These technologies can enable educators to improve communications, enhance student learning, controls costs, manage Internet access in the classroom, and more.

There are many systems and tools available in today’s marketplace that can help administrators and faculty to succeed with some of the many things they need to do in their roles. Some of the technologies I’ve listed below are “back office” tech (not really visible to the end user), and some directly impact teachers, students, and/or parents, but both administrators and teachers alike will recognize the potential for these technologies to help them be more efficient and more effective in their day to day operations.

Classroom Management applications: If you don’t already have this type of software for your computer labs, then you’re either hearing frequent requests like “we want to be able to shut off Internet access, how can we do it?” or you’ve probably limited Internet access so much that you’re hearing a lot of griping about it. You can provide instructors with extensive control over classroom Internet access, and a wide range of additional functionality (at a pretty affordable price) with tools like NetSupport School. Classroom Management applications also let the instructors see what each student is doing on their computers, share their desktops with everyone, and much more. (Note that these applications are primarily intended for managing computers on hard-wired connections – applications for managing wireless connections may be limited, based on how the wireless connectivity is managed).

Have you considered outsourcing your call center?

Lecture Capture: This is one technology that I think has really only just begun (oops – sorry if you get that corny song stuck in your head now!) to be leveraged. Teachers can record their lectures with very little effort, and those lectures can then be available to students to replay to review complex concepts, or for students who couldn’t attend class. If the first thought you have is that this will increase absences, there is a growing body of evidence that this is simply not the case. The only thing holding many institutions back from leveraging this technology is lack of awareness, and costs, but awareness is growing and costs are coming down, so the use of Lecture Capture will continue to expand. Click here to learn more about Lecture Capture applications like Tegrity, Panopto, and others.

Parent Portals: This is a favorite of mine. The school district I live in rolled out a SchoolTool parent portal this year. We can now see our all of our kid’s schedules, teacher contacts, end of term grades, state assessment results from previous years, and more, and this information will remain accessible for the life of the Portal. The quality and quantity of information being provided to parents here will continue to expand as teachers and administrators become more familiar with the available functionality. Parent Portals should be requisite for K-12 school districts everywhere, and I have no doubt that it won’t be too long before it is the norm, rather than the exception, for schools to have them. Click here to learn more.

- Click here to view a video blog entry for this post -

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service): The number of applications that are available in a web-based, hosted environment continues to explode, and this technology is becoming more mature every day. Business is continuously moving more and more functionality “to the cloud”, and education is following suit. This is not just a buzz word or the latest fad, it is a proven way to ease the support burden on your IT staff, improve availability and scalability, control costs, and enhance business continuity preparedness.

When SaaS is done right, it offers a wide range of benefits. Just be sure you understand a vendor’s Service Level Agreements, and their track record at meeting them, before signing on (that is if you are looking at an enterprise app or other costly tool - for freebies like Google Docs, just dive in and check ‘em out!). This is a subject worthy of a feature post, and I’ll be writing more about it soon.

Skype: This free application makes it easy to connect (using webcams, or just audio) over the Internet. Free video conferencing capability can really extend the reach of administrators, teachers, and students. Skype is one of the most popular Web 2.0 tools being requested and used in the school where I work. We’ve used Skype to enable home-bound students to offer presentations, to bring guest lecturers and other guests into the classroom, and we’re considering using it for online application interviews, remote advising and counseling, and to let people on campus connect when they can’t abandon their posts. Other schools have used it many different ways – one of the most common ways cited is to establish a connection between their students and students across the country or across the world, classroom to classroom. The potential applications for Skype are limited only by your imagination! 

Well, that’s my list of 5 essential technologies for education administrators to be aware of and informed about. I’m sure you may have some others to add to this list, so feel free to comment with your suggestions, or observations about the above tools. We’d love to hear what you have to add to the conversation! Thanks.

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Video blog entry for this article
Managing Internet Access in the Classroom with the Right Technology
Learning about Lecture Capture Technology
SchoolTool and other Parent Portals in K-12 Education
Skype in the classroom

Is anyone using a Parent Portal at their children’s school(s)? Please tell us a little about it.

On Sunday, I published this post about Parent Portals. This post considered portals from somewhat of a technical perspective, discussing features and looking at the web sites of some applications that provide this kind of functionality. But I am also very interested in the parent’s perspective – are you using parent portals in the schools your children attend, and how is this working out?

If you are a parent and you are using any kind of portal functionality at the schools that your kids go to, please comment and tell us a little about your experience:

• What kinds of features do you like the best?
• What features would you like to see added to the portal?
• What product is being used (if you can tell)?
• Any other observations you would like to share

Thanks in advance to any readers who take a few moments to share their insights into Parent Portals as they’re being used in todays schools!

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Video blog post “Learning about Parent Portals for K-12 schools”
SchoolTool and other Parent Portals in K-12 Education

Parent Portals are gradually becoming an invaluable part of the K-12 education application environment.

I’ve just had my first hands-on introduction to Parent Portals. I live in the Wappingers Falls school district in New York state, and they’ve just launched the SchoolTool parent portal. I love this idea and I’m delighted to see it taking root here.

In today’s feature post we’ll examine some of the features these kinds of tools can offer and take a brief look at some of the products available in today’s marketplace. I’ve coupled this article with a video blog post in which I discuss this application genre and take a look at the web pages of some products.

One thing that I learned in my initial research that was a bit unexpected is that many parent portals are modules within Student Information Systems (“SIS”). While SIS applications have been common in higher education for years now, the applications used in higher ed normally do not include this type of function, which is not surprising considering the older age of the students, and FERPA regulations. In K-12, it seems that the use of SIS apps is a newer, growing trend, and it makes a lot of sense to deliver some level of Parent Portal functionality with these tools, since it is in many ways a logical extension of some of the existing functionality in an SIS.

Of course, to the end user, whether or not a Parent Portal is delivered as a module of a larger SIS system is really irrelevant.

Common features of Parent Portals

• Attendance
• Grades
• Past report cards
• Student schedules
• Assignments and due dates
• Contact info for all the student’s teachers and other school contacts
• Reports filed on their child (academic, discipline, counseling, etc)
• State-level assessment results
• Sports schedules and other school calendars

Parent Portals shown in this video

• SchoolTool: http://www.schooltool.com/
• ParentVUE (part of Genesis SIS for K-12): http://www.edupoint.com/Products/ParentVUEStudentVUE.aspx
• QuickSchools: http://www.quickschools.com/
• Schoolnet: http://www.schoolnet.com/corporate/Products/Products.aspx?product=dpp
• ParentAssist (part of eSIS from aal): http://www.aalsolutions.com/web/node/19

Feedback, Comments?
Is your school or school district using a Parent Portal? What do you think of it? What are it’s pros and cons? Which product are they are using? We’d love to hear reader feedback on this, so please comment and share your experiences, and don’t hesitate to ask questions as well! Thanks.

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Learning about Lecture Capture Technology
8 Engaging Videos Advocating Better Integration of Technology in Education
Portal Applications for Higher Education

A great idea bought to us through Time Warner’s philanthropic commitment to inspire students to pursue opportunities in science, technology, engineering, & math.

I just recently came across this site, www.connectamillionminds.com, and think it is a great idea, and a great resource to be aware of.  

According to the National Science Foundation, 80 percent of jobs created in the next decade will require math and science skills. As part of an ongoing initiative called Connect a Million Minds, Time Warner Cable has developed a site where administrators, teachers, and organizations can share opportunities to involve students in after school activities in the ‘STEM’ fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

In “The Connectory“, you can enter a zip code, and learn of upcoming or ongoing ‘STEM’-oriented events for students in that area. For example, a search in zip code 10940 (Middletown, NY) produces a list of many events that are within driving distance and are currently running, such as Raptors in the City (“An inquiry-based science, internet and print research curriculum for ages 7-11 For classroom, library, afterschool, homeschool and mentoring programs”) and Kids’ Science Challenge (“The Kids’ Science Challenge is a nationwide competition for 3rd to 6th graders encouraging kids to submit ideas to a group of scientists and engineers”). Click on over and take a look at what The Connectory shows going on in your neighborhood!

What a cool use of technology – sharing opportunites for students to enhance their exposure to science, technology, etc. “Brilliant!”

If you haven’t done so already, please take a moment and let us know what your role is in education (teacher, student, admin, techie, etc.)! Just mouse over to our poll (over there -> in the side bar) and check off the roles that apply to you. Thanks so much!

This week we complete a 2 part overview of two specific portal applications for education

Last week we reviewed the Timecruiser suite (exclusive to Higher Ed), with its Campus Cruiser portal and integrated applications like the Course Cruiser LMS and Cruiser Alert, delivered under a Software-as-a-Service model. This week we take a look at myCampus and other apps available through the Campus EAI Consortium (the consortium works with both K-12 and Higher Ed).

MyCampus from the Campus EAI Consortium

The non-profit Campus EAI Consortium provides a markedly different approach to portal implementation than Timecruiser’s application suite. The Consortium was founded in 2003, in response to increasing IT budget cuts, continued resource constraints, and the Internet requirements of students. Fourteen institutions got together and founded the Consortium with the mission of helping members reduce the time, cost and effort required to implement enterprise IT solutions.

Grants:  Part of their unique approach to provisioning clients is the availability of a limited set of grants to assist in integrating the portal into their environment. Grants can range from $250K to $1 million over a multiyear span. Grants are awarded based on a number of criteria including managerial commitment to IT initiatives and ability to implement the technology. Click here to learn more about these grant opportunities.

Open Source:  Another important differentiator for the Campus EAI solutions is their extensive use of open source applications, tied together under the myCampus CMS platform. ”The power of open source applications is in the numbers — as the community of myCampus CMS users increases, so does the growth and capability of this platform. The myCampus CMS community is active, supportive and contributes back to the myCampus CMS project regularly. Because of the community, the myCampus CMS system is built upon real needs of the marketplace, not guesses” (quote from Consortium web site).

Packaged and open-source application integration, and single sign-on:  MyCampus offers single sign-on access to a good number of ERP/SIS applications, learning management apps, e-mail and calendaring tools, library apps, and identity management systems. There is also a integration available for ERP/SIS database applications from Oracle, SunGard, Datatel, and Jenzabar. Additionally, on their web site, the Consortium highlights a number of add on products, including Content Management, Alumni Portal, Prospect Portal, Collaboration and Learning (via integration with open-source Sakai), Identity and Access Management (using Oracle Identity Management Suite). The community nature of this open solution facilitates the ongoing evolution of the capabilities and availability of these interfaces.

SaaS:  The myCampus portal environment is available in a Software-as-a-Service delivery model, but it can also be hosted on the client’s servers.

In addition to the myPortal environment and support and integration of related applications, the CampusEAI Consortium also provides other end user solutions, consulting, and product implementation services, including:

• Enterprise content based application portfolio assessment and consulting.
• Developing new content-centric applications, including collaboration/workflow, publishing, records management, and storage & archiving.
• Migration and Upgrades.
• Hosted and Managed services.

Summary
The myCampus portal is a powerful environment, and the Campus EAI Consortium provides a unique approach to implementation. With its heavy reliance on open source solutions, this toolset may be best suited to institutions with a staff of applications development and support personnel who are capable of learning and taking advantage of these types of applications. This approach would certainly seem to lend itself to a high degree of flexibility and adaptability. While my institution chose the Timecruiser application suite over myCampus and various other portal applications, myCampus and the overall Campus EAI Consortium model was quite attractive, and might have been our choice if we had a larger IT shop.

Of course the Timecruiser and Campus EAI offerings are not the only portal tools out there. Are you using something else? You know we welcome comments and feedback, so let us know what your portal experience has been!

This week and next I will be discussing two distinct approaches to implementing portal applications in a higher education environment.

I am going to divert from the type of tools and resources I typically post about (free or low cost web based resources and apps for educators and the instructional process) to take a look a powerful type of application that is becoming increasingly popular in higher education (as well as K-12). Portal applications allow designers and users to integrate a variety of tools and information into a centralized interface. Users, be they students, faculty, or administrative staff, can have one consistent web-based gateway for accessing many of the applications, and much of the information, they need on a daily basis.

The first application that I will discuss is the feature-rich hosted suite of tools from Timecruiser, Inc. Timecruiser has been around since 1995, and boasts millions of higher education users (Timecruiser’s application is sold exclusively to Higher Ed). Timecruiser offers a variety of tools that are integrated within the overarching hosted (Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS) Campus Cruiser portal application. The other portal application we will review (next week) is the markedly different Campus EAI Consortium myCampus portal tool set. 

The Timecruiser application suite (ed note – Timecruiser rebranded themselves as ‘Campus Cruiser’ in early 2010 – KW 9/8/10).
We are pretty far along in our implementation of the Timecruiser application suite at the institution where I work as Director of II&T. We selected this tool from a wide variety of alternatives, and continue to be impressed with the tool as we work through our configuration and roll out process. We are looking forward to taking full advantage of all it has to offer. The modules we are using include the robust Campus Cruiser Portal, the Cruiser Alert emergency notification and messaging application, and the Course Cruiser course management system. Timecruiser also offers a Course Evaluation tool, and they are constantly evolving and enhancing their offerings.

The Timecruiser applications can be licensed together or separately. Licensing costs are very attractive – we licensed the product for less than the cost of just one of the products that it displaced, and incurred no costs at all for infrastructure thanks to the application’s SaaS model (in fact, we are freeing up several servers that were used to run displaced apps, which can now be redeployed elsewhere)! The hosted, SaaS model is the only way Timecruiser offers the application, and it is very cost effective, eliminating any need for servers and all associated maintenance. Of course, in this model, one needs a reliable Internet connection. The applications performance has been thoroughly impressive – it always comes up immediately and it seems to outperform most other web sites in terms of speed. Their Service Level Agreement clearly spells out their reliability assurances.

• The Campus Cruiser Portal: The portal itself is a feature-rich environment that includes extensive functionality including e-mail, calendaring, tasks, bookmarks (web links), file storage (including 1 GB of space per user), and more. The My Cruiser Dashboard allows users to personalize the layout and content of a page (or multiple pages) of their own, utilizing over 30 ‘channels’ that provide access to a wide variety of information internal to, and external to, the portal. One can easily access external web sites, and even embed widgets like YouTube videos and any other widgetizable applet. The community tool set uses many of the same tools and more, including message boards, chat rooms, photo albums, etc. Timecruiser has recently added Blogs, Web Pages, and the Cruiser Cafe social networking applet to the tool set. There is more here than we can cover in this limited post, so if you wish to learn more, click here and read further on their web site.
• Course Cruiser: This Learning/Course Management System is a full featured application, comparable to Blackboard, Angel Learning, and similar CMS/LMS tools. A key difference with Course Cruiser is its tight integration into the rest of the portal environment. Click here to read more on the Timecruiser web site. 
• Cruiser Alert: This emergency notification and messaging tool provides an opt-in interface (which can be promoted via a campaign mechanism that urges users to sign up) and allows users to choose from SMS texting, e-mail, and voice mail to receive alerts from the different ‘channels’ that can be set up. Here is a link to more information on this tool set.
• Other applications: Timecruiser offers a variety of additional tools, including a survey application and the Cruiser Eval course/instructor evaluation app. Timecruiser is constantly working to add new functionality and applications.

This extensive combination of tools and functionality is unique and powerful, and has resulted in Timecruiser being named CODiE award winner as “Best Postsecondary Enterprise Solution” for two consecutive years by the Software & Information Industry Association. If you are considering putting up a Portal (or any one of the above tools) at your institution of Higher Education, or evaluating replacement of an existing tool, you would be well advised to look into Timecruiser’s offerings.

Next Week
Next week I will review what I learned about the Campus EIA applications while evaluating portals. This is a somewhat different approach to portal technology. This application encourages the integration of open software tools, and incorporates potential grant eligibility into the procurement process to help displace implementation and supports costs. While Timecruiser is a robust product offering, myPortal and the other tools from the Campus EAI Consortium can facilitate a wider ranging set of tools in a model which might be attractive to larger institutions that have an application development and support staff that can take full advantage of it.