Page 4 - TIME Newsletter - 2019

TECHNOLOGY

IN K-12 EDUCATION

NEW CHALLENGES, NEW OPPORTUNITIES

I continue to be amazed at both the pace and breadth of innovative
technologies available to school districts and professional educators that
allow customized learning and the promise of better educational outcomes.
Along with these opportunities come significant challenges related to the
cost, infrastructure, support and deployment of educational technology,
especially for large urban districts.
This time, it’s Personal!
Trends in education have a tendency to come and go, but Personalized
Learning is one that looks like it’s here to stay. Supporting initiatives like 1:1
device(s), digital classrooms, immersive learning, etc. hold tremendous
potential to allow teachers to design a custom curriculum—complete with
course materials, real-time analytics and outcome-based results. The Digital
Classroom opens up new opportunities to replace printed books and source
materials with their digital equivalents, leading to cost-savings on printed
materials but adding cost on the technology side. Backed by cutting edge
Deepak Agarwal CIO technologies like Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence using adaptive
School District of Palm Beach County software, the latest Personalized Learning model seeks to provide teachers
with a set of tools to allow them to truly provide a 1:1 teacher/ student
relationship.

Another strong trend in educational technology is the “builder” movement—
whether it be robotics, games, mobile applications, 3-D printing, immersive
technologies (VR) or Lego. The satisfaction of seeing the tangible results of
their efforts can excite and motivate students to greater achievement.

“The pace of change for cutting-edge technologies also presents
the likelihood of a shorter product lifecycle.”
The common factor all these exciting trends share is that they are not
cheap—increased hardware, support, maintenance and infrastructure costs
to accommodate these have to be factored in to any purchase decisions.
The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) can often greatly exceed any preliminary
cost estimates. The pace of change for cutting-edge technologies also
presents the likelihood of a shorter product lifecycle. Since the majority of
districts are unable to fund every new trend, doing the upfront research
and due diligence to pick the best fit for the district’s educational goals is
extremely important.
The Power of Analytics
While analyzing results has been around as long as teaching has, the ability
to collect data, analytics and metrics around educational outcomes is faster
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