Putting Ed Tech in Perspective

   Last winter, I had the opportunity to speak at the annual NJAIS conference for trustees. My presentation gave those in attendance an overview of how technology has shaped our schools. The presentation centered around several distinct themes.  
   During the course of this year, I'd like to use this space to re-visit some of those themes.  The first theme is that examining the technological systems, uses and decision-making in a school setting is complicated.  I used schools' preferences for equipment and operating systems as a case in point. To illustrate, I imagined three schools; call them A, B & C. Each has a different approach to it's technology environment.    

   School A first got serious about purchasing computers with the introduction of the Apple IIE in 1983. The early to mid-1980's was the time-frame when many NAIS schools first saw computers on campus.  They tended to debut in offices, and in the following years, also became a fixture in the then-new computer labs.  School A had some Apple enthusiasts on campus and they promoted Apple products as "better designed, more intuitive to use and oriented towards an education setting." 
  

  
  Over time, a more complete infrastructure began to emerge on campus that included printers, network servers and other important hardware and software components.  It was all built on an Apple-friendly platform.  As often as not, particular products were purchased from Apple because their operating systems demanded compliant peripherals.

   Visit School A today and a school rep will proudly declare "We're an Apple school. Our hardware is state-of-the-art. Computer viruses have never been a problem.  Our students get MacBook Airs (or iPads) and we're building classroom learning environments around Apple TV.  We have the best technology environment a school can have."  

   School B also made some initial computer purchases in the early years of the 1980's. A business manager with eye towards the future realized that computers had great applicability in the business office.  She also saw promise for the machines in the offices of admission and development.  Not surprisingly, given her business background, the school purchased a few IBM PCs. This model, first introduced in 1981, quickly became a company workhorse and a steadily growing presence in schools like our School B. Not unlike School A, subsequent purchases of hardware and software were driven in large part by the presence of these IBM machines.  In 1987, when Microsoft first began its rapid ascent on the back of its Works productivity suite, users of IBM PCs and other DOS-driven machines had a neat fit between software and hardware.  That further created an environment built on a PC foundation.

   As the '80s gave way to the 90's, numerous other manufacturers got into the PC market because a new operating system, Windows, licensed by Microsoft, was made available to anyone for a fee. This was in direct contrast to the Apple operating system who had a more proprietary approach.  So a campus that began its computing environment with IBM PCs could easily grow its hardware and software offerings. That more complete choice of computing tools was very attractive to key decision makers.

   Visit School B and a school rep will discuss the virtues of their computing environment.  "We're educating our students to take their place in a world where PCs outsell Macs by a ratio of about 20 to 1. Students need to be conversant with the Windows operating system as an essential workplace skill.  And we're able to stretch our technology dollars further because we're not held captive by Apple's hold on its operating system. And one more thing; we can now do anything on a PC that an Apple user can do on an Apple. The days of Apple's edge in design and creativity are long gone.  In fact now, it's the opposite. Being tied to Apple is more like being tethered to a monopoly."

   What about School C? It's likely that in the early '80's, School C's initial foray into computer purchases were built around the IBM PC. Over time, the PC presence evolved and grew in much the same way as it did in School B.  But somewhere along the way, some Apple products were purchased and created a beachhead for an Apple presence on campus.  The products might have been iMacs, the purchases driven by an Art Department.  A publications person might have pushed for a MacBook Pro laptop to take advantage of the Apple publications software and enjoy the flexibility of a laptop.

   Over time, PCs continued to be the major computing presence on campus, but labs of Apples appeared. In time, these Apple machines could be "bootcamped," or imaged to open in either a Mac OS or Windows operating system.  School C was a dual-platform school; it supported two operating systems.  Over the last several years, as students began to show up to school with a mix of Apple and PC devices, there was an infrastructure already in place that seemed to naturally sync with this variety of hardware and software products.

   Visit School C today and a school rep will describe the school as a "dual-platform, BYOD" environment.  Dual platform refers to an infrastructure supporting Mac and PC machines. BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device. The rep will proudly say that "after graduation, our students are certain to find themselves in technology environments that are varied, and inevitably new. The best prepared students have broad exposure to different systems and are ready to learn whatever comes next."

   A bit confused? That brings us to one of our themes: It's Complicated. Technology offers choices. People have opinions.  In most cases, there is not one clear answer. The result is that technology decision-making is complicated.