Bill MacKenty

Technology strengthens, deepens, and broadens our learning...

Design

In the formidable book IT Governance Policies & Procedures by Michael Wallace, Larry Webber, there are hundreds of pages devoted to the effective management of IT in the enterprise. 

The chapters are sound, well thought out, and concise.  Every important topic is covered - from patch management, to software development, hiring, policies and procedures, to authoring ISO documentation to surviving audits. The enclosed CD is a great resource - with all the forms and documents from all the chapters.

As I was looking through the book, I couldn’t help but notice the discrepancy between corporate IT, educational IT, the way IT should be done and the way I’ve seen IT run in a school.

In the enterprise, IT supports the business operations and mission. If your company makes plastic frogs, then everything about IT works towards that end - it’s singular, focused, and a convenient measuring stick. Because enterprise corporations seem to love process, procedures, and clear goals, their IT structure reflects that culture. 

In K - 12 schools, IT also supports the mission of the education. IT is also an end in and of itself. I’ve previously written how I see IT in schools; that essentially the 2 things IT does in schools is help make administrative life easier for our teachers and staff, and strengthens learning for kids - that these are 2 different, separate areas of IT in schools.

However, the ideal falls short in the face of the real. Ok, we should patch all our computers regularly to keep them healthy. We have 4 or 5 different versions of two or three operating systems. We have very old computers that can’t be updated. We don’t have the staff to go to each computer - and in some places we can’t get auto-update to work because of network problems.

We are short of support, short of money, and short of time. And in that sort of context, Wallace and Webber’s ideas fall to pot.

We try to do it by the book - but this kind of process takes time and organization that most schools simply don’t have.

However, we are not short of expertise, and we can be nimble. Unfortunately, 3 highly skilled IT people with 1500 users doesn’t fit into a “policy and procedure” kind of place. It’s fits into a barely managed chaos model. So IT spends time supporting existing systems, and it’s difficult to move forward. Teachers are understandably nervous about adopting technology for their classrooms (who would want to start something that might break and never get fixed). So it is difficult to move forward - but we manage.

I found a great podcast today and as I was listening, I heard a teacher talking about how a smartboards might not fit into his curriculum.  This raised 2 very interesting issues for me. The interesting value of smartboards, and how technology isn’t always the best choice.

I wrote a reply as a comment, but wanted to elaborate on it here.

I have an observation about smartboards. We have tons of smartboards in our school (23 of them, with another 14 coming soon). I understand it might not work for your particular discipline, but the interesting thing is what happens when you get technology close to your teachers. 

We found that having a projector / screen in the room, ready to go, makes using technology so easy, that even our low-tech teachers are using the smartboards.  It’s a real lesson in “if you make technology easy to use, and immediately accessible, teachers will use it!”. We are using the 600i series, so a teacher can use it to write notes, then easily save the notes, and upload them to a course management system. But basically, all a teacher needs to do is turn it on, and start writing. Very positive. Because our smartboards have speakers, teachers can plug in their ipods, dvd players, or vcr’s to show videos.

I also really respect your comment about how technology doesn’t fit into your teaching.  I know plenty of teachers who have thoughtfully considered using technology and decided it didn’t fit into their curriculum. This wasn’t a fear-based response, it was a result of carefully considering the technology, looking at the whole picture (support, pedagogy, student technology use, and budgetary issues) and then deciding it wasn’t for them.  We have a math teacher at our school who likes to use the entire board to write a formula, or work a problem through. She likes her students to see the entire problem, from start to finish across the board-space.  This particular boardwork wouldn’t fit on a smartboard, which uses a page-by-page style to display lots of information.

I suggest anyone who hasn’t heard of these folks subscribe to the blog linked above, and their podcast.

I got this question from a new instructional technology specialist - I think it’s a great question, and I wanted to share it with my readers!

Some teachers have asked me about bookmarking some websites that the children are using for research here in the lab. I have two questions:
1. Do you have a policy about bookmarking in your lab? It seems to me that over time there would be a ridiculous maze of websites favorited on each machine? Any suggestions or policies for me?

yup. we don’t allow it at all in the high school. In fact, we have software installed on our lab computers that, literally, re-formats the computers every evening and restores the computer to a nice clean pristine state. Please see my answer to #2 for an idea.

2. If I do place bookmarks on all the machines in the lab, is there an easy way to update all of them at once or do I have to place the bookmarks in each browser manually?

I would stay away from bookmarking websites on the kids browsers. instead, I would put only one bookmark, something to a shared bookmarking tool, like del.icio.us. This way, you can quickly update the links only once, and all the kids see the updated link. If I am not mistaken, I think this is how our math teacher manages his links - he has his own website, and the kids are sent to the website, where they can see the links.  The nice thing about del.ico.us is you can share the links and sites can have multiple tags - so a site for math could have “math”, “4th grade”, “shapes”, and maybe “geometry”. Our librarian in the High School, uses a blog, where he updates with an assignment or some links - so all the kids need to do is go on his site.

You could also start a blog, or make a google pages site, but I think something like del.icio.us would be a good place start. The other reason I like del.icio.us is because if something horrible happens to our computers, we are not in trouble, and the kids can access the sites from home Hope this helps.

Warmly,

Bill

Part 1 here and part 2 here.

Technology in education is very expensive - especially when we account personnel, licensing, and legacy equipment costs. If we focus on student learning and take advantage of many exceptional free services technology can become less expensive and arguably, more effective. If you want to get all business-speak about it, technology in education should be really, really agile.

It’s not a simple formula.

The effective application of technology in education is a nuanced thing. Effective system administration, centralized user data, robust and reliable networks, well managed and sensible security, correct technical support, pedagogical in-class support, clear and strong administrative direction, wise financial management, and clear thinking all play a critical role in a successful educational technology program.

So considering this, is it worth it? My answer is: it depends. If your school is willing to put in the mental muscle, time, and funding, technology can play a genuinely important role in student learning.

A $400.00 lightbulb - part 2 (part 1 here). As I closed the last part, I asked: are we getting $350,000 worth of better education? As usual, the answer is: it depends. Here is a general list of questions and observations I’ve made about technology in education, and what we can do to make it work better.

Are the kids actually learning something?

It seems like a simple question, but as I often say - if you stick a kid in front of a computer for an hour and expect something miraculous to happen, you will be disappointed. Especially considering the price of technology, we have to be focused like a laser on this question. As with almost everything in education, instructional design is critical to the evocation of student learning.

The point here? Kids are in school to learn; technology should be viewed as a tool to meet that end, not an end itself. This is one reason why integrating technology is so important, and points to the essence of the question: are we getting our monies worth? 

Are we taking advantage of the really good free stuff out there?

It really is a crime not to use FOSS and other free web-based services in 2008. Google applications for education alone could save tens of thousands of dollars. Couple this with Linux in the server-space and schools can save thousands of dollars - money that can be used for other educational programs, or as general savings. Open office is a stable, growing alternative to Microsoft office. There are hundreds of other free programs that schools can use to cut their operating expenses.

The advantage of web-based services are many; there is no software to install - (save for free quicktime, flash or shockwave plugins). Student work is saved on a remote server, updates and security fixes are made remotely, students can work from home, there are low technology requirements for clients, there are many rich internet applications for a variety of common tasks. Finally, some web-based sites offer reporting and aggregate usage data so teachers can keep track of student activity.

A $400.00 lightbulb - part 1

Is educational technology worth it?

Another interesting conversation has emerged at work.  Does the cost of technology equal it’s benefit?

In business, this idea is referred to as ROI (return on investment). We invest X dollars into technology, support, and infrastructure. Does that equal the educational return?

In keeping with my idea of 2 realms in educational technology (blog post series: part 1 , part 2 and part 3) I want to approach the idea of ROI remebering technology serves different roles in education.

Spending - hypothetical high school with ~ 1200 students and 70 teachers
Disclaimer: This is a very rough idea of the yearly costs associated with running a high school technology program. I will demonstrate in another post how quite a bit of money can be saved.

Network Administrator: $50,000
Computer teacher (faculty position): $50,000
Part time technician: $20,000
Programmer (the person who makes the schedule - might be a guidance counselor):$45,000

Bandwidth (T1 or greater) : $12,000

3 labs with 30 computers each: $40,000
3 laser printers - one for each lab: $2000

70 teachers with a computer each: $25,000
1 printer per department (5): $2500

1 laptop cart with 30 computers: $5,000
5 projectors on mobile carts (example) : $5,000

Windows OS licensing: $20,000
Office licensing: $20,000
Server licensing: $10,000
Student information system licensing: $5000
Router / switch licensing: $5000
Anti-virus licensing: $5000
Course management licensing: $5000
Help desk licensing: $1000
wireless licensing: $1000

Office staff desktop computers: $15,000
Office staff printers: $1000

So this equals about $344,000 a year. Wow. Add in additional software costs (which I didn’t include here) and staff development and training, and our fictional high school is spending about $350,000 a year on technology.

Are we getting $350,000 worth of better education? As usual, the answer is: it depends

To be continued....