School 2.0

The next-generation of Schools, referred to as Schools 2.0, will transform learning in to a highly interactive and personalized experience. Case studies have established that such an experience makes learning fun, customizes to individual needs, encourages collaboration and ultimately is more effective at preparing the next-generation of citizens.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is a vital ingredient to making Schools 2.0 possible. A simple and effective (manageable, flexible, scalable, economical etc) solution that delivers the ICT infrastructure necessary is illustrated in the figure below.

A Simple ICT and Learning Architecture for Schools 2.0

Fundamental to Schools 2.0 is a 1:1 learning experience (i.e. every student will have individualized learning and coaching); in real-life situations where there are usually 30 – 100 students per classroom, such an experience is possible only with ICT. In this model, as shown in the figure, students are equipped with laptops or other comparable devices (appropriately designed PDAs etc). These devices serve as the platform for interaction between a student and teacher (and possibly other students).

However, there are some considerable requirements imposed on these devices, notably price and capability (processing power, memory and other resources). In order to make them viable in mass deployments – as is expected to be the case in Schools 2.0, they need to be very inexpensive; and at the same time they need to have sophisticated capabilities which will have to be continually enhanced to support the inevitable media-rich applications that are expected to proliferate in classrooms and schools.

Notwithstanding the potential for Moore’s law and economics, this trade-off between price and capabilities necessarily requires additional elements in a school’s ICT infrastructure. As shown in the figure, the eA60/100 and eA500/1000 are platforms that can augment the value of the student laptops while enabling the Schools 2.0 ICT infrastructure to be simple, manageable and scalable. The economics is also more attractive employing them in a distributed architecture shown in the figure. The education appliance series eA60/100 and eA500/1000 provide cohesive, economical and powerful ways to enable Schools 2.0.

Critical Links education appliance eA60/eA100

The eA60/eA100 supports a group of student devices (laptops) that belong to one or more classrooms. While the eA60/eA100 may suggest it is for a Classroom, there is no such requirement and it can be used flexibly. Its role is more prominent in facilitating the 1:1 learning experience, and it is typically (again not necessarily) deployed at a Classroom.

The eA60/100 supports three key functions: Learning, Networking and Administration.

The eA60/100 operates more at the Classroom level and provides 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 edgeBOX 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.

Collaboration between students is also enabled by the education appliance 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.

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

In addition, administration at the education appliance provides an 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), Student Information System (SIS) that provides student level administration locally.

The eA60/eA100 is 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 education appliance eA60/eA100 are summarized as:

• Augments/Enhances the student laptop capabilities - by providing (common, shared) resources and capabilities (such as common storage, printers, applications), the eA60/eA100 reduces the resource requirements of the student laptop.
• Economically attractive solution - using the education appliance eA60/eA100 allows for reducing the hardware and software requirements of the student laptops meaning 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 delivery of the 1:1 experience. Furthermore, being at the Classroom level allows a teacher to customize to meet a class’ unique requirements.
• Scale and Flexibility - the eA60/eA100 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.

The education appliance eA500/eA1000

The Critical Links education appliance eA500/eA1000 provides the learning, networking and administration capabilities at the school wide level. As expected, the emphasis is on the administration capabilities school wide, in contrast to the eA60/eA100 which is more focused on enabling the learning in a Classroom or multiple classrooms.

The Communications capability of the education appliance eA500/1000 is focused on tying all the infrastructure together (and also other School IT systems like for instance Library, Cafeteria, Accounting/Adminstration servers etc) in a cohesive network within the school. In addition, the eA500/eA1000 is the gateway for external (to the school) communications. For instance connectivity to the Internet, other servers at the district (or regional or Ministry/Board of education), other schools, Public Telephony Carrier (for voice telephony) and to external operational management systems (e.g. if services are being delivered through a Service Provider, then there may be a connection to the providers Operational support infrastructure) are through the eA500/eA1000.

The education appliance provides a full-fledged phone system which enables telephony using the Internet – and at significantly reduced costs. The eA500/1000 can also be used to set up VPN – Virtual Private Network, to provide secure access for teachers, students and others in the community (e.g. parents etc) to resources and information at the school (Intranet, websites, records etc).

The eA500/eA1000 provides a host of connectivity options including Ethernet, standard telephony connections using T-1/T-3/E-1/E-3, ISDN PRI/BRI, and uses either wired media (copper, fiber etc) or wireless (probably 3/4G LTE etc).

Apart from serving as a gateway for communications to the external world, the education appliance eA500/eA1000 also provides for communication within the school. For instance, a public announcement and conferencing system for announcement within school premises are supported. Third party applications for communications and security can be supported.

The Learning and Collaboration functionality of the education appliance eA500/eA1000 mirrors that of the eA60/eA100, except at the school level; for instance websites, blogs etc for school wide activities (physics, astronomy, sports etc) that extend beyond a specific classroom.

The education appliance allows for administration and management of the school wide network of Classroom and other Servers. In addition it also enforces school wide security, connectivity, and other policies. Administration and management of resources on a school wide basis is also supported at the education appliance eA500/eA1000 and it can serve as a back-up for the eA60/eA100 at the classroom level as well.

The key benefits of the education appliance are:

• Simplifies the Schools 2.0 ICT infrastructure - A simple distributed client-server architecture is easier to manage and grow than an ad-hoc network. Connectivity externally is also now simplified.
• Provides a natural separation between School wide and Classroom specific policies - There are significant differences between School wide policies and Classroom specific policies (for instance grade 2 students may have very restricted access to the Internet while grade 6 students may have less restrictions) and it is easier to enforce them at the School and Class levels separately. Another example may be where an agreement was reached between a school and a university library; setting up such restricted connectivity/access makes sense only from the eA500/eA1000 and not many individual eA60/eA100 appliances.
• Economics - Use of eA500/eA1000 will allow optimization of resources between Classrooms and School. For instance, there is no need for multiple connections – from each of the eA60/eA100 appliances or Wireless Access Points to the Internet; this is expensive and may result in wastage of bandwidth. It is more sensible to have a single gateway to such connections.