Download the A4L Quarterly Newsletter, March 2020 >>
Stay Safe has a new meaning…
Foreword by Larry Fruth II PhD, CEO/Exec Director, A4L Community
The most important first item to note in this quarter’s newsletter is just that – stay safe! It is a phrase many of us throw around during our normal meet-and-greets each day, but the current COVID-19 caution messaging and public responses has given the salutation a whole new meaning!
So, while we all need to follow the current safety recommendations and suggestions to all keep sane during the limiting of our public interactions, I would challenge you and your organization to think about possible opportunities these challenges could be presenting. On the highest level, I hope that it brings us together globally to take on this invisible enemy. On a targeted scale I think there is a real opportunity to mature the conversations around technology’s role in educating our youngest citizens.
While I was the State Ed Tech Director for Ohio, I routinely warned my peers that we collectively have to have a better story than “Teacher XYZ can go online and have her kids see kids in XYZ country as they study” or we will never get the importance of technology in school “sold” to legislators, parents and the general public. I think now we have golden opportunity to show how technology is not a “component” of learning but is a vital cog – along with the teacher – in allowing for anytime, anywhere learning.
So, what does it mean for our Community and this Newsletter? A foundation to allow for the virtual learning, publicly and now even legally demanded, is the work this Community has undertaken for the past 23 years – interoperability and privacy! Very quickly students, teachers, administrations, and even parents are going to be asking the questions our Community has been trying to address: “Why doesn’t this stuff just work?”. Hopefully we know we have a lot of answers to that question – but there is a LOT more to do. Stay Safe!
Global Community News: What’s in a name?; Welcome new members!; Working Across Standards; Membership Pricing Changes; A fresh look at the SIF Infrastructure; Community Survey – we would love your feedback!; and SIF Certification News
AU Community News: Managing Information Risk; SIF Data Model Implementation Specification (AU) 3.4.6 now available; Open Source Tools
NZ Community News: Welcome, welcome…; SIF Data Model Implementation Specification (New Zealand) 3.0 release is imminent!
NA Community News: A4L announce NA 2020 Leadership; SIF Certification News; Update: Interoperability & Privacy Symposium; STATS-DC announcement; NCES publish CEDS V8
Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News: Setting Student Privacy Common Expectations Between End Users and Marketplace Providers