Should K-12 districts be afraid of GoogleApps for students?

From yesterday's e-mail:

Hello Doug,

 

I've read enough of your writing to imagine that perhaps you're the person to relieve the cognitive frustration I have experienced in trying to get discussions going around the idea of students utilizing the Cloud via our district network.  I saw your response in the most recent issue of Learning & Leading* to a writer expressing fears as I mention below, and am hoping you can expand on this a bit.

 

Forgetting about universal netbooks for the moment, this is just about making Google Apps available to students.  There is a great deal of fear (paranoia?) around the idea that students might actually find themselves subject to the entire suite of what can be encountered via the Google domain.  Discussions always devolve to fears of CIPA violations and the inability to effectively filter student access and monitor student interactions on the web.  When I mention Postini or other web-filtering systems, the fear of powerful student-generated workaround strategies generally brings discussion to an impasse.  Yes, some students are very, very proficient at finding workarounds, often in the context of our own locked-down network, so I completely understand the fear of the public perception that we are opening the floodgates to corruption if we were to move into the Google environment.  There is also fear expressed over our inability to effectively monitor email interactions should we establish such a thing here.  With the onset of student behaviors like "sexting," there is widely-held belief that minor students would use their access to free interaction on a district-provided web environment in such a way as to open us to enormous liability.

 

With tech heading rapidly toward using the tools of social networking to make education systems relevant to students again, I am intensely interested in exploring more aggressively this perception that loss of total control over student access to the web equates to district CIPA violation.  I am confused, because I attend conferences where district tech leaders have jumped into the Google domain with both feet and a yelling "C'mon in, the water's fine!", then I come home to the fear outlined above and read endless accounts of reasons to "Step away from the Google!" The iPhone has already rendered our attempts to control them obsolete, but what changes when we provide the signal?

 

So Doug, is there a body of discussion that has involved people responsible for CIPA enforcement that can shed light on the darkness here?  Our students are leaving us behind a light speed, and I fear our fears of CIPA non-compliance will leave our educational systems even more irrelevant than we already are. 

 

Thanks for your work, by the way.  I, too, am working from the non-tech side to get people to ask the right questions of their machines. 

 

Best regards,

Personally, I don't get the connection between GoogleApps and CIPA - how the use of GoogleApps may in some way violate CIPA. CIPA's restrictions on student use of the Internet are rather limited. The laws says "a technology protection measure [generally interpreted as a filter] with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors..." "Harmful to minors" can be interpreted as broadly or narrowly as one would wish, but there is certainly nothing that spells out online productivity suites like GoogleApps be blocked. I wonder if people sometimes get CIPA and DOPA confused. DOPA, which did not pass, required all social networking sites be blocked. *This is a little expansion of my remarks in L&L.

Here are some things that administrators may not understand (or want to ignore) about GoogleApps for Education:

1. The basic set of tools in GoogleApps for Education are Gmail, Chat, Sites, Groups, Video (limited) and Docs. Each of these tools can be made available or not made available separately for each domain - it's not an all or nothing proposition.
2. Access to the materials in these tools can be limited to those within the school's domain. In other words, if so configured, no one without a school account could access a student's e-mail, Docs, websites, chat etc.
3. While user classes (teachers, elementary students, secondary students, etc.) cannot be defined within a single domain, sub domains can be created that give those in them specific access. In other words, one could allow secondary students access to e-mail, but not elementary students.
4. Monitoring and archiving e-mail, to my knowledge, IS problematic unless a secondary service is used. Google's Postini, GaggleNet and others can provide this service, but at a cost. One can, of course, view e-mail, docs, etc. of any individual if one has administrative rights.
5. Can students use these tools to bully, harass, send naughty pictures, etc. to each other. Of course. Just like they can use paper and pencils to do so.
6. The use of our Internet filter has not changed - its configurations remain the same. Yes, kids find work-arounds to blocked site via proxies etc., but this has no relationship to GoogleApps for Education. Access to the Google Seach engine and other Google sites and tools are neither greater nor less because of the adoption of Apps.

Thoughtful school districts will review their AUPs (I'm liking the term RUP - Responsible Use Policy - more and more) to make sure it covers something like the use of GoogleApps. There will need to special training on responsible use as a part of the introduction of the tools to kids. And sensible districts will continue to collaboratively develop good guidelines for the implementation of this service, like any technology, getting input from a wide range of stakeholders in the school and community.

Unreasonable fears should not be an impediment to any technology adoption. Some risk, considered and acceptable, is a part of any change.

Deal with it.

Added Feb 13 - Here is another educator who share the POV that CIPA is not a reason to not use GoogleApps. Mark Wagner "Google Docs Does Not Violate CIPA (or COPPA*)"

Image source <http://meppol.deviantart.com/art/The-Boogie-Man-75013278>

What tech use should NOT be optional for teachers?

In last Tuesday's post, "A case study on technology implementation," I asked:

Why have no common expectations for gradebook/SIS use been set for Chris's teachers? [A district tech director indicated only half his teachers used the gradebook in his district's student information system.]  Do soldiers get their choice of weapons? Do bank tellers get to choose whether to use the bank's computer system? Do physicians get to choose not to use the CAT scan if so inclined? If the parents in Chris's district have indicated that better access to their children's progress metrics are important to them, why have the administrators in Chris's district simply not said "Using the SIS gradebook is a basic job expectation, just like taking roll or giving grades or having PT conferences. Do it."

And, as expected, was take to task for this statement in a comment:

I found your analogies unhelpful--soldiers and bank tellers are generally expected to follow direct orders instead of planning their own objectives. Doctors DO get to choose whether or not to use the CAT scan--part of the healthcare debate concerns whether doctors are choosing expensive diagnostic tools too often!

I don't see the issue of what technology use should be required and what should remain discretionary discussed in the literature much. (It's boring management stuff rather than the exciting visionary stuff.) It is a touchy subject, but since I am bit touched anyway, let's proceed...

The debate about whether teaching is truly a "profession" has been bandied back and forth for a loooong time - at least I remember discussing it when I was a little education student growing up on the prairie.  Teachers seem to be autonomous practitioners somehow all contained within in a bureaucratic organization - and that leads to some interesting boundary questions.

In general I am very much appalled by efforts to teacher-proof curricula and to generally de-professionalize our jobs. Such theories and strategies are political - not pedagogical. In general, individual teachers should be given very broad latitude in how they teach and the tools they use to meet local, state and national objectives. Good teaching has many faces and a variety of teaching styles is good for meeting a variety of learning styles.

That said, teachers are a part of a larger organization - a team, a community, if you will. We have an obligation to our clients - the community, parents and students we serve. Our community hires our output and pays our salaries, after all.

So for better or worse, here would be my technology use "requirements" for all teachers were I king of the schools. All teachers will:

• Use the student information system to track attendance and record grades.
• Use the student information system's online gradebook to list individual progress/results on student work (quizzes, tests, project etc.) in a timely manner so parents and students have access to real-time information.
• Have a web-presence that includes (at minimum), contact information, classroom expections of students, and general course outlines with clear learning objectives and timelines. Any large projects should be described along with the assessment tools used to evaluate them.
• Make available online all forms, lists and guides useful to parents.
• Use the student information system or school e-mail system to electronically communicate with parents.
• Use tools provided by the distric that are a standard part of each classroom -  projection system, voice amplification system, IWB, etc.
• Word process all written materials to be given to students (for ease of reading).
• Receive/access all district communications online.

Is this too much to ask? Does this put a huge crimp in anybody's style of teaching? Or is it just "professional" to use the tools one is provided - whether a soldier, banker or physician?

One of our tech keynote pundits (sorry I don't remember which one - Libby Black?) reminds us that if anything is optional, some people will choose not to do it. A simple, but profound observation.

Modify my list - make it better...

And have a lovely weekend.

The iPad - end of computing as we know it?

I am lifting this directly from our state's media/tech Ning. It's by Dennis Fazio, a long-time forward thinker in Minnesota technology circles. I know Minnesota AND forward thinker may sound oxymoronic. Anyway...

iPadding your (Technology) expense account, or where have all the PCs gone, long time gasping?

Apple introduced their iPad today and my observation is that we finally have the fourth player in the quartet of technology advances that will change our civilization. Personal computers, the Internet, ubiquitous wireless and now portable personal displays. We now have all of the world's information always at our fingertips and instant visual communication to anyone anywhere in the world at all times virtually where ever we are.

This device, and its many variations and imitations that will follow, I think, has made obsolete a whole trade show's load of technology in one sweep, especially in education. Netbooks, thin clients, many specialized classroom devices, even desktop computers have just seen the end of their days approaching not so far off anymore.

That's my engineer's technology trends view. I'd like to hear from those much more versed than me as to what potential these kind of devices have to disrupt the path we've been on these past couple of decades in education technology.

As a portable application and display platform, much less fragile and expensive than a PC, it seems this iPad can soon replace most of what we have in classrooms. With many now seeking ways to accommodate and incorporate buildings full of iPod Touches, what does it mean to have this super-duper iPod Touch? Certainly netbooks, whose only claim to fame was portability have become even more of a niche device. How about the future for things like smart boards and clickers? Do we really need labs, media centers or classrooms full of desktop computers to do most of the instructional work needed in the near future, or does this device work just as well or better? Is the ongoing debate between desktops and thin clients now a quaint historical discussion? Have the scattered one-to-one laptop initiatives been obsoleted, becoming the historical prelude to what really should be happening in classrooms?

This discussion could go in a lot of different directions since the potential is so wide-ranging, but if I were a district technology, media or curriculum director, I might soon be thinking twice before doing a large turnover of my PC inventory. But much depends on the ability of our educational system to adapt to the new potential, absorb the range of applications that may arrive and follow the different directions this may take us.

Did that seed enough thought for anyone?

This was my response to Dennis:

Hi Dennis,

Even before the iPad, we were moving to a personal computing platform model in education - netbooks, smartphones, etc. I think it will be interesting to see if the 9.7 screen is the sweet spot for personal computing devices or "neither fish nor fowl" with neither laptop functionality  nor cellphone size convenience.

We are making a deliberate move toward cloud-based computing in ISD77 with the adoption of GoogleApps; using ASPs for webhosting, datawarehousing and IEPs; and providing video via streaming. (I suspect our SIS, library catalog, and all instructional software will be next.) I look to see a webbrowser being the only software needed on most devices we use in schools within 5 years with the exception of a few powerful computers for graphics/video rendering in specialized labs.

The big monkey wrench right now is testing. Pearson can't or won't provide a cloud-based solution that runs in a browser. This inability may wind up costing schools millions if we need to maintain labs of desktop computers just for testing, testing, testing. I won't mention where I think our state DOE'shead is firmly lodged on this issue.

I am going to steal (with attribution) your post for MY blog. Let me know if that's a problem.

Thanks,

Doug

Whadda ya think? Is the iPad a game-changer? Or hype?

My shiny-gadget lust for the damn thing is greater than I anticipated. I think it has more to do with the unlimited 3G connectivity for $29.99 a month than the device, though.

Respond to Dennis in the link above too, if you would. (It's OK to copy-paste.)

Sunday, Jan 31: If you haven't seen this, read it! "Why Bigger Is Better: The iPad And The Arc of Computing" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/30/AR2010013002311.html

(Credit: CC Mike McCaffrey/Flickr)