Site Evaluation

Open technology provides an alternative to proprietary approaches to application about, content, and formats that school districts should consider when developing future technology investments.  Alternate (existing or lower cost) hardware should also be considered.

EDUCATION CONNECTION's experienced staff members will evaluate your school's current environment and team with your technology director/coordinator to determine how open technology can play a role in delivering educational technology.  education connection will develop a plan for implementing open technology including timing, training, resource requirements, and cost.

The first step is to establish the scope of work to be included in the evaluation. One or multiple sites can be included: from a new student lab, an existing school, or entire school district.  A site is generally considered to be one contiguous location like a school building.  Site evaluators will physically visit each site with school district staff to determine the extent of the project.

A site evaluation will include:

• Interview with technology and academic staff to define and describe:
• Proposed project
• Current operating systems
• Current infrastructure (network, servers and server OS)
• Condition of current hardware
• Specification of new hardware
• Software in use and software licensing
• Legacy software that needs to be retained
• Timeline for completion
• How PromOTE’s staff can play a role in project implementation

• Conduct a site survey with appropriate school/district personnel
• Inspect location for proposed installation
• Inspect and record existing hardware and OS to be involved in proposed project
• Tour network closets and check for appropriate backbone infrastructure

The final products:

• Interview and site survey reports.
• Identify the student/teacher/administrator benefits of moving forward with open technology
• Estimate the cost differences by category (licenses, staff, etc.) of alternate and current approaches for side by side comparison
• Recommendations on efficient implementation including timing
• Suggestions for overcoming institutional impediments like teacher resistance
• Implementation plan
• Software recommendations
• Hardware recommendations

 

Additional Info:

Dan Cogan-Drew
Open Technology Coordinator
(860) 567-0863 Ext 192