siliconindia | | April 201719and outside of the classroom, a problem that is magnified for large urban districts. The substantial gap between the District's affluent students and those from low-in-come homes means that some students have expensive smartphones, tablets or laptops while others don't even have inter-net connections at home.Lack of access to technology for low-income students, means that beyond not just having the latest smartphone or tablet, they also lag their more affluent peers in the technology skills that are in-creasingly required for both education and the 21st century workplace. This has the effect of putting already at-risk students in jeopardy of falling further behind in their education, college-readiness, and limited vocational options.Personalized Learning and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)As school districts across the country try to find the budget dollars to fund more devices for the classroom, more and more students are coming to school with a com-puter in their hands ­ a smartphone. Parents, students, and teachers all want BYOD access, but the unenviable task of making it all seamlessly work falls to IT departments. Providing a consistent user experience across myriad combinations of devices, operating systems and appli-cations that is secure, protects privacy, ensures content appropriateness and man-ages network bandwidth is a very delicate balancing act. BYOD can help bridge the digital divide by leveraging existing tech-nology students are using, which in turn frees up capital to provide more devices for those unable to afford them. There are many risks prior to embracing a BYOD program that needs evaluation are applica-tion control, potential data loss, local labor laws/issues, potential privacy issues, reg-ulatory requirements, lost/stolen devices, data recovery and legal ownership of data stored on a personal device. Finally, defin-ing the appropriate policies with clear ex-pectations on the outcome will be the key to a successful BYOD program.Infrastructure NeedsAny significant implementation of digi-tal devices will almost certainly require corresponding IT infrastructure changes to ensure the project's success. Wireless Access Points (WAP), increased broad-band access, servers, storage and network switches can all need upgrades in order to handle the increased demand. Security concerns require more redundancy in net-works, better SPAM and content filtering as well to ensure the internal and external access has high availability, protects pri-vacy and limits the opportunities for bad actors. Being able to accurately estimate, plan and prepare the infrastructure changes prior to implementation is crucial.Technology FundingIn many ways, the impact of the Great Re-cession in 2008 is still being felt in school districts across the nation. As boom turned to bust, federal, state and local funding sources were greatly reduced or in some cases, disappeared entirely. Per-student funding from the state of Florida is slow-ly increasing but is only now approaching pre-2008 levels­with the additional tech-nology-related expenses from online test-ing, virtual classes and other expanding tech initiatives that have accrued over the last eight years unaccounted for. Beyond the increased strain on technology infra-structure, large technology initiatives re-quire increased staff for the support, main-tenance, repair and replacement of digital devices­costs that need to be accounted for when considering how to move the dig-ital revolution into the classroom.Power to the PPPPublic-Private Partnerships (PPP) for ed-ucation have been touted as the `future of education' and can provide assistance to reduce the digital divide and move closer to the digital classroom. Some like inter-net providers of-fering high-speed broadband access and low-cost com-puters at substan-tially reduce d prices have a proven track record of helping millions of kids get online at home. Public-Private Partnerships also offer schools the ability to leverage econo-mies of scale in purchasing or sharing technology resources.However, some highly-publicized ven-tures that ought to quickly turn around fail-ing schools in a short time show little to no improvement by any reasonable measure. While the motivations are no doubt noble, the results show that the same strategies employed when launching a dot.com or social media site do not necessarily trans-late to improving schools or increasing student achievement.Measuring ResultsIt's vitally important that district lead-ership collaboratively design, plan and execute on a strategic vision to move our schools, teachers, staff and students into the digital age­it's equally important to effectively communicate that vision to community leaders, business interests, and taxpayers. Only by building a coalition of stakeholders, all of whom have a vested in-terest in the outcome, will the investment, resources and energy necessary for success be attainable.Pilot programs and model classrooms can provide vital feedback on which tech-nologies are appropriate for students, schools or districts as a whole. With the proper vision, planning, strategic partnerships and support from all interested parties, advancing technol-ogy has the potential to fundamentally alter the ways we teach, learn and view the role of K12 education for current and future generations. Deepak Agarwal
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