We have been using technology in our schools since the Apple II days of the 1980s. Yet for decades our use of technology seemed to be doing little to help improve how well our children learned.

In recent years we finally seem to be enjoying more success in using technology to improve learning. One thing that enables this, of course, is that mobile devices are now so inexpensive that each student can have ready access to one.

But another reason for this success lies in how districts are managing technology—they are managing the use of technology in both a top-down and a bottom-up way.

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Private sector businesses use top-down management—but the nature of their work is different

When private sector businesses use technology to improve how well they work they tend to manage their efforts in a mostly top-down way. So when a bank works to improve their data systems these efforts are planned and implemented top-down. The line workers simply adhere to new procedures for how the new system works—and in fact they must, because tellers and other workers can’t interact with the system in other than a standard way.

That’s what makes education so different. In education the work of the line workers—the teachers—is very complex, and it can’t be reduced to simple common procedures. And, different teachers need to have the latitude to do their work in somewhat different ways. We can’t simply “automate” the work of our teachers in the way that industries like banking or manufacturing can.

Bottom-up “technology integration” has been slow in bringing about improvement in learning

Partly for these reasons, for many years education has mostly taken the opposite approach of private sector industries. We have tended to manage our use of technology not in a top-down but in a bottom-up way, through a strategy of “technology integration.”

With technology integration, we called on individual teachers to keep doing what they were doing but to each find ways to employ technology in their own ways of working. But this simply hasn’t produced the kinds of results we need.

A problem with the technology integration strategy is that it dumped most of the burden of implementing technology on the already-overworked teachers. And although over the years many teachers produced great results, most did not have the time or the resources to accomplish what was needed.

Districts are now managing technology in more of a top-down way

We now realize that if we want technology to bring about major improvements in learning we must manage our activity in a top-down way as well as bottom-up.

In our book on Managing the New Tools in K-12 Teaching and Learning: How Technology Can Enable School Improvement we looked at case studies of five school districts. Each district was managing their use of technology in both a top-down and a bottom-up way.

What does top-down management include?

The top-down aspect of technology management in these districts typically included these components:

• Developing and evolving a district-wide vision of how technology can improve learning.
• Creating a sense of urgency to improve learning and to determine how technology can help make this happen.
• Identifying new learning models such as personalized learning and the technology that can enable these.
• Ensuring that students and staff have the needed technology devices and network connectivity.
• Providing a standard set of electronic texts and online resources that support the district’s curriculum.
• Providing a standard set of student productivity tools, such as Google Apps.
• Providing a learning management system, such as Canvas or Schoology.
• Providing professional development and other resources.
• And providing various forms of technology support, and to doing so in ways that remove this burden from teachers.

But we must simultaneously also manage in a bottom-up way

Yet even if we manage technology in such a top-down way this still won’t work if teachers don’t embrace the need for the change and aren’t able to use technology to change how they teach. And so each of our case study districts also worked with principals and teachers in a bottom-up way.

What does bottom-up management include?

Bottom-up management typically includes these components:

• Involving teachers in setting the district’s vision and planning the technology initiatives.
• Calling on teachers to adopt new models of learning, such as personalized learning.
• Mandating that teachers implement some critical initiatives, but giving them latitude on whether to implement other initiatives.
• Helping teachers to put the district’s standard electronic resources and tools to work.
• Providing full-time technology coaches to work individually with teachers to help them adopt the new models and technology into their teaching practices.
• Establishing a team dynamic to allow teachers to support each other.
• Gaining feedback from individual teachers and groups and working with them to improve practices and refine the mix of district-wide resources.

Then we must keep refining the system

Teachers must then use assessment and analytics tools to measure student progress and provide the students with appropriate resources.

Ongoing management efforts include monitoring student progress, evolving the technology vision, refining practices and resources, propagating successful efforts to all classrooms, and institutionalizing these changes.

The chart below on Technology Change Efforts Must Be Driven Top-Down and Bottom-Up provides a high-level view of these concepts.

What do you think?

But how is this working in your district? Are you successfully using a combination of top-down and bottom-up management? Or, are you managing the use of technology in a somewhat different way? What have been your successes? What have been your frustrations? What would you advise others? Please share any thoughts you might have.