Virtual Classroom Trends for 2013/2014

The virtual classroom is arguable the single most impactful trend in EdTech today. Despite the visibility and ubiquity of BYOD, the virtual classroom alone holds the potential for the most far reaching change in teaching, learning, and the district’s processes and approaches. Mitigating some elements of the physical focus of where learning takes place offers the chance to make some compelling advances in teaching and learning.

When it comes to looking at the impact of the virtual classroom, there are two primary aspects that need to be considered, the technology to support the virtual classroom and the use of this technology from a teaching perspective. Given the focus of this blog, we’ll focus more on the first element.

One of the biggest drawbacks to a number of the current virtual classroom implementations is that they require “special” rooms or equipment that is not found throughout the school. This makes the use of virtual classrooms somewhat limited and generally focused on larger groups. By making the technology more ubiquitous, even if it means using less capable tools like Skype, the reality is that for virtual learning to grow, it has to become a real alternative to physically proximal learning. In some respects, this is less of a technology question than it is a curriculum question and the drive to have teachers use existing common tools, rather than wait for the most technically capable solutions to be deployed. I expect we’ll see a number of broad virtual learning initiatives, especially for small or single student use like special education that use basic videoconferencing just to get the job done.

One of the missing elements in the Virtual classroom is tools designed to leverage and enhance virtual learning. This focuses on some key capabilities that I think must be enhanced. Work-sharing where teachers and students can look at work being done in real time and share input on that individual work so that 1:1 learning is more engaging. Another aspect that I think needs some improvement is what I’ll call “explorability”. Simply put, with the internet, you can pursue the personal route you’d like to take when gathering information or “exploring”. Too often the learning software is very structured and rigid for virtual classrooms, making the less much more rote. Finally, we need to up-level the amount of interactivity and engagement in the virtual classroom. For example, real time graphics that show what is happening with the rest of the class; what chapter are they reading, how many examples have they done on the work, what is their number of correct answers? All this input is often found in a traditional class by looking around.

In my opinion, these two factors are going to be the biggest trends on the technology side. I know that many vendors are still driving for the Cadillac level room based offerings that provide more capabilities, but I believe ubiquity is far more important. As to the software side, we are really in the early stages here, and many exciting new approaches will definitely come to EdTech in the next 12 months!

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The Role of Virtual Classrooms in Primary Education

The use of virtual classroom technology is becoming very common in Higher Education, but there has not been a corresponding rise in use within Primary (K-12) Education. Yet, the promise of the technology and the launch of a recent television commercial showcasing an ill student use case has raised the visibility of the issue. It’s certainly worth evaluating.

Before the discussion of the value and reach of virtual classrooms even starts, we have to begin with the technology basics. It’s more than just built in webcams on laptops or even a classroom camera and smart blackboard. In order to engage the students that are not physically in the classroom, we need multiple feeds and camera angles, and critically, a two way system that lets the teacher see what the remote student is feeling, focusing on, and in some manner, pick up on the visual clues that come from students. It’s not a TV studio, but, it is more than basic Skype like functionality. This can be an issue in a budget challenged district. There are some vendors with packaged virtual classroom solutions that are worth looking at.

School choice is a growing issue, and is unlikely to go away soon. And the use of virtual classrooms can be a means of taking schools that are “magnet”, “gifted”, or otherwise provide enhanced services in one attribute to a larger group of students. There is even a push among Catholic educators to use virtual classrooms to provide greater reach. One member of our local school board brought up the issue of using virtual classroom technology as a means of providing special education services for a number of districts at the same time, with one physical classroom, to reduce costs.

Another, and I believe highly important, role for virtual classrooms is for use during a weather event or other scenario where a large proportion of the student body is unable or unwilling to go to the physical school building. Clearly an event such as Hurricane Sandy would be an example, but even the recent influenza scare going through the Northeast may result in many children staying home to limit exposure to the virus. In these situations having the ability to conduct some level of virtual learning would be an improvement on just missing school completely. Of course if there is no power or communications network, this is a problem. However, during most events there is some level of connectivity that can be achieved. School districts would have to have technology contingency plans in place. These need not be expensive. Having a standing Webex site and teachers equipped with webcams is a very basic way you can start implementation. It’s not going to be the same as an actual class, but it would be better than just missing days.

Virtual classrooms aren’t just for colleges and universities any more. Yet, this isn’t a simple plug and play technology, and districts will have to spend the time to create very finite plans for how the virtual classroom will be used. But the benefits are there. There are even potential ways to save costs, and that can help pay for a virtual classroom initiative. The future is now and it is time to start the process. In 5-10 years, the role of virtual classrooms will no longer be an issue as they will become a common part of the educational process.

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When Will All Student Desktops Be Virtual?

There are occasions in the world of technology where customer needs and technology capabilities are incredibly well suited for each other.  This is the case for Desktop Virtualization and the K-12 environment.  Using the right virtualization solution can help K-12 technology managers meet the rigorous demands of today’s IT infrastructure for schools.

The demands start with a focus on reducing the daily costs of IT.  As the recovery slowly moves forward, most districts are finding that the tax receipts to fund the schools are lower, and as a result, the best case for many is a flat budget, making actual cost reductions critical as this frees up money for the new solutions that are needed.  Desktop virtualization helps achieve this by cutting software costs with better control over the system image; you only buy what you actually use. 

Sharing licenses is easier also.  It also lowers the amount of time IT needs to spend fixing corrupted clients or local software problems.  By deploying “fresh desktops” to each student as they sign on, problems created in one class don’t impact the next one.  This also simplifies the IT environment saving cost in IT resources.  With fewer variables it lowers the amount of IT resources needed.  Another key point is that by using a single standard “desktop” with just the needed applications and tools, security can be substantially increased as rogue programs, malware, and other security threats are not allowed to run on the standard system image.

Yet, not all virtualization solutions are the same.  There are actually multiple ways to implement desktop virtualization, and rather than go into all of the technical detail here, the focus should be on the most appropriate solution.

In my opinion, the best offering is to provide a fresh virtual desktop for each class or user to a local PC or thin PC that will then run the applications provided by the virtualization server, but locally.  This new class of PCs has reduced power consumption and also is physically much smaller for cramped classrooms.

The need to run applications locally is very important due to the demands by the curriculum for multi-media applications and activities.  New standard curriculum rules such as the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts and Literacy is a good example of this curriculum change that drives demand for “rich media” applications.

Running these applications in a virtual solution that treats the client device as a “dumb terminal” is asking for trouble with network performance and capability.  Most schools don’t have high speed local networks that can support this kind of multimedia network traffic, and implementing desktop virtualization to save money, and then having to spend more money on a network upgrade is non-sensical.  So moving to virtualization with local execution makes the best sense.

So when do all K-12 desktops become virtual?  The answer is sooner than you think!

As K-12 IT leaders seek ways to support computer-based learning within constrained budgets, desktop virtualization has emerged as a compelling solution. This white paper demonstrates how virtualization helps schools reduce their total cost of ownership and improve computer access, which ultimately produces greater satisfaction among administrators, teachers, students and parents.

View the original article here

When Will All Student Desktops Be Virtual?

There are occasions in the world of technology where customer needs and technology capabilities are incredibly well suited for each other.  This is the case for Desktop Virtualization and the K-12 environment.  Using the right virtualization solution can help K-12 technology managers meet the rigorous demands of today’s IT infrastructure for schools.

The demands start with a focus on reducing the daily costs of IT.  As the recovery slowly moves forward, most districts are finding that the tax receipts to fund the schools are lower, and as a result, the best case for many is a flat budget, making actual cost reductions critical as this frees up money for the new solutions that are needed.  Desktop virtualization helps achieve this by cutting software costs with better control over the system image; you only buy what you actually use. 

Sharing licenses is easier also.  It also lowers the amount of time IT needs to spend fixing corrupted clients or local software problems.  By deploying “fresh desktops” to each student as they sign on, problems created in one class don’t impact the next one.  This also simplifies the IT environment saving cost in IT resources.  With fewer variables it lowers the amount of IT resources needed.  Another key point is that by using a single standard “desktop” with just the needed applications and tools, security can be substantially increased as rogue programs, malware, and other security threats are not allowed to run on the standard system image.

Yet, not all virtualization solutions are the same.  There are actually multiple ways to implement desktop virtualization, and rather than go into all of the technical detail here, the focus should be on the most appropriate solution.

In my opinion, the best offering is to provide a fresh virtual desktop for each class or user to a local PC or thin PC that will then run the applications provided by the virtualization server, but locally.  This new class of PCs has reduced power consumption and also is physically much smaller for cramped classrooms.

The need to run applications locally is very important due to the demands by the curriculum for multi-media applications and activities.  New standard curriculum rules such as the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts and Literacy is a good example of this curriculum change that drives demand for “rich media” applications.

Running these applications in a virtual solution that treats the client device as a “dumb terminal” is asking for trouble with network performance and capability.  Most schools don’t have high speed local networks that can support this kind of multimedia network traffic, and implementing desktop virtualization to save money, and then having to spend more money on a network upgrade is non-sensical.  So moving to virtualization with local execution makes the best sense.

So when do all K-12 desktops become virtual?  The answer is sooner than you think!

As K-12 IT leaders seek ways to support computer-based learning within constrained budgets, desktop virtualization has emerged as a compelling solution. This white paper demonstrates how virtualization helps schools reduce their total cost of ownership and improve computer access, which ultimately produces greater satisfaction among administrators, teachers, students and parents.

View the original article here