NAPLAN online - where to now?

It is concerning that in 2017 it is still not possible for NAPLAN online to be trialed due to technology issues.  In the IT industry, on line testing has been a normal activity for more than 20 years.  As far as I can recall I sat my first pro-metric on line exam in 1995, it may have been even earlier.

I know Perth schools have been using online testing software for student bench-marking for at least the last 10 years.  I was part of the first trials of on-line WACE exams in 2012 and technology has surely moved significantly since then.

It seems to me the real challenge for NAPLAN online is not the technology but the whole idea.  We are using 21st century tech to replicate 19th century philosophy (everyone sits the same test the same day with exactly the same questions) to solve a 20th century problem (we need to benchmark in a single pass the entire education system from a single student to the nation as a whole).

What we need to do is use the 21st century technology and answer the 21st century questions with a 21st century philosophy.

NAPLAN should indeed be a bench-marking system and it should enable instant feedback to students, teachers, school leadership, parents, and governments.  It should also do that constantly and in ways that are adding value to the education system.  Indeed if NAPLAN was a testing platform able to deliver from a bank of thousands of questions in web based tests on an as needed basis the picture of how our education sector is performing would be far more accurate.  As Facebook, Twitter, and every other Social Media platform knows regular contact builds a far more accurate picture of the user.

Teachers should be able to use a NAPLAN system to quickly benchmark students as often as they please.  They should have to use the platform at least once a term for testing Math and English.

Until that is the case NAPLAN online will continue to be a huge technical challenge.  The need to use the same questions on the same day to the entire cohort on a technology platform which doesn't favour one school over another is in my view an impossible dream.

NAPLAN online risks having further negative implications on the education sector.  Teachers training students for the test instead of using valuable class time to develop skills will remain
the most significant criticism of that system.  The impact will be multiplied as NAPLAN online encourages teachers to teach typing skills to improve performance on the test instead of teaching the curriculum.
  

Is Tech a 'Toy' or a 'Tool'?

I started thinking on this topic from one side and finished up on the other side.  I was looking at how if not engaged with properly, Technology in the classroom could easily become a distracting 'toy' as opposed to being an engaging 'tool'.  This seems like a statement of the obvious, when a piece of technology is used for entertainment how can it become a serious teaching and learning tool?

I think back to our first years of running a 1:1 Notebook program when we banned teachers from allowing Notebooks to be used to play games in classrooms.  The assumption was that a game would always be distracting from good teaching and learning.  Could we have been more wrong!  The engagement from educational 'games' has been widely documented.  A blanket statement about the good or bad for any particular part of the technology picture is very much like any generalisation and shouldn't be used to rule out anything.

As I thought through the best way to describe my thoughts about the 'toys' versus 'tools' arguments I was planning an argument around books and how they're used.  I then realised as I reflected upon my own school life and how I was learning with books as I grew up, I could easily make a good argument that even when used for non educational / recreational purposes learning is often enhanced.  The reading of non-educational material was key to my reading skills developing.  I was hardly ever engaged by the text books we had to read as part of the curriculum.  However, when I was reading 'Biggles' (Note 1)for days at a time over the holidays I was more engaged with reading than I would have been otherwise.  I wan't reading with a vision to become a pilot or aeronautical engineer it was purely enjoyment of the story.

Is there a similar effect from entertainment or even social networking on technology?  When students take home their particular piece of technology and then engage with the technology to meet their entertainment needs they are still learning something.

Can non educational use of technology be seen as enhancing the skills needed by students in the 21st century?  Of course it can, the non classroom use of technology which will allow our students to better engage with the opportunities and benefits delivered by technology.  The responsibility for making sure the classroom use of technology is su
pporting teaching and learning remains with the teacher, the same way teachers would have to ensure I was reading supplied texts and not my Biggles books whilst in the classroom.

Technology doesn't cause problems and can't fix them. When engagement with technology is well designed, classrooms are transformed and that will deliver amazing experiences for students.

(Note 1) - http://www.biggles.info/

Technology may be too good to be true!

I have been concerned about the degree of 'Due Diligence' being carried out by schools since teachers started developing their own programs using amazing online resources such as Google classroom, Edmodo and OneNote Classroom.  I worry that much of the fine print on educational sites and in apps is ignored as they are such fantastic resources.  

Is the responsibility for ensuring the suitability of sites and apps is purely left at the teachers discretion? There is a huge potential for problems with inappropriate management of student information and activity if that’s the approach schools are taking.  

I’ve worked with a school Integration Team to create a process ensuring the School approves of the educational resources for teachers to use.  This should be seen as vital in all schools to ensure acknowledgment of the risk web and app based activities could present for teachers and students in particular.  

The process decided on means the school, through the Integration Team, takes responsibility for assessing and documenting appropriate education resources for teachers to use in their classrooms. The first stage is making sure any teaching resource provides an educational value which is not being met by other systems already in use.  The system is then assessed to ensure the technical, legal and ethical values of the School are met before any educational resource can be used in the classroom.  This standard is then applied to any service or system which requires a student identifies themselves.

When we started developing the standard it quickly became apparent this was going to be a significant undertaking.  As soon as we started looking at the fine print in those user agreements, which sometimes were very long and not necessarily written in easy to understand English, it became obvious that this was something which was badly needed.

The most important part of this procedure was defining responsibility for assessing all of the important decisions ensured teachers didn't have to assume someone else had looked at it.  I feel sometimes the assumption that all apps and web sites are compliant with Australian privacy legislation is a very dangerous starting point.  

It seems to me that all schools and governing bodies need to take far more responsibility for the implications of technology programs.  The online services and apps deemed as appropriate for teaching and learning need to be better understood before schools push them to student devices or send student there as part of their learning.

The Rise of the Four Letter Acronym

I remember in the later part of the 20th century when everyone in IT was searching for new Three Letter Acronyms (TLA).  Every project need to be reduced to a new TLA, IT became ICT, DR became BCP and we used to have challenges in meetings to see who would use the most meaningless TLAs.

To prove it is 25% better than ICT, the education sector seems to be caught up in a spiral of Four Letter Acronyms (for simplicity I will reduce that to a TLA of FLA).  The rise of BYOD and STEM in the language of education has emphasised the influence ICT is increasingly having in this area.

To quote Pauline Hansen "I don't like it".  The use of catch phrases is incongruous with these terms being adopted to suit a message and that has a huge influence of the meaning of these terms.

For instance the much maligned (by me) BYOD, has attempted to be morphed into BYOT, BYOX, and just about every other BYO? possible.  All of these are trying to express something which would be far clearer in plain English.  I believe calling a 'parent supplied iPad program' just that, to be much clearer than 'BYO?'. Is there a problem with calling a schools Notebook program "Parent Owned Notebook program" rather than a 'BYO? program'.  Those terms will both explain and differentiate the concept correctly.  If you are implementing a true platform agnostic device program there would be far less confusion if the terminology for the program reflected your educational expectations not use a trendy FLA.  If you really need a FLA for your bring any device program I suggest you call it a Device Agnostic Learning Environment (DALE) and then the acronym will mean something.  By the way one of the problems I have with the term BYOD in education is that not many students want to use their own device for learning it is far more useful for socialising and gaming.

So on to STEM, or if you are really smart STEAM, once again these terms seem to simplify the complex but in reality confuse the masses.  What does STEM really mean?  It means we need to make some of the dryer (Math and Science) subjects seem to be important above the humanities and creative subjects.  This seems obvious, as technology advances these subjects should be where we need to concentrate the 21st Century learning.  Unfortunately, from my experience and following on from some significant reading and listening, this is not the case.  It seems the only jobs we are going to do better than machines in the mid term view are based around humanities and creativity.

Admittedly a lot of that creativity is going to be in the Scientific and Engineering areas but the key differentiation is still human imagination.

The Greatest Challenge – Improving Teacher ICT Awareness and Skills!

Since the first focus on using ICT in classrooms the need to increase the awareness of and improve skills in the use of technology for all staff, particularly teachers, has been of universal concern.  In fact this has probably been of concern forever, it’s just the change driven by technology and the increasing rate of that change has highlighted deficiencies in these areas.

I’ve been attending ICT focused Conferences for more than 10 years and this topic has been of interest to all attendees.  My discussions with many schools from all types of demographics and budgets has highlighted a few methods to deliver Professional Development to staff.

Method 1 – On site training delivered by an ICT specialist during teacher down time (Lunch time or after school).  This is almost certainly the cheapest form of PD for the school to produce.  The ICT specialist can either be from within staff or arranged through a vendor.  This type of session is normally voluntary and the value is greatest for staff already implementing technology.

Method 2 – On site training with teacher relief provided for staff or PD is conducted during Professional Development days.  The cost of this is increased as the staff costs for the relief teachers need to be covered by the school or it is competing for access against the myriad of requirements on any staff PD day.  This type of training is normally mandatory for staff.

Method 3 – Just in time support.  In this circumstance a teacher will have support in their classroom for using the technology.  This could either be in the form of a technical support person assisting the teacher and showing them how to deal with issues or with a curriculum ‘expert’ assisting with the implementation and transferring skills to the teacher.  This is probably the most effective way for teachers to be supported in the adoption of technology as it is entirely at a practical level.  It does require staff to be available as needed by teachers.  In this scenario there’s a need for the teacher to reach out so the communication path of other types of PD is reversed. 

Method 4 – Off site PD.  This type of PD is readily available and includes those run by vendors, peak bodies and in some cases, schools.  Most times there’s a cost for this type of PD and the need for relief. 

All of these methods have issues which limit their effectiveness.

Method 1 – (Free on site) Often training which is ‘free’ is deemed to have no value and therefore little importance is placed on attending this type of session.  As this is dependent upon staff committing to use their time to come to the training the pressure to attend is less than the need to deal with other issues so the PD is easily pushed aside by any urgent matter.  I have seen PD sessions like this timetabled for entire terms in order to enable planning for teachers, often only two or three sessions out of more than 30 have anyone attend.  At other times when they’re directly supporting a new technology, such as when we rolled out Interactive Projectors, they’re very popular, well attended and give great value.

Method 2 – (Paid on site) There’s a limit to how often this type of training is used.  Either the cost or just the number of PD days limits the number of opportunities to utilise this type of training.  Of course it would be good practice to have this included in a technology project plan when deploying classroom technology.  In my experience schools are very sensitive about the cost of IT projects, this means that normally the implementation stage of these projects is curtailed to reduce costs.  In turn the loss of the implementation stage reduces the amount committed to training.  Most vendors of IT equipment into schools will have allowance for training as part of their plan.  When the school reduces the training it will slow the adoption of technology, which almost always leads to slower adoption of new technologies.

Method 3 – (Just in time) There are two main factors limiting the adoption of this type of PD/support. 

The first limitation is around communication.  To properly use this method it must be sold to teachers so they know what’s available.  Staff should know they can call up and have someone come and look after them whenever they need.  Often this is not the expectation with teaching staff.  The other communications issue is; teachers need to let the support person know when and where they will need them and also what they’re needed for.

The second limitation is the resourcing problem.  How do you have a staff member on-call with suitable skills?  If the school has acknowledged the need for staff support with technology implementation this will be provided, however if the expectation is staff will just adopt technology, this will not be the case.

Method 4 – (Off site) The appeal in the off-site PD is to those who are already interested in adopting technology.  It’s self-selecting, doesn’t get the vast majority of teachers involved and the goal of complete adoption of technology will never be realised if this is the only type of PD available.

Each of these methods has shown to be less than ideal, but when combined in the right balance can lead teachers to have confidence in the implementation of technology in their classroom:

·        When those keen adopters of technology are given the opportunity for off-site training, they bring those skills back to provide on-site PD to others, just as importantly they then become advocates for the technology.

·        When teachers are well supported for both the technical and curriculum aspects of technology in their classroom, when the school is willing to persevere to improve the confidence and skills of their staff in the use of technology, there will be continuous improvement in the classroom use of technology.

The efforts to provide staff with the skills to embed technology into the classroom will not reduce any time soon.  The changes in teaching practice being driven by technology are likely to continue for the foreseeable future and so will the need to build skills.

What is next?

What is next can be the hardest question to get right in the context of ICT, not only for schools and individual classrooms but also for every industry and company.  Crystal ball gazing can be very dangerous, especially with the rate of change in technology appearing to be extremely high.  However, when you look at trends, it is normally a predictable rate of implementing innovation into schools.  It is only when there is an unexpected disruptor we normally experience rapid change.

An example is the change in 1:1 computing expectations within schools.  Until 2008, there had been slow progress by schools towards 1:1 Laptop programs.  These were normally very expensive and required a strong commitment from the School Leadership to implement such programs. Having started in Melbourne, the 1:1 ideal had spread slowly across Australia and in some US school districts and state wide in Maine.

2008 and 2009 saw two disruptors that changed the vision of schools around 1:1 technology access.  The first disruptor was the Prime Minister making 1:1 technology availability in schools a policy imperative and committing federal funding to make it happen.  The second disruptor was in 2009 when Apple announced the iPad, which provided a smaller and cheaper alternative to Laptops as student technology. 

The Horizon Report

One of the best resources for planning for the next big thing in technology for schools is the Horizon Report.  The Horizon Report is published by the New Media consortium (NMC) and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).  It provides guidance on technology trends thought to be a significant impact in education.  The research is thorough with the process for determining what technology makes it onto the list open and visible.  I have heard the Horizon Report referenced many times in presentations about technology and it is widely referenced for strategic planning.

Therefore, with the disclaimer that all predictions depend on the lack of a significant disruptor to the status quo I have some thoughts surrounding the trends, challenges and technologies highlighted in the Horizon Report.

Trends

Increased use of Blended Learning

I think most teachers in Australian schools are seeing the value of blended learning.  In the resource and technologically rich schools, this can include flipped classroom models, which seems to offer great benefits for educators.  In less advantaged schools, the ability to scaffold using digital resources, although limited by the cost of those resources, is still of high value in allowing some personalised learning opportunities. 

If technology is reliable and simple to use, blended learning for traditional subjects will become deep-seated and should eventually become good practice.  The challenge for teachers is to know just what resources are available.  With that in mind, teachers really should be collaborating in order to share resources; one great opportunity for that sharing is TeachMeet (http://www.teachmeet.net/).

Rise of STEAM Learning

There is increased emphasis within the Australian Curriculum for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).  The idea of incorporating other more creative activities into the technology spectrum has created the idea of STEAM learning, in STEAM the A is for the Arts.  Incorporating the creative pursuits into the traditional very dry content promotes the option of project based learning.  The move to project based learning is one of the strengths of technology rich learning as the depth and variety of resources available through technology enhances the learning experience and will potentially engage students at a deeper level.

The level of technology provided into classrooms must support the students by having the freedom to access the most appropriate resources.  These resources could be in the form of software or just be information from the internet.

Challenges

Creating Authentic Learning Experiences

This challenge is one Australia is moving towards covering as technology is adopted for virtual experiences of many of our greatest assets.  The distances and travel costs within Australia seem to have energised the tourism industry with the energy to provide digital experiences; perfect for schools to incorporate into the learning experience.   A dive in the Great Barrier Reef can be accessed digitally and from that, any number of real life exercises can be created to cover many subjects. 

There seems to be a slow uptake of these type of resources.  I see the role of resource identification being very important as the number and quality of digital resources increases.  Schools should be supporting teachers with this identification of resources.  This is probably the new role for traditional Librarians, as the digital resources will augment the information resources in the library.  It may also be an opportunity for the ICT department to become more involved in the educational process.

Integrating Technology in Teacher Education

I think schools treat their teachers as lifelong learners and expect they will in turn produce students who will also become lifelong learners.  The learning of appropriate use of technology for teachers can be one of the best investments in staff made by a school.  There are many options for staff Personal Development (PD) to build technology skills.  I have previously written about the need for appropriate PD for Teachers.

Technology

Bring Your Own Device

I am not a big fan of this terminology as it really about ownership, but the key take away in the Horizon Report is, students should be able to use their phone or other technology in addition to their primary learning device.  As long as there is a specified device for learning, the biggest restriction on the additional devices will only be the capacity of infrastructure to handle extra connections and PD for teachers.

Makerspaces

I think the creativity of STEAM curriculum and Makerspaces work well together as long as the goal is to engender creativity and entrepreneurship in students.  The most difficult part of this will be incorporating those traditional elements of learning into these spaces.  A key thing to keep in mind is the need to cross over from the digital ‘virtual’ world into the analogue ‘real’ world. 

 The entire Horizon Report can be viewed at http://www.nmc.org/nmc-horizon/

ICT is the global enabler in Schools

I have been hiding the evangelist in me away from blogging for the last few months.  I feel that now is the time to release the evangelist.

This release is probably due to the fact I have been trying to rationalise the frustration I felt which moved me to leave the School I had been very happy working at.

I have been considering for several years how important ICT is in modern Schools and how little understanding of this importance goes into the Strategic and Operational Management outside specific ICT areas.

I can't imagine how a modern school could manage to function with paper (as opposed to ICT) based systems.  Everything from classes to school management to events with public, parents and alumni involvement to facilities management and even supporting grounds and gardens is now dependent upon Information Systems.

There is no-one involved in a school who is not touched buy the Information Technology deployed by the school.  The first contact most people now have with a school will be via the web site. Parents and family are contacted by schools with digital newsletters and other information, reports are now delivered digitally.  Every class and hence every student now will be exposed to, or facilitated by a computer system.  The teacher reports attendance, performance and behavior digitally before analysing these inputs on a school provided computer system.

Why then do some school leadership teams believe that scrimping on these systems will deliver long term benefits?  Spending wisely and well will deliver unbelievable benefits in the medium term.

My issue is how do those ICT specialists convince school leadership of this potential.  Every vendor I speak with expresses a frustration with  how little schools are prepared to spend on ICT.  Most school ICT professionals express the same frustration.  In the indomitable words of Professor Julius Sumner Miller "Why is it so?".

Why do they not get IT?

Why is IT seen as a cost, not a benefit when everyone benefits so strongly from IT?

Even for me the first years managing ICT in a school was about devices and hardware, I now see that the potential is so much more tied to the educational and societal vision for the school.  The ICT in a school is now so ingrained it needs to reflect the key values of the school and that won't happen by buying the cheapest solution, it will only happen by;

Putting IT into the vision!

Spending strongly to make IT deliver the vision!

Is this the start of the end of NAPLAN?

Does the Machine based scoring of Standardised testing signal the end of Single Point in time Standardised testing?

Late last month the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) General Manager, Dr Stanley Rabinowitz was quoted in an ITNews Article. He talked about the use of Cognitive Computing to assess the written English part of the NAPLAN tests which will be digitally delivered to students in 2017.

Although this move was opposed by English teachers around Australia I have been talking about this as the emerging and most transformative trend in technology as it fits into education.  

There has been very little real change driven by the huge deployment of technology into education over the last 10 - 15 years.  The reason for this is the quality of education is determined by testing which doesn't assess the competencies delivered by technology.  We don't assess ability to collaborate, create or research, from the myriad forms of information produced by students (and everyone else) or consumption patterns of data from digital sources, in any current assessment I am aware of.  

Although Dr Rabinowitz forecast the standardised test will continue and the change is primarily in the assessment regime.  I believe standardised testing should eventually be delivered as a micro test, a single part of the normal measurement of progress.  The test data can be passed instantly into the ACARA systems to produce a constant progress report on each student which is standardised across all schools.  In this situation the student's progress is constantly being measured against the international standards Governments are so worried about without interfering with teaching and learning as the NAPLAN currently does.

Of course this will disrupt the industry spawned by producing NAPLAN study guides.  

If the questions are digitally trickle fed into the ongoing assessment process, I don't see any opportunities existing for 'teaching to the test' which is one of the widely held concerns with the current NAPLAN system.  

The long term effects of utilising Cognitive Computing 

I can see some big changes flowing from the use of Cognitive Computing at a Government level, initially for assessing NAPLAN but, then for who knows what. 

If it works at this system wide level it will only be a short time before the technology becomes affordable at a school level and will be incorporated into school assessment systems so potentially in the future we will see a system where teachers teach and computer systems assess and analyse.  This would be the first real broad systemic change delivered by technology into education. 

ICT Risk Management in Schools

Thinking about Risk Management has been the impetus for several of the posts I have already published and is likely to be in the future.

This subject probably needs a book written to cover all of the significant risks ICT adoption presents for Schools.  These risks will continue to evolve as technology changes and more technology exists in the classroom.  The risks have grown exponentially with the increase in connectivity in the classroom, especially when there is no-one tasked with analysing and recommending how to manage and minimise that risk.

From Wikipedia;

Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks (defined in ISO 31000 as the effect of uncertainty on objectives) followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events^[1] or to maximize the realization of opportunities. Risk management’s objective is to assure uncertainty does not deviate the endeavor from the business goals.^[2]

I am not sure what Risk Management philosophy schools in general take, as I have never been involved in the process of risk management within a school.  As the Manager of ICT Operations I did expect to be involved but it didn't happen.  At my previous employment, Risk Management was a significant management expectation and assets were liberally applied to identifying risk and reducing potential impact.  At various times I have been involved in a Risk Management task force, Risk Management Committee and Business Continuity Planning group.  I was also tasked with writing many of the Risk Management policies for ICT at my previous employment.

Without formal acknowledgement of the potential for risk there will never be any effort spent on true assessment and reduction processes.  I know this isn't core business for Schools and has never been part of the process, however, we have now started creating organisational and personal risk from deploying technology.  The worst part is we have been slowly increasing this risk for many years and at no time stopped and analysed that risk.

I was going to list the risk schools are exposed to but think I will save that for my next post on the subject.  Instead, I will propose some examples which are real.  I won't acknowledge either the schools or staff involved in these examples, however I will point out the risk exposure a real business would have to address.  The first is a legal risk within the bounds of new privacy laws; the second is operational risk associated with running highly complex ICT environments without sufficient succession planning.

The Lighthouse Teacher

I know those of us who promote the constructive and adventurous use of technology in the classroom seek to develop the Lighthouse teacher.  They are adapting technology in their classroom to achieve the best outcomes possible.  However, they're the ones who could potentially be exposing their Schools to the greatest risk.  I know of one such teacher who was putting together lessons on edmodo, then setting up Google accounts for students and linking to many web sites which were able to fit very well into thelesson plan for those students.  Sounds great doesn't it?
Who was taking the due diligence on the sites to ensure the students privacy was being protected?
As the teacher was creating the accounts used for this exercise should they have been ensuring everything was suitably secured?
Should the teacher have been checking the policy for every site to ensure everything they were trying to achieve was within their guidelines?
Did the teacher know and understand the legal implications of signing up for these 'free' on line services?

Of course the teacher was blissfully unaware of any implications of their actions.

The School was blissfully unaware of the teachers actions and hence the implications.

The busy ICT Manager in the medium sized school

This is a person who has come into an educational setting with a wealth of industry experience and is the only ICT support person on staff.  He picks up on the poor quality of hardware previously deployed and uses his abilities to build a fantastic infrastructure package for the school.  He then leads them through a deployment of significant numbers of devices.  Now he is the only full time support person supporting technology in a school with more than 600 deployed student devices and all of the supporting infrastructure.  

The work is overwhelming, however, the school doesn't need to worry as this person is fantastic he makes things seem simple.  Unfortunately for the school he is the only one with any knowledge of the very complex environment and has pointed out to school leadership the risk this poses but no-one seems to care.  

This significant operational risk is easily mitigated by having a company come in to audit and document the infrastructure.  However, this isn't seen as a risk so no action is taken.

Final word

I know that risk around ICT exists in schools.  How schools monitor and address that risk without impact on teaching and learning will be an interesting exercise.

Can other industries learn from the efficiency of school ICT support?

I wonder if many ICT Managers in general industry understand the efficiency many school ICT departments must maintain.

When I think of my life before school support I remember the PC support team of four, which grew to 6 if you included the contractors supporting the Apple hardware.  There was a network support team of 6 and more than 20 in the servers/applications area with at least five managers leading up to the CIO.  

The total number of endpoints would be very significant in local industry terms with more than 600 PCs but these were all corporate managed desktops with less than 50 mobile devices and about 120 Apples.  There was also several hundred mainframe terminals which were maintained by the IT department.  The network was big with multiple redundancies and about 20 Cisco switches four VLANS but it was before wireless so that was not a concern.

Now I think of the school, 4 technical support staff with me as a manager.  More than 1200 endpoints, more than 800 of them mobile devices taken home by students who were quite happily using them to get as many malware infections as possible.  The other 400 were mostly mobile with about 150 desktop computers.  We had 35 switches, almost 100 wireless access points and a constant battle to ensure the network wasn't attacked from within.

I have recently met with two smaller schools both of whom have support departments of one but never the less support hundreds of end points, virtualised server infrastructure, complex networks with 10 - 20 switches and more than 30 wireless access points.  I consider this almost untenable but the schools expect that they will have systems available at the same level as you would expect in a corporate environment.

The advantage all Corporate/Business IT support departments have is the ability to put costs to outages and use ROI calculations to determine the value of IT support staff.  I have yet to see a dollar value placed on outages in a school.

What is the cost of a student being out of class having their Computer fixed?  How much do we lose if a teacher loses a lesson due to system outages.  What would the cost be if that teacher then changes their teaching practice to avoid technology following an issue?

So schools end up using as little as possible to do as much as possible and accept the risk of failure caused by insufficient resources.  However, very rarely are there failures which put systems off line. Without management having realised the risks we took, new systems come on line, systems are updated and old systems decommissioned
.  

Why Cloud deployments are not the answer for ICT in schools

It's apparent that 'Cloud' has impacted significantly on the development of school's ICT. 

However, this isn't necessarily happening in the way vendors had hoped.  The adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) has been huge across the board with everything from Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps for Education to Mathletics and web based learning solutions to the innumerable iPad apps with web back ends.

The thing that seems to be missing at the moment is a similar focus on Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).  In the immortal words of Professor Julius Sumner-Miller, "Why is this so?".  Some schools have deployed IaaS, most commonly a Back Up as a Service solution or some virtualised machines in data centres; these services seem to have had much more traction in the commercial space. 

Why have schools not adopted this?  This is a very important question for many vendors as they see IaaS as a large opportunity for sales growth into the school sector.  However some very significant issues will hamper sales of these infrastructure services into the school sector.

Single site

Most schools exist as a single site. There won't be many companies with IT infrastructure the size and complexity of a school who exist on a single site.  The value of having an IaaS cloud solution is multiplied many times when you operate a diverse multi site environment.  In a single site the cloud solution means the school is totally dependent upon their Internet connection.  This could mean significant extra cost in having a second link to remove the single point of failure.  The main effect of this is when looking at the benefits of cloud we immediately remove some of the most significant positives and increase the negatives.

There are a few schools who are not single site and the organisations representing multiple schools such as Catholic Education Office and Swan Christian Education Association which are not limited by this concern.

Of course the other consideration is we do have significant access needs for parents and students from of campus which is improved by cloud technologies.

Lack of a cost benefit

Significant numbers of schools have adopted Virtualisation at a higher rate than other industries.  The immediate benefits of Virtualisation is important to schools with significant hardware and support cost savings. Now many of us are on our third generation of virtualised servers and have no interest in losing those savings.  This means when we are comparing the costs of IaaS solutions to our current environment there are normally no savings available and often the cloud based solution is costing more with little obvious benefit.

There are schools still moving down the virtualisation path. They will benefit from moving direct to IaaS.

Hiring patterns

Most schools went through an expansion of their ICT support teams in the period up until 2012.  As a result of this timing most of the Manager/Directors with technical backgrounds came into schools prior to the widespread adoption of cloud.  This means most senior technical staff come from their previous environments with no experience in deploying IaaS, this doesn't mean they're not sure of cloud or doubt it is going to rule the future, it just means we are going to need to be convinced of the real value and security of IaaS.

Bad experiences

Although not widespread there have been pioneers who tried IaaS solutions or even as we did PaaS as part of older projects.  We were trialling a PaaS solution in 2007 but we ended up leaving the trial due to the providers of that service not understanding that taking the service down for updates in week 4 of term 1 would be detrimental to uptake within the school.  When updates were applied to the servers which bought the system down for an extended period and the provider was quite comfortable that they had no need to provide us with an assurance they would not repeat the exercise we decided that we couldn't continue with that risk.

The result is that in 2007 we started to virtualise our environment and continued to prefer the option of controlling our own schedule of updates and patches.

Summary

To summarise my post - The 'Cloud' in particular IaaS is not the answer to any school's IT problems.  We (schools) are not looking for a quick solution to problems which don't exist.  We're looking to make every dollar we spend deliver the best value possible.  At the moment a tenancy in a very expensive data centre doesn't deliver any savings.  We're looking and waiting for the technology to deliver savings for us.  What vendors don't want to understand is; we don't care that much about your profits, and we won't necessarily sign up for whatever is "trendy". 

Protecting the kids

I believe the most important issue with school mandated 1:1 Technology programs is Student Protection.

If you've been following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse you know that the passage of time will judge harshly anyone not monitoring and working to make children as safe as possible.  I have seen some attitudes to monitoring student activity on their school mandated technology which leads me to believe in 20 years time we could be watching a Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to online protection of students. 

My first concern is that school leadership don't fully understand the risks for there to be significant harm delivered by a device mandated or even provided by the school. 

The security of the corporate grade firewall we maintain at school may not even pick up on the patterns and sites which are part of activity and could be of harm to students.  Even worse, those limited protections may not even be there when the device leaves the campus and is used for web browsing at home. 

I have seen many schools with great products deployed to make sure students using their device are always under the watchful eye of child protection software which is being developed and updated constantly to fulfil only one purpose, to make every effort to keep students safe.  The decision to abrogate that responsibility to parents is almost certainly flawed.   We have seen over the last few months students leaving their home country to join extremist organisations and their parents apparently not aware of their radicalisation.  

I worry greatly about the first time a school mandated device is used in the grooming of a young person into a radical movement.  I particularly worry because there are far more important problems the student protection software can help with identifying.  I have seen first hand the ability to use this software to identify and potentially intervene in the circumstance where a student is displaying suicidal tendencies.  There are far more students in need of support than there are those likely to become radicalised.  It's my belief that all parents would gladly pay almost anything for the device to have that protection built in.

I know some schools believe students need to be exposed to some risks and taught how to manage those risks.  I believe this is a risk you should be very clear in discussing with your entire community and ensure they're buying in to the premise of allowing that risk; they also need to be well informed on all aspects of that risk.

Legislative Solution

Student protection has been looked at by many companies with strong solutions available which will work in the background on just about any device.  I believe this type of software should be compulsory on any student device.  It should be mandated that devices used by students, if mandated or even proposed by schools, should be required to meet certain child safety standards. In this case Government has not kept up with the risks.  When the Federal Government instituted the NSSCF it was fantastic to see the acknowledgement that students having 1:1 access to technology was essential in the 21^st century.  Unfortunately, at no stage was the impact of take home technology considered as being dangerous for children.

  

The Internal Salesperson

One of the most important roles we take on as the ICT Manager is the job of 'Internal Salesperson'.

When you're presented with an idea, technology, option, and/or proposal that you can see would be of value to your school, you have to be able to 'sell' it to the appropriate person.  This skill is probably the most undervalued and untrained skill expected of you.  You often don't even know this is what is expected, you just have a feeling someone should be told.

How do you become that 'Internal Salesperson'?  We all have most of the skills needed to be able to sell ideas to your Leadership when they need to be involved in the decision.  There are several things to consider as part of your preparation present an idea.

Sanity Check

The first stage of working out the value of a proposition is a quick sanity check with a knowledgeable party.  At one stage I'd seen a fantastic presentation at a Conference I thought would be great for adding some extra data into assessments.  I went to our Dean of Studies with the idea and found out they had been doing something similar using our current database.  This quick 'sanity check' saved me wasting time on further investigation.

How should I present the idea?

The next question is critical to the internal sales effort.  How much effort you put in to the presentation will be at least partially driven by your 'passion' for the proposition. I always tried to figure out the most appropriate person to work out the proposition with.  For instance when I was trying to get approval for print management I had the CFO and Director of Staff and Services involved.  When we were looking at new hardware to work with scientific sensors the Head of Science had to be the co-sponsor of the proposal.  In this way an effective sales pitch will already have some traction before you try to sell it to the Principal.

I'd always start to write the proposal out.  This helps you consolidate the idea into your environment and work through potential issues.  I would do this even when it will only be presented verbally as I find the writing process focusses my mind and I will quite often identify potential issues or even unexpected benefits during my writing.

A very long time ago I had 12 months purely writing strategic papers.  This experience helps me produce reasonably succinct but very dry proposals which all seem to work in my favour when presenting technology proposals to Principals and Leadership teams.

A piece of advice in preparing presentations is highlight risk in the proposal, not only for the execution of the proposal but if there is risk in not adopting it.  It seems there is a limited understanding of risk within School Leadership particularly around technology.  You'll need to use your expertise to highlight not only financial and operational risk but issues such as privacy, copyright and child protection.

How can I sell technology ideas to the Curriculum areas?

Sometimes you can't, but if you can see the technical/operational benefits you should try.  It's a great starting point if you can get input from someone within the Curriculum delivery area to make sure the idea has merit and can fit within their classroom practice. 

I always tried to allow for consideration of other options when the technology was directly for the classroom.  An example; each time we were looking for upgraded display technology I would have determined there was a need and had a demonstration of something which interested me.  However, there was always several options open to us, so the consultative process was critical and my sales pitch included multiple options.       

You are the expert!

This is always the concerning part and the piece of the puzzle that needs you to maintain your self confidence.  You have been empowered by the school to be the expert, don't be afraid to be a advocate for what you see as the best solution.

The Loneliness of the School ICT Manager

The last 12 months has been a bit of a revelation to me.  Since leaving All Saints' I've talked to school ICT Managers across the board in schools ranging from the large rapidly growing schools to the medium sized school which is shrinking and the small school not changing too much.

I now realise how fortunate I was being able to obtain the funding I needed to keep the infrastructure up to a Corporate standard.  Many schools battle for any amount of funding for ICT even though it is now expected that ICT will be critical in delivering curriculum. 

When Managers in schools are forced to keep inappropriate technology operational even though they're operating end point counts higher than you would see in any IT environment in medium - large business.  You need to look at the Corporate or Government sector to see more than 1000 concurrent users in an IT environment but that's normal in the larger schools.  Even small K-12 schools with 400 - 500 end points are not inconsequential. 

One of the challenges is school executives expect ICT will just work like it does at home with very low funding level.  If you search the Internet for information about technology in schools you will find thousands of articles from educators and for educators, however, there are very few for the technical person working in the support of the classroom technology. 

Some companies take it more seriously and will publish information targeting the IT Manager, one example is an excellent blog post by Brett North from Computelec "Measuring up to the Mythical Man" which is no longer available but still relevant.  However, there are, from my experience, very few peer generated resources for those working at the coal face providing technical support for classroom use of ICT.

I have always felt frustration around that short coming in the fact there are fragmented groups around Australia but no opportunity for a group large enough to be a 'go to' for all those involved in ICT technical support in Education.  This makes it quite a lonely life being a person looking for resources supporting the case for change/improvement for infrastructure and support options.

Finally I understand

I've been trying to figure out what it is about BYOD for schools that rubs me the wrong way; but I think I've finally figured out the problem.

Many schools have tried to change the terminology to BYOT (BYO Technology), BYOOD (BYO Other Device), BYOX (x being an unknown) and just about any other letter with a prefix of BYO.

I think the problem isn't in the last letter, it is in the O which we know stands for Own.  Why would we ever consider ownership as important.  My experience shows that most students consider a device their 'own' as soon as they personalise it.  As soon as the background on their PC is customised it is their 'own'  device.  Another problem with calling it the students 'own' device is most students up until they enter senior school would simply have a device as determined by their parents.  When they are empowered to make that decision it will most likely be whatever is trendy with their peers.

So in schools it would mostly be BYPD (Bring Your Parents Device) and that is fine.

I would like schools to label their personal technology programs as BYLD programs and move the focus from ownership to purpose.  What is BYLD?  It's Bring Your Learning Device.  I think this would place the focus squarely on learning and make everyone in the process become focused on learning not on any side issues which are at best distractions.

If you do run a true program where you don't offer any guidance for parents as to the type of device which should be bought in to your school then BYOD is fine because you're not even specifying the purpose of the device.  If you have any other style of program it should be a BYLD program and you are therefore trying to improve learning with a device of some sort.

BYOD? Really?

I have just been on a conference and talking to lots of schools about BYOD.  When I say BYOD I mean a "bring anything you want, you know what you will learn best with" scenario where the student or their parents take total responsibility for the type of device that the student uses.

I must say that I don't get it. 

Why would you look at BYOD in a School?  To my mind it is a path fraught with danger and problems.  From what I can see none of the problems are technical as far as getting devices connected and working.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that teachers will be the one' s that are responsible for all levels of tech support as it will not be possible for a IT department to offer any support for devices beyond making sure that they can connect. 

the teacher then has to be able to tell from looking at any device that it isn't a 3G only device which can access the Internet unfettered by pesky filters or monitoring software. 

It is possible that there are 1 or 2 teachers in the Education System who could manage that task but most are not going to be able to so will simply ignore technology totally.  The devices will not be incorporated into the learning, technology would move back to the labs and we could all go home happy.

I will keep the thoughts flowing on the 1 : 1 versus BYOD argument.

Momentum change in 2011

I have noticed this year (2011) that the driver of momentum for changes in the use of technology (in the classroom) is quickly moving from the visionaries and technologists onto the classroom teacher.  I am confident this is because the consumerisation of Technology, caused by the growth in iOS and Android platforms, has simplified the interaction and reduced the need for technology skills. 

The impetus for moving forward is now something that a significant number of ICT specialists feel should be contained.  I am certainly in that state of mind at the moment, even as the consumerisation and simplification of interaction between person and device continues there is still some significant shortfalls in the way these changes would be impacted in the classroom.  By this I mean that the importance of a reliable and secure environment for students to be able to learn in is still the primary goal of our IT infrastructure.  The new generations of personal devices will impact on our ability to deliver that basic goal.  The standardisation of the interface between teacher and student, the monitoring of activity and many common applications are simply not available at the moment on these devices.  It is also very difficult to work out which is the study device and which device is the personal device with a 3G connection that doesn’t even connect to the School’s infrastructure.