This is a particularly busy week starting with me traveling to Cardiff to speak to IT staff in schools. In Cardiff my presentation was very much on the state of IT in schools and on the challenges which I see ahead. As such I thought I would share some of my thoughts post the event.
Digital: The only path forward
I have long spoke about technology and its potential in schools and education more generally. I remember a talk from 2013 I gave through in Dubai where I talked about a pyramid of requirements which led eventually to teacher and student confidence in technology use, and the resultant embedding of technology in teaching and learning. Am not sure if we have moved on quite as much as I would have expected from 2013, however, we have certainly moved on. The world we live in certainly involves more technology and technology is becoming a necessity. In schools, the pandemic has had an impact pushing more schools to use technology although funding and cost continue to be a notable roadblock for many schools. And more recently we have seen such interest in artificial intelligence and how it might impact schools including how it might start to help us to address the teacher workload challenge.
But in line with this we have an issue of widening digital divides. Some schools have invested in infrastructure and devices, whereas others have invested to a lesser extent. Some students have access to the internet and devices at home, while others’ only device may be their mobile phone, and some may not even have one of these. And in relation to mobile phones, some schools will seek to ban whereas others manage phones and discuss with students the benefits and risks of mobile phones and online services such as social media. We also now have generative AI with some schools embracing this, talking and working with students on the appropriate use of generative AI, whereas other schools seek simply to ban it.
Strategy
I have written in the past about my changing views on digital or technology strategies. I think in the early days of technology use maturity, having a strategy setting out what you want to achieve and how you will go about it is key. The first steps are big ones and you want to ensure you take people, your staff, students and parents, with you so having a clear strategy is critical. That said, as technology use in a school matures and is embedded it is more about strategy evolving over time, and adapting to new technologies and changes in how the school and its staff and students operate. At this point the steps arent that big as you have an embedded technology platform, its more like minor course corrections and adjustments to take advantage of new technologies, new processes or changes in the context of the school.
Cyber and data protection
If there is something that gives a director of IT or a network manager sleepless nights it’s a cyber incident yet they are unavoidable. It’s not an “if” it’s a “when”. I think it is important that we accept this but also that we ensure we see cyber incidents not as an IT issue but as a school or college-wide issue. If your internet isn’t working or your MIS is down, it will impact on teachers and students, not just IT staff. Once we accept that 100% secure is impossible we can work towards doing what is possible and what is reasonable given the available resources. I previously talked about some key basic activities such as patching, backups including testing of backups and MFA among other things. If we can do these we reduce the risk and hopefully push the incident which will hit the school further into the future. But if we accept a cyber incident is guaranteed this gets us to the next key activity being planning for that eventual incident. This is where a desktop exercise is very useful in identifying assumptions and allowing all involved to explore options but without the pressure and stress of a real life incident. The Benjamin Franklin quote regarding failing to plan being planning to fail sums this up so very nicely. And again, this needs to be done at a school level and not limited to IT as the key thing during an incident will be how students are managed, how they are kept safe, how staff are kept informed and how the school manages to maintain as much of a business as usual approach as is possible.
Linked to cyber security I think it is also worth picking up data protection as schools are increasingly processing more and more data. I know from my own school I can plot the increase in data being stored and the increase in data crossing our internet threshold. If we are to keep data secure we need to know what data we have, why we have it, who is responsible for it and where it is stored. Once we have these basics we can then delegate data protection compliance to the relevant data owner and like cyber, see data as belonging to those making the decisions regarding what data is gathered and how, rather than seeing data as an IT issue.
Artificial intelligence
Now any technology post at the moment wouldn’t be complete without some mention of artificial intelligence and this post is no different. Generative AI has such potential to provide us all with a low-cost assistant which can help, and that’s for both staff and students. Generative AI isn’t perfect but that’s fine, as if it was why would we need humans at all, and what would it mean to be a human with no purpose, given AI could do everything we can do? That said AI will continue to improve and get better. I am already using AI on a daily basis, having sought to identify where it can help with some of my workflows. The key for me is the AI genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back, so we therefore need to see how we can use it as effectively and appropriately as possible, and that’s staff but also students in my view
Conclusion and networks
Technology change is happening at an ever-increasing pace. Schools and education more generally need to do their very best to keep up but this is a challenge. But maybe technology shows us our best opportunity of achieving this. Social media, AirBnB, Uber and many other services are all about crowd-sourcing content and sharing and maybe this is the method we need to use in keeping schools and education up to date. One of my favourite quotes continues to be from David Weinberger who said “The smartest person in the room is the room”. So we need to build big rooms full of educators, IT in schools staff and others, and ensure we share and discuss. Our biggest potential is achieved through collaboration, through sharing and through facing technology change and technology disruption collectively. That is why I consider myself privileged to be part of some really big rooms including the ANME, the Digital Futures Group and the ISC Digital Advisory Group. Through networking and sharing we have our best opportunities to keep abreast of constant change, including technological change.
Technology and Learning 