Expediting education—Blogs and wikis go to college

The students used the WordPress blog software, a free, hosted product. “I looked at several different blog software products and WordPress caught my eye,” Padilla says. “I was able to set it up quickly and easily.” After seeing the results of Padilla’s course, one of his colleagues in the business department now has students using blogs in his courses, and a dozen other professors from across the campus have called him about it. “Keeping a blog engages students,” Padilla says, “and, I’m hoping, will help send them into the business environment with an additional computer-related skill.”

Industrial-strength social software

The no-cost social software products are a great way to get started, and they meet the needs of many users, but those products come with their own price: advertisements, fewer features and limited support. Some universities, therefore, opt for commercial social software products, especially as their blogs and wikis become formalized.

At Boston College, the Carroll School of Management selected Socialtext—an enterprise social software platform that includes wikis, blogs, microblogging, social networking, social spreadsheets and other components—to support classroom collaboration. “We have taken a very proactive approach to social media,” says John Gallaugher, professor of information systems at Carroll. “This is a very important domain that has been disruptive of conventional thinking about how to gather knowledge and how communities form.”

Easy to preserve and share

Socialtext wikis are used in Gallaugher’s classes for several different purposes. Course information is posted on a wiki, and wikis are also used for collaboration in class work. “We run a field study in which we visit 20 companies in Silicon Valley,” he explains. “The students create a wiki page for each firm, provide links to relevant reading and basically create a ‘vortex of knowledge’ that is easily captured in the wiki.” Gallaugher believes that by harnessing the intellect of students, the classroom experience can be richer and more productive. The information is current, and the students can bring in news through RSS feeds and other announcements.

In addition, the wikis provide a permanent record of the achievements of each class that can help set the bar for successive classes. “In the past, students would write really good material for my classes,” Gallaugher continues, “but there was no easy way to preserve and share it broadly.” Now, he can save the information online, and new students can see what was done before, which gives them a sense of the level of work that is expected.

The traditional textbook market is feeling the impact of those new options for student instruction, according to Gallaugher. “Textbooks are expensive and often badly out of date,” he maintains. “I supplement them with free online content and licensed information from companies such as LexisNexis and Factiva. This model fosters the habits we want our students to acquire, in reading information drawn from business publications such as The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/home-page) and Fortune.” Gallaugher also is convinced that iPads and other e-book platforms will have a major impact on traditional publishing, and he provides access to his own open source textbook at his Web site.

Social software is unquestionably prompting a change in education and the business community that students are entering. “When our students go into established organizations, they will bring with them the ability to use these new tools and as a result, change the corporate environment,” Gallaugher says. Moreover, social software has disrupted many traditional organizational conventions. “Look at the impact of social networking sites such as LinkedIn,” he adds. “HR managers used to carefully guard corporate directories. Now, everyone is out there and accessible.”

As the next generation of students enters the working world, they will have benefited from new ways of learning and collaborating. “The Net generation reflects one of the biggest demographic shifts in history,” says Ross Mayfield, president and co-founder of Socialtext. “More people are working transparently in a way that is discoverable. When students can search profiles, ask questions and access real-time information, they have learning at their fingertips in a way they never had before.”

Use of social software will not provide all the answers, but it goes a long way in supporting education and innovation to a level that was not possible previously. 

Business intelligence is making schools smarter

An innovative partnership has provided Columbus City Schools in central Ohio with the resources to help its students stay on track for graduation and develop the skills they need to participate in the work force. Nationwide Insurance teamed up with Information Builders to use its business intelligence (BI) solution, WebFOCUS, to help Columbus City Schools monitor the academic progress of its 53,000 students and provide timely interventions for those who are falling behind.

With only about 70 percent of students graduating on time on average nationally, and massive budget cuts in many districts, schools in the United States are pressed to meet the needs of their students and to comply with mandatedachievement levels. Recognizing those challenges, Columbus City Schools and Nationwide Insurance engaged in a unique partnership for improving the analysis of data collected on student achievement.

“Having used WebFOCUS for business purposes over many years, we knew its potential for providing insights into complex data sets,” says Barbara Boyd, who runs the Education Partnership for Nationwide. “We wanted to help Columbus City Schools reach its target of increasing the graduation rate to 90 percent for the class of 2012.” Equally important and strongly correlated with that goal, the BI analyses would help identify knowledge gaps at every grade level so they could be corrected as early as possible.

Rather than limiting the analyses to those required on an annual basis for compliance purposes, analysis of that specific data can help to identify and more quickly redirect resources for students to help improve academic achievement. “Principals and educators can see the results down to a very granular level, so they know what portions of a test the student may be struggling with,” says Boyd. “Visualization tools using color-coded indicators help make the data meaningful and actionable.”

Having the academic data in one central location greatly improves the ability of individual schools to evaluate their students’ levels of achievement and make prompt adjustments. “At the beginning of each year, we look at data from the previous year so that we understand our students’ needs,” says Melinda Dixon, principal of Livingston Elementary School. “During the year, this data can also provide additional insight into specific target areas necessary for each student. For example, if a student is underperforming in math, the data can tell us the student needs specific help in algebra so that we can help him or her progress,” she adds. “We are extremely pleased with the way this program has provided us the information we need to improve our students’ academic achievement.”

Interventions can be as specific as working with a small group of students to improve their ability to tell time, for example. “We can also have the kids take practice assessments so we can monitor how well the interventions are working along the way,” Dixon says. The program is supported by The Ohio State University, which helps by recommending intervention strategies and by providing the research through which the effectiveness of each intervention is measured.

Working from data-driven decisions represents a sea change for many school districts. “Historically, schools have not been able to use information effectively to guide their programs,” says Kevin Mergruen, VP of vertical solutions at Information Builders. “By using BI tools, school systems can achieve accountability and transparency, and they don’t have to wait until the end of the year to make improvements.”