I attended an interesting session at the KySTE conference this summer. Bryan Sweasy (CIO, Erlanger/Elsmere School District) discussed Creative Commons and several issues surrounding the legal use of copyrighted material. I've been meaning to spend some more time on this topic and I may eventually do that but, for now, I want to include a video that he showed our group during the session. It does a good job of giving a broad overview of the copyright dilemma.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Why Wireshark?
Some of you that know me know that, at one time, I had played around with Ethereal (now known as Wireshark) for a while. I readily admit that I don't know that much about protocol analyzers, but I know enough about this product to explain why it might be helpful to school districts.
At some point, most network administrators want to determine why things are "slow", what's passing across their network, etc. There are bandwidth monitoring tools for our district internet connection (our KETSVIEW graphs, created (I believe) with something like Cacti. MRTG and PRTG are also popular graphing tools that districts have used over the years. These tools are great at graphing traffic across particular ports. If you haven't implemented something like this, I recommend it as a great first step. If you don't have some way of visualizing your Internet traffic in this manner, that's a good place to start. Districts might also want to graph high-traffic ports such as those for critical servers and for connections to outlying schools and/or wiring closets. Having that visual is usually the easiest way to determine if a traffic issue is emanating from a particular school or IDF.
At some point, though, the admin usually wants to determine which workstation (or IP address) is the source of a great deal of traffic. This is where you can use a protocol analyzer such as Wireshark. For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that the traffic concern indeed involves something going to/from the Internet connection. We want to use a station running Wireshark to help us determine the source of the problem. This would require our workstation to 'see' the traffic coming to/from the port of the Internet connection, which would require us to mirror the Internet port to some port where we can plug in our monitoring station running Wireshark. You'll need to consult your network documentation to determine how to mirror the port(s) appropriately.
Assuming the port is mirrored, you'd start a network capture with Wireshark and 'see' the traffic going across that port. I'm glossing over this, but most ambitious network admins can figure out how to at least capture some data once the proper ports are mirrored. If you stop that capture, I'll attempt to add a screen shot of a sample capture (downloaded from the Wireshark site) that you might see.
THIS is where I often hear of people giving up. How can I determine what I'm looking at? All of the techno-info is a blinding series of letters and numbers!
It needn't be this confusing. You can simply select 'Statistics' and then choose 'Conversations' from the menu area to be given a report of all of the conversations that took place during your traffic capture. Choose the "IPV4" tab and the resulting data can be sorted by the number of bytes in decreasing order.
This isn't an answer to everything but, if you are curious about the top talkers during a period of time, this tool might help you find them. This is simply meant to show an easy way to find the offending IP address for you to investigate. The packet details are there to lead you to the program or type of traffic being generated, but I'll save that for another time.
At some point, most network administrators want to determine why things are "slow", what's passing across their network, etc. There are bandwidth monitoring tools for our district internet connection (our KETSVIEW graphs, created (I believe) with something like Cacti. MRTG and PRTG are also popular graphing tools that districts have used over the years. These tools are great at graphing traffic across particular ports. If you haven't implemented something like this, I recommend it as a great first step. If you don't have some way of visualizing your Internet traffic in this manner, that's a good place to start. Districts might also want to graph high-traffic ports such as those for critical servers and for connections to outlying schools and/or wiring closets. Having that visual is usually the easiest way to determine if a traffic issue is emanating from a particular school or IDF.
At some point, though, the admin usually wants to determine which workstation (or IP address) is the source of a great deal of traffic. This is where you can use a protocol analyzer such as Wireshark. For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that the traffic concern indeed involves something going to/from the Internet connection. We want to use a station running Wireshark to help us determine the source of the problem. This would require our workstation to 'see' the traffic coming to/from the port of the Internet connection, which would require us to mirror the Internet port to some port where we can plug in our monitoring station running Wireshark. You'll need to consult your network documentation to determine how to mirror the port(s) appropriately.
Assuming the port is mirrored, you'd start a network capture with Wireshark and 'see' the traffic going across that port. I'm glossing over this, but most ambitious network admins can figure out how to at least capture some data once the proper ports are mirrored. If you stop that capture, I'll attempt to add a screen shot of a sample capture (downloaded from the Wireshark site) that you might see.
THIS is where I often hear of people giving up. How can I determine what I'm looking at? All of the techno-info is a blinding series of letters and numbers!
It needn't be this confusing. You can simply select 'Statistics' and then choose 'Conversations' from the menu area to be given a report of all of the conversations that took place during your traffic capture. Choose the "IPV4" tab and the resulting data can be sorted by the number of bytes in decreasing order.
This isn't an answer to everything but, if you are curious about the top talkers during a period of time, this tool might help you find them. This is simply meant to show an easy way to find the offending IP address for you to investigate. The packet details are there to lead you to the program or type of traffic being generated, but I'll save that for another time.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act
I've received questions from districts about federal legislation that passed last Fall regarding the requirement to educate minors about online safety, etc. This is based on the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act that passed last October.
One of the sections of the Act amends the law to state:
There is speculation that this will lead to a new certification on an E-Rate form. I think the KSBA's recommended AUP now has been edited to include a statement saying that this education is occurring. A really good question I've received is "HOW are districts going to incorporate this instruction?" Do we have an assembly with a speaker? Do we create some kind of video or document that students are required to view or read before being given Internet access? Do we leave it to the individual teachers to address as part of other instruction? Does this instruction occur every year? Does it occur for all grades?
As you can see, I have received many questions and I don't know that I have the answers to offer, but I wanted to put this out there to perhaps generate some thought on the topic. Many of us can find sources and information on the types of education that need to occur, examples that can be used, etc. Understanding how best to incorporate this training is the next challenge, and I suppose it's a similar debate as the more general topic of whether "technology" training should be encompassed in its own course or if it should be thought of as only a 'tool' and incorporated into other areas of instruction.
One of the sections of the Act amends the law to state:
as part of its Internet safety policy is educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response.
There is speculation that this will lead to a new certification on an E-Rate form. I think the KSBA's recommended AUP now has been edited to include a statement saying that this education is occurring. A really good question I've received is "HOW are districts going to incorporate this instruction?" Do we have an assembly with a speaker? Do we create some kind of video or document that students are required to view or read before being given Internet access? Do we leave it to the individual teachers to address as part of other instruction? Does this instruction occur every year? Does it occur for all grades?
As you can see, I have received many questions and I don't know that I have the answers to offer, but I wanted to put this out there to perhaps generate some thought on the topic. Many of us can find sources and information on the types of education that need to occur, examples that can be used, etc. Understanding how best to incorporate this training is the next challenge, and I suppose it's a similar debate as the more general topic of whether "technology" training should be encompassed in its own course or if it should be thought of as only a 'tool' and incorporated into other areas of instruction.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Others who blog, Twitter, etc.
I saw a press release today that talked about the establishment of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear's blog. Of course, he has a Twitter account as well. It caused me to think about this phenomenon and the various folks in the public eye that are creating blogs, Twitter accounts, etc to get their 'message' out:
UK President Lee Todd addressed our STLP state championship event. Apparently he has a blog. I believe he mentioned during his speech that he had a Twitter account, but it may have been deleted.
KY Attorney General Jack Conway has a Twitter account and a blog. He's been at the forefront of many cybersafety discussions and his office is part of the CyberSafeKY initiative.
Of course, most people in Kentucky have heard of John Calipari's Twitter account, at over 160,000 followers as of this posting. That's in the top 300, per this site.
What does it all mean? It does NOT mean that you're some kind of failure if you aren't blogging or Twittering. I think it DOES mean that you need some basic awareness of what a blog or Twitter account can do and why others might choose to engage in the use of these tools.
UK President Lee Todd addressed our STLP state championship event. Apparently he has a blog. I believe he mentioned during his speech that he had a Twitter account, but it may have been deleted.
KY Attorney General Jack Conway has a Twitter account and a blog. He's been at the forefront of many cybersafety discussions and his office is part of the CyberSafeKY initiative.
Of course, most people in Kentucky have heard of John Calipari's Twitter account, at over 160,000 followers as of this posting. That's in the top 300, per this site.
What does it all mean? It does NOT mean that you're some kind of failure if you aren't blogging or Twittering. I think it DOES mean that you need some basic awareness of what a blog or Twitter account can do and why others might choose to engage in the use of these tools.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Don't let your tech department be perceived like this!
In my efforts to be a good Web 2.0 citizen, I try my best to add some original thoughts to whatever I post. However, I ran across this blog entry from a teacher named Bill Ferriter and I think it stands on its own as a reminder of why we're here and a cautionary tale for overzealous network administrators.
As technology leaders, we have a legal and ethical obligation to provide a safe learning environment for our users. Our effectiveness is often measured by the availability of technology and we do all we can to ensure that technology is working properly and available when needed. I don't think any of us have a problem with that. I've actually seen some really good listserv discussion today about creative ways to block access to sexually explicit web sites and it serves as a reminder of yet another obligation placed on many technology departments.
If you'll read the linked blog above and some of the comments that follow, you'll get a much-needed perspective from a teacher trying to effectively integrate technology into his instruction. I won't recount his experiences here, but the link is definitely worth a read and it should force us to ask ourselves if our technology departments could be seen as the roadblock or obstruction to technology integration. I've heard network admins brag over the years about how effectively they've locked down a workstation or lab. However, I've had another admin point out that "...you can lock these things down to the point that they aren't even a computer any more..."
Take a few minutes to read this blog post and ask yourselves if you or your department could ever be perceived this way. Do your best to not forget why we're all here and that, while we have an obligation to maintain functionality, we need to enable effective technology integration where possible rather than be perceived as a hindrance to it.
As technology leaders, we have a legal and ethical obligation to provide a safe learning environment for our users. Our effectiveness is often measured by the availability of technology and we do all we can to ensure that technology is working properly and available when needed. I don't think any of us have a problem with that. I've actually seen some really good listserv discussion today about creative ways to block access to sexually explicit web sites and it serves as a reminder of yet another obligation placed on many technology departments.
If you'll read the linked blog above and some of the comments that follow, you'll get a much-needed perspective from a teacher trying to effectively integrate technology into his instruction. I won't recount his experiences here, but the link is definitely worth a read and it should force us to ask ourselves if our technology departments could be seen as the roadblock or obstruction to technology integration. I've heard network admins brag over the years about how effectively they've locked down a workstation or lab. However, I've had another admin point out that "...you can lock these things down to the point that they aren't even a computer any more..."
Take a few minutes to read this blog post and ask yourselves if you or your department could ever be perceived this way. Do your best to not forget why we're all here and that, while we have an obligation to maintain functionality, we need to enable effective technology integration where possible rather than be perceived as a hindrance to it.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Cell phones in schools - jamming the signal?
Articles like this one remind me that the topic of cellular phone usage in schools is a controversial one. If you've been awake for the past few years, you recognize that this is a growing problem and isn't going away. There are relevant debates around the educational use of pieces like texting, the various policies in different districts concerning cell phone use and the perception that these newer phone devices might actually function effectively as a component in a 1:1 initiative.
Putting those topics aside for a moment, I'll point out that multiple districts have asked me over the years about simply 'jamming the signal' to prevent unauthorized use of these devices on school grounds. They're referring to the purchase of electronics that would be placed in a school to intentionally interfere with the signal.
Be aware of what the law says about this matter! To put it pretty plainly, everything I've read says that intentionally jamming a cellular signal is illegal. This topic makes for some interesting reading and, as the links below indicate, I don't think anyone has been prosecuted for violating this law. That doesn't change the fact, though, that this is against the law. The text is a quick read, so I'll just include it:
I've had at least one person speculate that schools, hospitals, etc are public entities that are given waivers and can legally purchase these devices. I don't agree with that and would say that, if it were legal, why would you see articles like this that detail the struggles that prisons are having with cell signal issues? In addition, gear sales sites go to great lengths to point out that only a small group of federal agencies have the right to legally purchase such technology in the United States.
Interesting topic, but I thought I'd take a few minutes to point out that I haven't found a single thing that would allow a school district to purchase electronics to jam cell phone signals without violating federal law.
Links:
Spy gear site w/ interesting test re: legality of 'jammers'
HowStuffWorks article
Putting those topics aside for a moment, I'll point out that multiple districts have asked me over the years about simply 'jamming the signal' to prevent unauthorized use of these devices on school grounds. They're referring to the purchase of electronics that would be placed in a school to intentionally interfere with the signal.
Be aware of what the law says about this matter! To put it pretty plainly, everything I've read says that intentionally jamming a cellular signal is illegal. This topic makes for some interesting reading and, as the links below indicate, I don't think anyone has been prosecuted for violating this law. That doesn't change the fact, though, that this is against the law. The text is a quick read, so I'll just include it:
The operation of transmitters designed to jam or block wireless communications is a violation of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended ("Act"). See 47 U.S.C. Sections 301, 302a, 333. The Act prohibits any person from willfully or maliciously interfering with the radio communications of any station licensed or authorized under the Act or operated by the U.S. government. 47 U.S.C. Section 333. The manufacture, importation, sale or offer for sale, including advertising, of devices designed to block or jam wireless transmissions is prohibited. 47 U.S.C. Section 302a(b). Parties in violation of these provisions may be subject to the penalties set out in 47 U.S.C. Sections 501-510. Fines for a first offense can range as high as $11,000 for each violation or imprisonment for up to one year, and the device used may also be seized and forfeited to the U.S. government.
I've had at least one person speculate that schools, hospitals, etc are public entities that are given waivers and can legally purchase these devices. I don't agree with that and would say that, if it were legal, why would you see articles like this that detail the struggles that prisons are having with cell signal issues? In addition, gear sales sites go to great lengths to point out that only a small group of federal agencies have the right to legally purchase such technology in the United States.
Interesting topic, but I thought I'd take a few minutes to point out that I haven't found a single thing that would allow a school district to purchase electronics to jam cell phone signals without violating federal law.
Links:
Spy gear site w/ interesting test re: legality of 'jammers'
HowStuffWorks article
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
