K12 Open Technologies

Open Technologies: Issues, Exemplary Practices and Future Directions for Education
Report of Small Group Activities

CoSN’s 5^th Annual International Symposium (March 8-9, 2006) focused on Open Technologies: Issues, Exemplary Practices and Future Directions for Education. During the Symposium, participants identified the issues, problems and opportunities relating to open technologies. The participants were then asked to rank the five most important opportunities and challenges in developing and implementing open technologies in K-12 education. Once these opportunities and challenges were identified, attendees were asked to identify the most important next steps for educators, governments, the private sector, and funders to take to reach the potential of open technologies in education. Over 3/4ths of the attendees indicated that they thought open technologies in primary and secondary education were “extremely valuable” or “valuable” at the present time. Over the next three years, 80% of the attendees felt that the importance and value of open technologies would increase.

OPPORTUNITIES

Attendees identified the following as the top opportunities presented by open technologies (ranked by order of importance):

• Promotes greater equity and access while bridging the digital divide
• Enables international collaboration given the availability of open source tools
• Results in financial savings accrued from licensing
• Maximizes student and teacher creativity and critical thinking skills
• Encourages social innovation

CHALLENGES

Even with the substantial opportunities presented by the use of open technologies in K-12 schools, there are significant challenges (ranked by order of importance):

• Support, maintenance, and sustainability of open technologies systems are considerable.
• Difficulties of making a cultural change in education are substantial.
• Limited understanding of open source requires a steep learning curve.
• Open source technologies in the educational environment will require changing traditional pedagogy and necessitate significant investment.
• Integrating open technologies with legacy systems is complicated.

NEXT STEPS

Attendees identified the necessary steps that educators, policymakers, the private sector and funders should take to address these challenges and capitalize on the significant opportunities. Though each sector is discussed separately, attendees stressed the importance of collaboration among all these sectors.

EDUCATORS

Adopting “open technologies” will require educators to change over time with a phased-in approach including the following next steps:

• Professional development to explain “open“ technologies to teachers and provide them with the understanding and support to move forward
• Training to encourage teachers to learn about existing open technology resources through examples, case studies and best practices
• Creation of communities of practice to foster peer to peer learning about open technologies
• Involvement of administrators to support teachers in the change process by providing recognition, rewards and incentives, and definition of vision

GOVERNMENT/POLICYMAKERS

Government and policymakers can play an important role in moving the open technology agenda forward through:

• Creating tax incentives and funding open source initiatives
• Providing training programs for teachers and administrators
• Supporting research, development, and dissemination efforts
• Placing the discussion of open technologies within the context of global competitiveness

PRIVATE SECTOR

Key next steps for the private sector include:

• Improving the design of open technologies to increase adoption by educators
• Presenting information about open technologies in an easy-to-use and understandable format
• Offering maintenance support for open source
• Delivering interoperability as a critical function that is highly valued by educators and ranked high on procurement rubrics.

FUNDERS

Funders should embark upon an agenda to

• Support conferences and forums bringing together those involved in and considering open technologies
• Study the impact of open technologies on education and compare schools using and not using open technologies
• Facilitate the creation of communities of practice within K-12 to share best practices and build coalitions between the public and private sectors
• Provide resources to fund resource development and dissemination for open technologies