Zero-sum budgets and technology

I was asked to write a guest editorial for i.e. interactive educator, a publication put out by Smart Technology. The theme of the coming Winter issue is budgets (everyone's favorite topic), so I stuck with that subject for my editorial. I revisited some work I had done on library budgets and was struck by the concept of zero-sum once again and how its implications are for technology as well as libraries.

I'm not sure they'll like what I have to say. Here is how it starts:

______________________

Zero-sum describes a situation in which a participant's gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s). Wikipedia

David Lewis’s pithy article, “Eight Truths for Middle Managers in Lean Times” (Library Journal, Sept. 1991) had a major impact on the way I approach budgeting for technology. His first “Truth” is as applicable now as then: “It is a zero sum game.” About public library budgets, he explains: “There is no more money...The important truth is that those who provide the cash...will not give the library any more. They can’t because they don’t have it.”

Schools, too, seem to have reached a level of funding that is unlikely to substantially increase (if not decrease) given today’s anti-tax climate. School boards and administrators may sincerely want to provide more for technology, but “they don’t have it.”

Does this mean no additional funds for your technology program? Not necessarily. Mr. Lewis suggests a way that middle managers (like technology coordinators) can get more money for their programs: “You can take it away from somebody else. If you believe in what you are doing, you have an obligation to try this.”

Fighting for an adequate budget isn’t much fun. Want to make an enemy? Threaten the funding of a program that is owned by another educator. How many teachers when looking at a lab of shiny new computers think, “Is THIS how the funds to reduce class size were spent?”

... 

______________________

Maybe a good technology director I need to be either more faith-driven or have less conscience. I honestly shudder when I hear of some of the dumb ass ways school funding is spent on technology and try to minimize such expenditures here in our district. (E-rate waste seems particularly egregious.) I am quite sure that makes me a grinch, a fuddy-duddy, and (to tech vendors) a traitor to the cause.

But one of the thoughts that likes to come visit at 3AM now and then is... "What other things could our district buy, with which it is now buying technology?"

A last quote from Mr. Lewis, something to think about when you have a few quiet moments: “It is unacceptable for others in your organization to misuse resources that could be better put to use by you.”

I suppose... 

Does technology = more work for teachers?

This afternoon, my number one grandson Paul starts kindergarten. His father has promised not to cry until he has left the building after dropping him off.

He and his parents participated in an open house this week. When asked what he thought of his room and teacher, he thought for a while and then said, "Well, I was very impressed with the number of tables in the room."

While Paul was impressed by the furniture, I was impressed with his teacher's web site.  Not only is it not ugly, it contains a wealth of good information for his parents, including calendars (August 31st is Purple Day), policies, reading lists, and the daily schedule. There are (or will be) class photos which require a password to see. All in all, a very, very nice resource for Paul's parents. Were I to meet Mrs. Fairfield, I am sure I would be impressed and glad that Paul has her as his first teacher.

But as I was looking at this website, a recent comment by teacher and blogger, Dennis Fermoyle, to a recent posting on the Blue Skunk kept running through my mind:

 It seems like the more technology there is, the more hours I end up putting in. I'm not sure why that should be, but it's just the way it is. It seems like it makes it easier to do more, so you end up doing a lot more.

Has Mrs. Fairfield's web site increased or decreased her workload?  Is she working on her website when she should be interacting with Paul, preparing a lesson, or taking a well-earned break?

Every technology should make a teacher either 1) more efficient or 2) more effective - or why bother? (I don't  know that the promise has ever been that technology makes one life's easier.)  It could be argued that Mrs. Fairfield's website helps her to be both: it's more efficient to post parent information online than copying and mailing lots of copies, and more informed parents will lead to a more productive class. What I have often observed is that technology adoption often has a big, immediate upstream time cost with  smaller, longer-lasting downstream time savings.

What do you think? Is tech more work or less? 

Disappointed again this year…

This past weekend I looked for the following information:

• Rules for playing the Barrel of Monkeys game.
•  The name of the actor who played Pea Eye Parker in the TV miniseries Streets of Laredo.
• A depiction of a yawk yawk in Australian Aboriginal folklore.

I found all this information quite handily without leaving the family room. Without leaving my recliner, to be honest. Having a laptop computer and wireless Internet access has changed the way I watch television and read books. It’s changed the conversations I have with the LWW. It’s changed the way I participate in meetings, workshops and classes. When any question or topic comes up, I can get information from the “datasphere” to which I am always connected.

And the datasphere is getting bigger all the time. Our school libraries, study halls areas and most classrooms now have wireless connectivity. Our district’s major meeting rooms are connected. At many conferences I attend, the entire convention center is, yes, wireless. Whole cities are talking about becoming wireless. On a rural golf course yesterday afternoon, I was able to use my Sprint-enabled Treo to check our local Kiwanis website for the name of guy who had just participated in the putting contest at our fundraiser. That’s connectivity.

So why call this blog entry “disappointed”? Because another damn school year is starting with my students not having immediate, continuous access to this same datasphere. And the simple reason is that there is still not a device available that is right for kids and schools. Where is the computing/communications hardware gizmo that:

• Weighs less than two pounds?
• Runs at least eight hours on a battery charge?
• Is 802.11x compliant?
• Can be dropped without breaking?
• Comes only with a full featured web browser for software?
• Has a screen that can be read for a long time without eyestrain?
• And sells at a price point most parents can afford – let’s say under $200?

Come on Apple, Dell, HP, Gateway, Sony, etc. Make one of these devices and you will sell (and make) millions. As it stands, it will be a cold day in hell before I encourage my schools to participate in a one-to-one computer program given the current state of laptops and PDAs – way too expensive, too delicate, too complex, too short on battery life, too high maintenance, too hard to read. I don’t want a machine designed for a rich businessperson but for an active kid!

I want my students to have ready access to the datasphere – now! Increasingly, I’m convinced such connectivity is the only thing that will fundamentally change how education is done. Teachers will need to become process, not content, experts. Education will be radically individualized. Boredom will end. Information literacy will be the major basic skill set. Independent learning will be practiced on a daily, no, hourly basis. Learning will become 24/7 – with kids actually learning during the school day as well as outside of it.

Where is the iPage that meets my few modest requirements for a kid-friendly computing device?