But while privacy and security concerns are certainly warranted (information about children is obviously not to be handled lightly), supporters of the project say they believe that by shifting the conversation from risks to benefits, those fears could be assuaged — and some say the health care industry can provide a positive example.<\/p>\n
On a panel Monday at the SXSWedu education technology conference<\/a> in Austin, Stephen Coller, a senior program officer at the Gates Foundation closely tied to inBloom, said the electronic medical records (EMR) legislation that accompanied the stimulus package played a crucial role in elevating public discussion and action around patient access to their data, and he\u2019d like to see something comparable happen in education.<\/p>\n Privacy concerns related to health data certainly continue and, he acknowledged, the EMR effort is still in early days. But Coller emphasized that electronic records helped raise public dialogue around patient data and empower people to believe that they should be able to access their data.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless you give parents access to data and you make them aware that they should have access to data, we\u2019re not going to make fundamental progress on this issue,\u201d he said. \u201cWe seem to be heading in the right direction in health care, the debate in education shouldn\u2019t be that different.\u201d<\/p>\n Right now, the conversation around privacy and student data is full of misinformation and irrationality, he said, and too many schools believe it\u2019s only the vendors, not the parents and schools, who own student data — but by focusing on outcomes he hopes that could change.<\/p>\n Already, companies like Bellevue, Wash.-based Dreambox Learning<\/a> are showing how adaptive lessons and real-time reporting can personalize instruction. Startups like Kickboard<\/a> and Civitas<\/a> are starting to show schools and parents the value of capturing and analyzing student data. And, at SXSWedu this week, several vendors are demonstrating the applications of inBloom (we’ll have more on that later this week.)<\/p>\n But Coller raised another interesting idea: a \u201cdigital student report card\u201d (which, he said, President Obama once surfaced on the campaign trail in 2008) that, like an EMR, would give parents a digital record of their child\u2019s educational progress.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notion that every student in this country is entitled to a digital report card, to me, seems like a fundamental civic right and strikes me as non-controversial,\u201d he told me after the panel. \u201cTo any parent in the system, it would seem like a sensible idea \u2013 it\u2019s their child, their school system, their tax dollars. The fact that they don\u2019t have a line of sight into where their students are\u2026 has to improve. And I think it begins with putting more power in the hands of parents and caregivers.\u201d<\/p>\n Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:<\/strong>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=gigaom.com&blog=14960843&%23038;post=616711&%23038;subd=gigaom2&%23038;ref=&%23038;feed=1\")
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