Ted Brown: Testimony to New York City Council

6/28/2006



Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Ted Brown and I am pleased to be here today to testify to the New York City Council’s Technology in Education Committee.  I serve as Executive Director of the CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development (CISDD), an economic development initiative of CUNY that aims to grow the software industry in New York City. I am also the Executive Officer of the PhD Program in Computer Science for CUNY.

For the past five years, CISDD has been active in workforce development and training in New York City. We work closely with City agencies in creating internship programs for students in the IT/MIS departments of City agencies. CISDD has also worked on various initiatives within the Department of Education to improve service delivery to the schools.

I am here today to talk about making technology useful in the classroom. By technology I mean computers and their peripherals. Once, not too long ago, technology for classrooms meant mimeo machines and typewriters. Schools had to depend upon mimeo machines and typewriters to make copies, distribute information and plan class programs. These were the extent of the “sophisticated” machines for teachers. Fast forward to today when computers are at least in every school and in most cases in every classroom, along with projection equipment. Whereas typewriters and mimeo machines were usable with little support, computers and projectors are not. What I am arguing today is that a serious personnel infrastructure must be put into place to support computers in the classroom.

In fact to enable computers to empower teachers and provide richer curriculum and lessons, there needs to be significant support. I would categorize this support to back-back office, back office and in the school/classroom. Back-back office support would be the support for the network infrastructure, systems and software supplied by the Department of Education. Powerful central computers, data handling capability, network infrastructure are all handled centrally and remotely. Back office support would be support at the region level. This includes staff that is able to come to a school and troubleshoot software or network problems within the school. Although progress has been made in support staff for the first two categories, little has been done at the third level, “the ground level,” within the schools. Schools have not been able to keep up with the support staff needed to make computers effective and well-utilized in aiding teachers in their delivery of curriculum.

I categorize the support type needed for the schools into five categories:

1. Network and infrastructure support
2. Hardware support
3. Systems support
4. Software support
5. Instructional support

Each type of support requires a different set of skills and training.

A network administrator is responsible for network and infrastructure support, supporting the wired or wireless network and ensuring that connectivity can be maintained. The job includes network security concerns. A network administrator can be assigned region-wide or centrally administered, but there needs to be enough of them throughout the system to minimize downtime. Hardware support staff ensures that the computer equipment and servers are functioning and troubleshoot broken or malfunctioning equipment. The Department of Education (DoE) handles this efficiently in most cases by returning the equipment to the manufacturer using long-term warrantees. Systems support staff is responsible for understanding the workings of the operating system, loading new software onto the system, etc. These staff members deal with updating the systems for virus control, reloading systems, data, backups, etc.  Software support staff is used to explain the currently running software to users, e.g.; teachers, students, etc. This would include the pedagogical-type software that the Department of Education purchases and distributes for classroom use. An adequate number of personnel either at the region level or the school level are essential for this function and, from what I have seen, are lacking in numbers. Instructional support staff should be used to provide adequate training to all users of the software technology.

All types of skilled personnel are needed for the system to function smoothly; if there is a failure to adequately staff any of these positions with qualified personnel, there will be a break in the chain. The system in place must work transparently to the user.

If we contrast the support an elementary, middle or high school is given to what a college has, we see a significant difference. Colleges have multiple people in all categories. Even a small college would have at least one person who has the title of network administrator to administer the network, a hardware person to work on and with the hardware in the college, a systems staff person for software and systems support to help teachers understand their instructional software, and sometimes a person to work with faculty.

The message I am conveying is just buying machines is not the answer. Computers are, sorry to say, complex machines, which however are capable of wonderful additions which help students learn, understand concepts and be excited by learning. But because of their complexity and the constant changing of software programs, there needs to be serious support for teachers not only for them to take serious advantage to the wonders the machine can produce, but even for the elementary support they can provide. The effective use of computers in the classroom cannot be done with little more than the support level of mimeo machines.

New York City can be at the forefront of this movement to bring technology into the classroom with training and support for its students, teachers and administrators. The long term solution is for the DoE to invest in qualified staff. In the short term, utilizing the resources within the city, such as CUNY which can provide staffing through student internships, schools can integrate advanced technology into their classrooms.