Summary

Two dominant forces are combining to produce the Swamp: push and pull. Push,
referring to how unbelievably boring school has become for students. It is sadly
indicated that the percentage of enthusiasm for school from Kindergarten to grade
has dropped from a whopping 95% to 37%. The counterforce is the pull of rapidly
expanding digital innovations that are the consequence of slim and not so slim start-
ups. With all revolutions comes a fair share of both opportunities and problems.
Three forces must come together to project learning in the forward direction:
technology, pedagogy, and change knowledge.

New learning systems are required to meet the suggested four criteria:
I. Engaging for all students and teachers
II. Easy to adapt and use
III. Access to technology 24/7
IV. Permeated in real life problem solving

The complex relationship between technology, pedagogy, and change knowledge
must be established and cultivated in order to create a whole system reform. An
index was established to capture the overall dimensions of these three forces and to
be used as a tool to foresee the transformative power of the developing digital
innovations.

The index is based on a 4-point rating scale and breaks down each of the three
interconnected components into three subcomponents for qualitative evaluation. In
general, each component and subcomponent is given a rating: green (good), amber
green (mixed), amber red (problematic), or red (off-track) to determine the
students learning level.

Pedagogy
Clarity and quality of intended outcome
Quality of pedagogy and relationship between teacher and learner
Quality of assessment platform and functioning

System Change
Implementation support
Value for money
Whole system change potential

Technology
Quality of user experience/model design
Ease of adaptability
Comprehensiveness and integration



Initial Learnings and Findings
The Index has been applied to 12 recent innovations to get an idea of the emerging
strengths and weaknesses involved in the field as well as what gaps still exist. A
trend found is that many innovations are weak on pedagogy and implementation
support and that school-based and technology-enabled innovations have different
weaknesses and strengths.

Lots of work is required to investigate the meaning on the new pedagogies. This
involves:
I. Clarifying the learning goals
II. Being precise about the pedagogy that will deepen the learning in relation to
these goals
III. Seeing how technology may accelerate learning
IV. Using assessments of learning to inform improvements and to provide
evidence of efficacy

This report found that breaking out the innovation by school based or technology-
enabled innovations were helpful to clarify the complexity of the system change
challenge. Though both are powerful, they both come with problems and neither has
shown the ability to implant into most aspects of a school and to spread to others.


Navigating the Swamp
I. Use our Index
II. Lead with pedagogy
III. Develop capacity with respect to system support
IV. Focus on scale and embeddedness
V. Be open to surprises
VI. Clarify what is meant to be a learner in the 21
st
Centur


Key Points
Forces must be combined to catapult learning noticeably forward
Student-centered learning and identifying the specific needs of the students
is how each will succeed to their fullest potential
Keep it simple, keep it focused, and keep learning



To be a Classroom Teacher
Strengths
Allow students to gain interest in using technology
Using the four-point rating scale for helpful direction (especially for new
teachers)
Simplicity for students and teachers


Weaknesses
Availability
Access
Money
Too much (abusing) technology