Teachers become tech testers

Shawn Rubin launched EdTechRI as a natural outgrowth of his experience as director of blended learning and technology integration at the Highlander Institute, a charter school in Providence. Blended learning is a combination of online learning through educational-technology software and face-to-face instruction with a teacher in a brick-and-mortar environment. Most of his work is professional development with teachers to help them integrate technology into their classrooms. Rubin works extensively with schools in Providence, as well as across southeast New England. The missing link Rubin discovered between educational-software developers and enthusiastic teachers – the classroom testing phase – ignited a spark that led to the creation of EdTechRI.

PBN: How did EdTechRI get started?
RUBIN: EdTechRI evolved out of a meetup between educators and entrepreneurs at the Tazza Caffé in Providence a year ago November. Through my role at Highlander Institute, I was engaging more and more with early stage education-technology startups and realizing that a lot of those startups had products that needed a lot of teacher input. In my professional-development role and in my consulting role going into schools, I was meeting a lot of motivated, high-flying, early-adopter teachers who wanted to get their hands on the latest and greatest and newest and best technology. They also had a lot of opinions about it. So it made a lot of sense to me to bring those two groups together.

PBN: Where were the teachers from and how did you get them involved in EdTechRI?
RUBIN: Most of them were from Rhode Island and some were from across southeastern New England. I would run a workshop and there would be 15 or 20 teachers learning how to use the iPad and I would always see two or three teachers who were about seven steps ahead of me. So, I would introduce the app and for most of the group I would have to walk them through step-by-step. After the workshop, I would approach the teachers who were way ahead and ask them if they were interested in banding together across districts to collaborate.

PBN: What kind of response did you get from these teachers who were way ahead?
RUBIN: They all said “yes.” I call them wild horses looking for their herd.

PBN: Were these teachers, generally, at a certain grade level or teaching some similar subjects?
RUBIN: They’re from pre-K through high school. In any school, you have no idea who it’s going to be, but there’s always someone. I would find them when I went into schools and I would talk to principals and they would say the person you need to talk to is some random second grade teacher, because that’s the person in the school who was the early adopter. They exist in every school across our state.

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PBN: Were these teachers using educational technology in their classrooms as part of the curriculum?
RUBIN: A lot of times they don’t have access to resources in their schools, so maybe they’re buying their iPad with their own money. They might be doing it in kind of isolation in their classroom. The kids know that’s the teacher that does all the technology. All the other teachers who can’t operate their projectors, they go to that teacher and ask for help.

PBN: How do see these teachers who are now involved with EdTechRI being valuable to the state, in terms of the broad system of education?
RUBIN: They’re hidden, but when you can find them and tap into them and give them an outlet, they’re an unbelievable resource for our state.

PBN: Do think Rhode Island is typical, with these teachers as sort of hidden technology resources?
RUBIN: Rhode Island is typical because it’s national. Twenty percent of the teachers may be way out in front in technology, but our schools are still designed to develop curriculum based on the center.

PBN: How do think these teachers, who are early adopters of technology, are viewed in their schools?
RUBIN: Sometimes it’s frowned upon. There are even principals who say, stop introducing new things because you’re overwhelming the students, or the other teachers are getting jealous, or the parents are frustrated because their kids do all this cool stuff in your room and the next year they don’t.

PBN: Can you give an example of some of the products teachers have taken into the classroom?
RUBIN: One example is NBA Math Hoops, a national education nonprofit that’s moving into the ed-tech space. They had a board game and were attempting to move it to a website-based piece. They came to EdTechRI right before they were about to launch their application. They had their board game all set up and they had iPads there for the teachers to try their application. Many teachers walked away with a board game to take back to their classroom. NBA Math Hoops was handing out application codes, so teachers could take their app and begin playing with it and send feedback. Now NBA Math Hoops is following up with us.

PBN: What kind of feedback have teachers given on some of the tech products?
RUBIN: One of the companies came down from Boston to our meetup and met several high school teachers. One high school math teacher was very excited about the product, went back to school ready to roll it out with the kids, then found out it didn’t work because in the Providence schools, Internet Explorer is the only browser available to teachers and students across the district. This product happened to not work on Internet Explorer. The company didn’t even think that maybe Internet Explorer is the only default browser in many districts across the U.S. Now the company has to figure out how to make it work. So you’ve got this incredible piece of learning that’s coming back to this company through this teacher.

PBN: How do you see EdTechRI benefiting education in Rhode Island?
RUBIN: We’ve been bringing in ed-tech developers from all over the East Coast. Now we’re bringing in a company from California for an EdTechRI event on Feb. 12, in partnership with [Rhode Island Society of Technology Educators]. It’s a company that manages the Web filter that allows many more things to be open to students and teachers. It’s for tech administrators, anyone who manages the bolts and wires for a district. We feel like that filter issue is one of the biggest impediments right now to schools and teachers embracing this technology. The conversation and feedback from this kind of event happens all the time at EdTechRI. Dealing with this challenge of bringing technology into the classroom is incredibly important for our schools, because there are lots of ways we can use technology to keep our kids engaged in learning. •

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