Tech Troubles in Schools

Sarah Crouch

Schwartz, K. (2013, April 11). Finding solutions for tech troubles in schools. MindShift. Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/finding-ways-to-boost-broadband-for-schools/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

Katrina Schwart’s article covers a survey conducted by Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) which revealed priorities and weaknesses of school IT leaders. Most are focusing on Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, assessment readiness, and broadband access. A large weakness of most school IT departments is that they are underfunded and understaffed. The new requirements of a digital age with matching digital Common Core assessments are too much for the average school bandwidth.

The article quotes CoSN as launching a Designing Education Networks (DEN) initiative to present best practices, advice, and tools for school IT leaders. The initiative was supposed to release a website in June of 2013, but an online search for the DEN website or a DEN subpage on the CoSN website proved fruitless.

I believe that an initiative like DEN could be very beneficial for schools. I know that my school only has two IT staff members, and only one is full-time. Our school district is vastly unprepared to begin phasing into online testing. We can barely handle the current online traffic. The DEN initiative could provide much-needed support for our tiny IT department to request funds from the school board.