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The K-12 educational technology value chain: Apps for kids, tools for teachers and levers for reform

Article in Education and Information Technologies ? September 2014

DOI: 10.1007/s10639-014-9357-1

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Educ Inf Technol DOI 10.1007/s10639-014-9357-1

The K-12 educational technology value chain: Apps for kids, tools for teachers and levers for reform

Glenn L. Pierce & Paul F. Cleary

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Historically implementing, maintaining and managing educational technology has been difficult for K-12 educational systems. Consequently, opportunities for significant advances in K-12 education have often gone unrealized. With the maturation of Internet delivered services along with K-12 institutional trends, educational technologies are poised to help support the transformation K-12 education by providing student access to educational resources on an anywhere, anytime, any device basis. In addition, an emerging body of empirical research shows that when implemented systematically, technology can support a wide range of potential education innovations including inverted classrooms, peer-to-peer teaching and customized learning as well as increased academic achievement.

A major public policy question is how best to insure educational technology resources reach all K-12 students in the shortest time and most equitable way possible. In response, this paper adopted an educational technology value chain model to assess potential avenues and barriers to implementing educational technology inK-12 systems. We find that a fully implemented educational technology value chain would directly benefit students, teachers, school systems and society. However, the analysis also finds that efforts to implement educational technology in K-12 systems still must overcome challenges and risks.

Keywords K-12 education . Educational technology . Value chain . Cloud computing . Student achievement . School reform . Innovation . Economic competitiveness

G. L. Pierce (*) School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Institute for Security and Public Policy, Northeastern University, Boston, USA e-mail: g.pierce@neu.edu P. F. Cleary Institute for Security and Public Policy, Northeastern University, Boston, USA

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1 Introduction to the problem

Historically implementing, maintaining and managing computer technology has been extremely difficult for most K-12 educational systems. The sometimes impressive facade of computers gracing desktops in many schools obscures a more sobering reality; that educational technology in schools is often so unavailable and unreliable that its use by students and teachers is effectively negated. Under these circumstances, teachers are presented with a confusing array of poorly supported educational technology options (Cuban, 2001, Barron et al. 2003). As a consequence, opportunities for significant productivity gains from educational technology including pedagogical advances, closing the achievement gap, and facilitating K-12 reforms have gone unrealized. Nevertheless, we now have empirical evidence that educational technology applications can make a positive impact on educational performance. Work by Levin and Schrum, and others demonstrate that introducing educational technology into K-12 curricula can improve student performance (Levin & Schrum, 2013). Although the integration of educational technology in the K-12 system is still relatively early in the process, we have growing empirical evidence that it is beginning to work. Metaanalytical studies by Cheung and Slavin on the effects of educational technology on mathematics achievement and reading outcomes reveal modest but positive effects on academic achievement when compared with traditional methods (Cheung & Slavin 2013; Cheung & Slavin 2012).

There is also growing evidence that when implemented systematically, educational technology can potentially support a wide range of educational innovations including inverted classrooms, peer-to-peer teaching and customized learning. Furthermore, this process of technology integration is evolving as more advanced forms of educational technology are developed and introduced into the K-12 system (see for example Mercier & Higgins, 2013).

Equally important, the ease of computer technology implementation is rapidly improving with the development of the Internet and the option of Cloud technology services. These services can be configured as generalized platforms that can deliver a diverse menu of applications. In the K-12 arena, educational application services can be assessed, selected and used by states, schools or teachers to meet the specific needs of their programs and students. If adopted and properly managed Cloud delivered services potentially combine the advantages of economies of scale computing services with the ability of local K-12 systems to control and customize application services to meet the specific needs of their schools and students.

1.1 Comparisons to other general purpose transformative technologies

The prolonged implementation stage of educational technology in the K-12 system is similar to that of other transformative technologies, like steam power, electricity and earlier generations of computing. Steam power took approximately 80 years from Watts' first steam engine to realize significant gains in manufacturing productivity (Crafts, 2004). In a similar manner, although electricity first started to light American communities in the late 19th century, it took approximately 40 years for electric dynamo technology to yield productivity improvements in manufacturing operations (David, 1991). Most recently, a lack of measurable productivity gains from the massive

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investments in computing technology by large American businesses was explained as a "productivity paradox" (Brynojolfsson, 1993).

Why did it take so long to realize productivity gains from these different transformative technologies? David (1991) concluded that lags in productivity in industry were due to; 1) the initial unprofitability of replacing existing functioning technology, 2) the need to identify and integrate other complementary technical components, and 3) the need to integrate the new technology into organizational processes (David, 1991). Today, challenges to the successful introduction of educational technology into the K-12 system are similar to those faced by previous transformative technologies because success requires implementation of an entire system of technological and organizational innovation, not just a single stand-alone invention.

Given these significant opportunities offered by educational technology, a major policy question facing the United States today is how to optimize its potential in the quickest and fairest way possible for the entire K-12 system. To address this question, this paper adopted a technology value chain model to: 1) identify weak components (bottlenecks) in the educational technology value chain that have impeded the implementation of this technology, and 2) assess the readiness of the K-12 system in the United States to integrate these technologies into the nation's schools in a manner that produces significant benefits for students, schools and society.

1.2 The education technology value chain

The value chain concept was first delineated by Michael Porter (Porter 1998). The concept is "based on the process view of organisations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing (or service) organisation as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs." (Institute for Manufacturing IFM. n.d. Porter's Value Chain et al. 2014) We extend the value chain concept beyond the traditional manufacturing/service organization supply chain concept to examine how organizational, social and technological systems that often evolve independently can, when integrated with each other, produce much greater increases in productivity than would be possible with a subset of systems. Within a traditional supply chain for particular products or services, a disruption in any one link in the chain typically breaks the flow of product through the system. The value chain framework presented here takes an institutional and societal level perspective of the provision of educational technology to K-12 schools. Within this framework, we examine how different technological, organizational, administrative and even demographic trends can affect the delivery of educational technology services to K-12 schools. Unlike a traditional supply chain analysis, some of these components may be evolving quite independently of the K-12 system but have important impacts on the delivery of educational technology services.1 However, for both a traditional supply chain and the value chain framework presented here, evaluating the status of the individual chain components, and how they integrate with the larger systems is important for assessing the potential success of a new service or product.

1 For example, a new generation of younger, computer savvy teachers are now replacing a large cohort of older "baby boom" of teachers; this should lower the costs of technology training than would otherwise be necessary.

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Fig. 1 Educational technology value chain

The value chain model developed for this analysis is designed to assess the technological, organizational and human capital components of the K-12 educational technology system in the United States. Specific value chains components can vary by factors such as, governance structure, type of technology, type of industry, and organizational level of analysis. The value chain presented here, in Fig. 1, is composed of eight linked components that follow a general but not rigid temporal sequence.

Components 1 through 4 of the chain relate to the infrastructure that supports and delivers any software services, including education technology applications. These components break out into standard computing infrastructure modules (Mell and Tim Grance 2009) that apply to Cloud computing and more generally to computing technology in general. We focus on Cloud computing as a delivery infrastructure for K-12 systems because it is projected to become dominant in new technology investments by 2016 (Gartner Group Press release October 24 2013),2 and Cloud technology is especially valuable for smaller and midsized organizations (Diamadi et al. 2011), which characterize most K-12 school systems. Two additional but separate components of infrastructure are network connectivity (essential for cloud delivered services), and end user computing devices/computers.

Components 5 through 7 deal with the adoption and integration of education technologies into K-12 systems. Component five examines the educational technology acquisition process. Educational technology services (much like other types of technology) must go through an acquisition process that sets service standards, assesses the value of services and negotiates agreements, and this is particularly important for cloud delivered services (Plummer, David 2012). Component six focuses on factors associated with the adoption of educational technology by students and teachers, and

2 According to Gartner Group, Inc., the use of cloud computing is growing, and by 2016 it will increase to become the bulk of new IT spending (Gartner Group Press release October 24, 2013, retrieved August 30, 2014 from .

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