Infrastructure and educational technology
Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 08:24AM The ignored secret behind successful organizations (and nations) is infrastructure. Not the content of what's happening, but the things that allow that content to turn into something productive. Seth Godin
In his recent post on infrastructure, Godin lists Transportation, Expectation, Education, and Civility as elements of a workplace that allow things to get done and that culture and infrastructure overlap. I agree, but as a technology director I take a bit more pragmatic view of infrastructure. In fact 90% of what my department does can be considered infrastructure - and in some tech departments it may be 100%.
School tech infrastructure, of course, includes networks and staff computers and firewalls and all that stuff that happens in the background expensively but invisibly. It includes administrative systems and professional development. I could argue that until a students themselves actually do something productive using technology, it's all infrastructure.
I could argue that even student tech use is "infrastructure" since learning is mission, not technology use. The technology is a means to an end.
A slide I like to use:
"Does technology improve student learning?" is the wrong question.
The question should be, "Does technology support the practices that improve student learning?"
To me this argues that technology (unless one is learning "technology skills") is always infrastructure. But that doesn't mean it is not important, even critical to student success. As Godin continues:
Here's something that's unavoidably true: Investing in infrastructure always pays off. Always. Not just most of the time, but every single time. Sometimes the payoff takes longer than we'd like, sometimes there may be more efficient ways to get the same result, but every time we spend time and money on the four things, we're surprised at how much of a difference it makes.
It's also worth noting that for organizations and countries, infrastructure investments are most effective when they are centralized and consistent. Bootstrapping is a great concept, but it works best when we're in an environment that encourages it.
Reader Comments (2)
I would look at it relating to our jobs that if we provide highly functional systems with reliable service you're providing the infrastructure for almost ANYTHING to happen! Then the tricky part is what you're going to do with it. Having someone who picks out the right work for teachers to be doing is so important. There are still edu leaders out there who will profess "it's all about the apps."
Yup!
Doug