10. 3 paradoxes of educational IT 3 2 1 Grants for New Machines vs. Operational Budget Cuts Enabling Student Learning vs. Protecting Vulnerable Users Lights-On Mentality vs. Strategic Influence
21. Total control = stifled learning Source: Cyber Security For the Digital Age, “Why Is K-12 Different?” http://www.cosn.org/Initiatives/CyberSecurity/CyberSecurityInformation/ UnderstandingtheIssues/WhyisK12Different/tabid/5261/Default.aspx
34. 1,000+ US School Customers 10,000+ Customers Worldwide Universities and K-12 Schools
35. Central Standardization and Automation of IT Services PC Remote Control/Remote Support Patch Management Computer Audit and Discovery Remote Desktop Management LAN and Systems Monitoring Service Desk and Trouble Ticketing Software Deployment & Systems Management Backup and Disaster Recovery Network Policy Management Security, Vulnerability Assessment Cross Platform Support Machine "Personality“ Management Power Management (User State)
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Editor's Notes
I’m Anthony, and I’ve talked to a lot of schools, CTOs, etc. (Establishing credibility.)
If you’re a CIO in education, all of the baselines most CIOs deal with are magnified, because you’re dealing with very unique users in a very constrained environment. You don’t get extra money to play around with strategic issues. You’re accountable to parents, trustees, school boards, and all of the money you spend is tightly locked down or even politically charged.
If you’re dealing with a district, then not only is your environment distributed, but actively divided – schools can act as tiny fiefdoms, each one with its own rules, challenges, and staff. They might all deploy different packets, or have decided to change to different machines. In order to get onsite you might have to drive 30 miles. Your schools might be forced to adjust to sharing staff two days a week. You have different needs in every classroom. Every school district also deals with different influencers, at different levels. In some schools a superintendent can control technology initiatives, while in others everything goes through a district leader. A huge variety of people are involved in technology decision making. How can you actually work around that, win stakeholders over to your ideas, and control budget? District leaders (93% of schools report that district leaders have a high influence over technology decisions) Superintendents (75% high influence) Assistant Superintendents (50%high influence) School boards (~56% high influence) Curriculum directors (~54% high influence) Classroom teachers (~34% high influence) Assessment directors (~28% high influence) Community (~20% high influence) Parents (~20% high influence ---- http://www.cosn.org/VisionaryLeadershipSustainsTechnologyGains/tabid/4487/Default.aspx Ninetythree percent of survey respondents report that district technology leaders have high levels of influence, compared to the superintendents (75 percent) and assistant superintendents (50 percent), the only other groups cited by as many as half of the respondents. However, in high-tech districts and in districts where technology budgets are increasing, school leaders report that a wide variety of people are heavily involved in decision making as well. School leaders in high-tech districts are significantly more likely than low-tech districts to report that school boards (56 percent in high-tech districts compared to 45 percent in low-tech districts), classroom teachers (34 percent to 22 percent), the community (20 percent to 11 percent) and parents (20 percent to 8 percent) have high degrees of influence over technology decisions. Further, school leaders in districts whose technology budgets have increased are significantly more likely than those in districts whose technology budgets have decreased to report high levels of influence on the part of superintendents (83 percent to 64 percent), assistant superintendents (57 percent in districts with increasing budgets compared to 40 percent in districts with decreasing budgets), school boards (60 percent to 36 percent), curriculum directors (54 percent to 42 percent) and assessment directors (28 percent to 18 percent).
In the midst of a technology boom, schools are actually losing staff. How do you create a good user experience? Well, ideally you could sit an IT person in every classroom and make sure someone was always there to deal with issues the moment they came up – essentially, you’d create a 1 to 1 ration of IT staff to user. But how could you ever afford that? Even at a 10 to one or 100 to 1 ratio, that can be far outside the realistic budget of a small school department. http://www.cosn.org/Resources/CoSNGrunwaldSurvey/PositiveAttitudesMitigateBudgetThreats/WhatHappensWhenBudgetsAreCut/tabid/4486/Default.aspx
On top of all of those extra pressure factors, you still have to deal with the same questions EVERY other CIO deals with. Lack of IT visibility • Do you know which systems are Windows 7 compatible? • Do you know which systems are critically low on disk space? Need better IT security • Can you centrally deploy operating systems, application, patches? • Can you ensure all PC firewalls are turned on? Need better IT compliance process/policy • Can you provide proof that you are in compliance with your software license agreements? • Do you have the tools to enforce regulatory compliance? Need to reduce IT management costs • Do you need to make a desk visit to install Office? • Do you need to send technicians to remote sites to re-image systems? How to deliver better IT services…to teachers…students…parents…school board members How to retain key IT staff
Obviously we’re working with a very, very complicated system. But for the purpose of this webinar, we’re going to focus on three areas – what we see as three significant paradoxes in the experience of K-12 technology leaders, and how those paradoxes feed into one another.
Good IT in the context of lights on mentality / strategic influence -- i.e. you can't GET strategic influence if the lights aren't on and so "Good IT" is a necessary but not sufficient state for this. Starting at a macro level – the grand scale. Strategic partner. Educational CIOS more so than anyone else b/c education has the ability tpo progress and radically change education. We’re at a point where cpmputers are straetigc, but soon they’ll become operational. Then it’s the “what’s next?”
http://www.cosn.org/VisionaryLeadershipSustainsTechnologyGains/tabid/4487/Default.aspx In that light, it may not be surprising that school leaders surveyed widely identify leadership and vision (85 percent) as well as communication skills (51 percent) as key attributes for their profession. School leaders in high-tech districts (61 percent) and in districts whose technology budgets are increasing (58 percent) are especially likely to cite communications skills as paramount. Indeed, school leaders view technical skills as far less important . Many more school leaders cite planning and budgeting skills (48 percent) and team building and staffing skills (39 percent) as key attributes than cite any form of technical proficiency. School leaders in large districts (48 percent) and poor districts (54 percent) are especially likely to see team-building and staffing skills as critical to the success of district technology leaders. Only about one in four (27 percent) identify education and training as key to success for district technology leaders. Only one in five (20 percent) cites systems management skills and only one in seven (14 percent) cites information management skills.
CIOs in most companies are stuck in what we’d call a utility paradox. Their users see them as something in the background of their jobs – like lights, or heat. You only hear from your users when things are broken. Nobody calls the power company when the lights are working. The thing is, we know that IT can provide value that goes beyond just “keeping the lights on.” This is true in a big enterprise, and it’s true in a school – IT can not only enrich kid’s lives, but influence their environment and affect the way they learn. It can raise a school’s rankings, or simply make a better work environment. The backdrop of a poor IT system can be pervasive and poisonous to a work environment; we’ve probably all experienced this. The thing is, if you’re just a utility then you’re treated as a cost center. As a cost center, you don’t influence change. You just keep the lights on. How can you possibly improve your environment if you send all of your time worrying about security or compliance or whether the computer down the hall has all of its patches updated?
CIOs know better – technology can and will make a meaningful impact upon your school and the future of education as we know it in this country. What would YOU do? When you’re not just a utility you can spend your time and resources doing things that are more valuable; build a killer application, make a new lab, put a smartboard in every classroom, help kids learn how to code. Let’s be honest – you don’t become the CIO of a district school because you want to get rich and famous. People do it because they’re invested, because there’s a sense of personal commitment to the foundations of the school. In the end, your goal is to make the students as productive and maximized as possible. It’s magnified, it’s personal. Indeed, school leaders see technology mainly as a tool to improve productivity and efficiency: 74 percent say technology provides timely data for decision making; 71 percent say it improves support staff efficiency; 71 percent say it increases administrators' productivity; 70 percent say it improves communications among parents, teachers and the community; and 61 percent say it increases teacher productivity. http://www.cosn.org/BenefitsChallengesHighTechnologyNeeds/tabid/4488/Default.aspx
At a very basic level, a CIO will ask himself some pretty simple questions: Did I do a good job this year? Are my users happy? Is my staff happy? What’s my plan for the next emergency? What’s my plan for the next year? These are incredibly hard question In the end, most CIOs have the same primary goals, regardless of their industry. It’s all about supporting users in a way that’s measurable and appreciated, about avoiding user pain, and about keeping in budget. It’s safe to say that most CIOs deal with environments that share some baselines. Multiple machines that need tending to. A varying scale of proficiency among users. Different stakeholders who all have different priorities that may need answering. You need to spend the right amount of money to provide the right amount of support, and plan for emergencies, and plan for the future. s to answer, mostly because they’re hard to measure. How do you begin to measure something like “user happiness”?
When you’re deciding how to arrange for user support, you make decisions based upon variables: it’s all about the quality of the support you offer (does everything work?) vs. the quantity of interaction your users have with your staff (is IT liked?) vs. the total cost of deployment. Make a mix that’s ‘”wrong” and you get unhappy users, blown budgets and the wrong staff – you’ll never do more than scrape by with keeping your head above water. You need to find the right staff-to-user ratio (you could have 1 tech admin for every student or you can have 1 tech admin for every classroom or 1 for every school or just 1 tech admin across the entire population), and identify economies of scale. If you managed to get the “right” sort of mix, you end up with happy users, the right costs, and the best staff – that means you also have the time to think strategically, and it can potentially mean you have the influence and even the extra budget to focus on long term, fun or more than bare-bones improvement projects. But how do you maintain quality of one-on-one interactions without balooning cost?
Since we can’t always just hire more staff or get amazing IT service for pennies, we rely upon a number of tools and best practices to address the quality of support / cost of deployment balance. tools help accomplish economies of scale, thats the reason we're all in the IT business to begin with - what normally would be complicated paper processes that take hours are now accomplished in minutes and seconds the key to supporting those systems is to use the power of the systems themselves to do the work tools need to increase support, without incurring high costs increase the quantity of interactions without sacrificing quality give ongoing ASSESSMENT information so that we can make strategic decisions about the environment
It's not just being vocal but understanding the environment so you can support it being able to say this is what it took to get us here and here's where we go from here. build the community and partner with your local universities. Find out what data your are tools capturing. does it synthesize the data? Kaseya has the ability to actually provide capacity planning metrics, IT Resource Planning is the key and Kaseya contributes that predictability Move from automating administrative practices to transforming teaching and learning. Schools are at the tip of the iceberg in using data to drive decision-making. The challenge - and the opportunity - today is to manage the information that technology captures and channel it effectively to transform teaching and learning. Led by their chief technology officers, school districts should follow the lead of businesses and other intensive users of technology to realize more substantive gains from the technology they already have. http://www.cosn.org/Recommendations/tabid/4496/Default.aspx To create and sustain a vision for integrating technology into the enterprise of learning, large school districts should create a senior, full-time position for chief technology officer. This person should be deeply involved in district leadership, working as a senior member of the superintendent's team of key advisors to infuse technology into the district's educational vision, goals and strategies. This will require a shift in focus for most school districts, which now relegate technology matters to a stand-alone department - often staffed by a part-time director of technology, whose main responsibility is managing equipment purchases and repairs. Smaller school districts should explore the possibility of pooling their resources and sharing the services of a chief technology officer. Investing in technology leadership will foster a strong, team effort to support deeper and more effective use of technology in classrooms. http://www.cosn.org/Recommendations/tabid/4496/Default.aspx
So we’ve looked at the basic paradox that CIOs face, and now let’s get into the cultural paradox that is unique to the educational environment; namely, that you’re playing a zero-sum game when it comes to keeping your users safe versus allowing them to leverage the real value of the technology at their fingertips. You need to keep IT aligned with the mission and culture of the school, but in doing so you potentially screen out things that are valuable. Enabling education using technology is one of the most difficult challenges out there.
While schools have different goals and face different challenges, of course, they can use the lessons learned from early users of technology to improve their core mission - enhancing learning. We are only beginning to glimpse how technology can enable educators to assess students' knowledge and skills continually and get results immediately. School leaders do, however, also cite important benefits from technology that affect student learning. More than two thirds believe that technology motivates students (68 percent) and provides them with important life skills (67 percent). Smaller but majority percentages of school leaders believe technology levels the playing field for students in a variety of ways, including addressing the needs of disabled students (60 percent), helping educators individualize instruction (52 percent) and promoting academic equity (51 percent). By contrast, school leaders in only four out of 10 districts (41 percent) believe technology helps raise student test scores. Leaders in key groups of schools do believe technology plays this focal role, including 50 percent of the poorest school districts, 50 percent in the South and 46 percent in districts where technology budgets are increasing. http://www.cosn.org/BenefitsChallengesHighTechnologyNeeds/tabid/4488/Default.aspx http://www.cosn.org/Recommendations/tabid/4496/Default.aspx
Even if the pace of technological development slows down, technologies already on the market are beginning to change the context for K-12 cyber security. The growing use of broadband makes it possible to give students access to more multi-media content for a richer learning environment; but it will also increase the level of sophistication needed by already over-burdened local technology staff to manage the infrastructure that carries this material. New wireless and power-line transmission methods may greatly expand access but will also create new risks for data interception and new “openings” for hostile penetration of school systems. The increasing use of peer-to-peer data sharing, the push for application interactions, and the demand for equipment plug-and-play compatibility all make technology more transparent, and all blur the boundaries making it ever harder to know who to keep away from what – and how to do it. The expanding use of laptops and handheld computers brings us closer to one-to-one ratios and extends learning activities from the classroom into the world thereby creating more authentic and active learning. At the same time, this makes it harder to know exactly what data is located where and who has access to it. In addition, it is likely that some of this equipment will be misplaced or fall into undesirable hands that will then have an entryway into the larger system. http://www.cosn.org/Initiatives/CyberSecurity/CyberSecurityInformation/UnderstandingtheIssues/WhyisK12Different/tabid/5261/Default.aspx
The cost of managing machines is inherently more expensive because we have to protect the end users.
http://www.cosn.org/Initiatives/CyberSecurity/CyberSecurityInformation/UnderstandingtheIssues/WhyisK12Different/tabid/5261/Default.aspx how do you keep thousands of machines up to date?
fix it BEFORE it breaks - and if it does break, have the machine fix it automatically A first grader needs protection that an 8 th grader doesn’t. Schools need to find ways of grading access and controlling machines in intelligent groups. control machines by group (not individually) - and establish protections on a per group basis so that there's a custom fit however, that custom fit requires extra customization - you need a tool to automate In schools, as in most organizations, an appropriate approach to security will combine technology, policy, and people-oriented activity. Technology is a powerful tool that we need to fully utilize. Equally important is examining and updating the policies and procedures followed by system administrators and everyday users. But most important is working with the people – everyone -- to create a “community of trust” in which everyone has a shared understanding of the value of our technology resources and the proper way to use those tools to support everyone’s efforts to accomplish educational goals. http://www.cosn.org/Initiatives/CyberSecurity/CyberSecurityInformation/UnderstandingtheIssues/WhyisK12Different/tabid/5261/Default.aspx
namely, that you’re dealing with what is practically a technology explosion,. The increasing cost for even allowing one student to have one machine, let along every student to have a machine – b/c there are brand new things, getting access to thing that aren’t good. How do you deal with locking down machines Nail in the coffin – you’re forced to spend all fo your monet trying to keep the lights on while you’re trying to be strategic. Giving acces to 1 computer is a benefit. Giving access to 1 computer per child is infinitely better. Everyone agrees tech is great for education! So we’re going to buy MORE. More more more. But on the other side ops budgets are being cut. 2 or 3x associated with mahcine during operations. Proliferation not getting the support necessary to make it the tool that it should be. Kasyea jump in. Manage more machines Allow for flexibility Make ops strategic in the first place That’s the story. sometimes this is referred to as "one to one computing" see here: http://ubiqcomputing.org/Overview.pdf http://cilt.concord.org/seedgrants/ubiquitous/2000.html read section 5: http://media.centerdigitalgov.com/reg2view/K12_6_23.pdf http://www.whiteboardadvisors.com/news/fcc-announces-9-million-35000-students-across-14-states-e-rate-mobile-pilot http://www.k12mobilelearning.com/?tag=e-rate-deployed-ubiquitously
There’s no denying that technology is the next big wave in transforming education in our country. We’re moving into a time when every student will have a laptop and a mobile phone, when Internet skills are valuable at a younger and younger age, when computer literacy is becoming as core to a child’s education as reading or writing. Ubiquitous computing will happen. How can we be prepared? Insert research on 1-to-1 computing sometimes this is referred to as "one to one computing" see here: http://ubiqcomputing.org/Overview.pdf http://cilt.concord.org/seedgrants/ubiquitous/2000.html read section 5: http://media.centerdigitalgov.com/reg2view/K12_6_23.pdf http://www.whiteboardadvisors.com/news/fcc-announces-9-million-35000-students-across-14-states-e-rate-mobile-pilot http://www.k12mobilelearning.com/?tag=e-rate-deployed-ubiquitously
Districts facing technology budget cuts have responded primarily by cutting back on equipment and supplies or postponing exploration of new hardware. They aren't likely to tap into reserves or engage in fundraising - with some key exceptions. Eight in 10 school leaders whose districts have experienced declining technology budgets (80 percent) cut back on equipment and supplies. More than six in 10 (63 percent) say budget cuts have made them less likely to explore laptop programs - a marker, we believe, for disinvestment in innovative technologies under budget strains. Nearly half (49 percent) of school leaders also report cutting staff in response to declining technology budgets. Seventy-three percent of school leaders in districts in the West, 67 percent in the poorest districts, 63 percent in large districts and 59 percent in urban districts report staff cuts because of technology budget decreases. By contrast, only about three in 10 (29 percent) report that their districts tapped into reserves in response to technology budget cuts, while only 14 percent report engaging in new fundraising. Not surprisingly, school leaders in wealthy districts (26 percent) and high-tech districts are the most likely to engage in new fundraising in the face of budget cuts. However, nearly four in 10 (39 percent) of all districts have mitigated losses by repurposing other funds. http://www.cosn.org/Resources/CoSNGrunwaldSurvey/PositiveAttitudesMitigateBudgetThreats/WhatHappensWhenBudgetsAreCut/tabid/4486/Default.aspx http://www.cosn.org/Portals/7/docs/digital_leadership_divide.pdf
Flat or unpredictable spending on technology is tantamount to losing ground.
http://www.cosn.org/Portals/7/docs/digital_leadership_divide.pdf Despite the budget concerns about technology, however, the vast majority of school districts do not make any kind of return-oninvestment (ROI) calculations to evaluate the effectiveness of technology purchases. Two-thirds (66 percent) of districts do not consideror use ROI calculations when they buy or evaluate technology. Ironically, school leaders in high-tech districts (43 percent) are the most likely to look for a return on their investments. School leaders say districts in the South (40 percent) and large districts (39 percent) also are relatively likely to make formal ROI calculations. http://www.cosn.org/Portals/7/docs/digital_leadership_divide.pdf Although relatively few districts make formal ROI calculations, more than four in 10 school leaders (43 percent) consider the total cost of ownership (TCO), such as technical support, maintenance and upgrading, important in evaluating technology
Once you’re in control, where do you go? Here’s what Kaseya does. (wheel) 2. Agent architecture 3. Integration & automation. 3 paradoxes in reverse order - ratio of machines (managing fiefdoms, and device, anywhere, doesn’t have to be on VPN) - allow for freedom but always have the ability to control a machine remotely. Application blocking, keyword filtering - kaseya allows you to do ops cheap and easy – do more w/ less. Automate, don’t spend resources continuing to play the ops game, so you have more tiume for straegy. But alspo, turn ops into strateguy – gather data, understand data, IT resource planning.
This is where Kaseya comes in. Kaseya is, essentially, a coordinated management distribution technology. It’s all about integration and automation, and it essentially allows you to find the right balance for the right cost.
We all know that a huge number of the problems machines encounter can be fixed in a routine manner. What Kaseya does is pushes the burden of fixing these things back on to the machine. Computers have an enormous amount of ability to solve these simple problems, but they aren’t set up to do it automatically or to heal themselves. 80% of your help desk tickets essentially disappear, because Kaseya stops those problems before a user ever knows they’re there. Plus, you don’t have an admin on the phone trying to extract data from the user – imagine how many frustrated conversations that eliminates. Kaseya has the ability to essentially give you that 1 to 1 ratio, or to mimic the feel of it within your organization but keep the right kind of cost metrics in place. With a Kaseya deployment, that same admin who before was only dealing with one user can now deal with thousands of machines, because you’ve reduce number of tickets through automation, you’ve enabled your staff to solve problems faster through smart automation, and you’ve given them a way to interact with users even more richly than before. Now an admin oesn’t have to muddle through on the phone – they can control machines directly, and can create guides for users to access later. There’s no sacrifice to user happiness.
Basically don’t toss the baby out w the bathwate – Kaseya is one way to control machines but not stifle learning. This solution is incredibly well suited to the academic environment. As the CIO, you now have a way of connecting with every machine in your network without having to force every machine (and every user) into a single box of options. You can avoid stepping on toes or constraining one classroom because of another’s needs. It gives you control you wouldn’t have otherwise, and does it in a way that preserves the autonomy of what you have today. You can support everywhere within system, managing all of your schools as if they were operationally one set of machines. You can see everything without doing a policy change. Support everyone, allow for autonomy but still have control and be in budget.
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