Look, I don’t know what 2012 holds. That said, it won’t stop others from blogging about it, so why not make a few statements see where it goes? Honestly, I’m taking most of these thoughts from things we’re already seeing, so I’m glancing backward as I try to look forward into the K-12 technology landscape:
Bring Your Own Device – It’s coming, so be prepared for it. A few school districts are actively promoting BYOD and several more allow it without actively promoting it. The reality is that the device landscape is evolving and price points continue to drop. Just now browsing a big-box site, I can spend $150 and get a 7″ Android-based device that will browse the web. You may or may not be in favor of it, but now is the time to plan for upgrading your infrastructure to support it. Speaking of devices…
Ultrabooks Grow, Seeking to Replace ‘Traditional’ Laptops – After just a few years, Dell is going to stop manufacturing the Inspiron Mini devices. One obvious reason is the explosion of tablet devices that have found their way into the same niche of the market. The other reason, stated in the article, is the Macbook Air. Without diving too deep into the Mac-versus-PC debate, that device admittedly has everyone focused on true portability. The ‘road warrior’ notices a difference in 3 pounds and 6-7 pounds being carried around. At the moment, the device of choice seems to be a netbook tablet if your processing needs are minimal and we’re seeing a shift toward a laptop an ultrabook if you need processing power and portability. PC designers are already changing their pipelines and ramping up production of devices in this category to compete with the Macbook Air.
Data Conversations Continue – This isn’t specific to Kentucky or to K-12 and isn’t really a 2012 thing, either. There has been a desire to increase data collaborations and standardization of the collection and analysis for quite some time. CCSSO has a consortium focused on this. The Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) has data movement at its core and that concept has been around for at least a decade. Maybe that’s why this is such an easy ‘prediction’ to make. 🙂 In our environment in Kentucky, we have a standardized student information system and financial system for all districts. When stakeholders want to leverage those resources to glean useful data for insight and analysis, that makes sense. As technology leaders, we may only be able to educate others and do our best to understand the data flow and interoperability between the growing number of disparate systems we have in place. Yes, we’ve standardized on those two major components. However, as districts can attest, we have any number of food service packages, transportation software, library management software and other administrative packages in addition to the myriad of instructional and assessment solutions that find their way into the local school district.
Nothing too earth-shattering in this post, but it’s interesting to see how quickly things have changed and continue to change, particularly in the hardware we use. You can still find a used Alphasmart. Is it true that Smart Boards have been around for 20 years? Heck, that’s five years before the first Palm PDA. I’m rambling at this point, so I’ll close and wish you the best for 2012. Take care!