Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0 refers to a unit which facilitates a 1:1 learning environment. The word ‘Classroom’ is used in a generic way to indicate a collection of students and teacher(s) that are formally learning a particular course (subject), and less so as it may suggest – a physical unit where such a course may be conducted.

Classroom 2.0 will in fact be a necessarily dynamic unit but at it core, it will be composed of students (either physically in a single ‘classroom’ or spread across multiple physical locations) learning formally specific course(s) and instructed/coached by one or more teachers.

The 1:1 learning is focused on delivering a personalized and enriching (and fun) educational experience, and will require each student to have his/her own laptop or some appropriate device. Each of these laptops will serve as the medium to interact with the teacher and other students in a 1:1 fashion and collaborative manner respectively. These student laptops are necessarily (due to economic considerations as well as the very nature of the interaction) inexpensive devices which have limited capabilities to enable 1:1 learning. They have to be augmented by the education appliance, which will provide a host of complementary capabilities that will indeed make the 1:1 learning environment feasible. A simple architecture depicting the key ICT infrastructure in the Classroom 2.0 is shown in the accompanying figure.

The Critical Links education appliance

The eA Series 60 and 100 enhance the student laptops by offering expensive resources such as storage, printers etc that can be shared optimally and preclude the need for them on the laptops itself. In addition, the education appliance provides considerable functionality that is vital to 1:1 learning itself.

All education appliance models support three key functions: Learning, Networking and Administration.

The eA60 and eA100 operate more at the Classroom level (or a very small school level) and provide a gamut of capabilities to communicate between a student and the teacher, amongst students using voice, email, video, blogs, bulletin boards, web, instant messaging, conferencing and other available mechanisms.

Underpinning the communication applications, the education appliance provides a sophisticated set of networking capabilities such as wired and wireless connectivity, routing, quality of service; and email, web and video servers which allow for the communications.

Learning and collaboration among students is also enabled by the eA60/100 by wikis, blogs and the support of shared commercial applications (like sharepoint). In addition, students can share common resources to back up files (for assignments etc), print and the like.Students have access to learning resources, any time any where.

Administration entails the ability to manage through a simple interface (often by the teacher) the learning and networking capabilities, including assigning student access, setting up and enforcing security policies. Administration also offers the management of printers, storage and other shared resources.

The eA60 and eA100 also serve as the management and administration platform for the student laptops and other ancillary devices (such as overhead projectors etc).

In addition, administration at the education appliance provides the ability to set up student records including personal information, class schedules, performance assessments and the like. The education appliance has a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS), Learning Administration Management System (LAMS) and a Student Information System (SIS) that provides student level administration locally.

The eA60 and eA100 are expected to be administered by a teacher (non specialized in IT support) and is appropriately designed so as to preclude the need for expensive IT staff support.

The benefits of the eA60/100 education appliance series are summarized as:

• Augments/Enhances the student laptop capabilities - by providing (common, shared) resources and capabilities (such as common storage, printers, applications), the eA60/100 reduces the requirements of the student laptop.
• Economically attractive solution - using the eA60/100 allows for reducing the hardware and software requirements of the student laptops means that the overall solution will be less expensive (since hardware resources can be optimized on the education appliance).Furthermore, licensing of software can be optimized if it is managed on the education appliance as opposed to individual student laptops
• Aligned with the ‘natural’ learning model - use of the education appliance along with several student laptops aligns with the usual interaction between a teacher and several students; the teacher has to manage multiple students often at the same time, and a meaningful way to accomplish this is the teacher using the education appliance to interact with several students using their respective laptops.
• Enables a locally and customizable set of capabilities at a school level - by providing a host of functionality that can be managed and administered by even a non-technical teacher, it simplifies the delivering of the 1:1 learning experience. Furthermore, being at the Classroom level allows a teacher to customize to meet a class’ unique requirements.
• Scale and Flexibility - the education appliance can scale to support up to 100 students either in a single class or multiple classes. Furthermore, multiple education appliances can also work together to support even larger number of students. The education appliance also scales in a graceful and manageable manner to accommodate new classes.