District Administration - October 2012 - (Page 75)

cio Technology from The cIo perspecTIve District Full Power on the Internet Highway As K12 education becomes more interconnected to videos, photos, software and Internet offerings for project-based learning and other lessons, there is a great need for schools not to only have access to broadband but also to have enough broadband to keep up with the array of new tools used in class. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t have data that distinguish between schools that have dial-up access or 100MB networks, which is the least space needed now, and has called for an inventory of the broadband infrastructure in schools today. So, entrepreneurs Evan Marwell and Tony Swei created a small nonprofit company named Education Superhighway. The three goals of the company are: compile a national database of the Internet access in schools; create a centralized group of network technicians to aggregate best practices and provide technical expertise to schools that need it; and facilitate collective purchasing of Internet access and infrastructure by the nation’s more than 14,000 school districts. The first goal is essentially conducting what is called a National School Broadband Test. Using the company’s network testing application online, it can collect the actual performance of a school’s broadband infrastructure and key information about the school’s network. This test started in September, and welcomes every district to get involved. According to Swei, co-founder and COO of Education Superhighway, four out of five schools are deficient and some have 1/10th or even 1/100th of what they should have in bandwidth. “This will tell us which schools do not have sufficient broadband and what solutions are likely to be required to deploy sufficient broadband at each school,” Swei says. The company is striving to get 1 million teachers, principals, librarians, administrators or students to take three minutes to run the company’s test application from their school network. The U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Federal Communications Commission are behind it, speaking about and encouraging K12 educators this fall to take the three-minute test online. Once the company has the information, they will determine how districts, most of which are cash-strapped and can’t afford additional technical expertise, can upgrade their infrastructure and take advantage of FCC’s eRate program. Since 2003, eRate, which provides $2-3 billion per year to schools for Internet access, infrastructure and telecommunications services, has helped connect more than 99 percent of schools. Swei says that his company will also work to help individual districts find buying power, either in cooperatives or consortiums, so they don’t have to pay so much to get the bandwidth they need. The long-term goal for Education Superhighway is to develop a lowcost network assessment appliance, or hardware, that monitors a district’s bandwidth and can search out any potential programs, Swei says. To sign up for the broadband test or learn more about the program, visit www.educationsuperhighway.org. —Angela Pascopella Va. Students Automate Magnet School Application Within a few months, each of Henrico County (Va.) Public Schools’ 13 magnet schools will have a fully automated application process, thanks to two high school interns who built the software program this past summer. Jack Palen, a graduate of the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School, and Shravan Ravishankar, a senior at Deep Run High School, were students in Deep Run’s Center for Information Technology magnet program. They developed the online software application during their internship using eTelic’s Turanto, a software application generator which creates programming for applications. Officials from eTelic, a software development firm located a mile from the Deer Run center, anticipate the new, paperless system will save 20,000 hours for 3,700 eighth-graders applying for the programs and hundreds of teachers and administrators who submit transcripts and recommendations. It will also reduce paper costs. It will be a few months, however, before the system goes live, says Eric Jones, assistant superintendent for secondary education at Henrico County schools. The prototype is completed but work remains. “It now has to be tied into our database and student information system, and we’re still deciding whether we will devote some internal resources to this or if it is something that other students could assist us with,” Jones says. What makes the project unique is that Palen and Ravishankar took on a real-school problem. “They focused on the application system from the beginning,” Jones says. “This kind of real-world experience is difficult to replicate in a school.” Jones says the partnership with eTelic paves the way for a future of business partnerships in the community—a major goal of the districtwide strategic plan. —Lynn Russo Whylly Shravan Ravishankar www.DistrictAdministration.com October 2012 75 http://www.schoolspeedtest.org http://www.educationsuperhighway.org http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - October 2012

District Administration - October 2012
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Facilities
The Democrats and Republicans’ National Education Platforms
District Profile
Administrator Profile
The Challenge of Assessing Project-Based Learning
Why Teaching Civic Engagement Is Essential
Superintendents’ Frustration Grows, but Intangible Rewards Remain High
Not Your Grandparents’ Vocational School
CIO News
Keeping Pace with Technology Innovation
Managing BYOD Effectively
New Products
Noteworthy Books
Professional Opinion
Professional Opinion
Problem Solution
Going Mobile

District Administration - October 2012