Towards a roadmap for school’s digitalisation in the City of Eskilstuna

Digitalisation must involve the entire chain of command

Understanding and managing digitalisation is a complex and challenging task for everyone in school. The national strategy and the national action plan set the framework for what is to be done, but the work must be concretised and carried out by the school organisers.

Above all, it is essential to create a coherent common thread from the political decisions to the management of operations and the daily work in the administration and the city’s schools. It must involve the entire chain of command for this to work, states Ranald MacDonald, digital strategist at the Children and Education Administration in the City of Eskilstuna since the autumn of 2018.

- Digitalisation and its desired effects is a central task for all activities in the municipality. That is why we must work together and help each other across the administrative boundaries. We need a roadmap with a clear goal picture, a strategy and a concrete action plan.
 

Organisation development is a must

A program for the city’s collective activities is underway. Before it is in place, the Children and Education Administration must draw up guidelines and goals and implement the measures required to get the work going, says Ranald MacDonald.

- We need an organisation that can lead the overall digital development work, from preschool to high school. We must find working methods and decision-making structures that enable us to provide good administrative and pedagogical support for all activities.

Today, the access to and use of digital tools in teaching differs between the city’s schools. It means that the pupils do not have equal opportunities to develop adequate digital skills. As there has not previously been an overall plan and strategy for the school’s digitalisation, an extensive, cost-driven and difficult-to-manage flora of administrative systems have emerged. In many areas, people are locked into old digital systems that are not adapted to today’s needs and conditions.

An administrative control model makes it possible to standardise and streamline

To get better order on this, the children and education administration, as one of the first administrations in the municipality, has introduced PM3, a holistic control model for system administration in an organisation. They base the model on task-driven management with proactive working methods, clear roles of responsibility and principles for prioritisation and follow-up. The purpose is to create a structured and business collaboration between the administration and its various IT partners. Collaboration shall be based on common approaches and mutual benefit. The administration defines needs and requirements; the costs become visible, and it is possible to check that the efforts have the intended effect.

- An administrative control model makes it possible to standardise, so that everyone uses the same system, and we get more long term and cost-effective system management. We are now in the middle of a transformation. Later, we will handle things like introducing Office 365 in the entire organisation and also implement a digital competence development of the administrative staff. A municipality the size of Eskilstuna needs a solid foundation to build upon to cope with this.

They need to look more closely at more resource-intensive processes in the administration, to gain a better knowledge of how they can receive better digital support than today. It is essential to achieve digital student health soon. Not only to remove paper but above all, to take advantage of the systems’ ability to follow the student through the school years and to offer adapted interventions. School choice and invoicing are other examples of areas that may be automated. Here, the experiences from the City of Lund can probably be of great help, says Ranald MacDonald.

- Our goal is to think digitally first and to work data-driven. It presupposes we introduce central, standardised systems and common working methods. It provides significantly better access to structured data and makes it easier to streamline and improve various operations. We can also take part in multiple research and development projects, as we then have access to the data needed in such contexts. It is the positive spiral we want to enter.

Common goals and support from the central management

The Children and Education Administration produce action plans and development support for all forms of schooling, so they have equal opportunities for digitalisation and school development.

- We will organise the learning resources the schools use, test them, and make sure they are available to everyone. We must think about what we should handle and what schools can take care of themselves. Federated identity and single sign-on are other measures that will soon be implemented. It must be easy to access and use the learning resources.

It is also essential to take a comprehensive approach to the GDPR to ensure that sensitive personal data is handled legally and securely.

- The vast majority of apps used in teaching do not require as much personal information, so this process is among those that we will automate. It is much more complicated for student registers, learning platforms and similar administrative systems. We probably need to recruit a data protection coordinator who can help us get this in order.

Clear definitions and long-term goals

We often underestimate the time to develop and change an organisation, says Ranald MacDonald.

- How do we create the critical mass needed to get the changes started? How much time should we spend on management, and how much should we spend on development? We must also educate those who will use the new digital systems. It is impossible to educate everyone, so we have to think about how we can make this roll mostly by itself. What types of support can we provide?

The Children and Education Administration needs to formulate long-term goals for the work with the school’s digitalisation. It presupposes the concepts used, such as digital literacy, are clearly defined. A continuous analysis of the requirements this puts on hardware and software, teachers’ competences, and other vital issues, is also necessary. Otherwise, it will a challenge to create the economic and practical conditions that we require, says Ranald MacDonald.

- We need to create a greater awareness of what digitalisation means in the teaching situation. What kind of support is needed? How should we do this at the administrative level? We also need to highlight and highlight various dilemmas in everyday life, such as the role of the mobile phone in the classroom or the concern about the negative consequences of screen time. How are we going to handle this? What does the research say?

A common thread is required

The digitalisation of school will require much work for the foreseeable future. Increased standardisation of computer systems, greater legal certainty, and better opportunities for teachers to devote more time to students are some benefits that can be seen. Still, it also requires significant efforts in terms of requirements management, procurement, and other areas.

- If this work is carried out systematically, it will most likely give a lot in return. We must also realise that it is impossible to plan for the unknown. For example, what will AI and machine learning mean for school? What is the most important thing to tackle right now? My job, as a digital strategist, is to make sure that there is a common thread through everything. It is vital to take into account both the hard and the soft values, to both think about technology and to think about people.