Digital Discourse / Uncategorized

Highlights from SIIA Education Division Webinar Turning SIS/LMS Data into Action – Vendor Implications

October 18, 2012 By

This SIIA  webinar  presented data from the Closing the Gap: Turning Data Into Action project and provide valuable insights for SIIA members and others interested in SIS, LMS and related technologies, use of data for K12 instruction, and K12 technology purchasing and implementation issues.

The project was funded by the Gates Foundation, and the research was conducted by Gartner, Inc. in collaboration with the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). The project has 5 major deliverables coming in the future months; see the Closing the Gap: Turning Data Into Action website for more information.

The project solicited input from many school districts and teachers around the country to get an on the ground view of the how LMS (Learning Management Systems) and SIS (Student Information Systems) are being implemented and used. It also provided information on how vendors can best work with districts to improve their usage.

Five takeaways from the webinar:

  1. Teachers, as the end user of most of the systems, need to have a role in the selection and implementation of both SIS and LMS platforms (as well as other technologies designed for their use).  But the survey found that most often is not the case. When asked about the district LMS or SIS, teachers often do not know the difference or even their purpose. Those that do know often are underutilizing the systems and using only basic functionalities such as grade reporting.
  2. Students & Parents want to have access to individual student data tracking progress and grades.  Several studies have shown that giving students access to their individual grades and allowing them to track progress produces better results.
  3. Integration and multi-device platforms are essential.  Schools, districts, and teachers want to be able to access the data from any location and device. There is also critical need for  interoperability  so that different applications work together to share data.
  4. Educators agree that the traditional model is not working anymore.  The industrialized classroom is poised for change.
  5. Predictive and/or prescriptive analysis in systems is key. Presenting and summarizing data is insufficient, and SIS, LMS and related technologies must provide actionable information. The importance of improving student activities and system use is high, and the systems need to produce outputs that can either predict positive changes or prescribe them when needed.

The project leaders conclude that the overall the impact of SIS and LMS systems in school districts has great possibility, but is under-delivering due to challenges with product features, selection and implementation.  The webinar and project resources provide much more information on the role of data collection and include helpful links, templates, and charts detailing the features of market-leading products. SIIA members who want to learn more can view the webinar or download the slides on SIIA’s webinar archive site.

Lindsay HarmanLindsay Harman is Market and Policy Analyst for the SIIA Education Division.

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Filed Under: Education, Personalized Learning, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

SIIA Testimony to NY Education Reform Commission Calls for School System Redesign to Personalize Learning through Technology

October 17, 2012 By

I had the opportunity yesterday to provide invited testimony to the “New NY Education Reform Commission” appointed by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo to study and make recommendations for the reform and improvement of the state’s education system. My submitted written testimony describes a comprehensive vision for redesigning education to pesonalize learning through technology, and then makes dozens of reccommendations around each of the Commission’s seven objectives.

My October 16 oral testimony is provided below and video archived (at 02:02:40):

On behalf of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and our 500 high-tech companies, thank you for inviting me today. I am Mark Schneiderman, SIIA’s senior director of education policy.

SIIA agrees with the Commission that, “Future generations of students cannot compete unless we dramatically reform our education system.”

Our industrial-age education practices are largely unchanged over a century or more:
- Too many students are disengaged, not due to lack of technology, but from undifferentiated resources, rote one-to-many instruction, and lack of attention to 21st century skills.
- Time and place are constants, but learning is variable.

Instead, our education system must be fundamentally reengineered from a mass production, teaching model to a student-centered, personalized learning model to address the dramatic change in student daily lives, diversity and expectations.

The mandate is not for marginal change, but for: redesign to free learning from the physical limitations of time, place and paper; and instead customize instructional resources, strategies, and schedules to dynamically address each student’s unique abilities, interests and needs.

The redesign of education can take place without technology and digital learning, but not at scale.  Technology is a teaching force multiplier and a learning accelerator.

This doesn’t mean computers replace teachers, or that all learning takes place online.

It does mean that we use the technology:
1. to collect and analyze extensive student learning data to a degree not otherwise possible;
2. to provide a differentiation of interactive, multimedia teaching and learning resources and student creativity and collaboration tools not possible from one teacher, book or classroom; and
3. to free teacher time from rote and administrative activities to redirect to more value-added instruction.

The result is a more effective teacher, a more highly engaged and better performing learner, and a more productive system.

SIIA’s 2012 Vision K-20 Survey of 1,600 educators found that interest in digital learning is high at about 75%, but only about 25% rate actual technology access and use as high by their peers and institutions.

Here are 10 SIIA recommendations to the Commission and state:

1. Eliminate the Carnegie unit (credit for seat time) as the measure of learning and replace it with a competency-based model that provides credit, progression and graduation based upon demonstrated mastery and performance.

2. Eliminate fixed, agrarian-age definitions of the hours of the school day and the days of the school year and instead provide flexibility for 24/7/365 learning as needed for student mastery.

3. Ensure all teachers have access to a minimum slate of digital tools and supports provided to other professionals, including instructional technology coaches and virtual peer learning networks.

4. Ensure all educators have the skills needed to personalize learning and leverage technology, including by updating the curriculum of teachers colleges as well as teacher licensure and certification requirements.

5. Encourage and support a shift from print-only curriculum to instead provide students with anytime, everywhere access to interactive digital content and online learning.

6. Create a statewide online learning authority for approval and oversight of virtual learning providers to New York students and schools, and loosen arbitrary limits.

7. Invest to ensure equity of technology and digital learning access to change the education cost-curve and provide opportunity to learn, while providing increased local flexibility in the use of state grant funds to meet unique local needs.

8. Set minimum expectations for school/teacher electronic communication with parents and families and support home access to student performance data, assignments and curriculum.

9. Support more flexible higher education policies that end seat-time requirements, allow students to demonstrate prior learning and complete course modules that fit their learning gaps, and receive student aid for study toward skills certifications valued in the job market.

10. Finally, recognize the role of the private sector, which invests hundreds of millions of dollars each year to develop and deliver educational technologies and digital learning. Support public-private research partnerships, and reform the RFP process to enable the private sector to share their expertise, vision and innovative business models.

Our nation’s continued success will require that our educational system adopt modern methods and means to remain not effective and relevant in the 21st century.

On behalf of SIIA and our member high-tech companies, I look forward to working with the Commission to further identify and advance a reform plan for New York education.

Mark SchneidermanMark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup, Ed Tech Government Forum, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Legislation, Personalized Learning, Policy, Postsecondary, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Evolving Ed Tech CODiE Awards

October 16, 2012 By

Karen Billings, VP of the Education Division, joined SIIA 10 years ago, and has been involved with the CODiE Awards ever since. She even remembers the very first Education category – the Best Learning Product in 1986. Since then, the number of Education categories has grown at a steady pace, reflecting the advances in the ed tech industry. Karen shares her thoughts on this constantly evolving industry and what’s new in this year’s education CODiE Awards.

Tell us a little about the history of Education categories in the CODiE Awards.

The first year of the CODiE Awards, the one education winner was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, for the Best Learning Product. It was such a popular product, and I remember later on there were spin-off products, and even one called Where in North Dakota is Carmen Sandiego! It’s interesting because even today, Carmen Sandiego is still a product at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Even after a series of acquisitions and mergers, the company is marketing and selling an updated version of this product, decades later. The point is that a good education product with a good instructional design that changes with the hardware capabilities is going to have longevity and certainly, branding. It’s very possible that the teachers who are buying Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego today could have used the product when they were young. The CODiE Awards are in its 28th year and it’s amazing to think about how the very first education CODiE Award winner is not only in the market, but has her own Facebook page.

Why do educators and administrators judge all of the education categories in the first round of judging?

The Education Division wanted to have educators and administrators review the products in the first round because they are the real experts. They know what other products are out there, and they have probably used a number of different products in their category, so they have the expertise. They are the best judge of what is going to work in the classroom, and that is a big part of what we mean when we say a product is the best.

The Education Division is able to leverage its relationships with the professional associations and online education communities such as edWeb to reach the teachers. We partner with them because they can directly reach out to their members. For example, SIIA cosponsors a games channel on edWeb, so we can reach teachers who are active in the games-for-learning community. That community helps us find those educators who would be the best at judging the games category.

Why do you like having three top awards, for Best PK-12, Best Postsecondary, and Best Overall?

First of all, I think it’s very special to have some very high-level categories where companies don’t nominate but they are recognized. It’s a very special recognition. It’s a way to pull out the best of the best. In some sense we are following other awards programs. In the Oscars, they have lots of awards, but the most exciting one is Best Picture of the Year. We know that the winners have appreciated that award.

Why do so many education companies love to nominate for the CODiE Awards?

The number of products that are out there in the market have grown substantially for over 25 years. It’s followed the growth of technology, as schools have started to move from the use of print materials and transitioned to the use of digital. Twenty-five years ago, using Carmen Sandiego was a very unique and probably isolated event by a few special teachers who were excited about using that Apple II in the classroom. As access to hardware increased, the software market evolved, and professional development supported technology integration, educators and administrators started to see the benefits of using technology. They saw student engagement, and positive results. The market grew, and as the market grew, the CODiE Award nominations grew, the interest grew, and school budgets grew. It has been a consistent, steady growth for 25 years.

Many of the products that were submitted in the first 10 years for the CODiE Awards had been developed by teachers. Teachers themselves then ended up forming companies. Jan Davidson was a Language Arts English teacher. She wrote a program called Reading Blaster for kids to use in her classrooms on an Apple II. She started sharing it with other teachers, and her husband, Bob Davidson, decided that there might be a business in selling that program to other teachers. They formed a company called Davidson & Associates, which was an early member of the then SPA (Software Publishers Association.) I like knowing that some of the educators reviewing this year’s products may be designing a product that could be a CODiE Awards winner in a few years. It could be the next Carmen Sandiego or Oregon Trail!

Which category are you most excited about this year?

I’m always anxious to see who is nominating in brand new categories. This year, our new category is Best Personalized Learning Solution, which evolved from work we have been doing in the Education Division for the last several years. It started with a working group on personalized learning after our Education Board undertook this as a key initiative. Personalized learning is a new market. Legacy companies can incorporate those attributes as they modify their products, and so can the startups who are designing new products. The thing I look forward to most is seeing nominations come in from companies I don’t know yet. There are so many new companies each year, and some are so new I haven’t even heard from them. When I see their nominations come in, I go to their website and find out about them, and it makes me excited about the direction that education technology is taking.

How can small companies compete in the CODiE Awards?

I think that the small companies with brand new products are viewed very positively by judges. The judges like seeing something new. It’s great to see the start-ups getting the same amount of visibility as larger companies when the finalists are announced. And when the SIIA member companies vote in the second round of judging, every company gets the same number of votes in each category, no matter what size they are. When all of the winners are listed on the press release, some will be large companies, some will be small companies. Some will be companies educators will recognize, and some will be totally unknown. Hopefully when people see a winner they’ve never heard of, they will go to their website and check them out.

What makes the education CODiE Awards banquet so special?

We have so much fun at our awards banquet! It’s a very special event for our companies. They enjoy it. It’s another thing to look forward to at the Ed Tech Industry Summit. We held the gala for the 2012 CODiE Awards on the second evening of the conference and will continue the tradition in 2013.

It’s funny, before I worked at SIIA, I worked at various member companies for 15 years. I came to many of the conferences and even spoke at them, but I never attended a CODiE Awards event! I’m not sure why. The first CODiE Awards gala I ever went to was the first year I started working for SIIA in 2002-in fact it was my second day on the job! I discovered how much fun it was, and how special it is. I really have had fun every year since.

Wendy Tanner Wendy Tanner is CODiE Awards Coordinator. Follow the CODiE Awards on Twitter @CODiEAwards

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Filed Under: CODiEs, Ed Tech Industry Summit, Education, Education Events, Uncategorized

Testing College and Career Readiness

October 9, 2012 By

Addressing the high levels of remedial coursework in higher education and better preparing students for college are important national challenges as the United States works to improve its educational and economic standing. Both are high on the agenda of PARCC (Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) and SBAC (SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium), the two assessment options for the Common Core State Standards implementation.

On a recent Alliance for Excellent Education  webinar, SBAC and PARCC leaders provided a good overview of their tasks, deliverables and timelines. Both will pilot their computer-based assessments in the 2013-2014 school year and fully implement in 2014-2015.

SBAC and PARCC are focused on the challenge of testing college and career readiness as defined by CCSS.  SBAC’s goal is to have their high school assessment qualify students for entry level, credit bearing coursework in college or university.  SBAC is working in collaboration with 175 public and 13 private higher education systems to ensure their assessments meet the rigor required by these institutions.

PARCC has established a 5 point assessment scoring scale to address college and career readiness. Students who score a level 4 or 5 will be exempt from college placement tests and will be able to immediately begin credit bearing coursework. A detailed description of the 5 levels can be found on slide 8 of the PARCC presentation.

SBAC and PARC leaders and states acknowledge that collaboration with Higher Education is key in developing accurate and constructive examinations for the common core curriculum, and securing their buy in for placement.

SBAC is releasing new samples on October 9th that give a better idea of the upcoming assessments.  To learn more about the samples and the implications for curriculum publishers and technology developers, SIIA members are encourage to attend SIIA’s October 11 webinar  that will help companies prepare for the assessment future.

 

Lindsay HarmanLindsay Harman is Market and Policy Analyst for the SIIA Education Division.

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Filed Under: Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Software CODiE Awards: Tips & Tricks for CODiE Success

September 28, 2012 By

Yesterday we hosted a CODiE Awards webinar specifically for software categories. The primary purpose of the webinar was to provide important updates made to the process, including the addition/revision of several categories for a total of 29 software-related categories.

During the webinar we covered:

  • How to nominate
  • What happens during the first-round judging process
  • The complete CODiE Awards timeline
  • A review of software categories

We were especially pleased to have two guests join us for the webinar: Sarah Lander, Director of Marketing for ShopVisible and a 2012 CODiE Award winner, and Richard Dym, Managing Partner of Bondi Group, a longtime CODiE Awards judge.

Watch the webinar to hear everything that Sarah and Richard had to say, in addition to the information we provided. And remember, nominations for the Software categories must be submitted by Friday, October 5.

Wendy Tanner Wendy Tanner is CODiE Awards Coordinator. Follow the CODiE Awards on Twitter @CODiEAwards

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Filed Under: CODiEs, Software, Software Events, Uncategorized

More Trademark and Copyright Protections are Needed before New Domain Names Go Live on the Internet

September 27, 2012 By

SIIA today called for more Intellectual Property safeguards before any new generic top level domain (gTLD) applications are approved. SIIA filed comments with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) on the new gTLD applications as part of the public comment and objection process.

Under the current program, trademark and copyright owners will be forced to expend significant resources and time to protect their intellectual property on thousands of new domains. It is essential that the registries (the gTLD applicants) that are approved by ICANN put in place greater safeguards to protect against piracy and counterfeiting. This is especially true for domain names that are targeted toward software and information products and brands.

SIIA and other concerned groups have recommended a minimum set of safeguards that all new gTLDs should be required to abide by. Among other things, these safeguards would require registries to offer publicly accessible, authenticated, verified Whois data for all second-level domain names within the registry. All registries must implement standards that ensure prompt investigation and resolution of rights holder complaints.

A clear process for complaints and systems for ensuring that domain information is accurate and publically available are the minimum levels of protection that rights holders deserve under this new program. Without this, the new domains will create huge potential for abuse by those seeking to profit from the name, reputation, and content of others. Trademark and copyright owners need a reasonable and open complaint process to turn to.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Anti-Piracy, Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Teachers and Tech

September 20, 2012 By

One of the biggest myths surrounding educational technology has been that teachers will be replaced by computers (or tablets, or software, or any number of technological developments). But the reality is that there is room for both the teacher and education technology in the classroom. Technology is an aid to teaching, not competition for teachers.

Common Core State Standards expect students to gain deeper college and career-ready knowledge and skills, presenting the most significant challenge that schools and teachers must address in the coming years. Among the questions is the role of technology and digital learning. At the same time, many in K12 education are questioning our traditional “seat-time” system and looking to the alternative “mastery” model, again opening up opportunities for technology.

With Mathematics as one of the areas covered by CCSS and common Science standards moving forward as well, STEM leaders are excited about the opportunities in their field. At a recent STEM Vital Signs report release by Change the Equation providing a state-by-state measure of STEM education and related careers, panelist Carolyn Landel, Chief Program Officer of Washington STEM, remarked that the teacher should NOT remain the sole source of educational knowledge in the classroom. The teacher is not going anywhere, but with the amount and depth of material required for coverage in CCSS, there is a need for additional learning opportunities outside the traditional teacher-centered classroom.

This conversation at the event highlighted opportunities for innovative instructional practices made possible through use of technology in the STEM subjects. One person even commented that, “you can’t tell kids Math and Science are fun and then put them in the same boring class”. The need for innovative and effective STEM learning models presents a bright future for digital learning. For example, Change the Equation is releasing an online game-based learning program to show a variety of methods to promote and encourage STEM learning. The future for educational technology and teachers is encouraging in a CCSS future.

 

Lindsay HarmanLindsay Harman is Market and Policy Analyst for the SIIA Education Division.

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Filed Under: Education, Education Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
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