1.  K-12 Statewide eLearning System Design - Computers and Connectivity  Part 2/2
The Qwest-Cisco eLearning cache system minimizes telecommunications cost to the district. But for full deployment, additional global Internet linkage through high bandwidth telecommunications must be made to all 220+ school districts. Urban districts have access to multiple sources of cost-effective bandwidth. There are approximately 40 Arizona rural communities that have yet to be connected with commercial broadband services. The State of Arizona, through its Government Information and Telecommunications Agency (GITA), is pursuing the privatization of the State of Arizona’s telecommunications services. Based on HB 2533 the statewide system will converge voice, video, and data onto one network. This network will serve all 91 state agencies at 267 locations within three years. Since private provider(s) will deliver this access to many remote locations, most rural school districts are expecting to benefit from this broadband connectivity initiative. Bandwidth for connecting districts to the Internet will steadily increase as eLearning adoption proceeds.

Arizona funding for ongoing telecommunications costs has been supported by the excess utilities provision in the school funding formula. This provision is being phased out over the next few years, forcing school districts to fund these expenses from their regular operation budget. Utility budget shortfalls could create resistance to increasing expense for additional broadband service.

Cox Education Network-ASP: In August 2001, the SFB awarded a $27.9 million contract to Cox Business Services to provide ASP services to 120 districts with 1,270 schools. The cost is $8.16 per student per year—much less than the price of one book. The Cox Education Network has been developed and deployed on their ASP. The project manager for the ASP is BearingPoint (formerly KPMG), one of the world’s largest consulting companies. Major subcontractors are LearningStation and Ensynch. The Cox Education Network currently has a 17 percent school adoption rate. The Cox contract will expire in June of 2005. LearningStation provides curriculum which is described in Section 5.b. ASSET provided teacher training which is described in Section 5.a.

Ensync is the Managed Service Provider responsible to LearningStation for operating the ASP’s data center located in Tempe, Arizona. Their ASP system can easily handle the 1,000,000 email accounts necessary for all students and school staff in Arizona, although only part of the email addresses are currently in active use. The ASP hosts school and teacher websites. All students are provided a 10 Megabyte “electronic backpack” for storage of data. ASP resources are accessible via Internet by students, teachers, and parents from school or home, anytime. At one time, and maybe even now, this ASP system was the largest in the world. The current storage is 9 Terabytes (9,000 gigabytes). The 100 redundant servers and multiple tier one bandwidth providers deliver the very high system reliability required by this remote real time provisioning of eLearning curriculum.

The Students First legislation primary focus was to rectify equipment deficiencies and bring schools up to standards. These upgrades have been completed. It is now the school districts’ obligation to upgrade and replace computers and networks as they become outmoded every three to five years. The districts also will have to choose between the Cox Learning Network and other options for sources of instructional programs and materials and cover the cost after the existing contract expires. Teacher professional development and assessment were not in the charter for the SFB implementation.

Online and Outside of Classroom Learning: Another type of eLearning is on-line learning where the student takes part or all of a course from a distant location. Arizona has now approved 14 online public schools: seven charter, and seven traditional. These schools are free to accept an unlimited number of students that may or may not be resident in Arizona. The current focus is on Web-based education with discussion rooms and teacher support. Online eLearning has a history of lower costs while increasing accessibility and efficiency of learning for students. It is particularly useful in rural areas.

Home and Community: Students are expected to learn within an eLearning system that links the home, community and classroom. Research shows that students with computers and Internet access at home have higher academic performance than students that do not. The Indiana Buddy project provided home computers and modem Internet access. Compared to their non-project peers, the project students showed better writing, math, computer, and problem solving skills, along with higher self-esteem and confidence. Teachers with computers at home practice the use of eLearning and become more comfortable with it. As computer interfaces in the home become as pervasive as telephones (97%) this network becomes viable. The eSATS design addresses the costs of school based computers and expects that the family and community will support home computers. The $200 – low cost surplus school computer program will be a significant factor in achieving this goal.

Security: Security challenges face mission-critical school infrastructures and their vulnerability to potentially catastrophic attacks. CoSN launched its “Cyber Security for the Digital District,” multi-year initiative in 2003. It will provide educational technology leaders and policy makers with strategies and tools they can use to ensure the privacy of data and the safe operation of technology within their school systems.

Of major concern is the proliferation of mobile devices that enable faculty and students to remove hardware from the network for use off-site. Wireless networks in schools have “hot spots” and other gateways that allow intruders to breach the system. If a user downloads a virus by mistake, the results can be catastrophic once that machine is reconnected to the system. If students do not take laptops home, but interface the school networks from home computers with adequate security systems, this problem can be minimized.

President Bush’s National Cyber Security Plan demands that networks in critical infrastructures be protected from being a launching ground for cyber attacks. Schools are caught between being security police and needing to trust their users. Districts and eSATS must have well-designed security policies that identify these risks and clearly communicate and support the responsibilities of users and administrators who work on the network. Then funding must be provided to assure these policies are fully implemented and continuously upgraded.

Design: Computers—desktop, laptop, notebook, palmtop, and thin client will be adopted where most appropriate. They will be network compatible and current state of art with maximum affordable performance, storage, RAM, and network capability. Central processing unit and system software will have a life cycle of four to five years.

Peripherals will provide access to black laser and ink jet color printers, as well as digital video and still cameras, and scanners. Unique needs such as data sensors for science and machine tool controls for shop will be provided.

Connectivity—school LAN, district WAN, State of Arizona network, and Internet. Bandwidth varies with need for speed. Typical current speeds could be 10 MB at desktop, 100 MB in classroom, 1 GB in school, and 10 GB in district. Expect these to increase by a factor of ten in ten years.

There are many ways to increase curriculum access and support to the teacher-student nexus. State level supporting system to the district will require a redesign of the current Cox Education Network. eLearning collaboration and communication capability must be significantly increased. Extensibility and adoption to new modes of eLearning must be easy and low cost to implement. The result may be enhancements to the current system, or a completely new design. A modified Cox Education Network could have the ASP integrated with eLearning platforms in the schools and districts. It could deliver increased capacity to support customized learning environments in classrooms and for individual students.

Cost: Student growth rate is assumed to be approximately 2.0 to 3.0 percent a year. Assumptions include a 10 percent computer replacement after year three from purchase, 20 percent of remaining by year four and 100 percent of remaining by year five. New computers are purchased at a rate to decrease the computer-student ratio from the current 8.9:1 in 2003 to 1:1 in 2013. At four years out, it is assumed that the 2.5:1 ratio is achieved. The “unit computer cost” also includes cost of peripherals, connectivity, and the redesigned support system—but not the cost of the curriculum delivered over the system. Computer labs are expected to be closed by that time and eLearning will be centered in the classroom.

The current investment leader is Singapore which is funding $1.2 billion for their 500,000 students to bring up the computer ratio to 2:1 ratio. The ultimate goal is 1:1 equal to the access of knowledge workers in other industries.

Next Tasks: Determine and document the current inventory of computers including age and levels of connectivity.  Do a bottoms-up analysis of Total Cost of Ownership of the computer-connectivity system year by year, including estimated costs of emerging eLearning technology, turnover for new computers and systems, and the continually plunging costs of computer hardware. Address the issue of disposing of 250,000 well used but still functional computers each year.

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