The SAMR Model - From theory to practice

Last month, while at the Apple Education Leadership Conference, I went to a presentation about the SAMR model. This weekend the IT department went on a retreat to our school's chalet in the Alps and one of the issues we were considering was how to raise the level of technology from enhancing the curriculum to transforming the curriculum. Often we attend planning meetings where teachers suggest using technology in a way that is merely enhancing what they are doing (the S and A in the model) - we have decided that if they want to do that they should book the lab themselves and do these activities, the ones shown in blue on the above diagram - and that this will free us up as IT teachers to go into the classrooms to concentrate more on the M and R to transform the learning experience (shown in pink on the diagram).

We have discussed just what skills the teachers will need to take on this new role. In the case of substitution we felt that teachers themselves should be able to lead lessons that involve simple data handling - adding information into spreadsheets to produce graphs for example. They should also be able to support students using a simple graphics programme, have students take photographs and transfer them onto the computer, use a digital microscope to view images, access the internet for research and use word processing software.

Once we move onto augmentation, we felt that we might need to give teachers some inservice so that they will have the confidence to lead lessons, with us supporting them, where students can do the following to show their knowledge and understanding of the concepts and content they are covering in class: record audio using a variety of devices and then save a sound file; use formulas on spreadsheets to perform calculations and to sort and organise data; edit images they have captured from various digital sources; follow a storyboard when filming and to use keywords and other search methods to find information and assess its validity. We would want them to be able to support the students to include bibliographical information on their creations for the sources they have used. We would also assume they could help the students to use the spelling check and thesaurus if they are wordprocessing and that they can help them to insert images, use page set up and other layout tools. We would expect them to be confident helping students to create slideshows and other methods of presentation.

We then went on to consider the things that we, as IT teachers would be expected to introduce and lead. Here we would be using the technology to redesign the tasks the students are doing. For example we would like students to be able to use layers of sound and loops to create an audio presentation or music and we would like students to be able to create graphics with multiple layers. If students decide to make a movie we would want to show them how to do multiple takes and use different camera angles and then edit them into a movie or perhaps to record time-lapse or video with the digital microscopes. We would also like the students to be able to create animations and to be confident in using the software on the interactive white boards.

Our ultimate goal, of course is redefinition. The sort of things we would like to work with the students on here would include them being able to publish a movie or podcast to share with others and to be able to contribute to online collaborations such as wikis, threaded discussions, forums and so on. We want the students to be able to post to their own blogs and to comment on the blogs of others and to use a variety of Web 2.0 tools to collaborate with and communicate with the world outside of school.

We went on to consider the Horizon Report for K-12 which indicates the technologies that are likely to become increasingly important over the next few years. In keeping with the trends indicated in the report and in order for us to concentrate our energies as teachers on the M and R levels of the SAMR model, we felt that next year it will be important for us to concentrate on cloud computing and collaboration amongst the students both within the school and world-wide. We will be using many more Web 2.0 tools and will try to introduce more Google Apps - which should become possible with the improvement in bandwidth planned for over the summer.

It was great to have this weekend away at our beautiful school chalet in Wengen to discuss all these issues and we are excited that we will be offering more professional development to our teachers next year in order to empower them to move forward on their learning journeys and to take more control of the technologies their students are using in their classrooms.

I would like to acknowledge the work of Dr Ruben Puentedura who has been the force behind SAMR.