Digital School Plan: how to renew technologies at affordable cost

The
National Digital School Plan
(PNSD) is a policy document, drafted by the Ministry of Education, to plan the implementation of “a comprehensive strategy for innovation in Italian schools.”

The purpose of the Plan is to concretely direct the administrative activities functional to the technological and structural renovation of the school apparatus by creating “connections and margins for collaboration between the resources and projects committed to and conducted by the MIUR and those of other ministries and other government offices, regions and local authorities“. PNSD is among the new features introduced by the so-called “Good School,” or the Law no. 107 of July 13, 2015 (“Reform of the national education and training system and delegation of authority for the reorganization of existing legislative provisions“).

Read all notices related to the Digital School Plan Download the full Plan

The primary goals of PNSD in 6 points:

1. Ultra-Wideband in Every School: through the National Ultra-Wideband Plan, and related regional agreements, this infrastructure intervention aims to reach every school campus with fiber optics;
2. Connectivity fee: the measure is aimed at guaranteeing every school the right to access the Internet; an allocation of 10 million euros has been made for this purpose;
3. Integrated digital education: this is among the broader goals of the PNSD, for which 140 million euros have been allocated. The Plan includes not only the technological upgrading of individual classrooms but also the creation of alternative spaces and mobile labs; the PNSD also includes a specific “Lab Plan.”
4. Policies for BYOD (“
   B
   Ring Your Own Device“), so that “the use of personal electronic devices during educational activities is possible and efficiently integrated.”
5. Digital identity: this is a composite goal, which goes through the implementation of a unique identification system and the adoption of a personal digital profile by students and faculty;
6. Digitization of school administration and adoption of the electronic register, in concert with the introduction of the figure of thedigital animator.

Projects and other resources under PNSD

The National Digital School Plan was not conceived as a static and invariable strategy. A large part of its implementation, net of the cardinal goals mentioned above, is also through a series of specific projects aimed at technological innovation and beyond.

How to expand the supply of digital teaching tools

Individual schools may submit specific project proposals to expand their endowment of Digital tools for teaching science subjects, so as to “Promote the creation of laboratory spaces and the provision of suitable digital tools to support curricular learning and discipline teaching STEM” (an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

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In further support of the PNSD, Law no. 145 of December 30, 2018 established the “territorial training teams.” These are intended to promote the actions indicated in the Plan while enhancing the digital skills of teachers and pupils. In particular, training teams are responsible for assisting educational institutions in the creation of digital environments and organizational models; in addition, they can contribute to the design of new educational pathways.

What technologies are needed to implement PNSD?

Beyond technical and structural interventions, the National Digital School Plan places special emphasis on renewing technological equipment and developing digital environments to encourage more flexible and modern forms of learning.

From a practical point of view, this means that individual schools will have to adopt (if they have not already done so) new solutions or modernize existing ones. In place of slate blackboards, for example, the introduction of the interactive whiteboard ( LIM ), with its projector, has been planned for some time now.

In addition, as needed, each school can implement the plan’s directives in various ways: setting up or updating the institutional portal (by adopting an appropriate CMS ), along with adopting the aforementioned electronic register. To make educational offerings more flexible, a shared video conferencing system can be adopted (including for DAD classes), while for secure data storage, NAS (Network Attached Storage) is an excellent solution.

Of course, even ‘basic’ equipment(PCs, tablets, printers, copiers and scanners) can be invested by renovation, so as to facilitate the management procedures of the administrative department.

How to contain costs: the operating rental formula

Adaptation of technological equipment does not exclude the possibility of managing wisely the economic resources provided. One of the possible strategies in this regard is to opt for operating rentals.

This type of solution offers numerous advantages; in particular, it allows costs to be deferred while at the same time taking advantage of state-of-the-art technologies; in addition, they can be renewed at competitive prices that are significantly more advantageous than those to be incurred for the purchase of individual items.

Today, it is of paramount importance for schools to equip themselves with high-performance technologies that can accelerate processes in both school administration and education to Simplify and make learning and management more fluid and move toward the proposed “good school” model, where digitization and simplification of processes take center stage.

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