Bill MacKenty

Technology strengthens, deepens, and broadens our learning...

Support

In the formidable book IT Governance Policies & Procedures by Michael Wallace, Larry Webber, there are hundreds of pages devoted to the effective management of IT in the enterprise. 

The chapters are sound, well thought out, and concise.  Every important topic is covered - from patch management, to software development, hiring, policies and procedures, to authoring ISO documentation to surviving audits. The enclosed CD is a great resource - with all the forms and documents from all the chapters.

As I was looking through the book, I couldn’t help but notice the discrepancy between corporate IT, educational IT, the way IT should be done and the way I’ve seen IT run in a school.

In the enterprise, IT supports the business operations and mission. If your company makes plastic frogs, then everything about IT works towards that end - it’s singular, focused, and a convenient measuring stick. Because enterprise corporations seem to love process, procedures, and clear goals, their IT structure reflects that culture. 

In K - 12 schools, IT also supports the mission of the education. IT is also an end in and of itself. I’ve previously written how I see IT in schools; that essentially the 2 things IT does in schools is help make administrative life easier for our teachers and staff, and strengthens learning for kids - that these are 2 different, separate areas of IT in schools.

However, the ideal falls short in the face of the real. Ok, we should patch all our computers regularly to keep them healthy. We have 4 or 5 different versions of two or three operating systems. We have very old computers that can’t be updated. We don’t have the staff to go to each computer - and in some places we can’t get auto-update to work because of network problems.

We are short of support, short of money, and short of time. And in that sort of context, Wallace and Webber’s ideas fall to pot.

We try to do it by the book - but this kind of process takes time and organization that most schools simply don’t have.

However, we are not short of expertise, and we can be nimble. Unfortunately, 3 highly skilled IT people with 1500 users doesn’t fit into a “policy and procedure” kind of place. It’s fits into a barely managed chaos model. So IT spends time supporting existing systems, and it’s difficult to move forward. Teachers are understandably nervous about adopting technology for their classrooms (who would want to start something that might break and never get fixed). So it is difficult to move forward - but we manage.

Today I helped one of our technicians update some laptops. We don’t have a push server, so it’s a manual job - each laptop for 25 minutes. 

I have spoken about the importance of support before, and I suppose I just wanted to say it again. Technology is more than equipment and blinking lights (to be sure, that’s the fun part for me).  However, without technical, and in-class support for the teachers, it really won’t shine.

A $400.00 lightbulb - part 2 (part 1 here). As I closed the last part, I asked: are we getting $350,000 worth of better education? As usual, the answer is: it depends. Here is a general list of questions and observations I’ve made about technology in education, and what we can do to make it work better.

Are the kids actually learning something?

It seems like a simple question, but as I often say - if you stick a kid in front of a computer for an hour and expect something miraculous to happen, you will be disappointed. Especially considering the price of technology, we have to be focused like a laser on this question. As with almost everything in education, instructional design is critical to the evocation of student learning.

The point here? Kids are in school to learn; technology should be viewed as a tool to meet that end, not an end itself. This is one reason why integrating technology is so important, and points to the essence of the question: are we getting our monies worth? 

Are we taking advantage of the really good free stuff out there?

It really is a crime not to use FOSS and other free web-based services in 2008. Google applications for education alone could save tens of thousands of dollars. Couple this with Linux in the server-space and schools can save thousands of dollars - money that can be used for other educational programs, or as general savings. Open office is a stable, growing alternative to Microsoft office. There are hundreds of other free programs that schools can use to cut their operating expenses.

The advantage of web-based services are many; there is no software to install - (save for free quicktime, flash or shockwave plugins). Student work is saved on a remote server, updates and security fixes are made remotely, students can work from home, there are low technology requirements for clients, there are many rich internet applications for a variety of common tasks. Finally, some web-based sites offer reporting and aggregate usage data so teachers can keep track of student activity.

Standardization

Today I overheard a conversation about standardization it went something like this:

A: you know, many schools are standardizing.
B: well, it only makes sense - standardized technology is easy to manage, and support
A: yup
B: yup

As I listened to this, a familiar feeling emerged; discomfort and the sense there was something “not-quite-right” about this line of thinking.

In short, I think we can standardize choice. Offer a standard linux machine, a standard windows box and a standard OS X machine.

In a well-managed network, we try to consolidate as much as we can (LDAP, DHCP, DNS, etc...) Especially LDAP, which almost any modern operating system can connect to, offers ubiquitous user and home directory management.

The problem I have with standardization is the subtle, chilling effect on innovation, curiosity and freedom of choice. Do we teach all our students exactly the same? Of course not, we account for different learning styles. When everything is the same, we encounter a style of thinking that wants all the kids to be in the same box, the same row, the same tests.

Being careful of extreme thinking here, we must strike a balance between good IT management, and good educational practice. We must not design our IT management around what works best for a manager, but what works best for our teachers. I also call this “whose side of the desk are you looking from?”.

We can get into proper support later.

Teachers talk to each other when they are excited about something. If they are excited about technology, they will share this success with each other. Recalcitrant teachers then might begin a tentative exploration process to try something new - and when they do, a friendly face and real support is waiting for them. I like to call this the water cooler effect.

However, teachers will not get excited about tech if they aren’t supported well.  As I’ve discussed in the past, if a teacher is using technology in their classroom, with a class, they need to be able to get support in a very short period of time (usually within 60 seconds). However, if a teacher is using technology for administrative tasks, then support should be available within 24 to 48 hours.

Finally, technology needs to be available and accessible.  I have seen a very good jump forward in productive technology use as our teachers find technology is available, accessible and easy to use. 

After almost a decade of working in educational technology, one of the things that really lights me up is watching a teacher “get it”. I was helping an art teacher today, and I was showing her how to use an online gradebook. After a few moments, her eyes widened, and she had this really cool response.

“Thank you”, she said with a warm smile. It was great...her students can login at any time and see their grades, and she has a convenient place to keep her grades.

It was very rewarding.