Alex Inman
Friday, January 27th, 2012
By: KatieHahn
Alex Inman
Sidwell Friends School
Director of Information Services
During a recent webinar we were blown away by Alex’s personality and passion. As someone who’s been in the edtech game since 1993, Alex has built a wealth of knowledge on technology integration and one-to-one computing initiatives. Our conversation was so informative and definitely enjoyable. Check out our Q&A session!
Did you start out teaching in classrooms or have you always held IT positions?
I actually went to school for educational film and video with no intention of teaching in classrooms. However, I quickly realized if I wanted to create education videos, I would need to have a better understanding of learning theory. So I ended up getting my degree in broadcast and electronic communication with a secondary teaching certificate in communications from Marquette University. During my teaching practicum I became interested in non-linear learning methods and around the same time, the Internet went public. I really wanted to learn more about how we could harness the power of the Internet to enhance non-linear learning methods.
The Internet had just started and you already saw those possibilities?
It’s funny you mention that because – even though the Internet was not yet what it is today – I knew it would expose a new way of learning. I had tons of ideas so, as a college student, I wrote a very passionate letter to Discovery Channel detailing how we could harness the power of the Internet and really change the face of non-linear learning. They in turn wrote me a letter detailing how they were not interested (laughing).
Wow really?! That’s very funny knowing what we know now. They missed a good opportunity. So tell me what happened after that.
Well, after college I took a job as a debate coach and technology coordinator at the school where I did my practicum. Then in 1999 I was offered a technology director position at the University of Lake School in Wisconsin where I started their 1:1 computing program. I was there for four years when I took a job at Whitfield School in St. Louis in 2003 where I also launched the school’s 1:1 computing program. Now I’m at Sidwell Friends School; however, when I came here, they had an existing 1:1 program. In addition to that, I’ve consulted on the launch of many 1:1 programs.
Yes, let’s talk about that. You’re also a founding partner of the consulting firm, Educational Collaborators. When, or how, did that come about?
It started because I was doing independent consulting for an education consulting business and I knew how much they were charging schools. It frustrated me because when you are out of the classroom for three to four years you don’t have the same degree of relevance as somebody who lives in it every day. It became clear to me these schools really only wanted to hear from the real subject matter experts, not the business people.
Around the same time I was also reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. While reading a chapter about tapping new labor markets, I wondered why we couldn’t use this same theory to bring down the cost of consulting by keeping our full-time jobs while consulting. So my wife and I got six people together – a mix of classroom teachers and technology integrators – to start our own consulting business, which is now Educational Collaborators.
It’s a great idea especially because school budgets are so tight. Was it slow to launch or was there already a huge market for this at the time?
(laughing) Well, we finally found one school to let us consult for them. Ultimately we were all amazed at how much better this consulting model was because the six of us were able to build a better program for this school than we built for our own schools. We had a wide range of knowledge and experiences which lends itself innovation. Also, though we understood that collaboration makes a stronger product, all of us were amazed at how much each of us learned through working with one another at the depth required to help the school. It really was remarkable!
As far as technologies go, the tools you’ve used and/or recommended in consulting jobs differs greatly, correct?
Yes, I’m a firm believer culture drives sustainability of your initiatives, not technology. I always tell people it is not about the technology but rather the environment you create which makes these programs successful. Every action a school takes needs to be grounded in the mission and goals of that particular school. This is especially true when you make a move as pervasive as a 1:1 computing initiative.
Would you say that’s where a lot of schools go wrong? They try to lay the 1:1 program on top of existing activities when it should really be an extension of their culture and mission.
Yes, exactly! The technology is the easy part. I know that sounds a bit cliché, but it’s easy to find technology that does what you want it to do. The hard part is coming to an agreement across your entire school on the core instructional goals and mission. A good example is Bartholomew Consolidated School District (BCSD) in Indiana, whom I’m working with on CoSN session about BYOD initiatives.
BCSD used Universal Design Language (UDL) for many years before they even started their 1:1 initiative. UDL handles differentiation in a very profound way. When they eventually started their 1:1 program, everyone was really surprised at how well it went. As a consultant, it’s really not surprising to me because every teacher – regardless of discipline – was already on the same page of UDL as their instructional core.
So in your opinion, people miss the boat when they focus only on content and discipline.
Well, it’s not that content and the discipline aren’t important, but teachers and administrators should ultimately be focused on the process of instruction. Content changes too quickly nowadays to be considered the top priority. I’ve found the most successful 1:1 programs see culture and mission as the crux of their success. One-to-one initiatives are more about the process than the output. You don’t value the hammer; you value the house the hammer builds. The laptop, software, technology are the hammer. What matters most is your technology initiatives need to be deeply grounded in the culture of your school.
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Learn more from Alex by watching his webinar “Managing & Assessing Change in Your One-to-One Computing Program.”
Learn more about Educational Collaborators.
Do you know someone who deserves to be Educator of the Month?
This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Company News, EdTech, Educator of the Month . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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