1. tfarhinn in q 29- world
FOR THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY INSCHOOLS
By CATHERINE J. HALL AND ALEXANDER C. PEARSON
62 INDEPENDENT SCHOOL

2. f you could design your own school,
what would it look like? This is not aI•
Squestion many educators actually get
to answer, but it is this very question
-thatwe have been asldng ourselves at
The Episcopal Academy (Pennsylva-
Iia) for the last seven years - as we
have planned, built, and now moved
into our new 123-acre, nine-building
campus. This tremendous opportunity
to build an entire school is both the
cchance of a lifetime and an incredible
challenge. How do you build a campus
ihat not only meets the needs of to-
aay's students, but which will hold up
over time, allowing for enough adapt-
dbiity to grow and change in a climate
vhere five-year strategic plans seem
long-term? Even more challenging:
how do you plan the technology for a
caampus like this?
WINTE 0 9 63

3. While our project is larger in scale
than most school construction proj-
ects, the questions that guided our
decision-making process are no dif-
ferent than questions you'd use for a
one-building renovation project. At the
end of the day, the technology you put
in place in your classrooms needs to be
congruent with your school's mission
and with your classroom pedagogy.
It needs to help make teaching and
learning better. What follows are some
key questions and methods we used to
design and build our ideal school.
Know Who You Are
The Episcopal Academy was founded
in 1785 in Philadelphia. On the surface,
you may assume that the school's 225-
year history would leave it rigid and
steeped in unbreakable tradition. But,
in the competitive independent school
market in metropolitan Philadelphia,
the reality is that a school must be
adaptable and innovative in order to
survive. The move to our new campus
is, in fact, just the latest in a series of
moves for the school over the course
ofits history, and the most recent case
of the school needing to look to new
ground to create a campus that could
meet programming needs and accom-
modate future growth. The way that
the school has been able to change,
while being true to its core beliefs, is
tied to a central sense of mission and
identity.
The technology we put in place is
no exception to this principle.
When beginning the process of
planning. technology in any building
project, you need to start by know-
ing both how teachers and students
,already use technology, and how teach-
ers teach and students learn to iden-
tify the new technologies that would
make this process better. What The
Episcopal Academy has built works
wonderfully for us, but it may not be
the secret ingredients to your own suc-
cess. There is not a magic formula for
designing an innovative and progres-
sive technology program; rather, there
are some best practices for how to plan
for your own recipe. It is important
to not just focus on what your school
is doing now with technology, but to
anticipate what you will be doing in
the future. Think about how teachers
and students adapted and grew to use
what they use today: that will tell you
something about how to prepare for
your school's technology future.
The best way to get to know your
technology needs is to involve the right
people in the discussion. Use teach-
ers to pilot and test new technologies
you are considering; ask students
what they wish they could do on your
campus but can't due to current limita-
tions; survey faculty to see which ofthe
technologies that you have already put
money into are working and which are
not, and why.There is not a consultant
who can answer these questions for
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4. you - and you should be wary ofthose
who say that they can. At best, a good
consultant can help you ask the right
questions to get your own answers.
Which Technologies Should You
Buy?
With limited budgets for technology in
any building project, schools are faced
with difficult decisions about which
technologies to pick. It is very easy to
be convinced that the classroom ofthe
future looks a particular way. There
are a lot of gadgets and very exciting
technologies that look fantastic in
classrooms and computer labs.if these
tools do not connect to your classroom
pedagogy, they will not make the dif-
ference you are seeking in teaching
and learning. What you would ideally
do is invest in those technologies that
both give you the most bang for your
buck in the classroom, and are things
you can build upon from year to year
with additional funds.
In our case, we made some deci-
sions several years before we moved in
order to pilot some key technologies to
gauge how they fit with how we teach
and learn. This gave us a chance to test
them before we invested heavily. We
looked at different types of interactive
-technologies, different A/V classroom
displays, and different video distri-
bution systems, and we had lengthy
discussions about how teachers use
different resources both inside and
outside of class. We wanted to avoid
piloting something after we moved in
and the investment was already made.
In the world of interactive tech-
nologies, we chose tablet computers
as our standard teaching platform and
flat screen TVs instead of projectors,
screens, and speakers as our multime-
dia hardware. Most teachers in third
through 12th grades have their own
tablet PC, which we introduced four
years ago. Similar to standard laptops,
but with an interactive screen, teachers
use tablets in class as a whiteboard,
or at home to grade student papers
electronically. We compared this op-
tion to interactive whiteboards (such as
Smart), and found that the whiteboards
were used significantly less frequently
by the teachers. In our case, it came
down to comfort. Teachers brought
their tablet home and used it for all of
their day-to-day computing. Instead
of having to learn two technologies -
their computer and their interactive
whiteboard - they only had to master
one. They had confidence in using it
and, therefore, used it more. There are
certainly a lot of successful interactive
whiteboard programs in schools. But it
wasn't the right direction for us.
Our decision to go with flat-screen
TVs rather than standard LCD projec-
tors was a bit more unconventional.
We had been using projectors in our
classrooms for several years. What
bothered us was the ongoing cost of
10
WJC
maintaining them, on top of a high
installation fee. The TVs brought us
a new option. The image quality was
much stronger, but the tradeoff was a
smaller display size. We installed one
in a classroom prior to our move to get
the feedback we needed. We found that
the improved image quality made up
for the drawbacks and the cost savings
per room, both immediate with instal-
lation and ongoing, was tremendous.
We are using these flat-screen displays
around campus as information bul-
letin boards, enabling us to broadcast
video announcements and to custom-
ize information for students in differ-
ent buildings. We have also connected
Tips for Administrators
BY GEOFFREY K. WAGG
Learn and understand the possibilities. It is important to have a vi-
sion for the future that is rooted in what is possible.
Be clear about your educational philosophy. Building for the future
can ensure that both classical and progressive educational cultures
will remain relevant.
Keep expectations in check. Building or renovating for the future can
improve the program, but don't oversell the possibilities until it is all
working.
Hire good consultants that you like to work with. Nothing is worse
and more expensive than working with the wrong people who do not
have-your best interests in mind.
Use proven technologies. Off-the-shelf technologies that have been
tested and are in use are the safest investment.
Focus on simplicity and training. Buy technologies that are simple to
use and reliable, and then provide adequate time for training.
Demo products. Have vendors supply samples and let your adventur-
ous teachers take them for a test drive.
Build a reliable infrastructure. Invest in a network infrastructure that
is robust and reliable and keep it current.
Hire great staff.The technology staff must be adept at the technology
and great at helping others to use it.
Have fun. Building for the future should be exciting and intellectually
stimulating.
GeoffrqK.Waggishead ofthe upperschool atThe EpiscopalAcademy (Pennsylvania).
WINTER 2009 65
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5. the TVs into our new video distribu-
tion system, a robust system of cable
television stations as well as thousands
of educational videos for teachers to
use in class.
What is most important in buying
classroom technology is knowing that
your teachers will use it. They need to
believe it is a technology that will both
work and improve what they are do-
ing. They also need to be comfortable
using it and confident they can use it
successfully in front of students.
When buying technology for stu-
dent use, the questions get more
complicated. Most schools have atleast
considered whether it makes sense
for students to carry around their own
laptops or tablets, with many deciding
that this is the area in which to invest
student computer dollars. These i:i
initiatives are, in some cases, great
successes and, in others, great failures.
Typically, schools with unsuccessful
programs failed to ask some key ques-
tions up front about how teachers
would incorporate the laptops into
class time, what technology staffing
changes are needed to support the
additional hardware, and what train-
ing both teachers and students need
to make it work. We believe that, in
some situations, i:i programs can be
fantastic ways to leverage technology
in the classroom. Ifthe conditions are
not right, they are not a good fit. The
key in this decision is taking the time
to evaluate carefully both the school's
readiness for laptops and its ability to
use them wisely across the curriculum.
At The Episcopal Academy, we have
not yet made that commitment, but
we will be studying this issue carefully
in the next year to decide if it is the
right time for us to start a one-to-one
program.
An area where schools can lever-
age funds more easily with student
computer use is in specialty computer
labs. In looking across program areas
at a school, there may be disciplines
that lend themselves well to a special
technology-rich classroom. At Episcopal
Academy, we have built in a few such
labs that enable our students to further
explore academic areas of interest on
their own, and for teachers in those
disciplines to use these new resources
to develop new curricular directions.
For instance, we have built in a music
technology lab, a multimedia studio
for both graphics and video editing,
an interactive language learning lab,
and a cutting-edge control booth for
our theater tech program. While these
spaces cost a bit more than standard
labs, they are targeted areas that tie
directly into curricular initiatives, and,
thus, we know they will be used widely.
Our recommendation for other schools,
therefore, is to consider picking one or
more areas where your school thrives,
or is looking to grow, and to promote
technology labs in these spaces. We
have found that it is important to have
the right faculty members eager to push
the program along and to have them
involved in the planning. With key
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6. teachers behind the effort, adding in a
few high-profile spaces can make a big
impact on curriculum.
Don't Forget the Basics
It is very easy, when planning new fa-
cilities, to focus on the bells and whis-
tles - -those technologies that draw
attention and show that your school is
cutting edge. Butit is very important to
remember to invest adequately in the
"basics" of your technology program.
Nobody will be singing the praises of
the video lab if the network is too slow
for students to useit and e-mail doesn't
work. It is critical to assess what your
priorities are and to be sure to build
an infrastructure - cabling, servers,
switches, bandwidth - that can sup-
port it. It is also important to allow for
room to grow in your infrastructure.
You want to avoid creating a situation
where you have outgrown your capac-
ity in two years.
In our case, we invested in the
hidden technologies strongly. We
have ioGB fiber connections between
buildings (it's fast) with CAT 6e
cabling inside buildings (also fast).
We partnered with Cisco Systems to
implement some key areas of our core
network, including the switches that
direct network traffic around campus,
the wireless network, and the phone
system. Depending on the scale of
your project, you can speak openly
with major vendors to see if they are
interested in special pricing arrange-
ments to outfit more than one part of
the project. Often, prices for large proj-
ects are negotiable and you can get top-
notch vendors like Cisco at a discount.
In addition to Cisco, we partnered with
Hewlett-Packard, who provided our
servers, printers, and desktop comput-
ers, also at a discount.
68 1N D E P E N D E NT SCHOOL
We also paid attention to our band-
width. This is our connection from
campus to the outside world. Having a
blazing fast internal network only gets
you so far. If it still takes a long time
to download a video to a classroom,
the speed of the internal network is
-notworth the money. We opted to go
with an option that not only gave us
a lot ofbandwidth to the Internet, but
which also connected us to Internet2,
an initiative that connects educational
groups to a wide range of online learn-
ing content. Our bandwidth is what
is called "burstable," meaning it can
adjust as needed to change based
on usage. Rather than having every-
thing grind to a halt while someone
d6wnloads a large file, our connection
expands and allows for greater band-
width when needed.
You can evaluate what your current
usage is with your Internet service pro-
vider and then use competing offers
of service to look at the options that
match both your budget and needs.
Telecommunications plans and fees
change so often that it is worth review-
ing your account frequently. You may
be able to upgrade to a much faster
connection for the same money you
are currently paying.
One of our guiding rules was to
make sure the core technologies were
solid before diving into extras. These
core pieces - servers, network traffic
flow, e-mail, and phones - are essen-
tial for students, faculty, and staff to
work and learn in our school. We used
the opportunity with the project to up-
grade servers, to re-assess how our data
is stored and backed up, to upgrade
our e-mail system, and to invest in a
phone system that would be reliable
and easy to use (in our case, Cisco's
VoIP system). Investing in these core
pieces built confidence in the system
and allowed teachers to take the time
to try new technologies rather than fret
over an unstable network.
Another "basic" is wireless network
access. While seemingly costly on the
front end, a good wireless network
can take the load off of your wired
network, minimizing how much ca-
bling you need to run and how many
network drops you need to place in
each classroom. Beyond the cost factor,
a good wireless network can transform
your learning spaces. We wanted our
wireless network to allow for the use
of technology anywhere on campus,
opening up how we think about the
classroom as a space. We envisioned,
for instance, our classes heading out-
doors with laptops to learn, creating
classrooms out of non-typical spaces.
It was a priority for us to have wireless
coverage all over campus, inside and
outside buildings.
It was also important for the wire-
less connection to be stable and robust
enough to support what our teachers
want to do in the classroom, including
showing videos and other bandwidth-
heavy uses. We turned to Cisco for
some guidance on what would get us
there, and ended up investing in a
somewhat emerging technology - the
n standard. Ifyou are familiar with the
different letters assigned to wireless
standards - a, b, g - n is the latest
iteration, which promises significantly
better range and connection speeds.
In deciding what type of wireless
network to put in place, there are sev-
eral things to consider. If you want to
cover all or most of your campus, you
may want tolook to a managed system,
which allows you to monitor all ofyour
access points, tweak their ranges, and
make sure all of your spaces are coy-
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7. ered. We found it important to estab-
lish how andwhere students and faculty
connect (and want to connect) to the
network and the Internet and invest
based on that priority.
Who Leads the Way?
Most schools do not have internal exper-
tise to guide the process of designing
and implementing a new data and A/V
network. The consultants we brought
into the process were specialists in key
areas and were very competent. More
importantly, however, they understood
their role in hearing us as the client -
our priorities, our vision, our expecta-
tions - and in taking their cue from
us in making recommendations and in
designing systems. Our internal team
was integral in conversations about
all aspects of the project, including
design and budget. For this relation-
ship to be achieved, the school needs
to have an internal group empowered
to work with the consultants in order
to be certain the end result matched
the school's vision of what the facility
will enable teachers and students to do.
Educational spaces are unique and it is
important to hire experts who under-
stand schools and have a solid record of
working in education.
Having an internal team does more
than having someone to act as a watch-
dog over consultants. It gives members
of the school technology program an
opportunity to gain skills and knowl-
edge through the process that will help
leverage the new technology the school
is buying. Outsourcing the project and
dumping new equipment on a technol-
ogy department without their input
does nothing to further their under-
standing or ownership of the tools. In
the end, the technology department is
the team leading the effort for students
and teachers to use the tools, and it
needs to be a vital part of the conversa-
tion from the beginning.
The Future of Our School
On many levels, what we have built
can certainly be described as a "school
of the future." It is built with growth
and progress in mind. This campus,
however, is also a school of the present
and the past as well. We built a school
that could meet us where we are in
our technology use while giving us
some new tools to push us forward.
Where appropriate, though, we stuck
with tried and true measures, includ-
ing chalk boards in several classrooms
and dedicated Harkness-method
seminar rooms. There is also capacity
to grow in areas we have not even en-
visioned yet. We can only assume we
made some mistakes along the way.
Time inevitably reveals that not all
choices are the best - in which case.
you play the game ofconsidering what
you would do differently if you could.
We are confident, however, that our
processes of investigation, trial, and
design have led us on the right path
with the tools we need to move our
program forward.
Your next building project may be
different in size, scope, and budget,
but the same process ofdeciding which
technologies best fit your school's mis-
sion and pedagogy will undoubtedly
help you invest your technology dollars
wisely.
So what does your new school look
like? Have fun discovering it.
CatherineJ.Hall isthe directoroftechnology at The
Episcopal Academy (Pennsylvania). Alexander C.
Pearsonisthe school'sassociatedirectoroftechnology.
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8. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TITLE: How to Build for the Future of Technology in Schools
SOURCE: Indep Sch 68 no2 Wint 2009
The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it
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