ATLIS 2016 - Collaborating with Developers to Create New Tools
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How can schools collaborate with vendors / developers to create tools when they don't already exist? This ATLIS 2016 presentation explores best practice and insights learned from a 4 year collaboration between Swift Education Systems and Atlanta's The Westminster School to develop a wireless mobile language lab solution for the school's 1-to-1 MacBook program.
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ATLIS 2016 - Collaborating with Developers to Create New Tools
- 1. Colleen Glaude Dean of IT
- 2. Transforming Teaching & Learning Through Technology
- 10. Discussion Groups Activity Monitoring File Management Individualized Lessons
- 11. 1 Lab / 800 students/ 1x Week Unlimited students / Unlimited Access 83% Cost Reduction
- 12. Finding Success
- 14. Louie Huang Co-Founder • University spinoff • Distributed team: CA, IL, MA • ~150 schools, 10 countries, 150K users • Vision: anytime, anywhere interactive learning lab
- 15. 2005 2005 / 2006 Launch Day - 2006
- 16. Visual UI Synchronized Speaking Exams Review Anywhere
- 17. 2010 2012 (spinoff) - Current
- 18. • First contact: 9/2012 • “Full 1:1 Apple Environment with 1800 students” We like DiLL, but….
- 21. Want Do Full Voice Conferencing Limited Voice Conferencing Network Flexibility Bonjour-Dependent (Single VLAN + Buggy) Asynchronous Work ✓ Off-Campus Access ✓ Westminster Wireless Wish List
- 23. DiLL Pilot (9/2012) • Pilot for the rest of the school year (Sept - June) • Commit time to PD & Feedback Sessions • Identify & develop technical solutions • Fee: $2,000 + travel for onsite testing/training
- 24. 2012 - 2016 Swift Launch 2012 20162013 20152014 First Contact Pilot Kickoff AP Concerns Pilot Concludes WS Licenses DiLL Replace Bonjour Beta Launch Auto-Updating & Deployment System Over a Dozen 1-to-1 Schools • Over 100 different email threads • Multiple training + feedback sessions including an onsite visit • Over 10 major software iterations
- 25. Key Challenges 1) Fostering collaboration / aligning incentives 2) Planning for the unexpected 3) Sustaining long-term collaboration
- 26. Status Quo Approach Leadership / Admin Technology Teachers Vendor
- 28. Leadership Priotization Commitment Funding IT Support Perspective Execution Education Stakeholders Manage expectations Communication Learning (Teachers) Feedback & Experimentation
- 29. Leadership Best Practices • Set and prioritize goals for the collaboration • Big picture: innovation takes time • Commit school resources: time & funding “If you have a problem you can solve by throwing money at it, you don’t have a very interesting problem.”
- 30. IT Best Practices • Provide context: explain the what and the why • Share implementation nuances • Education & setting expectations “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
- 31. Teaching Best Practices • Feedback: frequent and direct • Willingness to experiment and be creative • Pedagogical flexibility —> quality vs quantity “The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change.”
- 32. Stakeholder Best Practices • Manage expectations • Communicate, communicate, communicate! • Skin in the game “If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product!”
- 33. Best Practices 1) Align incentives to engender trust 2) Share perspective to prepare for the unexpected 3) Continued feedback and experimentation to sustain collaboration
- 34. Val Causevic & Brian Shim Upper School Modern & Classical Languages Desktop Lifecycle Administrator
- 35. Upper School • Learning through the pilot • Collaborating with SwiftEd and Westminster's IT Department • Wired vs. Wireless Lab • Lessons and how they’re used in classrooms • Quotes from our teachers
- 36. Learning through the pilot • Challenges • Opportunities
- 37. Swift/Westminster IT Collaboration • Wish List • Delivery
- 38. Challenges Identified & Solved Challenge Solution High quality, low latency wireless voice conferencing. Re-architected VoIP code from multicast UDP to a more efficient unicast model. VLAN flexibility: connect over different networks? Over the internet? Ditched Bonjour in favor for a custom TCP point of presence system. Support and maintenance for hundreds of machines? Auto-updating + ad-hoc deployment system. Mix and match headsets (varying Mic sensitivity) Centrally set and save device specific settings Plugging in a headset (System Prefs) Auto-detects headset and selects correct input and output sources Internet distractions - classroom layout may not allow teachers to see screens. Classroom management controls: creen locking, remotely view/control screens, etc. TechnicalNon-Technical
- 39. Wired vs Wireless Lab • Benefits vs Challenges “Having DiLL wireless has helped tremendously with efficiency in my classroom. No longer do I have to lose 5-10 minutes of class to wait for my classes to walk to a lab, login and get setup. Also, it's a great way to bring variety and differentiation into my lessons, allowing me to engage all students.” “Having access to DiLL wireless in my classroom has greatly improved student performance on the spoken portion of tests and final exams. Since it is not necessary to reserve the lab in advance, we are able to take advantage of those days when we have a little extra time. Students simply log in and go! Being able to practice more frequently has also enhanced student comfort level. They make less technical mistakes and have less "uhhh" moments during assessments.”
- 40. Example DiLL Lessons • Lessons and how they're used in classrooms
- 41. Upper School “As Foreign Language teachers we always need our students to demonstrate fluency and listening skills. Using DiLL has allowed us to do just that in a setting where students feel at ease and most confident, ultimately showing improved outcomes.” “I have found that my students speak more freely when we use DiLL. The stigma of speaking in front of people goes away when students are paired with a fellow classmate(s). As a language teacher, it's my goal to get my students to speak in the target language and using DiLL is more effectively than having students stand in front of the class.” “Since having DiLL wireless in my classroom, the program has helped me organize, prepare and execute quick and full session lessons. Students enjoy immediate feedback and appreciate being able to hear and improve their pronunciation.” “In my Translation and Interpretation Spanish VI course, students listen to authentic speeches and transcribe them. I upload files into DiLL and have students use features like the turtle (slowing down) to accomplish these tasks at their own pace. Very useful for giving students a sense of ownership.”
- 42. Assessing Vendors / Developers 1) Can they code? 2) Domain knowledge & expertise 3) Past collaborations and success stories 4) Appropriate size & growth/product stage
- 43. Approaching Vendors / Developers 1) Local colleges & universities 2) Startup incubators (e.g., 1871, Tech Village) 3) Companies in the same domain space 4) Ecosystem / Platform Providers
- 44. Thank You! • Colleen Glaude: colleenglaude@westminster.net • Louie Huang: louie@swifteducation.com • Val Causevic: velijacausevic@westminster.net • Brian Shim: brianshim@westminster.net
Editor's Notes
- My name is Colleen Glaude and I am the Dean of Instructional Technology at the Westminster Schools here in Atlanta, GA
- I’m excited to share with you a story of success in creating digital tools that did not yet exist Quick survey- how many of you represent FL or MCL? How many represent a specific interest in technology & digital tools for the classroom?
- Stand before you with 24 years experience in K-12 education as a classroom teacher of mathematics, a technologist, and currently a senior admin overseeing tech at Westminster Both public and private, schools with labs, to blended environments, to complete 1:1 deployments
- I helped 3 schools move from traditional labs such as this lab in 1997 (state of the art)
- to Maker Spaces and Design Thinking labs with laptops
- So that an entire campus becomes a classroom
- an every child has ubiquitous access to technology
- Yet when it comes to midi labs
- And language labs… we cannot fully leverage the 1:1 laptops once again become tethered to walls and are restricted to dedicated spaces
- We struggled for 3 years to move away from a traditional language lab Specifically their are several features that have demanded wired access to servers…
- And finally we moved from… to… What was the cost of this massive increase???
- The ed landscape will forever be changing and we will always be looking for better tools for teaching & learning so how do we make it all work? how do we partner to create tools that do not yet exist… This is actually my 4th venture in the past 2 years trying to create tools that do not exist SIS/Website Schoology report card DiLL Interns
- I believe there were several key pieces to this puzzle… Leadership- it must be a priority at 3 levels with clear points of contact… IT Support- Must be side-by-side in the classroom, vendors on site Stakeholders- If folks can’t fund or be part of it, then release time for a grass-roots effort Learning- time & support to make transformational changes Heart- Non-negotiables
- Co-founder of Swift Education Systems. We’re a Chicago based EdTech Startup and the developers behind DiLL. I’d like to share with you a little more about our collaboration with Westminster and some of the lessons and insights we learned about collaborating with a school to develop new technology.
- We started out as an internal student-faculty collaboration at Northwestern University. We had an old analog lab and decided to reimagine the system with software and networked Macs.
- The solution we came up with, DiLL, pairs an intuitive visual-based UI with a classic client-server architecture. Teachers and students interact with each other via client applications. Student work and classroom lesson materials are stored centrally and accessible online.
- Over time other schools heard about DiLL through word-of-mouth. After we graduated, Northwestern asked us back in 2012 to spin the technology out of the university to further commercialize and develop the software. This is where the story behind our collaboration begins…..
- Shortly after launching Swift in May 2012, we were contacted by Westminster. They liked what we built….. but… they wanted to…
- Move from their existing fixed lab “state of the art” 21st century system….
- to a wireless solution: transform any classroom space into a full-featured lab using MacBooks, WiFi, and USB headsets.
- At that time, DiLL was optimized for wired / fixed lab, so not all the features worked wirelessly…
- … So Westminster approached us with an idea:
- … let’s pilot the software now and work together during the pilot to collect feedback and design requirements for making DiLL wireless. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy… or so we thought
- Our collaboration with Westminster ended up stretching nearly four years. What are some of the key challenges we faced and the lessons we learned along the way?
- Looking back in hindsight, we faced three key challenges over the years: How do you foster collaboration with a partner external to the school? I.e. How do you align incentives between the school and the developer? The initial pilot started in the all of 2012 - neither of us thought that it would take so long to develop our new tool, what were some of the ways we dealt with the unexpected challenges that lengthened development? After the initial pilot - how did we sustain our collaboration to see a finished solution through?
- We believe that a large part of our success came from our ability to foster an authentic culture of collaboration with all parties. To westminster’s credit, this required a mental shift from the traditional view of “vendor management”….
- To a team-centric philosophy of “Vendor collaboration”. This required an effort from all parties: leadership, IT, and Teachers.
- As Colleen referenced earlier there are many pieces of the puzzle…Collaboration happens when everyone’s incentives are aligned and we’re all working together towards the same goal. Leadership - set and prioritize goals for the project to aim for and prioritize what is imp. Commitment must be backed by action (both money and time): Westminster decided to license the software before all the wireless features were complete. IT Support- Provide and share objective perspective. Focus not only on “What" but “why” Context is important in order to build flexible technology and not niche solutions to specific one-off edge cases Learning/Teachers- Feedback and iterative: need to be flexible and experiment with instruction Stakeholders- Provide “skin in the game” to engender trust and foster initial cooperations. More than just financial resources, also need PD time, feedback sessions, etc. Work with Vendor to manage and communicate expectations with all parties (technology is not magic)
- - Leadership sets the mandate and legitimizes the project: they set and align the incentives - Keep the eye on the big picture and long-term strategy: does this technology fit into my 5 year plan? Does this technology help me move towards my future vision? - Beyond funding the pilot, Westminster also committed to licensing DiLL even before the wireless features were finished - Money talks, but it’s not the end all, be all.
- - The IT team lends perspective and context: they help us implement what we develop and are our eyes and ears on the ground: developing a good vendor-IT relationship was critical in helping us manage the unexpected - Developing good software is as much as writing good specs as it is good code. We don’t have the perspective you do. but when sharing this perspective its important to share with us not only the “what” but also the “why”. - Share implementation nuances: what happens when you deploy to 100s of machines? as debs our test environment is limited and hypothetical - Our goal is not to solve for your school-specific unique edge case, our goal is to develop flexible technology that adapts to each school
- - Teachers and instructional technologists are the end-users of the tools we develop. They provide the feedback and the experimentation needed to iterate and validate the tool. In the long run, forming a good feedback-development cycle with teachers ensures a meaningful and sustained long-term collaboration. They help you learn and grow and evolve/adapt the technology - Frequent must be direct and frequent…. - But a successful evaluation of a new tool requires new ways of thinking and teaching. Does this technology provide us with an evolution or a revolution in teaching? - Dont be afraid to adjust pedagogy to best leverage the developed tool. Don’t just focus on quantitative outcomes (like test scores), also look at qualitative improvements in teaching and learning experiences: how does this improve the learning experience for students? Engagement and making learning fun creates a long-term impact.
- - Stakeholders are the project managers that lead this collaboration internally at the school. - They’re the “Visionaries” and “Early Adopters” in the organization with the foresight to see what’s possible - Stakeholders tie everything together: they facilitate communication, help set and manage internal & external expectations - Stakeholders, like the leadership, have a key role in ensuring both sides have skin in the game. For a vendor, they’re your missionaries and fundraisers. - Remember: there is a real cost in developing new tools. Promised rewards have to be actionable: they don’t just motivate the vendor, they also help insure the school
- How do you foster collaboration with a partner external to the school? I.e. How do you align incentives between the school and the developer? The initial pilot started in the all of 2012 - neither of us thought that it would take so long to develop our new tool, what were some of the ways we dealt with the unexpected challenges that lengthened development? After the initial pilot - how did we sustain our collaboration to see a finished solution through?
- My name is Val Causevic and I am on the faculty at Westminster; I teach Spanish and serve as IS (integration specialist). I will share the teacher, lead project insight into the ongoing collaboration between SwiftEd, Westminster’s Leadership, IT Department and MCL Faculty and today I will talk briefly about the following experience… Introduce Brian - my name is Brian Shim, and I’m the Lead Desktop Lifecycle Administrator - geek talk for OS X Server/Client and Casper Administrator. I work closely with faculty and staff to determine what needs to go into our base image set, as well as managing our Self Service catalog.
- So, about four years ago, I was asked to lead this project to move Westminster from a traditional, stationary language lab to something that had a potential of becoming a ubiquitous tool but it needed not to interfere with high quality instruction. Well, it was “easy” or so I thought, but with the support of all faculty who were also eager to learn about something new and innovative, I thought I’d form a pilot group of teachers: high end users and those who needed more support. It was important to the department that all teachers had a voice and input into something that had the potential to enhance meaningful instruction. We studied the software, learned how to install it on the machines, played with the settings, uploaded material into the catalogue, became superusers, and used it in a newly designed classroom that still had the feeling of “traditional stationary lab”…Baby steps—yes, these were the words used by all, baby steps!— Slowly, we began to grow a wish list for our IT Department and asked SwiftEd if they would develop those for us…
- Our biggest wish item on the list was to have the lab in all classrooms, used wirelessly, w/o interruptions or major hick ups technology can and does present at times. In short, we did not want to waste valuable class time messing with settings, planning trips to the “language lab classroom”, logging in and so on… It was just always important for the lab to be used in all classrooms, at home- whenever we wanted Year two and three have seen some important steps in getting us there…as we overcame challenges like voice collection, connection, logging in, headphones and so on, the wish list kept growing stronger Teachers and students requested and wished for easier login steps
- The risk of venturing into the unknown means you’ll run into some unexpected challenges. Here are some unexpected challenges we encountered during the pilot that resulted in more things to develop. Some of these challenges are non-technical UI/UX problems that we solved with a technical solution.
- So, toward the end of year three, we arrived at this Wired vs. Wireless Lab world and are enjoying the challenges it presents today. Our wireless became stronger, we collaborated with our IT Dept. to install additional APs, ran tests, installed the latest version of DiLL and voilá… Now, our high end and those on their way there users are finding many creative ways of incorporating lab lessons into their curriculum but we are looking to expand and see if and how everyone—the entire language faculty at Westminster— can partake in what is already being done successfully in classrooms. So, I thought I would develop a guide, sort of sample lessons with ACTFL standards and share it with colleagues in PLC. Worked closely with Swift, who had the agility and know-how to resolve issues directly and quickly. Specific tech resolutions: AP doubling, versioning, Self Service Casper to manage
- The premise of these lessons is that technology is fun and it must be used only in a meaningful way. Planning ahead is important but being spontaneous is just as important. Thinking back and taking into account the importance and significance of each teacher’s teaching philosophy and ways of practicing the art of teaching, many questions arose from that premise. My goal and hope is that through sample lesson plans, care, and just as important, a thorough professional development plan, that we will have all teachers and students take advantage of technological tools in order to acquire the subject matter, and for us language teachers, provide as many venus as possible for students to feel deeper connections with the languages and cultures and provide those learning opportunities for ownership of learning though challenge. This has worked at Westminster because faculty, students, Swift, and IT Services have all been willing to work closely with one another. We’ve listened to one another and decided to be active in helping. IT Services heart has been one of service, and it appears Swift shares that philosophy.
- - Many vendors are actually just middleman and can be far removed from the developer slinging the code. Did they develop the software in house or outsourced development? - Does the vendor have domain knowledge and expertise in the problem area? Do they have a track record of successful collaborations and delivering on products? - Is the vendor the appropriate size for me? Are we a whale or a minnow? Are we asking for evolution or revolution?
- - Contact the instructional technologists at your local college and university. See if they have a MMLC type group on campus. - Visit / strike up partnerships with local incuabators. Many have learn to code and hackathons for students. Lots of independent devs and startups looking for schools to collaborate with. Check out Startup Weekends (EdSurge hosts an education one) - Look at companies in the same domain space. Easier to evolve an existing product than to develop a new one. - Contact the large ecosystem and platform providers. Ask your apple or google reps about possible solutions in your problem space (you can also leverage your relationships with these reps when dealing with vendors)
- - Contact the instructional technologists at your local college and university. See if they have a MMLC type group on campus. - Visit / strike up partnerships with local incuabators. Many have learn to code and hackathons for students. Lots of independent devs and startups looking for schools to collaborate with. Check out Startup Weekends (EdSurge hosts an education one) - Look at companies in the same domain space. Easier to evolve an existing product than to develop a new one. - Contact the large ecosystem and platform providers. Ask your apple or google reps about possible solutions in your problem space (you can also leverage your relationships with these reps when dealing with vendors)