Open System and Information Technology Philosophy

In my time as a tech support staff member for a medium-sized public school district in Ladue, Missouri, I worked directly with the District Technology Coordinator from 1998 to 2000. In 2013, I became an Educational Technology Coordinator for the middle school. I have witnessed first-hand and had my own hand in making choices as to what technology a public school district should use for instruction. As with most aspects of education, each district looks to other nearby districts and similar districts in gauging their decisions. Just as superintendents from different districts collaborate regarding whether to call a "snow day" or not, so do educational technology staff collaborate in making decisions. A district who makes a choice to use a closed or open system certainly influences other districts. Public school district money is tight, which creates pressure on administration to use the funds carefully and wisely, especially in a high profile area as technology. If one district uses a closed system philosophy, it will influence other districts. Choices in technology create ripples in the pond of public education, and, at times, those ripples can grow to enormous waves--all the more reason for a district to assure an ethical decision, as their choices have repercussions beyond just their own students. The information technology philosophy of a district should reflect this responsibility.

Free Market Competition
Our society in the United States of America has historically encouraged a free market and the competition it generates. The increasingly lucrative market of educational technology, as many districts make the decision to create one-to-one programs to put a piece of technology into each student's hands, has attracted this competition. A closed system technology company like Apple knows if it can capture this market, it will have a reliable source of revenue for a long time to come. Public school districts make changes slowly, and once a decision is made, they tend to persist. With the shift to one-to-one across the country's public school districts, this is a critical moment to assure the technology is integrated in a way that makes the most sense for students and our society.  As reported in the Electronic Education Report (2013), "There has been a steady surge in mobile technology adoption in 2013 and that growth is likely to continue in the next two years" (Rise, p. 6). If a closed system is adopted in most districts, this situation would be difficult to undo. This is especially true of a closed system over an open system because public schools, over the next several years, would be adopting technology that, being closed, makes migrating from it to something else--even another different closed system--very difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. An open system promotes healthy competition in technology. School districts have an ethical duty to encourage this positive force for progress in our society since their choices influence their students' outlook on life and have a far-reaching effect beyond their students.

Flexible Solutions
While closed system technologies like the iPad provide a singular, easy choice for educators, some are discovering this singular choice too severely limits their options. Technology manager for a California public school district Mike Teng, in an article published in District Administration by Avi Asher-Schapiro (2013),  said his team choose the open system Chromebooks because they "more effectively [meet] the specific needs of the classroom" (p. 72). Teng maintains that, "'When it comes to flexibility and overall suitability for the classroom...we appreciate the dedicated log-in page, which allows us to restrict [students'] access'" and other features that are endemic to an open system (p. 72). The power of this open system is such that even if a district decided to go with a close system platform for its hardware, the skills and ability that the district had with the open system platform (Chromebook) would transfer to a closed system platform (MacBook) since most open system applications such as Blogger and Google Documents also run on closed system hardware. The investment in time and training would not be lost in such a move, whereas they would be if a district invested purely in a closed system. This flexibility is especially important at this time, at the advent of one-to-one implementation, so that a district's information technology can retain agility for change as this new method of instruction settles in and becomes established as the norm.

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Asher-Schapiro, A., & Hermeling, A. (2013). Racing the iPad in K12 education. District Administration, 49(4), 70-73.

Rise of mobile technology is likely to continue. (2013). Electronic Education Report, 20(16), 6-7.