Solving for the Homework Gap

My role as CIO has changed significantly over the 5 years I’ve been at BVSD. My first major challenge was to modernize IT practices and provide reliable technology and systems to support teachers. Today, that goal has been largely accomplished with open IT issues at their lowest point ever, and the reliability of our systems greatly improved.

This new, more stable environment has allowed me to focus on bigger picture issues. One in particular that strikes home for me is the “homework gap”.  Also known as the digital divide or opportunity gap, it is the recognition that some of our students go home to little or no Internet access.

Ironically, the homework gap is happening at a time when quality educational resources are rapidly moving online. The Khan Academy alone is a significant force in helping students learn outside of the traditional classroom environment. With thousands of tutorials on everything from basic math and calculus to classes in science, computer programming, history, art, and economics, Khan Academy and similar resources can be of significant help to a struggling student.

But what if you are a student with no Internet at home? What if you don’t have a mobile device to take to the library, Starbucks, or hundreds of other publicly available Internet access sites? This is what creates the homework gap, and it is real for many of our students.

At BVSD, we are working to eliminate the homework gap through these pilot programs:

• Providing Internet at a Boulder Housing Partner site while determining the feasibility of expanding the program.
• Promoting both the Comcast and CenturyLink $9.95 Internet access programs for students qualifying for free or reduced lunch.
• Providing Chromebooks to all freshman at Centaurus and Broomfield High Schools through our 1:Web program.
• Providing Chromebook carts to all schools to be used at the school's discretion, including taking the devices home. 

Although the above pilot programs are a start, I’m exploring additional ways to close the homework gap.

I am working with administration to find funding for a district-wide 1:Web rollout, but at a cost of $2.2 million it will take time and have to be balanced with other critical needs, all at a time when state K-12 funding is critically sparse. A more feasible first step may be funding 1:Web at the high schools for $800k.

This November, BVSD is asking voters to consider an override to SB152. An override would allow public/private telecommunication partnerships that are not available to BVSD today. New partnerships could allow the district to monetize the portion of the fiber that we are not using, giving the Board of Education new revenue to use at their discretion.

CoSN, a professional organization I belong to, is studying other ways to help resolve the homework gap. CoSN's CEO, Keith Krueger, is on sabbatical at Harvard studying the digital divide and how to address it. I encourage you to read his latest blog on bringing the Internet to our students.

As curriculum and educational tools move online, the need for ubiquitous Internet is becoming a necessity. I’ll continue to spend my time working to reduce the homework gap.

I would appreciate your ideas and comments on this topic.  Please chime in below.

Andrew

EasyVista or Dial "HELP" for IT Service

As IT has matured over the years, we have focused on making the customer experience easier.  However, one frustration that many of you told me about was that you couldn’t submit tickets from Chromebooks, phones, or home.   

I’m happy to let you know that over the summer, IT moved to a new, web-based service management system called EasyVista. This new system allows you to submit IT Requests (tickets) from any device (including Chromebooks and phones) and from any place, on or off the BVSD network. We made this move because we needed to make it easier for our customers to submit service requests and purchase new technology.

As you can see from the screenshot below, EasyVista has a streamlined interface with simple menu options. You can quickly submit a request for a new issue or check the status of your requests. The Purchase Technology menu lets you shop for technology from our Technology Purchase Program menu.

EasyVista isn’t the only change from our IT Service Desk. We have a new phone number that is easy to remember: 720-561-HELP (4357). But don’t worry if you have our old extension (x5065) committed to memory—it still works! Our chat feature is also still available and linked directly to the EasyVista homepage.

Eventually EasyVista will be expanded to other departments, the goal being to have one place to submit service requests to Payroll, HR, Maintenance, Security, and IT. Watch for this change to take place over the next couple years.

I hope your transition to EasyVista is seamless, and that you find the interface clean and easy to use.

Please let me know what your experience has been so far in the comments below.

Andrew

BVSD is Becoming Future Ready

BVSD is committed to being Future Ready. We’ve always been in the business of preparing students for the future, but how we prepare them is changing because our world is becoming more connected through technology.

Our superintendent, Bruce Messinger, recently signed the Future Ready Pledge, part of the federal government’s ConnectED Initiative, which recognizes the importance of:

“building human capacity within schools and districts for effectively using increased connectivity and new devices to transform teaching and learning.”

In other words, we are committed to supporting our educators who transform the way students learn using technology with professional development.

This short video illustrates what being Future Ready means for our students. I hope you take a few moments to watch it and be inspired.

I recently attended the Future Ready Schools summit in Denver wtih Dr. Messinger, Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services & Equity Ron Cabrera, and Ed Tech Director Kelly Sain. The summit, one of many across the nation, is sponsored by the US Department of Education and the Alliance for Excellent Education to help ensure that we, as leaders in public education, are proactively planning for the future of education.  I was pleasantly surprised that the summit was not exclusively about technology; it was about the support that our teachers need in order to be successful.We used our time together to plan how technology can improve student learning, and to identify the issues that need to be addressed so that we can transition smoothly into a digital learning environment. Specifically, we discussed:

    curriculum, instruction, and assessment

    professional learning

    technology, networks, and hardware

    budget and resources

    data and privacy

    use of time

    community partnerships

I’m happy to say that BVSD has already been working to address these topics.

• We are working to update our current 7-year curriculum adoption model, which was optimized for print materials, to a model that can handle subscription-based digital curriculum materials.

• We are supporting teachers at our 1:Web pilot schools, Centaurus High and Broomfield High, with extensive professional development that we will eventually scale up when 1:Web becomes district-wide.
• We are upgrading our internet pipe this summer to 4 times its current capacity.
• We are updating our student data privacy practices and policies.
• We will begin using the innovation funds from the recent bond to create areas for collaboration and learning within the schools.

Our biggest challenge to meeting the Future Ready Pledge is budget and resources. We need roughly $2.2 million per year to provide a digital device for every student and professional development for every teacher. Even with a budget of $300 million, this is still a big number.

In the meantime, our 1:Web pilots will continue so that we learn and prepare for the change in our educational practices over the next decade. 

I appreciate your thoughts, so please chime in below with how you are becoming “Future Ready.”

Andrew