Page 32 - School Planning & Management, September 2017

TECHNOLOGY THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT): THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE
The three biggest concerns regarding the implementation of IoT are cost/budget (58 percent), privacy issues (33 percent) and security issues (30 percent). In addi- tion, 81 percent of respondents also indi- cate that the potential benefits outweigh the risks. To see the complete Safety and
Savings: IoT Opportunities in K-12 info- graphic, visit http://www.cdwnewsroom. com/safety-and-savings.
What Is IoT?
That’s a lot of numbers and a lot of information to absorb. Before we get too
far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at how school administrators are defining
IoT, starting with Tony Inglese, CETL, chief financial officer for Batavia Public School District 101 in Illinois, and co-chair of Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) Emerging Technologies Committee. CoSN
is a Washington-based organization that empowers educational leaders to leverage technology to create engaging learning en- vironments and provides the tools essential for their success.
“IoT is hard to define because it’s so broad and no one really knows what it will mean for schools,” says Inglese. “Every year we talk about studying it with our Emerging Technologies Committee but, because it is so elusive, we then decide to put it off. Really, anything that’s connected to the Internet
is part of the IoT. But, when a device needs
a certain amount of user intervention and direction, then you’re not talking about IoT, you’re talking an internet-enabled device. It’s nebulous and, just as quickly as we can provide examples, we can show how they don’t exactly fit in all cases.”
Inglese’s CoSN Emerging Technologies Committee co-chair is Norton Gusky, a Pittsburgh-based-teacher-turned-educa- tional-technology-broker who believes in using technology to empower communities and seeing technology as a tool for innova- tion. For 21 years he served as coordinator of educational technology for Pittsburgh-based Fox Chapel School District. About eight years ago, he was instrumental in helping the district move its HVAC systems to IoT in order to have constant feedback from sen- sors on a network where they could be moni- tored and controlled. “When we look at what is IoT,” he says, “there are people who have come up with good names and terms. For example, in an article in EdTech magazine, George Siemens, a professor at University of Texas at Arlington, defined IoT as making the physical digital — taking things that
are physical and making them digital so you have the ability to use the information from the devices in some fashion. I think this cap- tures it very, very succinctly.”
Teacher alerts
Strobe, tones, & pop-ups
Pre-recorded announcements and instructions
Display maps & directions
Notify off-campus responders
Lock doors
How well can you communicate in an emergency?
Communication technology that helps keep staff and students aware, focused, and out of harm’s way is part of a strong Emergencey Preparedness
Plan (EPP). What’s more, it should cover:
1. ...activation: Multiple ways for staff to activate an alert
2. ...notification:Redundant ways to inform responders
3. ...response: A suite of effective, automated actions
Does yours?
If it’s time to update your school’s communication technology, give us a call. We make it easier
to learn in classrooms and to manage bells, paging, alerting, and
response
across campus.
To learn how
to build strong
EPP-ready
communication
infrastructure,
download the free guide at gofrontrow.com/spm-conductor.
Silent signals
800.227.0735 | gofrontrow.com
32 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / SEPTEMBER 2017
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