Studyo - Studyo

Back in 2013, I was working with a school district up in the province of Quebec in re-implementing their one device per student program. As coordinator of educational technology for this district, my mandate included supporting teachers in their desire to help students build 21st century skills. I loved technology and was a strong believer in the w... ays it could enhance learning. It felt natural to try and implement educational technology platforms, such as portals and similar tools to Google Classroom to facilitate work for teachers. Yet, resistance was strong. The tools were appreciated by some teachers, yet, teachers resisted using them exclusively. One tool was very hard to get rid of: the paper planner. This felt like a failure to me. With all my experience with technology in education, shouldnt I be able to find a fully digital solution? Was technology failing me? Or was I failing to see something important? I asked myself: why are these teachers resisting? What is so important about paper planners that technology couldnt replace them? I had to understand this or I would fail in my quest for a fully digital district. So I interviewed all our teachers, visiting schools and asking why they couldnt replace paper planners with the tools I was proposing. What followed was an eye-opening moment: digital tools forced teachers to enter everything for students, all the time. Teachers felt they were spoon-feeding their students, prevented them from building up their autonomy and responsibility. This meant too much extra work for teachers and no responsibility for students. Paper allowed less teacher work and more student autonomy. Until a tool was created which allowed both, they wouldnt want to use it. So thats when I decided to find a tool that allowed both the practicality of posting assignments to students, yet preserve their autonomy in entering their own tasks and managing their workload. Nothing existed. There were individual planners, yes, but nothing centrally connected to a schools timetables and where ...Read More