Technology Use Planning Overview

Start with defining technology use planning--how would you describe it?

Technology use planning is a formal recognition of the fact that technology is a required component of education in today’s society, and that the technology must be readily available to everyone in order to be effective.

The plan should include at least basic ideas about what kinds of hardware and infrastructure will be included, but also what software the users will need, and how many users are likely to use the technology. Security issues--especially the storage of sensitive student data--must also be included in the plan, along with policies on who has access to that data and how the data is accessed.

How might the new National Educational Technology Plan 2010 be an effective and powerful resource for technology use planning?

Our education system is going through a huge transformation now. Past educational models focused on reading books and memorizing facts, and a person’s education was measured by how much they remembered of those facts. Today's education system is being transformed by the fact that many (if not most) students have ready access to these facts in the palm of their hand, with a shift toward focusing on how to use those facts to generate new ideas.

This concept is repeated multiple times in the NETP2010. In essence, the old, traditional concept of individual memory is quickly transforming into that of a collective memory, where members of the Internet society can share information with each other easily and quickly, even over large distances, then use that information to generate new ideas. Students (and teachers) who do not have Internet access are left out of the ability to take advantage of that collective memory.

The NETP2010 stresses the need for an infrastructure and technology support that provide reliable access to technology--for students and teachers alike--to encourage full-time learning. This access also needs to be designed for 24/7 use, because the plan acknowledges that a lot of learning takes place outside the classroom.

I believe that this plan can help those at the administrative level of education systems, including both K-12 and higher ed, to understand both how technology should be integrated into the learning system, and why it is critical that we do so.

Do you agree with See about tech use plans needing to be short, not long term?

I agree in part. In a way, technology planning is like driving a car. You need to pay the most attention to the things that are closest to you, and adapt as the traffic around you changes in the here and now. However, you also need to look down the road, so that you have time to plan and prepare for things that are still in the future.

The idea of short-term planning revolves around the fact that technology does change quickly in unpredictable ways. A ten-year plan that relies on one kind of technology may be untenable after only three or four years into the plan, simply because of the shifting nature of technology dunes.

That said, I believe that some amount of long-term planning is desirable, and that it can be effective if done correctly. Some aspects of technology have remained constant--like the need to be able to identify users and allocate resources--and it is reasonable to predict that those aspects are likely to be relevant for an indefinite period of time to come.

An example is the assignment of usernames in a network, which has been a tricky issue since networks were born. The concept of using a person’s name looks good up front, since it is easier to remember a name than a random number. However, as the number of users increases, so does the likelihood of having more than one user with the same name. While network strategies can find ways around this (by including a middle initial, for example), if users are used to one specific system, it can be confusing when elements of the system don’t meet expectations. While no username system is perfect, a long-term plan that takes into account how users will be identified in the future without confusion is better than a short-term plan that looks only at the current user base.

Another example is the need for data storage, for all users of the system. Teachers and students need access to a secure location where the data they create can be stored, and some kind of backup plan should be in place to ensure that data is not lost. We know that data storage needs are likely to grow, so we need to plan for growth.

Long-term planning should include the ability to shift focus as part of the plan, while committing to stay on track with the focus of ensuring that technology will always be available at the same time.

What do you think about his comment that "effective technology plans focus on applications, not technology?" Do you agree/disagree?

In the ideal world, I would agree with this statement. To continue with the car analogy, a traffic system should be designed with the main goal of getting drivers from point A to point B as efficiently as possible, regardless of the vehicle they are driving now or in the future.

In the real world, this is hard to implement just because every piece of technology works a little differently, and users have to know how to use the technology before they can drive it to their destination.

While graphic user interface systems have certainly made devices more user-friendly and uniform, I have found that “uniformity” is in the eye of the beholder. A child who has grown up with technology can easily adapt to its different forms without blinking an eye, because their goal is the desired end result, and they understand that an icon is just an icon, and a menu is just a menu. For many adults, learning to use technology is a goal in and of itself, and if they don’t know how to use the technology, they can’t really see a path to the end result. They may not be able to recognize that Internet Explorer and Safari serve the same purpose, for example, or be able to find options in menus that are arranged differently from what they are used to using.

In my own world, my 18-year-old son can easily switch between Windows 7, Windows 8, Ubuntu, Mac OS, iOS, and Android because he is more aware of the similarities between the different user interfaces than he is of the differences. My husband, on the other hand, moans when he has to learn yet another version of Windows or Microsoft Office, and he has only figured out how to do basic things on his Android phone. While he does understand that a GUI is a GUI, he is much more likely to see the differences between the interfaces, and to see those differences as obstacles to his desired end result.

What experiences have you had with technology use planning and what have you seen for outcomes (both good and bad?)

I have been teaching adults how to use technology for a substantial part of my adult life, and while I have never been directly involved in determining a technology plan, I have certainly experienced its effects. The technology goals for our school are determined primarily by and for administration, and providing technology for use in the classes often takes a backseat to what administration believes is needed at that time.

About a year ago, the technology department at the university where I work decided to start replacing desktop computers used in student computer labs (most of which are used for computer classes) with virtual desktop devices instead. There was a small pilot study that a few people experimented with, and once the bugs were worked out, they replaced the computers in one of the labs in the next phase. When that was successful, they went to a nearly complete commitment to providing virtual desktops in all classroom labs, as well as to replace many of the administrative computers. That roll out proved to be disastrous, because they did not plan for the number of users on the server side of the virtual network. The server crashed completely at least once a day for several weeks in a row, and even when it was working, the virtual desktops were so slow that it was frustrating to try to accomplish anything at all. They had also completely gotten rid of the old equipment, so we couldn’t just go back to the previous setup.

This was only an inconvenience for most classes, since very few classes at the school rely on technology on a daily basis, and teachers had to help students find alternate ways to complete assignments that did depend on computers. For the computer classes that I teach, though, it was disastrous. We had to figure out how to share the labs that were still functional (because they had not yet gone virtual), and I frequently found myself ending class early after using my personal laptop to demonstrate the current assignment, so that students could go find equipment to use in other parts of the campus.

The worst part of this was that the school administration was completely oblivious to the problems we were having in the classrooms. The virtual rollout was completely successful in the administrative part of the network because there were so many fewer users, Even when they did finally become aware of the severity of the problems, there was little they could do except authorize whatever expenses they could make available toward fixing the problems.

The campus is now almost completely virtual, with only a smattering of desktop computers around campus. For the most part, this has been successful after the disasters of its beginning, but there are still many people on campus who distrust it and who discourage students from using it.

I would like to think that our IT department has learned from those mistakes, but I don’t really think it has. The disaster of the virtual desktops was by far the most catastrophic example of poor planning, but it is not the only one we have had in the dozen or so years I’ve been teaching them. Most instructors have decided that we cannot count on campus technology to be available 100% of the time, and very few of us go into a classroom to teach without a plan B that does not depend on technology.