Case Study: One-Stop Shopping - Unified Login Allows Students, Parents, and Teachers to Access Many District Web-Based Systems


Organization: New Albany Plain Local Schools, New Albany Plain Local Schools Learning Community - New Albany, Ohio.
Location: New Albany, Ohio; www.new-albany.k12.oh.us
#Students/Staff: Approximately 4,000 students, 312 faculty, 191 support and volunteer staff
#Schools: 1 high school, 1 middle school, 3 elementary schools.
Contact: Jon Stonebraker 614-413-8346 jstonebraker@new-albany.k12.oh.us

Summary

The New Albany Plain Local Schools undertook a multi-year initiative to provide students, parents, and teachers with access to multiple web systems and resources for education; this includes secured, unsecured, and prescribed content using one unified login (one username/one password for all systems).

Overview and Description

The New Albany-Plain Local Schools provide a variety of technology tools to support student learning. The technology infrastructure offers efficient campus operation and state-of-the-art teaching tools in a safe learning environment. A dedicated team of students and teachers represents every building on campus and makes up the core of the District Technology Team, which oversees all campus technology operations and has been meeting to discuss district technology needs for 2 hours once a week since 1996.

Educational Applications Deployed

Teacher classroom portals (individual web pages) are used to provide instructional support, formative assessment, and digital archiving of classroom information. New Albany Plain Local Schools also use an electronic course management system support to support brick-and-mortar classrooms. This classroom support includes collaborative environments and forums, groups, testing, secure digital content, files, calendars, and asynchronous chat. The district also uses technology applications to track student demographics and contact information, schedule information, attendance, grade reporting, and lunch account balances. Electronic media applications include podcasting, library, web mail, and the Kathryn Borghi Digital Library for Special and Adaptive needs.

New Albany Plain Local Schools also prescribe user communication strategies based on user selections and profiles. The district has developed rapid connection pathways for electronic communication back to schools. Further, it deploys user management tools for requesting changes in contact information and changing options to schedule electronic notifications and alerts, e-mail addresses, and access to password recovery tools and other management tools. Future plans for technology integration include developing a district-wide electronic payment system.

Educational Challenge or Background

Developing the technology capacity of the New Albany Plain Local Schools district was a multiyear process guided by several long-term strategies to build infrastructure. During the past 7 years, the district transformed its technology implementation framework from "teaching technology classes" or technology professional development to employing a team of educational technologists to support teachers as they design work for students. Educational technologists are master teachers first, curriculum experts second, and skilled in the integration of technology into lesson planning in meaningful ways. The district developed a support services and infrastructure team that controls asset management, established procedures to turn in help (trouble) tickets, and developed methods to acquire specific information from multiple systems to manage support using open-source and web-based applications. During the past 5 years, district teachers have started to develop a web presence by using classroom portals. Using Adobe Contribute software, teachers create, select, and edit their own web pages, progressing through the following phases of competencies:

  • Level 1--basic one-way communication
  • Level 2--providing digital resources for education
  • Level 3: providing feedback mechanisms in the form of formative assessment (exam view) or electronic course management support.

Over the past 4 years, the district has been using software that helps faculty and staff plan for changing operations, the development of the district web site, teacher presence, and unrestricted connectivity. Three years ago, the district information technology systems analyst and web designer began crafting the map for a unified login by exporting data from existing systems to secure databases to begin to manage information, online resources, requests, profiles, accounts, and logins. The district also began adopting a true integrated student management system (eSIS for Ohio) that allows students, parents, and teachers access to prescribed user information. Over the past 2 years, the district also has adopted upgrades of other technology support systems that include grade books, health management, a café management, and library management. Most recently, the district has invested in the launch and testing of a unified login system with parents staff and students which will include the full launch of a parent login initiative, adding approximately 4,000 parent users to the system.

Technology Solution (including people, process, organizations and vendors)

The New Albany Plain Local Schools' development of a unified mission, vision, values (beliefs), and goals for technology, which was embraced by the development team and the Learning Community, was nonnegotiable and essential. Another district-wide priority was to hire really good people who have a strong work ethic (are self-starters) and believe in education and the Learning Community. These educators have a high tolerance for ambiguity and are themselves life-long learners. They have a strong moral compass, listen to differing viewpoints, and are philosophically a good fit for each other. The district also believed it was important to hire internal staff members rather than consultants because they are perceived to be the natural leaders within the district. Essential members of the District Technology Team are the following: (1) technology coordinator (or CIO) to communicate at the cabinet and leadership level with administration, (2) educational technology specialists to work directly with teachers, and (3) support services personnel who manage systems. Team members who resolve specific issues relative to functionality include a systems analyst/programmer specializing in databases, design, security, and open source systems; a web designer who understands communication, marketing, security, and open source systems, but most important, is in close communication with those in the Learning Community; a district communications officer; and students, parents, and teachers to test systems and provide feedback and ideas for functionality.

The District Technology Team has bi-weekly whole team meetings, weekly support service meetings, and educational tech meetings, with cross-communication and interaction between educational technology specialists and technology specialists. All technology-related support personnel are located in one place to facilitate conversations and spur-of-the-moment collaboration.

Community Groups and Organizations Involved

The District Technology Team has 33 members, including students, teachers, educational technology specialists, technology support specialists, and administrators. It receives Input from several parent groups, staff members, and other end users.

Benefits

One of the many benefits of technology upgrades in the New Albany Plain Local Schools district was electronic support for the curriculum, providing anytime/anyplace resources and tools and thereby increasing student achievement. The technology enhancements also are providing a seamless system of communication and transparency into information systems for students, parents, and teachers, which facilitate delivery of information and resources to specific groups and rapid feedback from those groups.

Implementation Barriers and/or Challenges

There is a need to achieve a highly integrated level of conversation and context for operation within the New Albany Plain Local Schools technology team. Educators need a better understanding of the technology (e.g., need for security, how networks work, how web-based resources are put together, and how support operations work) and technologists need a better understanding of education (educational goals, the importance of school culture, the importance for every student to achieve, special education programs, the Learning Community concept, typical school communications, and various aspects of classroom pedagogy). There is also concern that the district and school board should make a stronger commitment to hiring quality technology team members who are capable of designing and sustaining systems that amplify learning and communication. Similarly, the ability to initiate, train, improve, and move seamlessly between each aspect of the technology system also need improvement. As a 21st Century school district, New Albany Plain Local Schools must prepare for bandwidth capacity that not only pulls information from outside, but also pushes digital resources to the Learning Community, which demands access to both secured and unsecured content.

Links to Supporting Resources

The New Albany Plain Local Schools analyzed their bandwidth usage using SurfControl web filtering software (http://www.surfcontrol.com/), and an interesting result was how streaming media affects bandwidth.