In 1993, Seymour Papert imagined two time-traveling professionals from 100 years earlier; he speculated the physician would be flummoxed by the activity and the technology in the 20th century clinic, but the teacher would find the activity and the technology in a 20th century classroom very familiar. Papert based his speculations on the degree to Read More
Regardless of the type of data collected, researchers and efficacious IT managers must attend to sampling (how will subjects be selected) and they must ensure the instruments they are using are both valid (measuring what they claim to be measuring) and sufficiently precise for the purposes. In addition, IT managers have a responsibility to gather Read More
In 2000, the United States federal government passed the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which is intended to protect children from inappropriate information on the Internet. Specifically, CIPA requires schools that receive e-rate funds to install and maintain filters to restrict access to inappropriate sites. CIPA does allow the filter to be disabled when only adults are Read More
Compared to IT users in business, IT users in schools are much different. They bring different skills to the IT they use, they need more flexibility more often than business users, and their needs change over time (only to return to the original need). These characteristics arise from the facts that students have emerging literacies; Read More
Prior to the wide-spread adoption of one-to-one initiatives, most computing resources in schools were shared. As a result, it was necessary to adopt a strategy for scheduling time in the computer room, presentation spaces with high-quality projectors, and similar resources that existed in small numbers. Since one-to-one computing has become the norm in schools, the Read More
Since it was introduced in 2005, then made available to schools at no cost a few years later, “Google Docs” has changed the educational technology landscape. Since then, the platform has undergone nearly continuous upgrading and updating, and renaming. In 2023, it is called Google Workspaces and the basic level of service which includes productivity Read More
Cell phones have been arriving in schools in the packets of students for the entirety of the 21st century. For most of this century, the cell phones they have been bringing into schools are smartphones which can distract students with a myriad of channels for communications and apps. Those channels for communication and apps can Read More
Schools are characterized by large numbers of users all with similar technological needs. For example, in a school enrolling 500 students in the middle grades and providing one device for each student will need 500 identical devices. Deploying identical devices is particularly important for school populations as teachers must plan for all students to have Read More
When designing systems to move useful bits to people in most business settings, IT professionals can make certain assumptions about the abilities of the people who will be interacting with the systems. It is also probable that those people will have clear and well-bounded needs; workers in specific offices need the software and data to Read More
Assumptions about the users’ capacity to operate the devices, adapt to changes, and operate the systems effectively all affect how systems are designed. For those who have experience managing IT in organizations where all the users are adults and those who have completed typical IT programs in schools (including trade schools, community colleges, and universities) Read More