Bandwidth: An Instructional Decision

Mention bandwidth to non–technical educators and, more likely than not, their knees shake, they break into a cold sweat, and they immediately look for the technology specialist. This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad and if, in the long run, it didn’t damage the ultimate consumer of educational technology — the student.

While the term bandwidth may frighten the non–technical, in its simplest form, it is really quite easy to understand. Bandwidth represents the size of the information highway available to a school or district. The greater the bandwidth, the more information is available to students, teachers and administrators. Less bandwidth results in less availability of information.

Forgetting, for the moment, about the potential administrative applications of technology, adequate bandwidth to support the wide range of instructional applications is a common problem. Several studies have shown that a substantial number of districts cannot truly take advantage of today’s plethora of instructional technology–based applications because of insufficient bandwidth to support the simultaneous use of several of these applications. Let me emphasize the key point: simultaneous use of several applications. They may have the ability to support a video conference or perhaps some Web–based learning for a few students, but open your eyes and look at what is happening.

Connectivity is the name of the game, and its partner, increased bandwidth, is required as more things are connected and the information being transmitted becomes increasingly complex. Students of all ages must access the Web to conduct the most basic research. Card catalogs are disappearing and being replaced by server or Web-based catalogs that require connectivity. Distance education, driven by social, technological and economic drivers, continues to increase and cries out for more bandwidth. The economics of centralized servers, rather than a server in each school, that provide core, not supplemental, instruction again calls out for increased connectivity and bandwidth. More recent developments such as cloud computing and application outsourcing that have not yet had a major impact on education will do so in the near future and will also require increased bandwidth.

It is for reasons such as these that the instructional side of the house must become more proactive in advocating for increased bandwidth, rather than its more traditionally passive role of waiting for the technology group to push for it. The instructional leadership must understand that bandwidth is a core, strategic component for schools. Without it, modern educational practices will simply not be possible. This cannot be done piecemeal, adding a little bandwidth every time a new program comes up for consideration, for that approach is costly and untimely. Rather, bandwidth must be available when needed. Consequently, the instructional leadership must unite with the technology team to insist that increased bandwidth is part of an overall instructional strategy.