By Gloria Zhang, director of cloud programs, ASCENDING.
The dramatic shift over the last few years in the way students learn may have kickstarted the move to more technology-driven classrooms and remote learning, but the clear advantages to students, educators and parents that came as a result of that digital leap have led education leaders across the country to keep pushing forward with technology infrastructure investments.
Cloud computing allows educators to collaborate more efficiently, improving the student and teacher experience by streamlining internal processes, such as assigning homework, accessing school resources and creating lesson plans.
If approached correctly, it can cut costs for schools, increase the security of student and teacher data and create a flexible IT environment that adapts to changing data storage needs.
However, while IT leaders may be eager to make the transition, schools must approach the process cautiously, developing a plan and obtaining qualified personnel to ensure they receive the benefits that so many other organizations have experienced.
Take the time to plan
Transitioning workloads to the cloud is not easy – IT leaders must ensure they are aware of what systems they’re looking to improve internally and the challenges they face. Without a plan, leaders run the risk of compromising student and teacher data and overspending on the cloud, eliminating many of the cloud’s benefits.
Planning starts with an analysis of the current environment. IT leaders must examine their current on-premises workloads and identify any existing issues, so these are not transferred to the cloud environment. By evaluating the current landscape, the team can also determine what they are trying to achieve in the cloud and how they would like to close these gaps.
Assessing on-premises workloads will also give the migration team a good idea of how much data they are moving, how long the process will take, and how much it will cost. With new students entering the classroom each year, understanding the timeline and how to ensure minimal downtime for operations is crucial for schools looking to migrate without disrupting classroom learning. For example, schools may wish to perform the majority of the process in the summer when students are at home.
This planning phase should also include a strategy for moving the data. While the workloads can be transferred all at once, it’s often better to shift the data in pieces, starting with those not vital to daily function. Transferring non-critical data allows IT teams to identify errors in the process early on and fix them before moving data more essential to daily classroom learning.
Once these factors have been evaluated, leaders can move forward with ensuring they have all components necessary to ensure sustained success.
You will need help – hire qualified cloud professionals
Many school IT teams are not equipped with the resources and knowledge necessary to ensure a cloud migration is smooth and completed correctly.
It’s important to realize that the cloud poses many unique challenges, and while an individual may have several years of IT experience, it does not mean they are equipped to handle a cloud migration.
Experienced cloud practitioners can proactively address issues by establishing cybersecurity or error alerts and know how and when to utilize unique tools such as cloud formation to avoid common mistakes made during migration, allowing systems to transition smoothly from one environment to another.
Cloud practitioners are essential to the cloud migration process – especially when supporting uninterrupted learning and handling the personally identifiable information of children and teachers. To create an effective cloud team, schools should partner with IT staffing firms to evaluate candidates’ abilities against the school’s unique requirements. This streamlines the selection process by identifying the most qualified individuals with the necessary technical skills.
Implementing the services the cloud has to offer can be intimidating, but the shift improves efficiency, enhances student and teacher experiences, and reduces the threat of data breaches and cyber threats.
The cloud also increases elasticity, so schools can adapt as student enrollment and data needs grow or decrease. But to ensure all these benefits, cloud migration must begin with a carefully thought-out plan and hiring a cloud team.
ByMelissa Smith, vice president of education, Glowforge.
Do we fear the robot or do we embrace it? When it comes to the topic of ethical artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, the question is usually met with a split response. While you may love or hate the technology, the reality is — it’s not slowing down any time soon. In fact, AI in schools is projected to grow by 36.0% in the next eight years. Knowing this, the key is to keep an open mind and work to understand the applications of ethical AI within the school system.
Before we dive in, let’s piggyback on a prime example of a new-to-market product that shook up the old: 3D laser printers.
A little over a decade ago, kids had two options; art or tech class. The latter still had woodworking involved. So, when 3D laser printers came on the scene, strong opinions persisted. However, in time, it became clear to all that 3D laser printing mechanisms didn’t stifle creativity, in fact, it inspired – and made the ‘tech’ in STEAM more accessible than ever before.
By giving students the tools they needed to create physical objects, 3D laser printers were bridging the gap between art and technology. Years later, this bridging is as important as ever before given careers in STEAM fields are in high demand.
Ms. Gonzalez, a high school art teacher in California, shared her thoughts on how a leading laser 3D laser printer, Glowforge, impacted her classroom. She says it has been “a game-changer for my students. It’s given them the opportunity to explore their creativity in new ways and has opened up doors for them in STEAM fields. I have students who are now considering careers in architecture and engineering, which is really exciting to see.”
As you can see: In time, the hesitations fade, and the benefits take over.
With that, let’s approach ethical AI with the same open mind today.
Here are six ways ethical AI can help educational systems from teachers to students:
Technology impacts nearly every aspect of our daily lives, and education is no exception. It has transformed school systems, enhanced the learning experience and created an engaging environment for students of all ages. But not all communities are equally equipped to thrive in the digital age.
The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on the decades-old issue known as the digital divide. It’s the lopsided demographic gap between those who have access to modern technology and those who don’t. Even as kids have returned to class, this inequity persists across school districts and at home.
As of 2021 a quarter of the population still did not have broadband internet connection at home – a necessary gateway for homework, studying, and both peer and teacher connections. And Cox Communications recently surveyed more than 2,000 of its affordable internet customers and found nearly half (48 percent) had obtained home internet access for the first time through Cox.
As classrooms move from remote-only learning to increasingly digital spaces, there are ways school systems and community leaders can work together to tackle today’s digital divide issues for more equitable education.
Certain areas, demographics will require more support
The digital divide reduces a student’s economic outlook for lifehen they start behind their peers, they are likelier to stay behind. And the opposite is true: Greater internet and tech access leads to a greater long-term economic return.
However, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) recently reported that in its state alone, full digital access remains lower among Latino (63 percent), Black (71 percent) and low-income households with school-aged (K-12) children (59 percent). This disparity makes it difficult for students to compete for secondary education and higher paying jobs.
Rural areas, too, continue to lag compared to their urban and suburban counterparts, though adoption is growing. According to Pew Research, “while broadband adoption has not significantly increased for urban and suburban Americans in the last five years, rural residents have seen a nine-percentage point rise in home broadband adoption since 2016.”
By Dr. Patrick Bennett, vice president, academic quality and planning and dean of the School of Education, Franklin University.
According to a US News Report, there will be a shortage of over 400,000 home health aides, almost 100,000 nursing assistants and lab techs, and almost 30,000 nurse practitioners in the coming years. A study from Elsevier found that 47 percent of medical workers surveyed plan to seek a new job in the next two or three years.
Not only is there a worker shortage in healthcare, people want more options in choosing how they prepare – an educational degree or a skills-based training program – for that career. We’ve come to the point where offering new pathways to employment are not only a nice option to offer, they are essential. Because the training required for healthcare employment is constantly evolving, these pathways must be responsive to industry and market needs. That means taking a new look at how traditional higher education and skill-based training work together.
Giving students flexible, practical options
Franklin University serves mostly adult, non-traditional students. These are typically career-oriented individuals who are very practical and seek to use their time as efficiently as possible. For them, education is not solely focused on getting a bachelor’s degree. It’s often about what can I use right away? Our programs have served students seeking full degree programs, but now we also offer skills-based programs. What we’ve sought to do, however, is to also stay true to our roots as a degree-granting institution, making it easy for students to apply their job training work toward degree credit they can pursue simultaneously or in the future.
As we say on campus, any school can get you started. Franklin can help you finish. In addition to awarding credit for specialized skill-development courses, we also evaluate practical experience such as what a student might bring from military credit, direct work experience, industry-recognized certifications, or previously earned coursework regardless of the institution. We believe that such life experience and practical, applied knowledge is valuable, so we address each student’s experience individually and consider how that experience translates into coursework that can count for credit. This is called articulated credit or sometimes prior learning credit and it is changing how skills training and traditional education work together.
As a result of our approach, students can begin their education journey through our FranklinWORKS Marketplace, get a professional certification, and then later leverage that same coursework toward a degree. For example, a student can be in the field working as an X-ray tech or pharmacy tech, and then later complete a degree by building on the original courses they took to get their certification.
Education has undergone a massive shift in recent years due to technological advancements, with the internet and computers becoming essential tools for both students and educators. Among these technological advancements are AI-powered chat programs, which have revolutionized the way students learn.
ChatGPT is one of these language programs that has recently gained immense popularity, thanks to its ability to provide students with instant answers to their questions or prompts. This has sparked heated debate amongst educators. Some believe that AI technology like ChatGPT should be embraced, while others are quick to argue that it has no real benefits for students when it comes to learning. This article will explore both sides of the argument and examine the pros and cons of using programs like ChatGPT in educational settings.
Why Educators Should Embrace ChatGPT
Let’s begin by examining the pros when it comes to embracing AI programs like ChatGPT in schools. For one, ChatGPT is designed to provide instant answers to students’ questions. This can be incredibly useful, especially for students who struggle with a particular subject or concept. Instead of waiting for a teacher to respond to an email or schedule an office hours appointment, students can get the help they need, or at least get pointed in the right direction, right away.
This can be particularly helpful in the case of emergencies, such as when a student is struggling to complete an assignment or study for an exam. ChatGPT can also help personalize learning for each student. The AI program can track a students’ progress and provide tailored feedback based on their performance. This can help teachers identify areas where a student is struggling and provide additional resources to help them improve. The AI program can also recommend additional materials for the student to review, based on their individual learning style and pace.
AI programs can also save teachers a lot of time. Instead of answering the same questions repeatedly, teachers can direct students to the AI programs. This frees up time for teachers to focus on other tasks, such as lesson planning and grading. The AI programs can also handle routine tasks, such as setting reminders and scheduling appointments.
Before we can adequately consider the impacts of ChatGPT and generative AI on education we must first do a hard analysis of the purpose of education.
Researchers agree that attention to developing critical thinking skills in children is sorely lacking in education today. We focus and emphasize information memorization and regurgitation without realizing that we are failing to develop essential skills in our students. The main purpose of education should be to teach skills in students that are transferable and prepare them for their futures and scenarios outside of the confines of an educational setting.
Alongside critical thinking, communication and thought-processing skills should be the focus of ELA classes in primary and secondary education. However, 75% of employers say the students they employ are missing these critical thinking skills. What’s more, 89% of Black 8th grade students were not proficient in writing, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
In short, our current educational methods aren’t working.
ChatGPT is mainly an issue if we’re focused on information regurgitation, but it is in essence another way of democratizing access to education like Google or Wikipedia. Students can type, and hopefully one day speak, their questions in their own words and language and get answers and information with responsive and developed feedback. No more worrying about formulating your search engine query just right.
More importantly, utilizing GenAI in the classroom effectively could be part of closing the disparities in literacy levels between Black and Brown children and their counterparts. We can start to reduce the equity gap in education by making sure that under-resourced schools are able to leverage these technologies to reduce the burden on overworked teachers while still meeting the various needs of diverse learners.
GenAI can be a powerful tool in helping students mature the critical thinking skills needed to develop strong arguments. We take for granted the learning that can be developed from having intellectual debates with peers and being challenged by someone with more knowledge and experience on a topic than you in the room. However, this kind of scholarly and intellectual discourse doesn’t often happen at under-resourced schools where teachers are not only overworked and tasked with teaching overcrowded classrooms with a wide variety of learners, but they are also tasked with being social workers and meeting the basic needs of their students.
What ends up happening in these circumstances is that students often don’t end up getting the right kind of intellectual push. They don’t get their questions answered or their curiosity stimulated which would have opened up the ability for them to think more critically about the world around them. This is where ChatGPT and other models can come into place by being that intellectual thought partner that pushes back on their ideas, helps them see counterarguments they didn’t consider, forces them to defend their position or ultimately come to a new understanding.
Having students engage with ChatGPT or other GenAI bots also gives them the opportunity to critique AI-generated answers, forcing them to find holes in another’s argument which is strong preparation for the types of scholarly critique expected in a collegiate liberal arts setting. What will be important as we look to incorporate AI into ELA classrooms is that we are also looking at bias. Too often AI writing models are trained with a white, middle-class, suburban perspective, but it’s important to recognize that there are a variety of valid dialects and ways of speaking that need to be represented in any training models. Dialects ranging from African American Vernacular English (AVEE) to patois or creole need not be marked incorrect and invalid by AI models, but instead must be part of the learning scheme as we teach students to express themselves authentically.
There is an opportunity for ChatGPT and other generative AI models to be the bridge we need in education to further engage students in their writing process. We are at an inflection point in education and it would be a shame for us to miss this moment over fears of plagiarism or cheating. Students can become better writers, not lazier writers by incorporating AI in the classroom. AI can give us the power to create more personalized writing structures and tools that learn and adapt based on the strengths and weaknesses of the individual student, allowing teachers to more effectively teach classrooms with mixed levels and abilities. It can create more opportunities for students with IEP/504 Plans and students with executive functioning issues who struggle with motivation and writer’s block.
With threats to diversity in higher education coming from a variety of angles, it is important that we take bolder action to address the inequities in our current learning system and the gross disparities and achievement gaps of minoritized students, especially in literacy. Before our students can dream of upward mobility and achieving their goals, they must first be able to communicate.
If you ask any group of people what they want from schools, the answer would probably be roughly the same—high-performing schools that help children reach their full potential, arming them with the knowledge to be critical thinkers who possess the skills to succeed in today’s job market.
Unfortunately, that might be where the agreement about what schools should do ends. There are so many opinions and experiments about what works best in education that I argue we are actually getting farther away from what schools should be for our children.
So, while I have my own theory about what schools should do, my plan doesn’t involve specific curricula or policies that will have to be changed the next time a batch of standardized tests shows a poor result. No, my plan is to take a step back from dictating daily classroom strategies and set up basic parameters that will allow schools to tap into the knowledge and expertise of their teachers while staying focused on making sure they are meeting the long-term needs of students.
Like a lot of people, I’ve been thinking about education and how to improve it for decades. However, unlike most people, I’ve approached this task with experience from a variety of viewpoints, not just a singular one. I’m chair of a group of schools in the East of England and have been in school governance for 20 years. I’m the CEO of an education technology company and have been listening and learning from educators for more than 30 years. I’m an author who’s written two books and numerous articles about education. But possibly most important — I’m a parent.
I’ve watched my children work their way through the school system and – while I realize U.K. education differs from the U.S.’s – we have a common lack of foresight about how school affects the type of adults our children become.
Shannon Flynn is a freelance blogger who covers education technologies, cybersecurity and IoT topics. You can follow Shannon on Muck Rack or Medium to read more of her articles.
In recent years, educational spaces have undergone massive changes. The pandemic led to millions of students staying home and engaging in virtual learning. As a result, there was high demand for new educational technologies, including tablets and laptops.
More school districts nationwide are leveraging remote technology services and devices to support students and their learning experiences. However, using educational technology presents challenges some school districts might not be aware of.
The Rise of Education Technology
School districts prioritize technological integration, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the pandemic forced hybrid learning upon virtually every school district and its institutions, it seems there’s no sign of tech adoption slowing anytime soon.
According to the EdWeek Research Center, around 90% of U.S. educators claimed that every middle school and high school student has at least one device and 84% of elementary school educators said the same. Take-home devices typically consist of tablets such as iPads or laptops like Chromebooks.
When thousands of students within a single school district use take-home devices, however, it can cause some problems for the district. For example, IT staff must now account for digital devices in students’ homes, which can open up the district to more cybersecurity threats. Like any educational model, there are pros and cons that come with students using take-home devices for their learning.
5 Reasons Why the Use of Technology in Education Presents Challenges
There’s no question that education technology, commonly referred to as edtech, is a boon to the education system. Leveraging new technologies to help students achieve academically and socially is a no-brainer. However, it comes with its fair share of challenges.
With the rise of online curriculums and virtual learning in both K-12 and higher ed institutions, there has been a notable increase in technology dependance. This dependency on digital tools has not only exposed children to challenges related to cyberbullying, plagiarism and online safety, but it has also made school districts incredibly vulnerable to increased cyberattacks.
Risk abounds year-round and according to hackers, student data is among the most valuable information in their sphere. They are aware that students are using personal and financial data for the first time, and find it easy to exploit their lack of awareness in safeguarding their digital identities.
Countering such attacks with the proper resources and tools can be especially difficult if there is little to no room in the IT budget for enhanced cybersecurity efforts. According to a recent report released by the Center for Internet Security, approximately one in five K-12 organizations dedicate less than 1% of their budget to cybersecurity.
While technology continues to create endless opportunities for learning, the seemingly alarming lack of cyber defenses compounds the allurement to sophisticated cybercriminals. As a result, the ever-growing data security challenge requires an effective approach to cybersecurity that first involves the development of responsible, appropriate and empowered use of technology through enhanced digital literacy.
Digital literacy starts with enhancing effective cyber skills through online awareness, (password safety, digital identity, phishing) and empowering students to protect their safety and privacy as much as possible. ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, defines digital literacy as including “the knowledge of and the ability to use digital technologies to locate, evaluate, synthesize, create, and communicate information. Being digitally literate includes having an understanding of the human and technological complexities of a digital media landscape. A student-friendly definition of digital literacy is using technology to explore, connect, create, and learn.”
By Rick Vanover, senior director of product strategy, Veeam
As the holidays approach, many schools are looking toward the upcoming fall and winter breaks. The same can be said for bad actors who capitalize on when staff and students are preoccupied with exams and preparing to return or leave the classroom to launch cyber attacks.
Often these attacks take the form of ransomware where bad actors seize files containing sensitive data, encrypt them and demand a ransom payment for returning the information. A single attack can lead to hundreds of student and staff medical records, financial histories and social security numbers in the hands of hackers.
Ransomware attacks on K-12 schools increased by 56% in the past two years. As the holidays approach, bad actors will be waiting for school IT departments to become preoccupied with last-minute staff and student demands. It is imperative that schools do their best to provide a learning environment that’s safe from all threats, including ransomware.
Schools should increase their cyber preparedness by developing a disaster recovery plan, educating their staff and students about cyber risks and practicing strong cyber hygiene across their networks as much as possible.
Developing a disaster recovery plan
A strong disaster recovery (DR) plan first requires an IT baseline. Schools should examine their entire IT infrastructure and develop a comprehensive list of all their hardware, software, device and applications in addition to details like passwords and file location.
With this in place, schools can then create a plan with all their IT components in mind. This plan should include clear, tactical steps to follow, and leaders should ensure that every employee knows their role and responsibilities before, after and during an attack.
One essential element of this plan is an organization’s backup approach. Schools should look to implement the 3-2-1-1-0 rule when it comes to their backup strategy as much as possible. In this rule, each number signifies a policy. First, a minimum of three copies of data should always be maintained — though schools are highly recommended to maintain four or five copies if possible. Next, at least two of the copies should be stored on two different types of media with one copy stored off-site and one offline to provide additional resources in case other backups are compromised. The final number, zero, signifies that there should be zero errors across the backups. If schools use this rule as a baseline for their backups, they should be able to recover their data and be confident in its reliability.
