t have to field all the calls. We have strong
teacher leaders and it’s about everyone supporting each other. We encourage
risk taking. That’s how real learning occurs.
How do you get buy-in on ed tech from the school
community?
Wallace: Two of our three high schools are on a list of top
high schools in the U.S., so it isn’t a problem. Education has been very
important and the tradition is long and rich. When I supervised curriculum
seven years ago I sent out a survey about PD and technology. On all the tech
questions, 90 percent of my responses were negative. At the time, we still did
attendance on paper. In seven years, we’ve gone from way behind to a lighthouse
district. We had a staff that was disappointed with tech access and tools, but
they were hungry for those tools. I bought a computer and LCD for every class
and we’ve taken off from there.
Thiele: The community has all been accepting of moving
forward with technology.
What currently has you really excited?
Thiele: Technology is no longer separate from the rest of
the conversation, from instruction. Now people assume it’ll be there, it’s
going to work, it’s part of the landscape. We’ve gone from ‘why is it there’ to
‘how do we use it more effectively?’
Wallace: The fact that learners now have access to instant
information that is powerful, real time, cutting edge—it goes way beyond the
textbook. We can set up learning experiences in which we can link students to
experts doing research right now. We’ve got to change the paradigm of how we
teach. The forward-thinking teachers know they are facilitators; their job is
to help students learn to evaluate, learn about what’s available, and how to
find it.