Transforming Education through Disruptive Technologies

1. Transforming Education through Disruptive Technologies Panelists: Steve Nordmark Vice President, Solutions Management and Development, netTrekker Elango Kanagaraji Head – Web 2.0 Specialization, Aspire Systems Moderator: Kanchana Rajagopalan Marketing, Aspire Systems Date: Thursday, Apr 1st, 2010 Time: 11 AM EDT/ 04:00 PM BST/ 08:30 PM IST

2. Panelist Steve NordmarkVice President, Solutions Management and Development, netTrekker Innovative leader in educational software development and research with over 20 years of experience in corporate consulting and K-12 educational technology. Spearheaded the next generation re-architecture, design, development, and deployment of the flagship netTrekker product, providing an increased platform for growth, integration and flexibility. Managed and lead several educational software development projects, including desktop-based, client-server, and online/SaaS solutions for more than 13 years. Passionate about delivering personalized learning environments for all, blending a focus on strong Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and meaningful connections of assessment and instructional content. Steve has a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from the University of Illinois and a Master's degree in Education from Florida Tech.

3. About netTrekker • Founded in 1999 • First to market with standards-based educational search tool • A leader in the delivery of digital K-12 educational content • Engaging students through personalized learning • Currently serving over 10 million students in 18,000+ schools worldwide • Honored with over 25 awards for educational excellence

4. Panelist Elango KanagarajiHead – Web 2.0 Specialization, Aspire Systems Currently heads the Web 2.0 Specialization Business unit at Aspire Systems. Responsible for the business/product development in Consumer Internet and Software enabled business areas and manages all customer engagements from North America and Europe. Actively participates in customer interactions and new customer acquisition and drives various value added initiatives for customers Instrumental in defining Aspire's focus in Web 2.0. Closely monitors industry trends in Web 2.0 and collaborates with Aspire's Web 2.0 CoE to build internal expertise. Elango has a Bachelor's Degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from PSG Institute of Technology, Coimbatore

5. About Aspire • Thought leader in Outsourced Product Development • 1100+ product releases to date • 50+ active engagements; 475 producteers • Offices in Chennai (India), San Jose, CA, and London, UK • ISO 9001:2000 certified Awards Ranked among the Top 20 Global R&D Service Providers by Zinnov Consulting Ranked in the top 500 fast growing technology companies in Asia Pacific for 3 years in a row

6. Agenda • Best established/emerging technologies education software providers should invest in • Technologies recommended for educational institutions and corporations • Market Drivers in the K-12 Education • Effects and Impacts of adopting such disruptive technologies

7. Ning • Facebook • LinkedIn So far so good • Wikispaces • Flickr • Delicious • Coffee Break Spanish • Super Why – PBS Kids • TED Talks Video • netTrekker • My Library • Gradefix • Zoho Writer • SlideShare • Biz-LX™ • Flight Simulations • Medical Simulations

8. Gaining ground Cloud Computing • Software on cloud can be delivered to any device and from anywhere • Software Solution - network, cloud and device dependent • Application built in to support cloud computing model and scale across private and external cloud • Interoperable and Portable across cloud services to avoid Vendor Lock, Support for Federated Identity Management service like SAML • Private Cloud - Data center for mission critical applications and others can be moved to external clouds • Benefits for Schools/Universities using the applications on Cloud: • Reduce the cost of Managing Individual Devices and enable students to use their own devices • Access the required application on need basis on any device and from anywhere

9. Comparison On-Premise Hosted Solution Cloud Solutions

10. Gaining ground Virtual Space and Collaboration • Virtual Classrooms • Private spaces, interaction with multiple users in real time • Distributed and engaged learning • eCalendar – Organize and share assignments, events, post-information to students, teachers, professors, parents etc. • Artificial Intelligence - Training assistance, facilitating academics, training for medicine, battlefields etc. • Interaction with the real world while being constantly provided with information about their surrounding – Student guides or virtual tour of campus • Google Sky Map, Wikitude

11. Gaining ground Rich Internet Apps • Why RIA for Education Software • Highly Productive Tools • Portal Environment • Mobile Devices • User Experience and Rich Content Delivery – Flex, Silverlight, HTML 5 • Desktop Apps – AIR, Java Web Start, etc • Next Generation Electronic Books – iPhone, iPad, Tablet PC, Android etc

12. Gaining ground Mashups • Personalized App creations, create own curriculum, courses, assessment tools without any coding knowledge • Create Custom Data services – API calls or extract structured data from Web pages • Create Data Feeds - RSS, XML, Microformats etc. • Example – Yahoo Search Monkey, Find the landmark, Flood Maps

13. On the Horizon Semantic Web • Data on Web which can be interpreted by machine • Enhances user experience with better search, transfer Data between websites and applications (Transfer Calendar event on webpage to Desktop) • Enhances Interactivity between Students, Schools, Teachers, Content Authors in real-time • Web morphs into effective and focused information resource tailored for specific content area objectives • Semantic Web Technologies for Education Software • System Integration based on universal Ontology • Building Semantic Metadata – RSS, RDF, Microformats, OWL

14. Examples

15. Blending Current and Future Disruptive Technologies To Meet the Market Drivers

16. Market Drivers in K-12 Education • Major Budget Crisis – Increased Focus on Reducing Cost • National Educational Technology Plan • Grand Challenge: “…half the time at half the cost” • States Providing Clear Signals for Increased Appetite for Digital Resources • Increased Emphasis on Technology Enablers for “Personalization” • Increased AI support, connecting learner profile, learning content and assessment • Longitudinal Accountability – Following the learner • Project-based Learning – Collaboration • Global Competence

17. Grand Challenges in National Ed-Tech Plan “…establishing an integrated end-to-end real-time system for managing learning outcomes and costs across our entire education system at all levels.” • Self improving system that becomes more effective with interaction with learners • Updated assessments for 21C environment across academic disciplines • Real-time access across multiple learning platforms and data systems • Online learning systems and/or blended learning systems that produce equal or better outcomes that conventional methods in “half the time at half the cost”

18. Impacts of the “Grand Challenges” • Greater needs for bandwidth capabilities, not just within schools but within homes and communities • Greater R&D on interoperable learning objects • May have a pre-defined scope and sequence (as an initial recommendation) • Permit school systems and teachers to disaggregate resources and utilize those that best meet the needs of specific students – supporting personalization • Greater R&D in “activity-based” learning objects that embed branching assessments • Greater coordination among those involved with: • R&D on digital identity profiles of learners • Security measures that protect that information • Policies that define the boundaries of the security framework – refining current guidelines (i.e., FERPA and CIPA )

19. Impacts of the “Grand Challenges” • Greater R&D on interoperability standards that connect the digital identity profile of: Learner Assessment Content

20. Impacts of the “Grand Challenges” • Greater R&D on interoperability standards that connect the digital identity profile of: • Interoperability standards to support multiple Learning Platforms and Data Systems Learner Assessment Content

21. Mandated Learning Platforms Versus Open Standards • Scotland is implementing Glow, country-wide (about ½ population of Ohio) • In the US, we have open market for LMS/VLE/LP solutions • Don’t see Federal or State Governments in US implementing one choice • Requires significant increase in interoperability standards adherence from publishers and Ed-Tech vendors • Requires leadership from a policy level to highlight the importance of these interoperability standards

22. Web-based authentication models – Single Sign-on (SSO) • Scotland and other areas in UK chose to standardize on Shibboleth for Federated model of SSO - http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/about.html • Few places in US, outside of academic levels discuss similar approaches Starting Point for OpenStandards

23. Impacts of the “Grand Challenges” • Greater technology support for 21C authentic assessments • Greater shift to mastery level achievement goals with fewer penalties for risk taking in learning along the way – promoting learning in a 21C innovation economy • Greater need for equitable student access to computing devices, starting with laptops but quickly moving to smaller, more mobile device • Which leads to…

24. Impacts of Increased Mobility • Greater need for client-server approach (“back to the future”) in the interim to respond to issues with connectivity and/or slower bandwidth in mobile platforms • Greater complexity and cost in application development and testing due to increased number of Operating Systems beyond Windows and Mac • Greater QA requirements • Greater reliance on advanced GUI developers (whole new realm beyond current web GUI developers) • Greater variability in application designs – supporting anytime, anywhere learning with or without reliable connectivity

25. Impacts of Increased Mobility • Resisting temptation to port existing apps to mobile platforms - seriously rethinking whether there is specific, increased benefit for supporting mobility • UDL challenges/opportunities due to different form factors and usage locations • Significant changes in keyboarding – potential impact on extended writing • Increased need for handwriting recognition software and voice recognition software to compensate for keyboard limitations • Potential positive impacts on multimedia (audio/visual) record keeping and the potential resulting impact on text literacy and writing skills • Rethink the use of audio and video because of difficulty with text input/output on smaller screens (e.g., kReader Mobileand knfb Reading Technology from Kurzweil)

26. Impacts of Increased Mobility • Greater potential for “personalization” • Increased acceptance for student-owned devices • Defining personal preferences • Tracking personal usage behaviors • Machine authentication vs. username & password • Increased need for new models of “student-friendly” authoring tools for multimedia presentations

27. Longitudinal Accountability • Looking for solutions that move with the learner • Longitudinal view of a student’s “profile” of learning • strong need for ePortfolio solutions that allow students to perform their work online through SaaS tools • open standards to allow the information to flow easily from one system to another as students move: • from school to school within district • from school to school across districts and across states

28. Collaborative Tools for Project-based Learning • SaaS solutions are essential to increase the ease of sharing among students in a project group (in and out of school boundaries) • Asynchronous collaboration – eliminate the time boundaries to allow students to work on varied schedules • Synchronous collaboration • Boost to the effectiveness of solutions to support students in the 21C • Already familiar with synchronous technology interaction (games, chat, social networks, etc.) • Enabler for expanding the boundaries of typical classroom

29. Global Connections for Project-based Learning • “Global Competence” (from Alexis Menten’s presentation at CoSN International Symposium, 2010) • Investigating their world • Recognizing their own and others perspectives • Being media savvy when communicating ideas to diverse audiences • Taking action as an actor on a global stage

30. Questions Steve Nordmark Vice President, Solutions Management and Development, netTrekker snordmark@nettrekker.com Elango KanagarajiHead – Web 2.0 Specialization, Aspire Systems elango.kanakaraji@aspiresys.com