MEET ME IN THE CLOUD - 10 Quick Fixes for Every School - Hacking Education

Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School (2015)

HACK 1. MEET ME IN THE CLOUD

Replace Meetings with a Backchannel and a Bin

Time is what we need most but what we use worst.

—WILLIAM PENN, ENGLISH ENTREPRENEUR

THE PROBLEM: LONG, TIME-CONSUMING MEETINGS

TIME. EVERY TEACHER wants more of it. The demands on teachers’ time seem to grow each year, making it nearly impossible to do the things that are essential for effective teaching: strategic planning, giving thoughtful feedback on student work, learning new methods, collaborating with other teachers, reflecting on our practice, and taking care of our own health, families, and homes in order to be fully present at school.

If you’re like most teachers, a lot of the “free” time that’s supposed to be designated for these crucial tasks is robbed by meetings. Take a moment to consider anything you do in school that can be categorized as a meeting.

Here are a few examples:

·   faculty/staff meeting

·   department meeting

·   grade level meeting

·   committee meeting

·   parent/teacher meeting

In a typical school, teachers will spend at least two hours per week in meetings. Now consider how much of that time you’re thinking “We’re wasting time here,” or “I don’t really need to hear this part.” Every face-to-face meeting contains announcements for other people, discussions on topics that don’t concern you, and waiting for that one person who goes on and on to finally take a breath. Add to this the minutes spent waiting for stragglers to show up at the beginning and the last-minute conversations you get sucked into when you should be heading out the door, and you’ve got yourself a maddening accumulation of wasted time.

Imagine how many hours would be reclaimed if you could still access the information you need, but eliminate these meetings.

THE HACK: MOVE MEETINGS TO THE CLOUD

By setting up a cloud-based bin for storing data and documents, and a backchannel for open discussion, you effectively replace all the components of a face-to-face meeting while also removing all the waste. “Eliminate” may be a bit misleading. Meetings aren’t really being discarded; they’re simply being moved to a different environment, one that doesn’t require your physical presence.

Here’s how it works: Suppose you are in charge of an upcoming meeting. Your first step is to write an agenda. Instead of creating it on a desktop computer, construct it in a folder in whatever cloud storage system you choose (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.). We’re calling this folder a bin. Invite anyone who might want to collaborate on the initial agenda to the bin, where they can add comments to it. As the “meeting” date approaches, add other items to the bin—whatever would normally be a handout in a face-to-face meeting. If you want participants to read an article or watch a video that lives somewhere else online, simply add links to your agenda. If there are questions that need to be discussed, indicate this in the agenda. When all the documents are ready, send a link to the bin to all meeting participants, giving them a date for completion.

A backchannel is a discussion platform that allows for back-and-forth conversation between multiple parties.

Meanwhile, establish a backchannel, so all meeting participants can easily interact with one another. A backchannel is a discussion platform that allows for back-and-forth conversation between multiple parties (two examples are Voxer, a walkie-talkie-style voice platform, and TodaysMeet, which allows users to set up a temporary dialogue online). The discussions can take place in a whole-group chat, where all participants are included, and in smaller groups for more specific topics. Launch the “meeting” by delivering opening remarks and announcements in the whole-group chat, sort of like a brief keynote address.

Then, over the next few days, participants access the bin at whatever time is convenient for them, following the instructions in the agenda and completing whatever tasks are assigned to them by the completion date. For discussion items, participants will talk either in the whole- or small-group chats, depending on the topic.

When the completion date arrives, close the “meeting” with some final remarks on the whole-group chat, letting everyone know what was decided and what documents are available in the bin for further reading or downloading. It might sound something like this: “Great meeting, everyone. The Special Ed department met and decided they will be doing week-long rotations of supervisory duty from now on; they have posted their new schedule in the bin. Also, the holiday potluck has been scheduled for December 18th. Please go to the form in the bin if you’d like to sign up to bring something.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO TOMORROW

Eliminating your biggest meetings will take some time and adjustment for everyone, but you can start small by taking these steps right away:

· Shift one agenda item. Consider the next small-group meeting you have planned. Tell all participants that you are going to shift one major agenda item to the cloud.

· Set up the system. Choose one backchannel and one bin (see examples in the Hack section) and make sure all participants have set up accounts and can access both.

· Try it. Put two things in the bin: a page of instructions for what people need to discuss in the backchannel, and whatever pertinent documents they might need to look at to inform that discussion. All tasks must be completed by the time the face-to-face meeting is set to occur. Remember, you are only moving one item to the cloud this time.

· Debrief. At the face-to-face meeting (the one from which you pulled this single item), talk about how the process went and discuss what can be done better the next time around.

A BLUEPRINT FOR FULL IMPLEMENTATION

Step 1: Explain Meeting in the Cloud.

Inform staff members that you want to build more time into teachers’ work days and take advantage of the power of cloud-based learning. Remember, this is a good thing, so if you encounter any resistance, be sure to emphasize the importance of saving time and giving people more control over their own schedules.

Step 2: Offer professional development for any cloud-based communication systems.

Since these will house information and engage teachers in conversation, it’s critical to ensure that everyone understands how to use them. YouTube is filled with simple how-to videos on just about any tool you’ll adopt. Share these links with teachers and find go-to people who can coach the use of the tools. In fact, while this may seem counterintuitive, you might want to launch the elimination of meetings at a meeting. It might be fun to brand this somehow; maybe call it “The last meeting you’ll ever attend.” Turn this face-to-face meeting into PD and teach your staff how to use your new cloud-based system.

Step 3: Create subgroups.

The problem with large faculty meetings is that most agenda items rarely apply to every staff member. So don’t repeat this mistake in the cloud: The rebranded meeting should be a source of excitement, not a maelstrom of unnecessary message alerts that ultimately make people tune out. Set up one “All Staff” folder in the bin and one “All Staff” chat group on the backchannel; then, create separate subgroups and subfolders for departments, teams, or any combination of people you need. The possibilities are endless. Just as in an all-staff meeting, some agenda items will only be “assigned” to certain subgroups; everyone else can bypass them entirely.

Step 4: Start small.

Trying to shift whole meetings to the cloud right away, without practice or adjustment, is likely to fail. Instead, it may be better to start by piloting just a few items—things that might be time-consuming in a face-to-face meeting—and gradually work your way up to whole meetings. Expect some bumps in the road as people adjust to the change, but try not to backslide: Think persistent, patient, forward movement, and remind everyone that the reward for their efforts will be time.

Step 5: Moderate the backchannel, and keep your bins tidy.

Especially in the beginning, before a smooth workflow and clear protocols have been established, those in charge should carefully monitor activity in the backchannel to make sure participation is effective and appropriate. Some participants may take things in a direction others feel is too social, while others may consume more than their fair share of airtime. Rather than treat these as transgressions, engage participants in regular discussion about what effective and appropriate participation looks like.

Similarly, it’s important to keep your bins well organized. Assign someone to be in charge of each bin: Have this person remove files that are not relevant to the task at hand, archive inactive documents, and label items in a way that makes them easy to identify. When a participant goes into a bin full of outdated, irrelevant, or poorly labeled files, they have a harder time finding what they need; this can lead to inconsistent participation.

Step 6: Establish deadlines and accountability.

Attendance and participation in cloud-based meetings will work much better if people know exactly what they have to do, and when tasks should be completed. When creating your meeting agenda, provide clear instructions for each item: If people need to contribute a vote or opinion on an item in the backchannel, give them a time limit for sharing their thoughts. If a subgroup needs to make a decision on an issue, set a deadline for that group to submit their decision. If participants simply need to read an announcement, no further action may be required, but be sure all participants understand that this is where announcements will be made from now on. To increase the likelihood that people read these, you might plant a few treats that reward those who read carefully. For example, make the third announcement something like this: The first five people who e-mail me with the subject line “Parking” will get to use a premium parking spot next week.

OVERCOMING PUSHBACK

Because meetings are such an integral part of school culture, the suggestion to drastically reduce them may cause some opposition. Here are some likely objections and our suggestions for responding to them:

Some people won’t “attend.” Sure, in a face-to-face meeting, you have physical proof that everyone is present, but how present are they, really? How many people are surreptitiously marking papers, texting, catching up on emails or scrolling through their Facebook news feed? When people are forced to sit through meetings that have little relevance to them, they usually find ways to make that time valuable, even if they have to sneak it.

By contrast, cloud-based meetings can generate evidence of participation from 100% of attendees in the form of submitted documents and commentary in the backchannel. The recommendations in the previous section for deadlines and accountability measures can go a long way toward making participation in cloud-based meetings more—not less—active.

We’ll miss the opportunity to socialize and build rapport. What’s so great about relocating meetings to the cloud is that it means face-to-face meetings can be planned only for team-building, high-intensity collaboration, and fun. Imagine how differently your staff would feel about a weekly 30-minute “after school snack” social where individual staff members are recognized for personal milestones or professional achievements, rather than a full hour of announcements and PowerPoints.

Some staff members are not tech-savvy. If professional development and training are done well and continued support is offered, this can be overcome. Acknowledge the anxiety that some may feel about trying something new; simply feeling that their concerns are heard can inspire people to step outside of their comfort zone. If you take our advice and start slowly, you’ll get everyone used to operating in a different environment. And if some faculty don’t have the hardware to participate—for example, smartphones or tablets if you choose an app that requires these—have these folks borrow devices from colleagues for 15 minutes at a time, or see if you can arrange to let them check out school devices during “meeting” times.

Sometimes we just have to meet. Consider a meeting you might be planning. Check your agenda carefully. Now, ask yourself, “Is there anything here that absolutely can’t be shared in the cloud? Do you have hard copies that can’t be uploaded to a Dropbox or Google Drive folder?” Why not reach out to staff via your cloud-based communication tool and invite them to drop by the office or your classroom and retrieve them before the end of the day? This puts time management back in the hands of staff members.

THE HACK IN ACTION

The workflow we used to write this book serves as a wonderful model of how people can fully collaborate without ever setting foot in the same room. Before we wrote a single word of Hacking Education, we discussed the book’s concept at length on Voxer. While waiting for our kids to finish extracurricular activities, taking care of household tasks, or killing time while pumping gas, we engaged in a weeks-long, back-and-forth conversation to develop the ideas that would eventually become this book.

When we were ready to begin drafting the chapters, we opened up a shared folder on Google Drive and started with one big, sloppy “brainstorming” document, each of us adding our own ideas and commenting on the other’s. Eventually, that document became a table of contents, and new docs were opened up for individual chapters.

We divided responsibility for the chapters, consulting with each other as needed. If Mark was finished drafting a chapter, he would send Jennifer a vox to let her know it was ready for her feedback, describing which areas he felt needed special attention. She could then jump into the document and add written comments in the margins, ready for Mark to consider when he was prepared to continue working. Similarly, if Jennifer was working on a different chapter and wanted to head in a direction that deviated from the original plan, she would send a Voxer message to share her thoughts with Mark, then head back into the chapter after a consensus had been reached.

Meanwhile, we also “met” about the book’s design. Working with a designer—a third person we never met face-to-face—we created a secret Pinterest board and started pinning images each of us liked. The designer was able to look at these and come up with some mock-up designs for the book’s cover. With a combination of Voxer exchanges and written comments on the designs pinned to the board, we made a final decision on how this book would look, without a single face-to-face meeting.

On most days, these discussions happened asynchronously—one person would leave a vox or a written comment at 7 a.m., the other would respond 15 minutes later, and the response to that would come an hour or two after that, each of us fitting the conversation in whenever it was most convenient for us. On other days, we’d find ourselves sitting at our desks at the same time—often by chance, occasionally by appointment—with the same document open on both of our screens and our phones in hand, voxing back and forth about a specific section of the book.

It was as if we were in the same room together, but in some ways even better: If one of us had to get up and run an errand, the conversation could still continue for a bit longer if needed—with Voxer on our phones, we could just carry the “meeting” with us. Although we had collaborated with others on cloud-based documents before, we were both continually amazed by how much faster and more effective our work became with the addition of Voxer.

By combining backchannel discussions with the easy accessibility of cloud storage, you can truly replicate the dynamic of face-to-face meetings. For busy teachers and administrators whose work depends on robust collaboration, but who hate setting aside hours and hours to do it, moving meetings to the cloud can be a real game changer.