Meeting Requirements
of No Child Left Behind With SBC Storage Area Network Solution
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has strict reporting requirements for
schools and districts. In order to be in compliance, schools need
to create reports that require data from many different databases.
In addition, data is very often collected in paper format and needs
to be scanned. Thus, creating these required reports can be a daunting
task.
SBC's Storage Area Networks (SANs) address this issue by allowing
for the storage of huge amounts of data. The components of a SAN include
a storage device (computer), a high-speed network to allow for the
efficient transfer of information, and software (data warehouse software)
that can handle data from different dbases and allows teachers and
administrators to create a wide-variety of reports making use of this
data.
SAN's storage servers can also provide storage for digital portfolios
and digital locker/backpacks; thus, the SAN fulfills both the requirement
for storage of student material as well as storage of a wide variety
of reporting data. Currently, many students create material such as
English papers, social studies projects, etc. and store this material
in many different places such as computers in classrooms, computers
in labs, diskettes, notebooks or paper folders in classrooms. Digital
lockers/digital backpacks are simply large servers accessible from
any networked computer. Each student is provided a designated folder
in which they can store documents. For ease of management and backup,
these servers are centrally located requiring a high bandwidth connection
to allow file transfers at acceptable speeds.
Digital portfolios
can make it easier to track a student's progress/work over the year(s).
The "portfolio" is a strategy that has gained wide-spread
acceptance in the education field; it allows students to store their
material in digital format on a server. The portfolio would contain
samples of significant student work over time and can be available
to the student throughout their school career, making it easier for
teachers to access student work and thus track performance. Digital
portfolios are also useful when applying to post-high school institutions
or moving into careers in the private sector.
Contact your SBC
account manager for more information.
Resources:
" Poway USD installed a SAN. Here is a link to an article describing
the Poway solution: www.sas.com/success/poway.html
" CTAP IV has created a helpful resource, "A Brief Guide
to Educational Data Analysis Systems." Go to www.ctap4.org
and click 'EDAS Guide' under Quick Links.
