Technology is continuously creating new opportunities and challenges for educators - both in the classroom and in the general management of schools and districts.
School principals and district superintendants deal with many technology issues on a daily basis. One example of this is Student Information Systems (SIS) and interoperability.
So much time and effort is spent on managing student information. All too often, a single school will use several different computer systems to manage things like basic student info, library privileges, cafeteria access, busing route, and more. As a result, school faculty is forced to enter information into the disparate systems many times over. Of course, such redundant data entry is time-consuming and prone to error.
For example, this scenario plays out when students move schools within a district. All their information has to be re-entered into the new school's system - creating extra work and opportunity for mistakes.
Enter the SIF Association, a non-profit group that is setting standards for data sharing in and among pK-12 schools and districts. Leveraging standards like HTTPS, XML and NCES, the organization works with tech vendors and schools to establish standard methods for sharing and data transfer. With thousands of members, the SIF Association has already been successful in implementing real change on a global scale.
Just as an illustration, a student that moves up from middle school to high school has all their information (name, age, address, parents, grades, etc.) automatically and seamlessly transferred to the new school. All other school information systems will be automatically propagated with the student data. The new pupil can now eat at the cafeteria, take books out of the library, and get on the correct school bus, all without any extra data entry or customized data transfers. Teachers will also know their student's history and be better prepared to teach them according to their strengths.
Even parent-teacher conference online scheduling software can be integrated with student information systems by using the SIF Association standards. For example, PTC Wizard, an education technology company, recently announced that their parent teacher conference scheduling software is SIF compatible. Now new students are automatically added to the scheduling system, saving everyone time and ensuring accurate student data updates.
As the SIS industry consolidates (see eSchool News article on this topic), more standardization can be expected. This will definitely help create more efficient usage and sharing of student and school data.
