educational technology

Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

Is Microsoft’s reign in education coming to an end?

**This piece originally appeared on ClassThink and has been republished with permission**

By Karl Rivers

Microsoft has been a fixture in schools for the last twenty years, but with iPads, Chromebooks, and consumer tastes changing, how much longer do they have at the top?

Recently, I attended a Microsoft seminar covering the latest developments in the Windows eco-system. I know, but please keep reading. As I was listening to the speaker, who looked and sounded remarkably like Michael Caine, my mind drifted onto a topic that must be at the forefront of most school administrator’s minds for some time now — where does Microsoft fit into the modern school?

I spent a good portion of the presentation trying to formulate questions to which the response would have to be “you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off” but the rest got me thinking, could we rebuild a school without Microsoft software or services?

A Broken Monopoly

When I first started working in schools, almost fourteen years ago, Microsoft was just becoming dominant in the enterprise. Some of my earliest work was transitioning away from systems like Novell and Lotus, and moving to Windows NT and Microsoft Office. Back then we were sowing the seeds for Microsoft’s stranglehold on schools that still, generally speaking, holds today.

Most secondary schools run an Microsoft Exchange, store documents in Windows file shares, store user accounts in Active Directory, and use Microsoft Office on the desktop. But Microsoft’s complete failure to recognize the importance of mobile technology early enough has broken the mind share allowed then to reach this monopoly. A generation of teachers and students are now entering their educational careers without Microsoft.

In around 2005 I attempted to encourage a number of teachers to begin experimenting with Open Office. If you haven’t used it, Open Office is a suite of open source office applications that replicates Microsoft’s alternative. Even then we recognized the exorbitant financial toll Microsoft Office was having on our IT budget and we wanted to, if not replace Microsoft’s suite of applications, at least lessen its control on the curriculum.

The project failed completely. Not because the feature sets of the suites were not comparable, but simply because outside of the IT department very few had the time or desire to become familiar with the new system. For teachers the financial saving that Open Office represented simply didn’t present enough of a reason to switch.

While we’re talking about budgets, you’ve likely noticed the drastically reduced cost of volume licensing Microsoft software in recent years. If this isn’t an acknowledgement of increased competition, I don’t know what is.

Microsoft’s Lack of Vision

Microsoft, for all it’s power in the market, hasn’t been known for its vision. They completely missed the importance of the Internet, and then spent a few years scrabbling around trying to implement their own proprietary alternative.  Then along came the iPad. It didn’t matter that they had had almost three years of the iPhone to get their stuff together, Microsoft was left completely unprepared. The company were caught with their drawbridge down and Apple proudly strolled across.

But it’s not just the shift to mobile technology that is the most important aspect of the mobile technology revolution. The iPad cleared the way for others to follow. The Open Office experiment proved that we needed more than just an equivalent to Windows or Office, we needed something of the magnitude of the iPad to stomp a path right through Redmond. Had the iPad not existed the Chromebook would have sunk into oblivion and Android would have been a consumer only product.

With the iPad Apple succeeded in opening the eyes of consumers– and by extension those of our teachers and students — to alternatives to Microsoft software. The iPad provided the sexy hardware, the flash but simple operating system, and a new way to deliver software in a way that was compelling enough to change the habits of IT users.

Apple’s greatest legacy isn’t the touch screen or the app store, it’s that our users are no longer fearful if their computer doesn’t have a Start button.

Does Microsoft Have a Place in The School of The Future?

So, where are we now? The presentation I sat through this morning was brilliant…for me as an experienced network administrator. The software shown provided exactly the level of control I want, and enough knobs and buttons to push to keep me in network heaven for the foreseeable future. Windows Server 2012, and System Center 2012 are brilliant products, but they’re also extremely complex and its for this reason that only the largest of schools will ever implement them.

While Google and Apple are moving to simplify device management, Microsoft is strongly moving in the opposite direction. Microsoft has been explicit that they consider PowerShell — Windows 2012’s all encompassing command-line interface — to be the standard method of control for network administrators. The GUI still exists, but Microsoft doesn’t expect “true administrators” to use it.

Likewise, imaging Windows is “no longer supported.” Going forward Microsoft will only support systems which have been consumer installed, or set up using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). If they wanted to alienate a huge section of the education market, this is how to do it.

Features like the ability to create an iSCSI SAN managed by Windows, add an iPad to a domain, control network access with NPS, Work Folders, Remote Apps web feed, session based RDP are all great, but Microsoft seems to be headed off down a road alone while the competition can only look back with confusion. In the business world with huge corporate networks Microsoft makes complete sense, but for schools with limited budgets and personnel the implementation has to be questioned.

Schools want low cost, low maintenance, flexible devices. They want devices that are instant-on, don’t slow down, and are quick to log in to. They want iPads, Chromebooks, and smartphones, not a complex server infrastructure. The Microsoft representative, when asked about the amount of time required to manage System Center 2012 said, “it’s a full time job.” Unless you are an administrator responsible for multiple sites and thousands of desktops this makes no sense.

Microsoft Has Lost its Power

When Microsoft released a Remote Desktop app for iOS and Android a few weeks ago many saw it as sign that the company was finally opening up to new mobile platforms. Microsoft makes the argument that they are transitioning into a services company, rather than a software company. But I would argue that they had to release these apps because the market has reached a tipping point.

Previously Microsoft could use their weight in the market to bolster or weaken a product. When Microsoft had incentive to support Mac they did so by releasing Internet Explorer for Apple’s platform. When they no longer wanted to support Mac they pulled the software.

Microsoft releasing RDP apps for competing mobile operating systems is acknowledgement that failure to do so would make their server infrastructure and software ecosystem irrelevant to many users. The power has shifted. Where previously users would look for a platform on which to run Microsoft Office, now they will instead look for an alternative to Office.

Where once Microsoft Office was a standard application, we’re now seeing it relegated to specialist software. In the same way that Adobe Photoshop is only installed where it’s required, Microsoft Office will only be installed for specific use cases.

Services Not Software

I will admit I was slightly skeptical when we installed our first set of Chromebooks last September, but the opinion of teachers and students alike has been overwhelmingly positive. Yes, if I spent the time I could get a similar setup with Windows 8 laptops. I could pour hours into Microsoft deployments and System Center 2012, but why should I when I can get the desired result with an externally managed service? I just connect my devices and go.

Unless you are running a large network across multiple sites with thousands of desktops I see little reason to recommend a Microsoft infrastructure. In fact, many schools are now ripping out their ICT suites and replacing them with mobile devices for use across the curriculum, and they’re not doing it with Windows.

There have been many articles this week about why Microsoft is so scared of Chromebooks that they feel forced to produce what are essentially political smear adverts to slight Google’s laptop. The truth is that Microsoft should be scared of Chromebooks. Google is getting in at the grassroots. They’re creating a generation of students who may never use a single piece of Microsoft software.

Microsoft is shifting to become a services company. Office 365, is a great example of this. The problem Microsoft has is that they have lost their anchor in the market through which to funnel users to their online services. There are now competing products like Google Apps which provide similar services and many schools are making the switch. How much of the internal infrastructure of a school can Microsoft hold onto in this shift is yet to be seen.

So, I’m left with the thought, if we had to start from scratch, if we threw everything away and began again, how much of our school infrastructure would we build with Microsoft software? The answer, I think, is very little. How about you?

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

____

Karl is an award winning school Network Manager, IT Lead Professional for Bedfordshire Borough Council, and is an ICT Across the Curriculum Co-ordinator based near London, England. He has been working in education for more than ten years and founded ClassThink in 2013 to share technology best practice with other schools. In 2014 he won the NAACE Impact Award for support services in schools, and writes edtech articles for Education Executive Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @karlrivers.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Teachers, Testing

Stealth assessment: Reimagining learning and testing for the 21st Century

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish this guest post on stealth assessment as a way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Dr. Gregory Firn

History is replete with examples of innovation and invention that outpaced the necessary shifts in thinking and ingrained habits delaying the full impact of the “new.” It comes as no surprise that education has lagged behind innovation. However, many of the factors underpinning educational lag are beyond the control of the classroom teacher.

Fueled by the proliferation of technology, we are in the early stages of “reimagining” teaching and learning. We have learned the hard way that devices alone will not result in the much-promised transformation of teaching and learning. The presence of devices in education has revealed limitations, constraints, and liabilities in several ways. Chief among these has been the reluctance or outright resistance to necessary shifts in instructional methodology and practices. This is both natural and expected.

Instructional shifts are complicated by the expectation that classroom teachers have the requisite capacities, competencies, and confidences to navigate technology-rich as well as technology-challenged learning environments. Another challenge is the diversity and variance of technology skill, knowledge, and experience of learners.

Other constraints include budget and time, as well as the very real issue of access to reliable broadband connectivity—not to mention bandwidth and device compatibility, availability, and functionality. All of these limitations place teachers in a perplexing and conflicted position. They may indeed want to shift practice, but can’t.

Arguably, the restrictions and adverse impact of narrowly defined accountability models, including the obsession with assessments, will not necessarily go away with the much-heralded reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (otherwise known as the Every Student Succeeds Act). States must now begin the process of figuring out their assessments and assessment schedules. However, the daunting challenges of reimagining teaching and learning in this digital age remain.

I posit that, against this backdrop, teaching and learning cannot and will not be fully reimagined without the awareness, understanding, and application of assessment and instruction congruency. Instruction and assessment cannot be separated or thought to be two independent components of the teaching and learning process. The true promise and application of technology is in its ability to provide feedback in the form of information and insight during the learning process—not just at the end of a learning activity.

Evidence of certain competencies cannot be monitored and measured through traditional assessment practices. Thus, expanding assessment thinking and design are essential to navigating a reimagined version of teaching and learning.

Stealth assessment in the classroom

One method that is slowly gaining momentum is “stealth” assessment. The key to stealth assessment is its unobtrusive nature, which has roots in gaming. The idea is that a player’s choices and strategies are constantly and consistently informing the player of their progress and success. Applied to education, stealth assessment presents a powerful step in minimizing and eventually closing the teaching and learning immediacy loop.

The immediacy of feedback is critical. For far too long, we have focused on the trailing indicators of learning. Technology now affords us the ability to focus on the leading indicators of both teaching and learning. In fact, we can now at best disrupt or at worst interrupt the failure to learn, rather than continuing to remediate failed learning.

Disrupting the failure to learn does not necessarily mean disrupting the learning process. For example, as more teachers adopt project-based learning, their ability to peek inside the learning process by monitoring the collaboration, construction, contribution, and co-authoring of meaning by each learner is critical. Yet the challenge for the educator to be in all places at once has never been more daunting.

As a Superintendent, I have seen that technology can help address this challenge and make stealth assessment possible. For example, the Flexcat system from Lightspeed Learning is a powerful tool to implement  “stealth” assessment. Flexcat gives teachers the ability to listen to any small group on demand, without students knowing. This allows teachers to monitor and assess authentic interactions and collaboration from anywhere in the room—a giant step towards personalized teaching and learning.

Present and future technologies should cause a fundamental shift in instruction due to the stealth assessment concept, not just a minor adjustment. As I mentioned above the teacher and learner are empowered to monitor, provide and receive immediate feedback as well as participate in the thoughts, insights, and observations of learning as it is occurring. Participatory learning and participatory assessing are fundamental to the “student as worker, teacher as guide” mindset in which learners as key architects of their own learning. They co-author, co-construct, and co-produce knowledge, meaning and application. Moreover, critical thinking; examination; and assessing ideas, concepts, and constructs are essential skills in the 21st century.

Technology is a powerful tool that presents the opportunity and access for each learner to design, construct, collaborate, demonstrate, and assess their learning. To ensure this impact, educators must remain vigilant in their own learning to develop the capacity, competence, and confidence to shift instructional practices leveraged by technology to give each learner the best possible chance at success.

Dr. Gregory Firn has served as a Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent, and in several other educational leadership roles in Texas, North Carolina, Connecticut, Washington State, Nevada, and overseas. Dr. Firn twice led systemwide digital transformation initiatives, including the design and implementation of robust human capital development programs. Dr. Firn earned his doctorate from Seattle Pacific University, where his research focused on learner-centered education. 

 Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

1
Share