Page 4 - THE Journal, January/February 2018

Editor’sNote David Nagel, Editor-in-Chief
IT’s Predictions F& Concerns for 2018
FOR THE THIRD TIME running, Wrote one respondent: “Meeting the
we’re kicking off the new year with our IT student perception that they are a consumer
Salary & Job Satisfaction Survey, a look back of education products not students. When
r: 41
at the state of the ed tech workplace and a they have this mindset, they want to be
look ahead at the hopes and aspirations of entertained first, educated second.” g : 1 1 0 b: 146
the professionals who help make technology Wrote another not-too-terribly optimistic work in and out of the classroom. respondent: “Teachers will be removed and This time around though, we also wanted replaced with non-professional trainers.”
to ask our participants — mainly IT staff and On the more positive side, one said we’ll
leaders, but also technology-using teachers see a shift that results in “a more nuanced — about their gravest data security concerns understanding of how tech affects the brain
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and about the shifts or trends they foresee in education technology in the next five years.
We did this through two open-ended questions (our fa- vorite type of survey response to tabulate), which generated some surprising, some not- so-surprising, some amusing, some concerning and some thought-provoking answers.
What will be the biggest shift in IT in the education sector over the next five years?
The bulk of responses were not terribly unexpected. Anybody in ed tech could prob- ably rattle off the top 3 answers off the top of their head:
1. Mobile/BYOD/1-to1 devices
2. Cloud computing
3. Online/virtual education
Privacy and security came in fourth,
which makes sense given the pressures put on schools and vendors to protect student data. Somewhat surprisingly, virtual and/ or augmented reality came in fifth — surprising in that it beat out STEM (sixth), personalized learning (seventh), digital textbooks (eighth), networking/wireless/ broadband (ninth).
Artificial intelligence rounded out the top 10.
Some of the less popular but thoughtful responses couldn’t be so simply categorized:
and learning,” and another said we’d see “a change in teaching pedagogy and training
— the infrastructure and devices are in place.”
What will be the biggest data security threat to your institution over the next five years?
On the open-ended ques- tion of data security fears, most of the top 5 answers were related to one-another:
1. Hackers/data breaches (by far the top response)
2. End users (employees, students and users’ personal devices)
3. Ransomware
4. Phishing
5. Cloud
Malware received honorable mention in
sixth place.
The snarkiest responses were all related
to end users, in particular contempt for their carelessness, incompetence or predilection for clicking on malware links in e-mails. But there was also a common theme of caring that ran throughout the responses: a concern for the wellbeing of students, teachers and staff, both for their personal safety and for the security of their information.
To continue the conversation, e-mail me at dnagel@1105media.com.
thejournal.com
January/February 2018 : Volume 45, No. 1
Editorial Advisory Board
Elisa Carlson
Director of Instruction, Curriculum and Innovation, Surrey Schools (British Columbia, Canada)
Julie Evans
Chief Executive Officer, Project Tomorrow
Geoffrey H. Fletcher
Private Consultant
Ann Flynn
Director of Education Technology & State Association Services, National School Boards Association
Phil Hardin
Director of Project IMPACT, Iredell-Statesville School System (NC)
Christopher Harris
Coordinator, School Library System, Genesee Valley Educational Partnership (NY)
Cathy Hutchins
Principal, South Woods Elementary School, St. John’s County School District (FL)
Thomas C. Murray
Director of Innovation, Future Ready Schools, Alliance for Excellent Education
Erin Wilkey Oh
Executive Editor, Education Marketing, Common Sense Education
Mark Stevens
General Manager, NEA Academy
Donna Teuber
Team Leader for Technology Integration, Richland School District Two (SC)