Research Publication No.

2014-2 January 15, 2014

K-12 Edtech Cloud Service Inventory Isaac Meister Alicia Solow-Niederman

This paper can be downloaded without charge at: The Berkman Center for Internet & Society Research Publication Series: !http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/8717 The Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2378570

23 Everett Street Second Floor Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 +1 617.495.7547 +1 617.495.7641 (fax) http://cyber.law.harvard.edu cyber@law.harvard.edu

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2378570

K-12 Edtech Cloud Service Inventory January 15, 2014

Isaac Meister and Alicia Solow-Niederman

!

23 Everett Street Second Floor Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 +1 617.495.7547 www.cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/studentprivacy

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2378570

BACKGROUND
A wide range of cloud technologies are now available to K-12 educators, ranging from replacements for school- and district-maintained servers (infrastructure as a service, in which servers traditionally maintained by a school or district are outsourced to a cloud vendor), to a variety of software tools that users access from web browsers or mobile applications, which are in turn supported and powered by third-party companies. These tools are generally classed as software as a service (SaaS) as opposed to software that can stand alone (i.e., run on school computers or devices without storing and retrieving data on a third partys servers). Just as infrastructure as a service allows educators to replace its physical servers, the SaaS offerings below allow educators to move existing administrative and classroom needs into these cloud services, and to create entirely new technically-mediated forms of interactions among students, teachers, parents, and administrators. The services below are roughly grouped according to the functionality they afford, from those common to any organization (collaboration and identity management), through the administrative office (student information systems), to the classroom (learning management and classroom management), and outside it (parent-teacher communication). It should be noted, however, that the growing ubiquity of Internet access generally and of mobile devices specifically among students, parents, and teachers makes it increasingly easy and desirable for cloud application developers to create services that transcend these boundaries. In each case, we document: the level of adoption: who can sign up for the service? the audience: who will be expected to use it? the pricing model: is there a fee associated with the service, and under what conditions? the extensibility: how, and under what circumstances, can this service be connected to or included in other services? mobile integration: does the service require or suggest the use of a mobile app? is the services web interface designed for use with mobile browsers?

The examples below are meant to illustrate the kinds of cloud technology being developed in each class, and are not exhaustive.

INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE
Most K-12 school systems already possess some degree of technical infrastructure at the school and district levels, and frequently in classrooms themselves. That infrastructure requires staff and expertise to maintain and extend technical functionalities like e-mail, identity management, storage of student and staff metadata, internet filtering, and the like. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides on-demand virtual servers and storage, which behave logically exactly like the physical hardware they replace or supplement, but which live on physical hardware maintained by the seller. This allows administrators and infrastructure specialists to focus their efforts on the services their infrastructure provides, rather than the deployment of the infrastructure itself.

Example:

Amazon Web Services!1

AWS offers a wide range of virtualized replacements for physical hardware and functionality provided by physical servers, including general-purpose servers (which can be used to host e-mail, administrative applications, websites, etc.), bulk file storage, databases, and domain name services. Infrastructure is provided on demand, and primary responsibility for maintenance and security remains with the school or district.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

Paid (per virtual server, per hour) Yes Not applicable None

COLLABORATION AND IDENTITY PLATFORMS

Bridging the gap between IaaS and Software as a Service (SaaS), certain cloud technologies bundle features that address the needs common to any office environment-- as opposed to specifically targeted to the unique needs of a school context-- and are then marketed to educators. These features replace schooland district-hosted services and are generally accessible via web browsers and mobile apps, rather than networked storage and applications installed on school or district computers.

Example 1:

Google Apps for Education!2

Google Apps for Education makes available the familiar range of Google services (e.g., search, word processing, email, etc.) within the management and administration of a single educational organization, as opposed to via the actions of a given individual who creates a Google account in bottom-up fashion. Schools or districts may extend these services to faculty and staff only!3, or create Google Apps accounts for students as well. In November 2013, Google announced!4 a line of K-12 student-oriented tablets that use Google Apps for Education to manage identity; educators can extend the functionality of the tablets using Google Play for Education, a specially vetted marketplace containing a variety of educationoriented apps (including ClassDojo and Socrative infra) classified by grade, subject, and educational standard. Google Apps for Educations services include: search (Google Search)

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1 2 3 4

http://aws.amazon.com/ http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/education/ http://www.emissourian.com/local_news/saint_clair/article_0a8d8724-0f46-11e3-989f-001a4bcf887a.html http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/introducing-tablets-with-google-play.html

e-mail (Gmail) document creation, sharing, and storage (Google Docs and Drive) peer-to-peer communication (Google Talk) videoconferencing and social networking (Google Hangouts and Google+) identity management (Google Accounts) educational application and content acquisition (Google Play for Education)
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience

Free Yes

[]

Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility

(Google verifies ownership of the domain name associated with the school or district.)

Mobile integration

additional services through Google Apps Marketplace third party applications can use Google accounts for identity management third party applications can be downloaded through Google Play for Education can connect to existing user databases on school- or district-owned computers Android and iOS apps available for most services School-owned Android devices (e.g. Chromebooks) can be centrally managed Managed tablets available for use with Google Play for Education

Example 2:

Office 365 for Education!5

Office 365 for Education offers a suite of Microsoft products commonly used in K-12 institutions (e.g., Microsoft Office and other proprietary software). Many schools and districts already use Windowspowered workstations and servers and thus have a directory of faculty and students; Office 365 can connect to and manage that directory and assign access to cloud functionality accordingly. Schools or districts may choose to offer these services solely to staff and faculty, or extend accounts to students. These services include: document creation (cloud-hosted Microsoft Office) document storage (Microsoft SkyDrive) project management (Microsoft SharePoint) instant messaging and video conferencing hosted voicemail and telephony identity management (Active Directory)
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

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5

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

[]
Freemium
(technical support and desktop versions of Office applications incur a peruser fee)

Yes can connect to existing user databases on school- or districtowned computers Android and iOS apps available

ADMINISTRATIVE AND STUDENT INFORMATION SERVICES (SIS)

Some cloud technologies are built primarily to meet the needs of teachers and administrators, allowing teachers and administrators to store, aggregate, and retrieve information about students (e.g. grades, disciplinary action, medical information) and teachers (e.g. lesson plans, evaluations, etc.). Although aimed at teachers and administrators, these sorts of technologies may also provide interfaces for students to access data about themselves, and for parents/guardians to access or submit data about their children.

Example 1:

Pearson PowerSchool!6

Originally sold as software hosted on school or district servers, the cloud-hosted Pearson PowerSchool suite can store student grade information, teacher feedback, attendance data, health and immunization data, and state-mandated reporting information. It provides optional SMS capability for text-message communication for parents and students.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

Paid

(license negotiated at school or district level)

Yes Data import/export possible via Schools Interoperability Framework!7 data standard. Android and iOS apps available for data input (teachers and administrators) and viewing (students and parents)

Example 2:

BloomBoard!8

BloomBoard allows teachers to manage professional development activities like lesson planning and certification requirements, as well as to retrieve relevant content created by other teachers; !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6 7

http://www.pearsonschoolsystems.com/products/powerschool/features/ http://www.pearsonschoolsystems.com/products/sif/ 8 http://www.bloomboard.com/teachers

administrators can use it to store information about parent-teacher conferences, track students requiring administrative attention, and take notes about classroom observations.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility

Paid

(license negotiated at school or district level)

Mobile integration

Yes continuing education content available from BloomBoard-curated marketplace student/class metadata can be imported from other student information databases Web portal is optimized for iPad and Android

Example 3:

Illuminate!9

Offered as an application running on a districts own servers or hosted in the cloud (outsourced, so to speak), Illuminate stores student attendance, discipline, grading, health, and special education data for entire districts. It also provides a parent and student portal for retrieval and verification of student data. Student data can be aggregated and analyzed by administrators and prepared for export to state institutions for compliance and reporting purposes.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

Paid
(license negotiated at school or district level)

[ ]

[ ]

Yes Data import/export possible None

LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (LMS)

Learning Management Systems are a class of student-facing, student-oriented platforms that typically integrate teacher-created and/or external educational content for students to browse, assessment (quizzes, open response questions, etc.), grading, student-created content, student-tostudent social networking, teacher-to student feedback, and reporting functionality in a single place. LMSes frequently can integrate with third-party, purpose-built services that supplement the internal functionality of the LMS itself.

Example 1:
9 10

MyBigCampus!10

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https://www.illuminateed.com/illuminate-student-information-features.html http://www.mybigcampus.com/tour

MyBigCampus provides a suite of tools for teachers to develop online courses for students as well as a repository for class-related documents, an assignment submission system, class calendaring, data aggregation for teachers, and a social networking interface for student-student and student-teacher interaction.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience

Free No can integrate content that other teachers and schools have designated as shareable can use Google Apps for Education to manage identity Android and iOS apps for students and teachers Mobile-optimized web interface

Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility

Mobile integration

Example 2:

Desire2Learn!11

The Desire2Learn platform allows teachers to create courses with original content and embedded media, provides internal e-mail and social networking functionality (which allows students to associate social media profiles like Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn with their accounts), offers cloud file storage, and permits the aggregation of student-created content into ePortfolios to which teachers can assign feedback as well as generate class-wide statistics and grade reports.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model

Paid

(free to try; license negotiated at school or district level)

School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

No programming interface allows third parties to create apps that can be embedded into Desire2Learns interface Android and iOS apps for students and teachers

Example 3:

Edmodo!12

Edmodo makes available a Facebook-like social networking platform for students and teachers. Teachers can post and create assessments, assign grades, recognize student participation, introduce Edmodo-approved educational apps to students, and share educational content with other teachers. Students can communicate with teachers and one another, take assessments, and view the results. School and district administrators can aggregate and track activities and assessments for relevant teachers and students. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11 12

http://www.desire2learn.com/solutions/k-12/ http://www.edmodo.com/

Teachers

Schools

Districts

Students

Admin. Staff

Parents

Adoptable by Audience

Free No Third-party applications available in Edmodo store Android and iOS apps for students and teachers

Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

CLASSROOM FEEDBACK TOOLS

Classroom feedback tools mediate and augment in-class participation by students and facilitate teacher recognition of their pupils.

Example 1:

ClassDojo!13

ClassDojo allows teachers to upload class rosters and then submit feedback in real time based on in-class events (e.g., answering a question correctly, causing a disruption, etc.). Teachers can show class-wide behavior statistics in real time and distribute individual reports to parents on a weekly basis. Students and parents can view relevant feedback through an online portal.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience

Free No None Android and iOS apps available

Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

Example 2:

Socrative!14

Socrative allows teachers to create and distribute instant quizzes in a variety of formats (e.g. matching, multiple choice, free response, etc.) that students access and answer in-class on mobile devices. Teachers may then download and view graded student responses.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience

Free No None

Pricing model School/district approval required? Extensibility

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13 14

http://www.classdojo.com/ http://www.socrative.com/

Mobile integration

Android and iOS apps available

STUDY AND ASSESSMENT TOOLS

Study and assessment tools are student-oriented utilities that aim to present educational material to students dynamically, and provide avenues for teachers to integrate assessment opportunities. The utilities then either grade student assessments or provide teachers the means to grade assignments and provide feedback.

Example 1:

Quizlet!15

Quizlet allows students to create virtual decks of flashcards that they can use to play recall games in a variety of formats. Students sign up individually and can use Facebook or Google+ for single sign-on. Teachers can sign up for accounts, create content, aggregate the content into virtual classes, and invite students to join the classes, from which they can view individual students study activity. For a fee, teachers can remove sponsored advertisements from class study decks and receive a teacher badge next to their username.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model

Freemium

(paid teacher-only accounts remove inline advertising for students)

School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

No Content can be embedded into web pages and LMSes Android and iOS apps available

Example 2:

Voki!16

Voki allows teachers to create cartoon avatars that explain educational concepts. In the free version of Voki, avatars can be shared or embedded in web content for students to access. In Voki Classroom, the paid version of the Voki service, teachers can create Voki-enriched lessons and lesson plans, issue accounts to students, assign students to create their own Vokis based around lessons, and grade them.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model

Freemium

(student-teacher interactive features are paid only)

School/district approval required? Extensibility

No Content can be embedded into web pages and LMSes

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15 16

http://www.quizlet.com http://www.voki.com

Mobile integration

None

Example 3:

Turnitin17

Turnitin provides a means for teachers to solicit submission of and evaluate student assignments. Turnitin runs assignments against a cache of publicly available content to determine its degree of originality, and then presents a report for each assignment to the instructor. Further, it allows instructors to annotate the submitted work with text and voice comments and exposes an interface for students to view the annotations. Teachers may also assign grading and feedback tasks to peers, sometimes anonymously, while teachers retain administrative oversight.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model

Paid

(license negotiated at school or district level)

School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

Yes Integrable into most LMSes, including Desire2Learn iPad app (for teacher grading)

PARENT-TEACHER COMMUNICATION TOOLS

This class of cloud technology both directly facilitates interaction between teachers and parents by exchanging data about students in-class activities and generally seeks to elicit parental involvement in, awareness of, and consent to the activities.

Example 1:

MommaZoo!18

MommaZoo allows teachers to upload class rosters and parents to create accounts, through which teachers can share homework assignments, share photos of their classes, issue reminders, and solicit parent volunteers for school activities. School-level accounts permit school groups to sell in-app sponsored advertising for fundraising purposes.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model

Freemium
(school-level accounts incur fees)

School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

No None Mobile device-aware web interface

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17 18

http://turnitin.com/ https://www.mommazoo.com/

10

Android and iOS apps available

Example 2:

Chalk!19

Chalk allows teachers and administrators to upload and convert forms requiring parent input (e.g., permission slips, medical release waivers, evaluations, authorized use policy forms) and distribute them to parents, who can fill out, digitally sign, and submit them. Administrators may distribute and audit forms and submissions.
Teachers Schools Districts Students Admin. Staff Parents

Adoptable by Audience Pricing model

Free to try
(trial accounts are manually vetted by Chalk for standing)

School/district approval required? Extensibility Mobile integration

No None Mobile device-aware web interface

LOOKING BEYOND
In considering these cloud-based services, it is imperative to note that the above inventory of services is merely one possible means of organizing the cloud educational technology space a focus on audience, or on types of data stored, or on the relationship between a providers business model and the price of a service would be equally analytically valid. The privacy issues presented by any one service are heavily dependent on the context in which it is usedthe full cloud use scenarioand as such, school officials, teachers, and parents should identify what services are being used on the ground to better understand what data is being collected about students and how it can be stored and used.

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19

https://www.chalkschools.com/

11