technology

Breakthrough Talk: Navigating Transformation

December 13, 2012 By SIIA

Marc Strohlein, Agile Business Logic

In a relatively short period of time, technology has moved from the back office to the front office, and then out the door to the mobile Internet, all the while growing in impact and disruptive potential. In the process, technology moved from a business strategy-enabling tool, to one of transformation, at least for those information companies that have figured out how to truly leverage it.

It’s no secret that Google, Apple, and Amazon have mastered using technology to transform their businesses-not just once or twice, but continuously. Information publishers, on the other hand have often struggled to achieve such transformational effects. That’s because the challenges of selecting and exploiting transformative technologies are significant. So are the people and cultural issues that come with major technology shifts.

Executives are lulled by vendors’ siren songs of big data, cloud computing, tablets and mobile computing, semantic technology-the list goes on and on. But which ones will deliver breakthrough business impact and have staying power? And how do technology executives manage complex transitions from legacy environments without disrupting business operations?

The answer, and the subject of this upcoming panel at the SIIA IIS conference, “Navigating Transformation,” is that technology and business strategy need to become intertwined and embedded in the DNA of publishing firms. In effect, those businesses need to become technology firms that publish-ot just newspaper, book, journal, or online publishers.

The panel is comprised of Richard Belanger, Chief Information Officer, ProQuest, Peter Marney, Senior Vice President, Thomson Reuters, along with myself, Marc Strohlein, Principal of Agile Business Logic as moderator. Expect a lively discussion about the opportunities afforded by new technologies as well as their challenges and our collective wisdom about how to ensure success. Our goal is that attendees will leave with clear ideas about how to leverage the transformative potential of information technology.

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Filed Under: Content, Information Industry Summit Tagged With: Breakthrough, IIS, technology, Transformation

What Arthur C. Clarke Imagined: The Intersection of Technology and Content

December 12, 2012 By SIIA

Keith Cooper, CEO, Connotate, Inc.

Post by Keith Cooper, CEO, Connotate, Inc.

“Imagine a console in your office that will bring the accumulated knowledge of the world to your fingertips.” This is Arthur C. Clarke’s uncanny prediction, published in an April 1970 Popular Science article by Wernher Von Braun.1The prediction came true-and that console is your Web browser.

What Now?

As we approach the 2013 IIS Conference, much attention will be focused on the constantly evolving intersection of content and technology. As Clarke predicted, the world’s accumulated knowledge is indeed just keystrokes away, but the traditional business model has been to charge for content … and Web data is “free”. What now?

Timeliness-Aggregation-Validity.

If you want to profit from “free” Web content, you need to understand and leverage three salient characteristics of Web data identified by Dave Schubmehl, Research Manager at IDC.

Timeliness: If you can consistently capture and disseminate information about market-moving events faster than other content providers, you can charge a premium price. Automating Web site change detection into your workflow can enable this.
Aggregation: Leverage the Web’s volume of data. Aggregate and analyze this volume in unique ways to reveal patterns and trends. You can command a pretty penny if you can provide transparency into non-transparent markets, for example.
Validity: The Web is filled with spam and bias. Discover and leverage the difference between surface Web(content turned up by Google) and Deep Web (unindexed content) where content is less biased and more valuable, and you’ll uncover revenue potential.

As the CEO of Connotate, I work with established global leaders such as Thomson Reuters and the Associated Press, as well as up-and-coming startups such as Altitude Digital Partners-all of whom have fashioned their own techniques for harnessing Web data profitably by focusing on these three aforementioned characteristics. While I don’t own a crystal ball, I can easily predict that 2013 will reveal new and even more creative and profitable uses of “the world’s accumulated knowledge.”

Looking Ahead

I am constantly amazed at the genius of visionaries such as Arthur C. Clare, Tim Berners-Lee and many others who envisioned the extraordinary power of marrying content and technology to achieve breakthrough results. I anticipate IIS 2013 to be a great opportunity for exploring new and profitable ideas in content delivery.

1. Von Braun, Wernher. “TV Broadcast Satellite,” Popular Science, May 1970, pp. 65-66.

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Filed Under: Content, Information Industry Summit Tagged With: Aggregation, Connotate, Content, Data, Keith Cooper, technology

Seismic Shifts in Education: How and Why

November 26, 2012 By SIIA

Guest Post By Susan Littlewood, Director of Marketing & Sales, Victory Productions

What is the primary cause of the seismic shifts in education? All indicators point to the increased capabilities and availability of digital technology. Technology is performing the role of the great disruptor. It is an unsettling force in tradition-bound classrooms and schools.

It was only a decade ago that college publishers began using electronic tagging to speed up the production of printer-ready files. They began making their texts available electronically as PDFs and now are offering texts as interactive EPUB3.

Now the trend toward electronic books has reached high school and elementary schools. Heavy backpacks and book bags are being replaced by mobile devices, which are lightweight, increasingly inexpensive, and cool. Digital tablets and phones have entered the classroom opening new avenues for students to interact with the content they are learning and collaborate with fellow students and teachers, inside and outside the classroom.

Technology has enabled Open Source content, which is available to students and teaching professionals at all levels for all study areas from kindergarten through grad-school. Lab and classroom activities, engaging games and simulations, professional development materials, test prep and assessment programs can all be downloaded free from the Web. Khan Academy has burst upon the education landscape offering individualized instruction to students wherever they are in the world. To date, Khan Academy has delivered more than 200 million lessons.

The New York Times’ Sunday, November 11, edition of Education Life published an article, The Year of the MOOC. MOOC translates to Massive Open Online Courses. These take traditional online college courses to a new level. They are free to students and may offer certificates of completion. Information is online for everyone.

Bandwidth controls the availability of online information in schools. E-readers and tablets proliferate propelling the need for expanded access to technology as it is used now and will be used in the future. Paying for necessary upgrades concerns technology directors who are confronted by property tax caps and the difficult economic landscape. Planning for the online administration of the PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment tests, which are being written now, has begun. Practice tests may be scheduled in 2014 with the actual tests being given in 2015. http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2012/10/29/560584inexchangeschoolsbandwidth_ap.html

Technology has made the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) possible. The 45 states that have accepted the CCSS will test students on their knowledge of content and their ability to apply that knowledge through higher-order thinking skills. http://www.corestandards.org/frequently-asked-questions

Assessment tests now include technology enhanced items. These are the preferred performance-based items that require far fewer of the traditional multiple-choice questions. The increased capabilities of scoring and scaling have enabled the assessment industry to become more efficient for teachers and their students.

Technology is changing the way teachers teach and students learn. Flipped classrooms is one change. It refers to an instructional structure that requires students to read or research a topic after school as homework. When in school they work with their teachers to apply what they learned the evening before. The teacher is now available to demonstrate concepts and uncover student misunderstandings until all students have a workable understanding of the content.

Technology has given us collaboration tools that can be used to teach teamwork as a skill. Students work together to solve problems and work on research and other kinds of projects. The mindset driving students to study alone to gain a competitive edge is being replaced by a culture of collaborative problem solving.

Individual instruction on a scale never possible before technology is becoming a reality.
Adaptive learning is made possible by the ability to collect and analyze a student’s work in real-time. In adaptive learning situations, technology takes on the role of the teacher. Lesson Management Systems (LMS) collect data, notify students as soon as an incorrect answer is entered, and sends prompts or remedial instruction. These highly individualized interventions provide instant feedback that students can act on immediately. The teacher’s role is transitioning from sage-on-the-stage to a facilitator.

Advances in Big Data and data visualization systems are now being applied to education. The systems assemble data into visual patterns and reassemble it into other unexpected patterns. The patterns can reveal creative ways to improve educational outcomes of students. Now a student’s cognitive growth can be tracked from birth through graduation and into the workplace. With complete and detailed records, kids will no longer have the ability to reinvent themselves as they progress from elementary, middle, high school, through college and the workplace. Their statistics precede them.

Big Data can also lay bare the effectiveness of teachers, schools, districts, and the educational systems of states. Their performance can be tracked, gauged, and judged. Salaries and ratings can be assigned on the basis of this data.

The power of technology is shaking up the quiet world of academia from kindergarten to university. This world has been traveling the same track since medieval times. Change opens the way to new business opportunities. This change is overdue.

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Business Forum, Education, Education Events Tagged With: Education, publishers, technology

Teachers and Tech

September 20, 2012 By Lindsay Harman

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

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Filed Under: Education, Education Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: CCSS, Education, STEM, technology

Leaders or Laggards: The State Role in the Shift to Digital Content

September 7, 2012 By Mark Schneiderman

The focus at the recent annual meeting of the State Instructional Materials Review Association (SIMRA) was the shift from print to digital. While paper weight and book binding standards remain on their agenda, the shift is symbolized in part by this group’s recent name change that replaced “textbooks” with “instructional materials.” I had the opportunity to present at the meeting, and had some timely discussions about the evolving state role in the digital world. Texas (see SIIA webinar), Florida (see SIIA summary) and West Virginia are among the states most proactive in helping lead their schools into the digital content future, while many states (with leadership from their SIMRA-member adoption director) are trying to catch up with their districts and understand their evolving roles and rules. A parallel but accelerated shift to digital is underway in state assessments with the leadership of PARCC and SBAC.

As background, SIMRA members administer the process used in 20+ states for instructional materials adoption, including identifying curriculum and technical requirements, soliciting publisher submissions, managing the peer review criteria and process, and coordinating the school procurement of approved materials (including with state funds to buy materials in states such as Texas, California and Florida). SIIA has advocated for years the need to update legacy rules that often create barriers to adoption of digital and online resources, and therefore limit local choice. While often this is simply about correcting for unintended consequences of legacy print rules, the issues are often far more complicated and reflect the still evolving views of instructional materials in the digital age. A leading example is dynamic content: State policies have traditionally required that content remain unchanged over the course of the six year adoption cycle, while digital resources can be seamlessly updated to remain current, accurate and meet evolving curriculum and pedagogical needs. Not surprisingly, SIIA has long advocated the flexibility for content to be updated and improved during the period of adoption.

Here are a few other trends identified at the SIMRA meeting:

State budget shortages continue, causing many states to delay adoption cycles or reduce funding and leaving many teachers and students with increasingly outdated materials.
Common Core State Standards are central to the process, but many state cycles are not aligned and adjustments are often not possible given the overall budget shortages.
Fewer states are funding instructional materials. In the traditional model, states paid for instructional materials, providing them the leverage to determine which materials are to be used. That is often no longer the case.
States are increasingly providing local control such that school districts can buy state approved materials, but can also buy any other instructional resources as well.
Some states are asking whether they should continue to target only single, primary tools of instruction (i.e., textbooks or their digital equivalents), or whether they should also adopt, for example, digital learning objects and modules to support teachers in dynamically assembling resources to differentiate instruction and personalize learning.
Some states are allowing the use of instructional materials funds for the purchase of the technology hardware needed to access those materials, though priority in general still for content.

States are working with SIIA, publishers and other stakeholders to address new challenges in reviewing adaptive instructional software and other robust digital content. For example, how do they review the full resource in cases where each student may be provided a unique, dynamic pathway through the content (compared to the relative ease of reviewing a more linear (e)textbook).

Also, as digital content shifts from supplemental to primary, format and platform are also increasingly of concern. State agencies, on behalf of local educators, seek to ensure the content they purchase is accessible from multiple platforms, as well as increasingly from their students’ personal/home devices. Some have floated the requirement that digital content must be accessible from every platform through a common format. While interoperability is a key goal, SIIA recommends for industry evolution of common standards and against regulatory mandates that could block use of many widely used technologies. SIIA instead encourages that states focus on ensuring publishers disclose system requirements to empower local decision makers with the information they need to determine what platforms and resources best meet their needs. This will enable technology innovation and competition, enhance education choice, and ultimately ensure the needs of teachers and students are best addressed.

SIIA encourages states to further lead the print to digital transition. In doing so, they must recognize that there is not yet any single best technology, curriculum or instructional practice solution for the use of digital content. Therefore, most importantly, SIIA encourages states to provide the investment, regulatory flexibility and technical assistance districts need to innovate as educators collectively and individually determine the best path forward.

Mark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Digital Policy Roundup, Ed Tech Business Forum, Ed Tech Government Forum, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Legislation, Personalized Learning, Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: digital content, ed-tech, Education, education policy, education technology, innovation, instructional materials, Personalized Learning, technology, textbook

A Digital Learning Framework for Systems Change

June 20, 2012 By Mark Schneiderman

I had the great opportunity last week to speak to the CIOs of the Council of Great City Schools, representing the nation’s largest school districts. While their agenda and roles are traditionally focused on enterprise technologies, their summit focused last week on “Transforming Education through Digital Learning.”

Most CIOs recognized that their school systems were not adequately meeting the needs of students, and that technology and digital learning must be a core part of the solution. Many talked of a shift from print to digital content. Some highlighted the blending of formal and informal learning. Others were focused on online learning. All seemed to agree with the need to redesign the system through technology.

I presented on the opportunity to shift from a mass-production to a mass-customization model of personalized learning, whereby technology enables teachers and schools to vary the curriculum and instruction – as well as the time, place and pace of learning – to better meet the unique needs of each student.

As the educational challenges and digital opportunities were discussed in Minneapolis last week, a few lessons emerged for managing the systems change to digital learning.

PD, PD and more PD: The shift to digital is increasingly embraced, but most teachers and administrators struggle to internalize what it looks like and how to get there. They are hungry for examples, and for professional development to grow their skills and change their classroom practice. It is not possible to over-invest in good professional support.

Vision: Technology and Curriculum/Instruction must create a common vision and operate as a team. Silos must be replaced by communication. IT investment should not drive educational decisions, but can empower them. IT investment must be tailored to specific teaching, learning and administrative processes and be linked to key performance goals and benchmarks.

Focus: Along with a clear, coordinated vision should come a clear focus. It is critical to identify core learning goals, then the related changes in practice, and then the technologies and related support network necessary for effective implementation. Districts can do anything, but not everything. Technology is evolving quickly, but that should not mean a district shifts its plans simply to have the newest, shiniest technology.

Leadership: Identifying a vision and maintaining focus requires a sustained leadership effort. Any significant initiative to transform practice and integrate technology will require a five-year business plan that includes the key learning goals, changes in practice, core technologies, teacher supports and benchmarks. This plan must be able to survive any turnover in administration, and perhaps only when it does extend beyond one superintendent will it have the staying power to create meaningful and lasting change. Community support and leadership is therefore critical to sustain initiatives over time.

Balance Scale with Flexibility: As technology shifts from supplemental to core in teaching and learning, one-off programs will no longer be feasible if the result is isolated data or a requirement for point-to-point systems integration. The solution is an enterprise architecture that empowers teacher and school building decisions to adopt disparate digital resources to meet each of their student’s unique needs, while providing the district-wide platform and standards for their seamless integration into district data and other systems.

Staged Deployment: Large technology enhancements, as well as changes to policy and practice, must be achieved in sequential phases. Large initiatives cannot and should not be executed in short order. A staged implementation allows piloting to test and refine plans, time for educator training and adoption, and the building out of technical capabilities over time in lieu of resource limitations. Innovation of practice, people, processes, and technologies must all operate simultaneously through a plan that allows for continuous evaluation, modification and improvement.

Automate & Redesign: Gains can be had from shifting from paper to pixels, from physical to virtual, but most important is to accompany those with a redesign of practice that leverages the new technologies to make more efficient use of people, time and space. Students will be engaged and motivated in their learning not simply by digitizing and virtualizing, but instead by meeting them where they are, helping them understand where they need to go, and empowering them through technology and other tools to get there.

I do not expect these lessons are necessarily new for many. I do hope their reinforcement here will provide educators with a framework of principles to guide the exciting, challenging and necessary digital evolution of our education system. As you continue on the journey to make every day a Digital Learning Day for your students, be sure to pause along the way to ask: How well is my teaching and learning community applying these principles? And please share back any of your own guiding principles.

Note: This blog was first published on June 20, 2012 as a guest blog for the Alliance for Excellent Education’s Digital Learning Day, for which SIIA is a core partner.

Mark Schneiderman is Senior Director of Education Policy at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Ed Tech Government Forum, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Personalized Learning, Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: Education, education policy, education technology, Personalized Learning, technology

Breakthrough Talk: Navigating Transformation

What Arthur C. Clarke Imagined: The Intersection of Technology and Content

Seismic Shifts in Education: How and Why

Teachers and Tech

Leaders or Laggards: The State Role in the Shift to Digital Content

Got Klout?

A Digital Learning Framework for Systems Change

About SIIA