Innovation is Not About the Technology

A reporter recently asked me, "Are any of the new technologies being introduced into K-12 education actually causing student test scores to increase?" While the question has been asked a lot, her point was that with all the venture capital being poured into educational technology now, investors and the public may start wanting products to show actual data on how they actually improve test scores. In the case of many products, a lot of which focus on remediating students for particular subjects, this is certainly a valid question. But I think many times we are hoping software, hardware, remediation systems, and other assorted educational technology products will magically transform education, when they will not.  Read the great article at ISTE One of the best pieces I've read this week was written by Grant Lichtman and published by ISTE. The author traveled to tens of schools across the country and visited with teachers and students and observed the learning process at many innovative schools. The author concludes that the innovation is really not about the technology at all, but rather about how learning is structured where the students are the leaders in learning. Of course this does not mean that technology can't play a role in the process, but the critical factors include how classes are structured, how students take charge of their learning and investigation, and how teachers and administrators must release control of learning to students. I urge you to read this great piece and join the conversation by sharing your thoughts.

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Taming the password beast

What is my password for Google Apps? What is my username for Schoology?  

We all live with the pain of trying to remember usernames and passwords every day and the problem is getting exponentially worse. Schools are adopting applications for staff and students at a record pace, and with every adopted application the username and password pain train grows worse. 

The Clever Login Screen

Now picture our youngest learners, who increasingly have to sign in to access educational resources. For them, remembering user credentials and typing them in correctly can be a time consuming exercise in aggravating frustration. Now multiply this times a classroom full of students, and it’s enough to drive a teacher insane. The amount of instructional time wasted on logging in is immense and there seems to be no end in sight. 

Schools need solutions to the login mess, so they can focus on learning, rather than flushing expensive classroom time down the drain, as students try to get logged in to applications. The fastest moving new entrant to the K-12 market is Clever, which is rapidly expanding their portal based SSO to be the front-end solution for districts to simplify username and password management. Other more complex and versatile systems, like Stoneware webNetwork, can also help schools tame the password beast and get students and staff focused on what really matters. I’m sure we’ll see more of these solutions unveiled at next week’s ISTE conference!

 This blog entry is cross posted with the great folks at SchoolCIO

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Where are my backups?

Just one month ago, the small town and school district of West, Texas suffered a horrendous tragedy, with the massive explosion that devastated much of the small town and the West Independent School District. My understanding is that the explosion devastated much of this district’s technology infrastructure, servers, and backups.  And just now it is being reported that a lot of schools (and most likely their data) reside close to fertilizer storage across the country.  And unfortunately this week in Oklahoma City, five schools were ravaged by a horrendous tornado.

Data is unfortunately super easy to lose – if not to a major natural or other disaster, then just as easily to a failed hard drive, a broken water main, or a building fire.  Whether you are a technology director, superintendent, or a classroom teacher, this is the perfect time to ask several questions, where are my files and systems backed up?   Are the backups stored in different physical locations?  Are the backups in a secured location?   Can the backups be restored to a different place if needed? 

 

All of us need to be backing up our important digital assets (and our students’ assets.)   Very few of our schools sit somewhere immune to natural disasters.   San Antonio is thought to be a very good location in Texas much more immune to tornadoes and hurricanes than many parts of the state, such that we have many very large data centers here.  Yet the picture to the right is my son’s elementary school two years ago, with a major wildfire burning right behind it.  I am sure the staff of the school never thought a fire would threaten them, yet it came so very close. 

So before travelling down to San Antonio to ISTE, please take a few minutes and backup your laptop, iPad, servers, etc. to another site or perhaps to the cloud, lest some unfortunate disaster strikes you or your school.  Safe travels.

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