Total Cost of Ownership 2.0 by Ryan Bretag

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Total Cost of Ownership 2.0 by Ryan Bretag

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You've reached a point where the web 2.0 tools are beginning to reach a systemic level in your school. More and more teachers are shifting to technoconstructivists and have transformed their classes into student-centered learning communities that no longer function as one-room school houses. The school culture is becoming more collaborative and innovative. There is great excitement at the possibilities but then the bottom falls out. One by one, the free web 2.0 tools that this entire movement is based upon start to charge and no one accounted for funding because web 2.0 equals free.

Okay, this is quite an exaggeration (on all levels) but free and web 2.0 may be heading down a path where they are no longer synonymous with each other as seen with the recent move by Gcast and the rumors of Twitter. For schools, it is causing us to really consider web 2.0 within the framework of Total Cost of Ownership, a vital part of fiscal management for schools in order to fully assess the full cost of an investment.

Total Cost of Ownership 2.0 Questions

Is the tool valuable enough to student achievement to allocate funds to it?
Is the tool valuable enough to adult learning to allocate funds to it
If the tool is being promoted systemically, can your school secure funding for an annual subscription for the tool?
Have you considered open source alternatives (ex. Grou.ps instead of Ning)?
Depending on the companies contractual commitment to data storage and security, what in-house data storage and transfer plans are in place in case the company closes its doors?
What funds are allocated for professional development given the possibility that a paid tool may mean less resources available online?

By no means is this meant to discourage the use of web 2.0 tools nor do I have any inside knowledge about specific companies and their tools. However, one needs only to look at the current economy combined with the business models driving many of these web 2.0 companies to see the potential for a perfect storm.

Given this potential reality, the responsibility of sustained tech infusion is on those attempting to bring the philosophy and tools of web 2.0 to schools, which means it is time to link Total Cost of Ownership with our advancement of the philosophy and tools of Web 2.0.

Posted by Ryan Bretag at 04/02/2009 05:49:25 PM |

I would love to see everything remain free for educators -- but then, how could these companies sustain themselves? Switching to more Open Source solutions might provide the extra funding for the Web 2.0 tools that might server to improve learning. Do you know of any schools that have moved entirely "Open Office" to save the thousands of dollars in license fees charged by MS?

How can we encourage more open source solutions? Teach our students to program, so that the community continues to grow and support itself.

Boxes and wires have to be purchased and maintained, but software solutions are a collected mass of brain power. We have the power in our youth... we just need to tap into it and "channel it" for the greater good.
Posted by: Charlene ( Email: | Visit ) at 4/2/2009 6:16 PM

The implications you make are wise to consider there is no doubt. The kernel of your message is important to consider any time you are implementing something within an organization. You have me thinking as usual and I thank you for that.

Can you identify some of the web 2.0 tools for me that are currently on the verge of becoming systemic? I think your point is more important when you use some examples beyond GCast and Twitter as I hardly see these tools as having “systemic” change at this point.

I’ve known you to say, “It is not about the tools!” What web 2.0 tool has become so important that couldn't be replaced? If you are building your learning on foundational skills, than it doesn’t truly matter what tool is used does it? As long as the tool chosen will enhance the skills and foundational learning methodology it shouldn’t matter.

Are you budgeting for the possibility of paid services with the same thoughts as you have these web 2.0 tools? How many times have schools been left holding the bag as tools are discontinued by companies or the company goes out of business? The current economy should make us more nervous about current services that schools pay for more than the free services they are taking advantage of.

Your question number six confuses me. Can you explain this a little further? If professional development is based upon, “click here and click there” methodology, than yes there is a problem when the free resource dries up. If you are basing your professional development model on concepts and skills which are more readily enhanced via technology, than you are more likely to be flexible with the loss of a free resource as you move on to another “tool” or “service”. Perhaps you are implying that professional development has become dependent and ingrained in the “free” resources made available online by our colleagues and I simply disagree. Once again, I am simply confused.

Your implication that web 2.0 companies will move from a free to paid service because their business models and a poor economy don’t mix is flawed. The web is all about innovation and entrepreneurship. The best of the free tools moving toward pay services have nothing to do with the economy but rather their success. Successful web sites and services are very hard to sustain because the web is all about innovation and entrepreneurship. We would see a slackening in innovation and new services on the web way before everything in your dooms day scenario would become paid services. When one keeps a close eye on sites like http://www.go2web20.net/ (or similar aggregators), you can easily recognize that innovation isn’t slowing but hastening. The web is vastly cheaper and more readily flexible to handle entrepreneurial enterprising companies than brick and mortar. Completely moving towards a paid model wouldn’t sustain itself because innovation will make them obsolete well before they have complete control of their market. When Google Search becomes a paid service, than I will worry about the loss of free web 2.0!

Once again, your core message is wise to consider and warning signals should have been served.
Posted by: Scott Meech ( Email: | Visit ) at 4/3/2009 1:45 AM

Scott:

1. Professional Development costs have always been part of the Total Cost of Ownership. However, many of us believe in the shifting nature of PD towards one that is networked and viral, which is reliant upon many free services that allow us to connect and share. If those services move from free to paid, you start to lose part of the PD. Not to mention, you may lose the breadth of people using a tool making resources and connections thinner than currently out there.

2. You asked for other examples and I said in my post I have no inside knowledge of other companies. My thinking was purely hypothetical outside of the rumors. However, I do find it interesting that you reference Twitter as something that lacks the possibility of being systemic given the very nature of its influence on learning networks for many. Maybe not systemic in an organizational sense but it surely would impact my point in number 1.

More importantly, I can say with confidence that there are a number of departments within schools that were immersed in GCast. These departments now find themselves having to rethink lessons, determine a plan for data movement, and review professional development. It also is leaving, at least one, a lot more cautious about where they go from here. However, I have no intentions of naming these schools out of professional courtesy.

3. As for your paragraph response about business models, I get it. If you look at my response, I am saying that there is potential that the business models (the exact one you explain) might have difficulty sustaining itself at the depths that it has in healthy times. Hence, a perfect storm where a model has to adjust due to financial restrictions.
A look at what Prezi is doing might speak to what I'm saying and against your argument. It is coming out of private beta charging. It isn't the best of the tools moving to paid. It is a company going right to paid after a little enticing via private beta. Where does that fit into the notion of innovate, rise to the top, and start charging or get bought by Google?

Again, my post isn't about new services and innovation nor the loss of that. It isn't about new tools going away or entrepreneurs backing away from what makes the net so vibrant. Again, get it. I get the notion of the "web 2.0 philosophy". What I'm talking about is sustainability and the movement of schools, not individual teachers, to adopt these tools systemically without considering that they may lead to paid services. That is the point NOT whether the web will stop innovating. Come on...

Finally, I'm all for defending my thoughts and taking ownership if my writing wasn't clear causing misunderstandings. I'm all for disagreement and challenges for professional growth. But sometimes, sometimes, it feels that isn't the point
Posted by: Ryan Bretag ( Email: | Visit ) at 4/3/2009 6:26 AM

Once again your response was well written and very insightful. As mentioned, your message is an important one for all to consider.

Whatever the agenda with your last statement is referring to is disconcerting to say the least. When someone finds others writing and thoughts to be as insightful and influential as yours tend to be others want to probe and question as much as possible.
Posted by: Scott Meech ( Email: | Visit ) at 4/3/2009 5:13 PM

Charlene:

Thanks for the comment and I, too, hope that the key tools remain free. It is great for education and great for leveling the divide between schools districts with sound funding and those without. What has always made me love the notion of web 2.0 and open source is that it helps us to level the playing field.

As for Open Office, the best example is the state of Indiana. Do check this out: http://www.siec.k12.in.us/opensource/

Open Office is a great example of a direction schools could go to allocate funds for other initiatives.
Posted by: Ryan Bretag ( Email: | Visit ) at 4/3/2009 5:45 PM

This article becomes a bit more chilling in light of what I heard on npr.org this morning. It seems that Kodak, one of the largest repositories of on-line photo storage, is threatening to delete photos of account holders who refuse to pay a fee. The fee they are proposing is fairly modest right now -about $15.00 a year for those with more than 2Gb of photos stored online, but I don't trust that fee to stay modest. I remember when years ago I started a free website with Homestead. Then I had to pay $39.00 a year - then it went to $100.00 - Needless to say I dropped the site -all that work deleted.
Posted by: Carolyn Stanley ( Email: | Visit ) at 4/8/2009 9:23 PM

Our school district abruptly changed from Word to OpenOffice without asking faculty opinion and without warning. We came back from Winter Break to new computers and new software. This change was very disruptive as the teachers were left to figure out the software themselves--not super hard, yes, but enough that I couldn't quickly answer, "Edit/Paragraph/Line Spacing" when students grew frustrated.

While the "Word" program was a small annoyance, the presentation software was quite different from what we were all used to, and no templates or extras were installed for the students to work with.

Finally, in our district the computers are locked down--any updating has to be done by a tech who services the entire city's system, not just the school. So, in the two years we had Open Office, no updates were installed. Other users tell me the updates made life easier when going back-and-forth between Word and OO, but for us those translators were not installed and our life was a headache of compatibility issues.

Perhaps if OO was maintained well and the teachers were trained, or at least warned, they may be more successful with the switch. This year our district went back to Office.
Posted by: meg ( Email: ) at 4/10/2009 3:53 PM

A great solution for schools looking to bring Web 2.0 safely into their classrooms is called SchoolFusion Classroom (www.schoolfusionclassroom.com) It's a free tool for teachers and is CIPA compliant as well. Teachers using it can set up their online classrooms, blog, podcast, share slideshows and even share their content with other teachers in their school.
Posted by: Kristin Caleca ( Email: ) at 4/16/2009 5:12 PM