EdAccess Technology Conference

I joined technology directors from around 35 private schools at the Taft School in Connecticut for the annual edAccess conference.   Schools included K-12 day schools, boarding schools, and a few small college campuses.  A few notes about trends occurring throughout the private school industry and where Blair is positioned in these trends:

Academic

Trends continue in the direction of online learning, flipped classrooms, and increased video content in classes.  Teachers are developing classes which are 'room independent', and which heavily utilize wireless and mobile devices.  This trend is evolving in our own classrooms, and we will be providing further support for teachers building an online presence for their classes.

Many schools are actively decreasing physical textbooks, and some are eliminating them altogether.   Teachers are using online resources and building their own materials online.  Lightening the book bag load makes it easier for students who are carrying tablets and laptops.  Many of our teachers are already no longer using textbooks, and we will be actively promoting this goal this year.

Most of our peer schools already have technology staff member dedicated to working with faculty to use technology in the classroom.  This person usually pays a key role in facilitating staff training as well.  Technology staff play an increasing role in working with users, rather than with only the nuts and bolts of technical systems.  We will be hiring an Instructional Technologist this summer.  We did a training session for members of the Admission Office this year, and are looking at methods of offering more training opportunities for both faculty and staff.

There is a continued trend towards Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs.   Schools are talking actively about strategies for transitioning in this direction.   We launched a BYOD program last year.  We are continuing to think about how we can make our classrooms more laptop friendly and how we can help faculty better utilize student laptops.

Schools are continuing to look at using cloud software in the classrooms which can operate independently of the type of devices used by the students.   There is a sense that this is still an emerging technology, and that such software is becoming increasingly available in different disciplines.   We launched Google Apps for Education 2 years ago.   Google Docs has been largely successful in the English and History Departments for paper writing.   We are still looking for the best cloud solutions in other disciplines.

The general trend continues to be away from Smartboard technology towards wireless projectors.   Some newer projectors utilize interactive software.  We have wireless projectors in every classroom.   We are still debugging issues with streaming audio wirelessly.   We are also working to further simplify the use of audio/visual equipment in classrooms.

Operational

Schools are generally moving away from running their own email systems to using cloud based email systems.  We phased out our Microsoft Exchange server and moved to Google Apps for Education 3-4 years ago.

Most peer schools have phased out traditional PBX-based phone systems in favor of computer-based Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) systems.  There is also a movement to combine school bell systems and emergency notifications into the phone system.   This usually involves networked digital phones in classrooms and dormitory areas which have built-in visual displays and speakers.  Hosted (cloud) phone solutions are just emerging on the market.  We are still running a traditional PBX.   We have already implemented most of the wiring and network switch infrastructure which would be needed for a VOIP system.  We will begin evaluating VOIP systems this year.

Schools comparable to Blair are now typically bringing in 100Mb or more of bandwidth.  We are bringing in 75Mb.   We have not yet seen performance issues related to this.   Our infrastructure will support up to 100Mb, and we may make the next upgrade this year.

Schools are increasingly concerned with improving their processes for gathering information electronically from parents and students, particularly contact information such as email addresses and cell phone numbers.   We made significant strides in this direction this year with the deployment of online enrollment, and automated updates to the website directories.

Schools are looking at strategies for improving technology skills among their faculty and staff.  Most schools have an annual process of establishing goals and reviewing to measure the success rate of achieving those goals.  We have a goal statement process for our faculty, though it is not necessarily technology-based.   This year the department chairs agreed on a standard set of technology skills for faculty which we will be working on this year.

Many schools are evaluating and adopting cloud based solutions for network resources which have traditionally been housed on-site.  There is a sense that many network devices now require less support.  We are in a long-term process of consolidating servers, moving servers off-campus, and phasing servers out altogether.  We are also continuing to phase out servers in favor of simpler, network plug and play appliances.

Some schools are studying printer usage patterns to try to optimize efficiency, save costs, and reduce paper use.   Some schools are also adopting strategies to reduce the things which need to be printed in the first place.  We pushed hard this year to reduce paper mailings to parents.   With our move to cloud software, we have also reduced the need for printing paper in classes.  We have not yet undertaken an campus-wide initiative in this direction.

Some technology departments have adopted systems for integrating their asset management (inventory), their purchase planning, their annual budgeting, and how they communicate with users about timelines for hardware replacement.  We are going to be working on adopting such a system this year.