Much of this week’s work and research focus on setting the stage for Enterprise Architecture. Typically, school districts have maintained separate plans for technology and the district. For example, a district creates a “district education plan” and then has a separate “technology plan.” Moving forward, do you think this is still a good practice, or should they be combined? Please provide a rationale for your decision. It is possible that twenty years ago a district could have two distinct plans - a "district education plan" and a seperate "technology plan." However, today's increasingly digitized world and the prevalence of technological tools being used inside and outside the classroom must cause districts reconsider this approach. Even if a district is not using very much technology, it is now forced to rethink this, since the lack of using technological tools could be putting their students at a great disadvantage in comparison with districts that are leveraging technology to better deliver content and provide for individualized learning plans that can be customized and monitored through increasingly sophisticated technological solutions.
Furthermore, districts where technology is being adopted through a technology plan, will find that if not developed in conjunction with their district education plan, these will often be misaligned and not take full advantage of the resources that technology can provide to teachers and students in relation to classroom education. They will also miss out on opportunities for optimization of the learning experience and of more easily gathering data around learning progress. In conclusion, these two plans may still exist as separate artifacts but should be built out together with clear alignments and foundational architecture between the two plans so they reinforce and complement each other and are based on the same ultimate goals and outcomes, such as success for all students and ease of use for all end users.
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Now that I also am aware of the IMS Global Learning Consortia, I plan to get a full list of their partners/members to simplify my search of applications, hardware, etc. for teaching, communications, production, marketing, and delivery and data analytics solutions. With that list in hand, I can hone in on only the applications that use the IMS standards and thus, avoid having to have custom API's and integrations build for us. By joining the IMS Consortia, Conexiones could also benefit from the prior thinking that has already gone into analyzing and choosing the right solutions for the different working parts of an online learning organization. This will help tremendously with filling in the various bricks that we will create. Reflection: Schools are often working against themselves as there are distinct applications for various needs:
I would unify various systems by looking for a Single sign-on (SSO) solution so that staff and teachers can access all of their platform services in a user-friendly way with a one single sign-on and sign-off feature. This will help make things much more efficient and also safer since a teacher may have multiple tabs open on her computer and forget to sign off properly. I would also seek to make sure that data is readily accessible for teachers, staff, and for transfer to the respective stakeholders, such as the state's departments of education. This is one of the challenges many school districts have and was discussed in the Arizona Education Learning and Accountability System (AELAS) Business Case. Being able to export reports on all platform services in a way that is migratable and importable to other systems (i.e. csv file), is key and vital when choosing a platform service. A Software solution that that can export reports that are draw from various applications and platform services would be ideal and I would look for a software solution that helps with this. I would also search for redundancies and anywhere where there is an unneeded duplication of data entry. This could potentially help save lots of time and money, especially if there is an overarching software that can draw reports from various platform services. Having said that, there are often ways for applications and platform services to be synced and thus, when one field or value is updated in one system, it automatically updates it in the other systems that use that same information. I would seek out solutions of this kind to make teaching and learning systems, administrative systems, back office systems, and supplemental systems more efficient, accessible, and useful for all users. As you have researched Data standards, please reflect on your discoveries. What are the three most critical factors that you would cite to a colleague about this architecture? Discuss why data standards are critical for educational organizations to employ.
I did not know that the Common Education Data Standards existed and can clearly see the importance of having a common language or vocabulary between schools and the state and federal departments of education. The three most critical factors I would cite to a colleague are: 1 - We need to make sure our own vocabulary and language matches the Common Education Data Standards architecture. 2 - That we need to be more strategic about using big data in the same way that other sectors of society and the business sector are using it to continually improve practice for successful student performance, while making sure student privacy is protected by focusing on aggregate data. 3- Educational Enterprise Architecture initiatives do not have to be large in scale. We can start with a smaller scope that is more manageable and on target with immediate goals, and incrementally increase the scope over time (Education Enterprise Architecture Guidebook, p. 8). Data standards are critical for educational organizations to employ because schools need to be able to send understandable data to the district, who then sends it to the state department. If the data is not recognizable or readable by these other stakeholders, then those responsible for tasked with assuring student success will not know if students are succeeding in our school or know what tools and resources would be the best to implement to improve student success. They would also not be able to determine if public funds are actually helping students and the public would not have the data it is entitled to as the funders of our school. And as the video narrator of the video, "Who Uses Student Data," says: "When parents, teachers and leaders have access to quality data, students do better." |
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