8
Technology in the classroom
These collaborations resulted from the Illinois
Shared Learning Environment (ISLE), which the
IlliniCloud joined as the only K12 partner.
“We wanted to make sure that we took part in
ISLE so K12 had a voice in the decisions around
data, identity and the middleware for a statewide P20
system. This will ultimately be very important to
districts,” Peterson said. Because nearly all of the
funded ISLE projects were scoped to be delivered to
K12, they were able to design and manage the core
information sharing elements of ISLE and they are
dedicated to protecting
the data that is
collected. “We have
created
an
environment that is
safe,
something
parents and school
administrators
can
trust. When it comes to
collecting data, no one
can see someone
else’s data. We can’t
even see the data we
collect from a school
district and we would
never give that data
up.”
IlliniCloud was born out of an idea Peterson
championed for school districts working together.
More than eight years ago, the Bloomington and
Springfield school districts collaborated by sharing
offsite backups at their respective sites, but it simply
was not cost effective for just two districts. Now there
are multiple data centers located at Bloomington,
Murphysboro, and DeKalb.
Murphysboro and that district’s chief information
officer, Steve Carrington, serve as the fiscal officer
for IlliniCloud. Carrington described the simplicity –
and success – of the joint effort by saying, “We’re not
lawyers; we’re just a bunch of tech guys trying to help
schools.”
Carrington and Peterson both credit their
supervisors and their superintendents, Dr. Barry
Reilly of Bloomington District 87 and Christopher
Grode of Murphysboro District 186, for supporting the
IlliniCloud concept and allowing them to work on the
project.
Peterson’s interest and intrigue in technology for
schools began all the way back in 1991 when he was
an English teacher in Teutopolis and before
computer geeks were cool.
“I’m a teacher at heart; I got into it for teaching,”
he recalled, adding that he secured a grant from the
University of Illinois and the University of Michigan. A
few years later, he partnered with the NCSA at the U
of I on a teaching game called Good News Bears,
where students got to invest a hypothetical $1 million
and then tracked their investments, learning about
the stock market and the importance of saving and
investing. He said IlliniCloud now is working with
schools like the University of Wisconsin, Boise State
and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
(MIT) that developed
games for teaching
purposes, trying to
reach students where
they learn best.
IlliniCloud is governed
by a 15-person board of
technology officers co-
chaired by Vicki DeWitt,
director of the Area 5
Learning
Technology
Center
(LTC)
in
Edwardsville, and Mindy
Fiscus,
director
of
Murphysboro’s Area 6
LTC, two of the seven LTCs operated under the
auspices of ISBE. Any district interested in becoming
part of the IlliniCloud can get details and fill out an
application form by going to the IlliniCloud website at
.
Peterson said there are a couple of main reasons
school districts don’t take advantage of what
IlliniCloud offers: 1) many districts don’t know about
it, and 2) the contractual cycle districts might be in
with regard to IT services.
Despite the high-tech nature of what IlliniCloud
represents, Peterson said the group has not lost its
focus: students in the classroom.
“We want to provide services to school
administrators that can get them out of the business
of technology infrastructure so that they can focus on
teachers and kids. We want to provide services and
tools that augment their tools,” Peterson said. “We
want to deliver information to teachers that they can
use with individual students in the classroom. That’s
where achievement happens.”
(Continued from page 7)
