Relocating the blog...

I checked back and it appears that I started blogging just over 3 years ago. I've taken to it, though I don't do a good job of tracking readership or planning out what I write. As part of a personal improvement plan, I'm going to branch out a bit and begin posting to a different site. Check it out at http://kyedtech.com/blog and see what you think. I'll be partnering up with Marty Park and maybe some others and, with any luck, we'll stay relevant and push each other to new heights as we deal with everything going on in the education technology landscape.

Take care!

Streaming, bandwidth and the "YouTube effect"

This will not be a well thought-out post... more likely the general ramblings that were the basis of blogs, so let's dive in!

In K-12 technology, there's an ongoing and growing dichotomy (or it seems so) between those who want to be more open about Internet access and those who want to (choose your phrase) block, filter, lock it down, control, police access to the web. Both sides have valid points and I'll try to touch on them briefly:

Open it up, we filter too much as it is - Who are you, technician and non-educator, to say what is or is not relevant to my students' instruction? Do you not trust the teachers, degreed professionals, to properly manage their classrooms and the students' Internet browsing habits? Filters are notorious for blocking legitimate web content along with "bad sites". YouTube has tons of educational videos! I can use Pandora to teach about various cultures and their musical backgrounds! If the kids are spending their time on Facebook, why can't they use that environment in school? We can't ask them to unplug or turn off when they enter the school and expect to hold their interest! HELP!!!

Block those sites - I have a responsibility to manage the environment for everyone. Bandwidth is not unlimited. Do you know what happens when hundreds (or thousands) of simultaneous connections are made to streaming media sites? You're the ones complaining about slow Internet access and I'm trying to help. Have you seen your Internet logs? If I open up YouTube for students, bandwidth use will skyrocket and it will all be a bunch of YouTube usage! We have teachers that are not on task and that are allowing kids to play poker. Music? Let kids use their iPod because I can't have everyone streaming audio. HELP!!!

What we're talking about here are resources, utilities... and opportunities! As tech leaders, we need to run with the utility analogy and help educate our educators. As tech leaders, we need to wake up to the fact that there are TONS of educational resources on a site like YouTube. What is a flipped classroom? How do I tie a Windsor knot? How do I sharpen a lawn mower blade? Can the Oak Ridge Boys sing 'Seven Nation Army'? So, yeah... you can find pretty much anything on YouTube. It is a library. We don't keep our kids out of the library! Sure, not every book in the world in in our library and there's a time to be reading Shakespeare and a time to be reading Sports Illustrated.

As with any utility, though, there is a responsibility to promote proper use and there's a need to realize that the resource is limited. My good friend Marty has convinced me that kids can often focus better on tests with instrumental music playing. We might argue over whether hundreds of concurrent music streams or iPods are the better solution, and proper resource management is a factor. Hopefully, though, we can get past the fact that all [insert here: streaming media, social networking, etc] sites are bad. True, we have to manage utilities and everyone can't flush their toilet at the same time. Cutting peak demand can sometimes lower your electric bill.

Like your utility provider, IT staff DOES have a responsibility to help educate others and, yes, potentially help manage bandwidth as a resource. However, the school district or company as a whole needs to be involved in the conversation about the solution. The solution may be to restrict high-bandwidth content at times, and the solution may simply be to find more bandwidth for the benefit of your users. Educate and inform, but don't make that decision in a vacuum on behalf of your users.

[Image: http://www.hometoys.com/mentors/caswell/aug02/bandwidth.htm] Ironically, a post from 2002!

Data, Data, Data... and the associated pressures

Just a quick thought or two on some recent conversations I had related to data quality in our student information systems. Working around K-12 education, I reflect at times on how different things are - or how different they seem - since I was in school. There's data on everything and there's a well-intentioned desire to use that data to improve learning, assess better teaching, have a healthier school environment and things of that sort.

As that data gets analyzed, we see examples all around where the knowledge that this data exists causes changes in behavior. This school security site discusses school crime reporting... and under-reporting. As the link points out, what is my incentive to report every violent incident? Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of incentive to under-report and show that violent incidents are decreasing. No one wants to look like their school is a war zone; consequently, there are whispers that violent incidents should not be reported. That can lead to teachers having their hands full in the worst of cases with students who need to be reported and know that they will not be reported.

Another example I've heard about is the confusion around "in-school suspension". I've been told that districts are to track these suspensions in their student information tool. However, I've also talked to a couple of contacts who gave me an example where a student might have been pulled out of class... not for a 'suspension', but because they're behind in another subject and need additional time for homework or tutoring. That sounds noble, but I was hearing from a teacher who pointed out that she had good students asking her why they should do their homework. Apparently, these students saw that others were - in their eyes - simply being given more time or another chance to complete an assignment. In this case, the school didn't want to flag the students as a 'suspension', nor did they want to give the child a zero on a homework assignment.

I suppose my question is 'how do we get truly accurate and useful data when the overriding concern by some is that the data simply look good'? Perhaps if we weren't so punitive in our discourse and were simply concerned with accuracy, we could get some data that could be relied upon more often.
[Image: http://teflbootcamp.com/tefl-skills/student-discipline-efl-classroom/]

Data Quality and the Responsibility Parable

Our leadership and CIOs have been talking quite a bit lately about data quality. When talking to CIOs about it, the responses are all over the map. This is partially due to the varying authority and expectations placed on them by the local district's administration. One task in the effort to ensure high-quality data is to increase awareness, and there's been quite a bit of that taking place. Somewhere along the way, though, awareness has to be converted into action. The whole situation reminds me of the "responsibility parable", which you can find all over the web and is stated something like this:

Once upon a time, there were four people;
Their names were Everybody, Somebody, Nobody and Anybody.
Whenever there was an important job to be done, Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
When Nobody did it, Everybody got angry because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Somebody would do it, but Nobody realized that Nobody would do it.
So consequently Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done in the first place.

I think it's worth keeping this in mind, whether your issues relate to data quality or any technology initiative. This could be applied to proper technology planning and evaluation, open work orders that the whole department knows about or just about any task or great idea that's brought up in a group. We all have so much going on that it's easy to assume that just because everyone is "aware", then "someone" must be taking care of it. Are they?
[Image: I got it from http://fyimusic.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Blaming-each-other.jpg]

If it isn't easy, it won't get done (or used)

I had planned on making a blog entry describing how to map my SkyDrive to a local drive letter. As it turns out, there are many blog entries describing the same thing. Search for yourselves and you'll have no problem finding instructions. Most instructions I've found involve getting your alphanumeric ID for the folder in question and then changing the mapping text to some URL involving docs.live.com or something similar. Then, perhaps you change forward slashes to backslashes and remove https and add a ^2Documents or some similar text and are you really going to do this? THEN, I scroll down to read comments on these write-ups only to find users saying that (1) it didn't work and/or (2) it is so slow that the user gave up or removed the mapping.

All of this, mind you, to map 25GB of storage to a local drive. I'm a fairly technical user and I have chosen not to bother with it. I can only assume that most non-technical users won't bother.

So, I shifted gears and thought I'd check out the price of USB flash drive storage. Naturally, I'm working off the assumption that I want easy access to some amount of storage, which theoretically caused my need to map that drive in the first place. As of today, I can go to a big-box store and get an 8GB flash drive for $10. Personally, the bigger problem will be keeping up with the flash drive rather than finding the $10 for 8GB of storage. That's a whole other matter.

For history's sake, I wanted to see how much prices had dropped over the years. Here's a Black Friday ad from 2008 where I can get a super deal of 8GB for about $20. Mind you, this was Black Friday and the retail price ($10 on 11/4/11) was $50 about 3 years ago.

Even more interesting was a look back at a 1996 Best Buy flyer. USRobotics 33.6 modem for $160? You bet! $130 for a 16MB memory upgrade. $400 (after $30 mail-in rebate) for a 3.1 GB hard drive. $70 for a Uniden 30-message pager. I wore a pager at one time! Would kids today even get the Dr. Beeper references in Caddyshack?

Ah, I digress... but I'm not mapping my SkyDrive to a local drive - not today, anyway.

Integrating Technology: A Baseball Analogy

A quick post in honor of the St. Louis Cardinals, who pulled off a miraculous win in Game 6 of the World Series last night.

I've seen several emails and web sites that rank the 100 best iDevice tips or the 50 best web sites for education. Honestly, I have no problem with those sites and I've learned about several useful web sites and apps by reading such articles. I also understand that these sites want readers and articles that 'rank' various apps or sites can get a good number of page views.

My problem, though, is that it's tempting for instructional technology leaders to present these large blocks of resources to teachers as a method of assisting them with technology integration. If you are a teacher and are already overwhelmed with the need to cover content, manage student behavior, give periodic assessments, contact parents, develop lesson plans, grade assignments, enter all of this into a student information system, (and on and on)... you may be doing them a disservice.

When I was younger, I loved baseball. I wanted to pitch but didn't have the size, arm strength or accuracy to be a good pitcher. That didn't stop me from wanting to know how to throw a curveball, slider or knuckleball. I remember goofing off while warming up for a game and our team would throw (OK, try to throw) all of those pitches to one another.

Of course, most of those pitches aren't practical for the vast majority of aspiring young pitchers. Most of what you'll read about coaching youth baseball will tell you to focus on developing a fastball and a changeup. Why is that? Part of the reason is certainly about avoiding injury to young arms while trying to throw an arm-stressing pitch like a curveball. That isn't all of it, though. Even at the major league level, there are pitchers that can have great success while having only a couple of great pitches. One of the best relief pitchers ever has dominated hitters with basically one pitch. We know why, don't we?

A young pitcher with a good fastball and changeup has some great qualities. The mechanics of the two pitches are similar, with slight adjustments to grip style, pressure and ball position. Good coaches will work with them to know how to throw those pitches properly, where to locate them and when to use each pitch. Those decisions are based on the hitter you're facing and aspects of the ongoing game like the score, any runners on base, the number of outs, who's on-deck and things of the sort.

We should be using a similar strategy when helping teachers integrate technology in the classroom. Let's find the best resources that can be used in most any situation. We won't start with 50 or 100... let's start with a few. We'll work with teachers on those few resources until they're confident that they know how to use them. Once they know how to use the resource, a good teacher should be able to determine when to use each resource based on factors like the subject area, the particular student(s) involved, the time of day and year, what other activities are taking place in the school and community, and so forth.

In baseball, good coaches teach kids the basics and ease in to the more advanced concepts. Make sure you're doing the same with your technology integration strategies. There are some great pitchers out there that only have one or two superb pitches, so let's not assume that every teacher needs to be an expert on all of the technology resources available.

Managing hype as technology gets more affordable

I was thinking about dusting off the blog and making and entry and, lo and behold, one of my co-workers just posted a great blog entry about managing the hype in education technology. He makes several points that are worth stressing.

He references Moore's Law, which originally dealt with transistors on a circuit. Over time, it's been slightly altered to include power and price. The basic point is that we're regularly seeing the computing power double and the price points for technology of that power getting cut in half. Don't believe me? As of this writing, netbooks with 1GB RAM and 250GB HDD are under $300 and closer to $200-250 in some cases. Depending on how much processing power you need, a laptop with more RAM, disk space and screen size can be had for $500 (more or less, as I said, depending on processing power and some other factors).

As a matter of comparison, I found an old contract update from one of our state technology vendors. KY school districts, from state contract, could buy a Dell Latitude C840 in April, 2003. It had a P4 1.8Ghz processor and a 15" UXGA display (and also a 56k modem included, BTW). We got VERY good discounts from these contracts and this device, with 256MB RAM and a massive 30GB HDD, could be had for about $1600. Think about that for a minute.

Technology is getting more portable, more affordable and more capable. Not that many years ago, tech leaders were fretting that the device would have to have the right capabilities at the right price point before we would ever see a scenario where every student have a device for their own use. We are there.

So what do we do about it? As the originally linked article indicates, we manage the hype in a constructive fashion. We should be passionate about the possibilities and excited about what the technology can do. Rightfully so, we have to aware of the challenges and continue to lead in conversations about TCO and the need for proper staffing, professional development, infrastructure and management policies regarding the technology.

System Center Configuration Manager

We've had a good bit of discussion lately about Microsoft's Enrollment for Education Solutions and the potential benefits a school district might experience if they were to choose to enroll. My mindset is that the yearly cost could be worth it if a district had full intention of utilizing many of the products for which CALs are included with this agreement. One product with great potential for school districts is System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

The potential benefits are listed on the linked page. With SCCM, districts could deploy operating systems (bare-metal imaging) which should lead to faster deployment. Software distribution would become completely automated. This should lead to a tool that can help you manage your IT hardware and software inventory much easier - "asset intelligence" is the buzz phrase here. In addition, the SCCM tool suite should allow for easier remote diagnosis and repair of machines. What's not to like, right?!?!

This is my slight beef and the reason for my post. I've talked to multiple districts that have deployed SCCM. I've spoken with a Microsoft contact about SCCM deployment. In virtually every case, the input I receive is that the product is wonderful but that it is a challenge to set up. One district outsourced the installation and initial setup, which may be advisable. When I asked another district if they set up SCCM themselves, here's a section of their reply:

...it is difficult. I will say I would not recommend it for an (inexperienced) district. It takes a lot of planning and it’s good to have a lot of experience with deploying Windows and applications. It’s a very big learning curve... It also takes diligent users to operate SCCM and understand how it works because it can be extremely dangerous if used improperly in an environment and I’m not using that word lightly. I do recommend it however and it makes everything extremely easy and it takes a huge load off of you after you set it up and get everything working.

All of that caution from a district that likes the product! Honestly, I get the caution about the power of such an administrative tool. I'm struggling with the difficulty of the setup. I see it as a huge barrier to adoption in my area. I'm certain I have districts that need to be using such a product. Some may even be convinced to spend the money to license the product either directly or via EES. With such cautionary tales of setup trouble and limited budgets to pay for configuration, I think some districts are being scared away from actually deploying a tool like this.

I'd like to see my districts using technology tools to make their lives easier. This seems to fit the bill, so I suppose the market is ripe for someone to come forward and bridge the gap between purchase of the tool and easy use of such a product.

TeamViewer

I have a district that swears by TeamViewer for a remote desktop solution. I won't say too much about it because I haven't used it first-hand, but I'm told that it's very easy to set up and begin using. It's often nice to have software that can do other things like file transfer and a 'presentation mode' where you show an end user (or users) YOUR desktop. The TeamViewer product seems to have that as well.

Their website and various reviews talk about cross-platform functionality and accessibility through firewalls and via a browser. It also has a "lifetime license" (e.g. you buy it, you own it) rather than a yearly subscription fee. Their advertised price for a business license is $749, though I'm not sure if an educational discount is available.

If you're looking for products in this space, you might give this one a look. As I said, one of my technical "go-to" contacts is very high on this product.

If you leave tomorrow...

I didn't begin this entry thinking of a way to link to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" or this version being played on a ukelele - suffice to say you can find anything on the Internet. I was actually thinking about the things you need to have available if you were to leave your technology position tomorrow. Too many of us get so caught up in our work that we haven't documented things in the event that someone else were to need to take over. What would be required?

* Passwords - Domain and/or local workstation and server admin passwords. Passwords for core network equipment, phone systems, security systems, web sites, third-party resources and the like. Think about the passwords you enter over the course of a month and make note of their purpose. Note the password and its purpose somewhere.

* Critical contacts - Who are your go-to people in terms of vendors and partners that you work with? Sure, you may leave your entire contact list behind, but who are you regularly working with to get your tasks accomplished? Who are your preferred vendors for various components that require service?

* Service contracts and agreements - What products and services are coming from your budget on a regular basis? When does the agree renew or need to be re-bid? If you left, would anyone else know about these arrangements?

* Management software - What products do you use to manage your environment? Do you have a list of basic processes along with instructions on how to perform basic tasks? We have much of that in our heads, but taking the time to document some of the basic steps might be helpful in the event that you leave on a temporary or permanent basis.

* Scripts and other automated processes - Will the next person know how to determine what you've automated? Does that script need to run for everyone or only certain users?

* Physical access - Do you have keys or codes to access data centers, outlying wiring closets, vehicles, buildings or other rooms that require restricted access?

* Access to critical files, both physical and electronic - I know that the federal E-Rate program requires documentation to be kept for several years. Is this somewhat organized and in a known location? If you're like me, you also have critical emails, documents and spreadsheets that your replacement might need. Are these organized and accessible?

I'm sure there are other items that I'm not mentioning. If you're fortunate enough to find a better opportunity, try to leave your position in a better place than you found it. Give your replacement more than you had on your first day.

Facebook or Google+ (or both or neither)

As of a week or so ago, I'm a "user" (if you want to call it that) of both Facebook and Google+. I don't know which is better or if you need either or both products, but I thought I'd mention a few of the biggest things I've seen thus far:

Facebook

Well, I guess the biggest thing is that everybody's already there, so don't assume that it's going away any time soon. Will users want to convert or add a second 'primary' social networking resource to their to-do list? There are also third-party apps that integrate with Facebook and that are used to post updates and interact with the Facebook environment. As mobile as everyone is today, this is a big deal and something that any competing product will need to implement soon. There are also games... I can't STAND the concept of logging into Facebook and seeing ads or requests from friends playing FarmVille or Mafia Wars, but I can't deny the fact that lots of people apparently do play these games and they aren't (as of yet) on the Google platform.

Google+

The biggest thing I've seen at first glance is that there's an effort to make sharing easier via drag-and-drop access to 'circles' that you create to group your contacts based on interest. If you don't want your quilting updates to interrupt your discussion of whether Aquaman felt like a fish out of water amongst the Super Friends, then you can create separate circles and update each of them individually. It's easy to manage right now, but it remains to be seen if this will remain the case when there are hundreds of people that need to be moved in and out of circles. The lack of games and clutter is an attraction to me but, as noted above, that may not be the case with other users and it may not stay this way forever.

Video chatting seems to be a big deal to both players. Google+ has its 'hangouts' feature for this and the recent Facebook/Skype announcement about video calling is a move in that direction. Personally, I haven't seen the need to use a social networking site to initiate video calls with others. I've been trained for years to believe that the whole concept of social networking is to create a ton of shallow connections with people that I may not be able to pick out of a lineup and have no interest in seeing in real-time video. :) The big players are developing it, though, so let's just assume there's a need.

Facebook lets you 'like' a product or 'become a fan'. The Google option has 'sparks' that allows you to pull different interests together in a way that suits you. The concepts are similar, I suppose, and I would guess that each will evolve as the user feedback grows.

It's a quickly-changing landscape and this post will be dated about as quickly as I click 'publish'. Facebook has taken some lumps over privacy concerns and their latest competition has had its own issues over what it does with search results and privacy concerns with products like Buzz.

Final edit: I can't even get 'publish' clicked before this take becomes dated. It's all about privacy per this article as well. **Sigh**

[Image: Library of Congress, 1865, Lincoln's 2nd inauguration. Old-school social networking.]

A word on browsers, GPOs

I'll give this the kiss of death and state that this should be a brief entry. Veterans will remember the days when Netscape was the browser of choice. AOL bought it for over $4B years ago! Then Internet Explorer made an appearance, was bundled with the operating system and lawsuits began. At some point, Mozilla Firefox became an open-source alternative and that's really where my search for browsers ended. I use Firefox and/or IE and they've served my purpose.

These days, there are other products on the market like Chrome and Opera. In fact, I've had one or two people tell me that one of those browsers is faster than IE or Firefox. That had me curious... not curious enough to download them and try them out myself (as of yet), but curious enough to search around for reviews. Sure enough, there's a good LifeHacker article that gives details on browser tests they performed. I'm sure there are other reviews out there as well.

Quick question, though - as an IT administrator in an enterprise, what do you need out of a browser? Here's my quick list:

* Functional (e.g. doesn't fail, renders pages properly, etc)
* Fast
* As best as possible, prevents malware/spyware from being downloaded
* Can be managed at an enterprise level

The last point is the one I'll mention. If you're interested in deploying something besides IE in an enterprise environment, you need to be searching for certain phrases. You'll likely need an MSI file, which is a Windows Installer file or Microsoft Installer file. This is basically an entire install package grouped into a single file. Admins can use MSI files in combination with Group Policy in a Microsoft environment to remotely install a product. Insuch an environment, you'll also want an ADM template or administrative template. These are used by the Group Policy editor to help you manage registry settings for a particular product.

I'm not advocating that you switch browser, but I wanted to use this as a chance to remind you that some of these popular open-source products have these features. Chrome has an MSI file available. A company named FrontMotion has customized a version of Firefox to be managed with Active Directory and Group Policy.

Just be aware of the terms to use and processes you'll want to implement if you ever consider deploying popular products in an enterprise environment. Browsers may be a dull topic, but it could be a relevant one if there's a product out there that will improve the user experience and/or cause less of a headache for you and your staff.

Tablets, tablets and more tablets

It's hard to believe how the market has changed over the past few years as it relates to tablets. I took a quick glance at a couple of technology web sites and felt compelled to at least give a mention to quite a few tablet devices that are either on the market or coming soon. This isn't meant to endorse or criticize any product, but I do hope that you'll do your best to encourage users to answer some critical questions (such as what they want to do with the device) as you are asked about which one is the best one, etc.

iPad2 - Apple's offering, which is clearly the market leader and has the most acclaim. Runs their iOS, has a 9.7" screen, front- and rear-facing cameras and has the iTunes store and their apps behind it. Touts a 10-hour battery life. $499 price point for the 16GB WiFi model.

Galaxy Tab - Samsung's offering, which gets some good reviews and runs the Android OS. Android = Flash, which is important to some. Has a USB connection kit to give you access to a thumb drive. 10.1" screen, two cameras, apps via Android Market. $499 price point for 16GB WiFi model. I couldn't find much on battery life, though I read one review that guessed at the 6-7 hour range.

Xoom - Motorola's offering. It runs Android and says it's now upgradeable to 3.1 version. 10.1" display. Front and rear cameras. USB port. They tout a battery life of approximately 10 hours. $599 price point for 32GB WiFi.

Iconia Tab A500 - An Acer offering. 10.1" display, runs Android 3.0, has both cameras and a USB port. "Up to 8 hours" on battery life. $449 price point for 16GB WiFi.

TouchPad - An HP offering. Not on the market yet, but you can pre-order. Runs webOS, which I'll link their description to because I admittedly don't know that much about it. I've read that it 'refines' multitasking and a few reviews say it's very intuitive. 9.7" screen. Front-facing camera. USB port. $499 price point for 16GB WiFi. Pair it with the right HP phone and you can answer calls from it.

Blackberry Playbook - RIM's offering. It's running the Blackberry Tablet OS. 7" screen, up to 10 hours of battery life. Connect wirelessly to your Blackberry phone and access its email, calendar, etc. Dual video cameras. $499 price point for 16GB WiFi.

How exhausting! There are others like the HTC Flyer and the Toshiba Thrive, but you get the idea. They're everywhere and there's much more to it than simply picking one off the shelf and forking out some cash. There are subtle differences covered here and in the general look and feel, ease of use, etc. Please... ask yourself what you want to accomplish before choosing the device that's best for you.

TDMoIP

Our tech world is full of acronyms. The title of this post is an acronym that you may already be familiar with. Depending on your telecommunications infrastructure and future plans, you may want to become familiar with it if you are not already.

TDMoIP stands for time-division multiplexing over IP. I don't want to cross everyone's eyes with a detailed description of time-division multiplexing. Let's be honest - I'd be regurgitating something I've read anyway. Suffice to say that TDM is how your phone conversations are carried over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Voice traffic is transferred to channels and passed across the PSTN and the same concept is used to take voice traffic on some school district networks and pass it across some channels of a T1 telephone circuit (or something similar). Configuring hardware for TDM networks (think CSU/DSUs and the like) always involved settings for the type of encoding, clocking and presetting certain channels of the circuit for the type of communication desired.

Fast-forward to today, where many schools districts have installed fiber-optic high-speed connections for their networks. These faster links replaced those legacy T1 (or 56K?) data circuits and we were passing data between sites at faster rates than ever before. That's great for data, but what about the voice traffic and those channels on the T1s?

Some simply left the T1 infrastructure in place to handle voice traffic. Some were convinced that voice over IP (VoIP) was the way to go and may have replaced handsets and phone system components with a system that truly handled IP connectivihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifty end-to-end. The problem with some of our districts is that huge investments were made in the original phone systems and the price and feature sets of a VoIP system are beyond the budgets and desires of the school district. However, paying for a data infrastructure as well as the existing T1-based voice pipeline isn't an acceptable option either. This is where TDMoIP may be the answer.

As you may know or could certainly guess, there is technology available that allows you to continue to utilize a 'legacy' phone system (which uses TDM technology) to transmit voice traffic over an IP-based network. I'll link one category of products made by RADirect. I think there are other companies that make this type of product, but I've seen a few districts use this company's product in the past. Voice traffic and data traffic are completely different and have different requirements for quality of service, timing of the traffic, keeping packets synchronized, etc. If part of a web page doesn't load, that packet gets sent again. If it doesn't arrive in exact order, the end result still looks the same and the page gets rendered very quickly regardless. If you miss packets of a voice conversation or traffic isn't received in an orderly and timely fashion, calls are lost or garbled. I won't belabor the point and will assume that you have some idea why this sort of equipment is needed.

The amount and type of gear you need will vary based on many local factors, but I wanted to take a minute to point out that this can be done and is being done to extend the life of your existing PBX-based phone system and take full advantage of your high-speed data network without dealing with the redundancy of an additional infrastructure left in place for only voice traffic. Take care.
[Image: Library of Congress]

Thinking Outside the Box

I suppose it's helpful to occasionally have your paradigms challenged. In that spirit, I would submit this Forbes blog from several months ago that discusses the CIO role being 'under fire.' There are several good points brought up in the posting and I thought I'd mention a few and tie them to thoughts I'm having... I know, dangerous, right?

* Consumer technology "out-innovating" enterprise technology - This has become increasingly evident in the adoption of smartphones and consumer-designed tablet-style devices. No brand names mentioned, nor do they need to be. For that matter, students and staff are no longer impressed with that full-featured desktop or laptop computer. They go to any electronics store and get technology thahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift has comparable specifications or, at minimum, can do what they want to do.

* Technology is advancing faster than we can adopt it - We've mounted projectors and televisions in classroom, installed document cameras, installed wireless infrastructure and made other countless investments. Some, like structured cabling, could definitely be considered a long-term investment. Others... like the A/B/G wireless we had to have, is quickly replaced with N-series wireless and, soon enough, will be replaced with gigabit or multi-gigabit WiFi.

* Several shifts in thinking need to occur - Rattling through them quickly... the pace of change is accelerating. That means that expectations need to change. Lengthy technology plans are disrupted by this change. Replacing technology simply because it's dated may not be the smart move.

The success criteria should be the business value and not the adoption rate. We've fought for years to make sure that every classroom has the same tools, every teacher is trained to the same level and that we're all moving in lock-step in the same direction. Yet we teach to students of different ages about any number of different subjects and interests. Is the 'business value' the same in the high school history class as it is in a primary-grade class? Probably not, but the technology is often similar for both rooms.

We should try to move technology acquisitions from capex to opex. Some have done this via leasing of hardware and infrastructure. For districts that have convinced their boards to do this, things have seemingly gone well. The infrastructure does not have the glitz of the user device and is often tougher to get funded. Infrastructure purchases should perhaps be thought of like a utility and paid for in that fashion.

* "Learn to fail fast and move on" - Good quote from that blog post. One of our biggest struggles is to evaluate the success of an initiative. Often, we're asked to move on to the next project without really evaluating the previous one. That said, though, the changing technology landscape is forcing us to be willing to try different things. That will be an adjustment, but an equally difficult adjustment will be the discipline to jettison an initiative as it is made irrelevant by little business impact.

Things Seem Slow... Back to Basics on Troubleshooting

With school out for a brief time, I've talked to several districts about various projects and have found more than one that has had concerns about network speed and throughput. Any 'tech at heart' loves this type of challenge, though getting to the bottom of the issue(s) can be a frustrating process. Perhaps for my own benefit as much as anyone else's, I am typing random thoughts and suggestions in the event that you're working through problems of a similar nature.

Get a baseline - On some of our networks, this is a challenge. For now, let's just assume that "the Internet is slow" is the gist of your issue. You need to have a feel for what the normal browsing experience should be in your environment. You need to know the bandwidth capacity of your outgoing circuit(s). You need to be aware of the network routes and devices that are traversed as Internet traffic leaves the workstation and makes its way to the Internet. Are you wireless or wired? Are you passing through gigabit ports, slower wired ports, N-series wireless versus B/G or B? Do you pass through Internet filtering solution(s)? All of this needs to be determined and you can take a few samples of Internet browsing from the problem stations or stations in a similar configuration.

Know your 'best case scenario' - When I'm helping a district with thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifis issue, it's nice to be able to set a station to bypass any Internet filter and to connect via wire to a point as close to your Internet connection as possible. If you can take quite a few hops and devices out of the loop, you can then determine if the speed issue is related to the devices you manage or if you have a larger problem with your provider.

Pick a few reliable sites/tools and stick with them - Often, I'll browse to a news site as a test since several images, ads and banners need to load. I also use sites like Speedtest.net to get an actual bandwidth readout. Note, though, that the figures you see here can vary based on several factors, including other traffic on your own network, delays or capacity issues on the testing site's end, etc. That said, if you run a test several times from the same facility, it may give you a general idea of what throughput can be expected.

Make sure you know what you're troubleshooting - I'm writing this from the perspective of Internet access being slow. Sometimes, the user may be reporting slow Internet from their workstation that has problems like malware, limited hardware capacity or poor connectivity. Veterans of the industry can tell you that it could be any number of other problems when someone simply says that 'things are slow'. It could be one particular program that they use. They could be clicking the wrong icon. If you're chasing your tail, have the user show you their problem or perhaps at least get a screen capture of an error message. Basic stuff, I know, but how many times have technicians rushed to the super-technical layer of troubleshooting only to find that a patch cable was removed?

Know your own environment as best you can - This is a challenge if you're working with limited staff as many school district tech departments often are. Suppose that your speed issue is definitely related to your Internet filter. Do you have a support relationship with the vendor? Is there someone you can leanhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif on for suggestions or other support? Do you have a firm grasp of how the users authenticate and are processed by this device? Is there an alternate configuration that might increase speed? (I mention this because many of these devices have different installation methods that can offer better throughput, better security or other enhanced capabilities.)

Can you look at the traffic - I'll end this post on a topic that isn't basic at all, but it can be an option. A network protocol analyzer like Wireshark can be used (with appropriate port mirroring) to capture traffic on a portion of your network. I'm not an advanced user of this type of tool, but the capabilities are getting better and you may simply need to confirm if traffic is ever leaving the network or if it's entering the network in a timely fashion. Without being an expert, seeing timestamps on network packets might help you determine where a delay could be.

The ramblings will continue at a later time... take care!
[image:Library of Congress]

Can you successfully share an iPad?

My parents have a vicious Dachshund that will chew appendages off of toy geese with embedded squeakers. This has nothing to do with this blog post, but this should be noted nonetheless.

I thought I'd put an item on the blog that I've been passing around via email this morning with several other leaders in the K-12 tech community, including Marty, John and John David. There has been much discussion about the adoption of the iPad recently and it presents challenges for the K12 technology leader. For all of the wonders of the touch interface, cameras in each direction and the amazing applications that developers are creating every day, the fact remains that this device is less enterprise-friendly than it is consumer-friendly. I'll paste in one portion of an email I shared today. It details one challenge that several districts are dealing with. I welcome any input into the best way to work through this dilemma:

Here’s the issue on my mind at the moment... If the iPad isn’t dedicated to one particular student (e.g. cart-based environment), how will the student best be able to transfer created content to the teacher? Here are a few things that have been suggested, along with the challenges:

• Dropbox – This could work well in a dedicated environment, but I’ve been told that you can’t easily (if at all) log out of Dropbox once the app connection is established. If you can’t log in and log out, that hinders the creation of a student-specific Dropbox and you’ll face issues with shared boxes that could lead to unauthorized viewing, creation or deletion of student work.

• Email via profile – This is another option in a dedicated environment, but will be a challenge if different students have the iPad from one period to the next. Continually deleting and recreating a mail profile doesn’t seem like a good option.

• Email via OWA – Multiple people have told me that you cannot send attachment via OWA if connected from the iPad Safari browser.

Are there other ways to do this? I’ll share one suggestion I received from our Naperville contact and one potential option that I was reading about yesterday.

• Email via ‘generic’ account – You could set up a generic account for the iPad and use it to email assignments to the student’s account and/or the teacher’s account. There are some instructional hurdles here as well, but it’s an option that @JDSCIO said they had been trying recently. Could a student access another student’s work via the ‘sent items’ in that email profile? Could that account be used to send objectionable emails? Perhaps in each case, but it is at least an option worth considering.

• Moodle and/or mBook app – I haven’t yet checked to see if this solution would allow for better logging in and out. I haven’t tested the mBook app for its feature set. I simply wanted to point out that there is a $3.99 app called mBook that is supposed to bring Moodle features to the iPad. Of course, if you aren’t using Moodle, that means that there’s an entire course management system to get installed and implemented. Moodle’s course structure might be a good way to transfer assignments, though, and that could become a standard that would be used whether or not iPads were the device of choice.

We've had some great follow-up on this topic, with Marty noting the fact that we really need to avoid the concept of "files" needing to be transferred at all. If teachers are after the students' ideas and content, are there web-based ways of capturing that? Comments on blog entries, online forms, course management systems and similar technologies are available.

It's an interesting topic and a challenge for all of us, so feel free to offer input and I'll try to follow up as solutions are attempted and evaluated.

Tech shelving - is this a good idea?

Not every post has to be about a deep philosophical technology debate. Let's take a break and look at a simpler topic. Is the setup in this image a good idea?

Obviously, this district got some shelving from a home improvement store and mounted a shelf near the teacher's desk. On that shelf, you see a desktop computer, subwoofer for classroom surround sound, a laser printer and a DVD/VCR combo. One of the primary reasons for their doing this is to avoid the custodial dismantling of classroom technology in the name of floor waxing. If you've spent much time in a school district, you realize that summer vacation means that EVERYTHING gets moved into the hallways so classroom floors can be cleaned and waxed. Some districts have quite a bit of trouble with technology finding its way back to the proper classroom and being reconnected correctly in preparation for the next year. Either the tech staff does the hooking and unhooking (and who has time for that) or, more likely, the custodian unhooks everything and the teacher hooks everything back up. This district is obviously trying to avoid breakage, support calls or other points of frustration by mounting this shelf and leaving virtually everything in place.

Another advantage is that it saves some teacher desk space. One could also argue that it might lead to less dust in the CPU since it's off the floor.

What are the problems? For one, a teacher I talked to said she hit her head "weekly" on this setup. I don't have an OSHA degree and can't speak to the legalities of this, but I suppose one could argue that it isn't safe. Since you need to access the technology, the shelf must be mounted within reach of the teacher and therefore can't be too high. Naturally, the lower shelf height puts your cranium in the crosshairs for disaster if you forget about the shelf.

All of the cables are tied off for cleanliness and efficiency, but I suppose one could also speculate that when the technology fails, equipment would be more difficult to access for repair purposes. This may be a minor thing, but it's worth noting.

I'm sure there are other pros and cons that you can point out. This district thought it was a good idea that will save them time, so I provide it as an example and as 'food for thought'.

Managing iDevices in the K-12 Enterprise

The iThis or iThat has been a major topic of discussion in several recent individual and group meetings. I completely understand why and this post isn't about debating the pros and cons or the reasons for all of the fuss. I do want to make a quick point and mention a few company names in this post.

First, a general point to be made here: Countless times, I've seen districts try to save money on the front end only to kill themselves in man-hours on the back end when new initiatives and technology are implemented. My opinion is always subject to change, but I see two options for a K-12 CIO facing an implementation of iDevices in their environment:

Option 1 - the 'minimalist' approach - Set the expectation from the beginning that you'll get them on the network and make sure they can access the Internet. Anything else is up to the user. By "anything", I mean anything related to behavior issues, app purchasing and deployment, repair (since they can't be repaired by your staff), etc. I know some reading this will say "there's no way that will work", but I would at least put that option on the table. Face it, others often assume that you CAN manage all of those app and behavior issues at the tech staff level, so let's at least get the thought (or the reality) out there in discussion that your staff not be responsible for these things.

Option 2 - the truly managed approach - I've been to a couple of sessions by Apple staff. They'll admit that, as it pertains to proper enterprise deployment and management, they're learning as well. These devices are being used in ways they didn't originally imagine. I heard several references to wikis and posts made by other administrators and to non-supported software and processes to perform tasks. Putting a large number of these devices into an enterprise is not an easy task. It isn't something that everyone else has figured out. There isn't a 'standard' way of doing it. I would submit that, at least for now, the 'truly managed' approach involves some third-party enterprise software to assist with iOS management.

See my point? Try to either get OUT of the business of managing these devices or fully commit and truly get IN the business and insist on some sort of third-party tool to help you work more effectively and, with any luck, keep your sanity. Here are a few companies mentioned in a session I attended yesterday:

Absolute Manage by Absolute Software - says it will help you "...manage the PC, Mac and iOS devices in your deployment from a single interface.

Casper Suite by JAMF Software - says it integrates with VPP and it's "...the only client management solution developed exclusively for the Apple platform."

AirWatch - Looks to be focused on mobile devices and also mentions the Android OS, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry.

MobileIron - I'm struggling with their web site at the moment but their site mentions a server you would install along with an app for the device. It says you can recommend apps and ensure that users can only run authorized apps.

I'm not saying any of those products are wonderful or terrible, but I am saying that all of the discussion I'm hearing makes me believe that district tech leaders either need to help set a policy that puts them in a "connect it and forget it" mode with these devices or else they should push hard for a software product like one of these mentioned that may be able to help you effectively manage these devices.
[Image - Courtesy: National Science Foundation]

Thoughts on TMG and Internet filtering in general

As many of our school districts are looking at implementing Microsoft's Threat Management Gateway, now is as good a time as any to put a few thoughts together:

With the penetration of 3G handheld devices in hands of many high school students and staff, some districts are rightly questioning the effectiveness of ANY content management solution in an environment where a personal device cannot be monitored. That said, school districts are obligated by CIPA and (in our case) state law to do something in an effort to prevent access to inappropriate material.

At this point, it gets difficult for many districts. Depending on the expectations that have been set over years of content filtering and management, classroom teachers and administrators often expect the technology department to stop any inappropriate access from occurring. Technology leaders know that this is not possible. With time, opportunity and motivation, virtually any filtering solution can be defeated or bypassed. If the expectation has been set from the beginning that these matters are handled in the classroom, then the changing landscape of devices and methods of access may not have a huge impact on the prevention of inappropriate access since it would still be attempted and dealt with at the classroom level.

As our districts are considering Threat Management Gateway, I've noticed a few things that are worthy of note. First, the URL filtering is a subscription-based add-on that is referred to as the "Web Protection Service." This service provides subscriptions not only to URL-based categories but also to malware filtering. Issues with malware have become very important to our technical staff due to time spent cleaning up infected devices.

Note also that SP1 enabled certain features such as URL override and reporting enhancements, including a detailed "user activity report." My first reaction is that these enhancements should have been in the native product rather than a Service Pack, but the fact remains that they are now included and that's a positive development.

In fact, I think that generally sums up my initial thoughts about TMG. If a school district is simply trying to meet the letter of the law and wants a solution that can filter URLs based on categories and can potentially help with malware, TMG might be a fine solution. Some districts have paid for much more expensive and elaborate solutions that allow for robust reporting and real-time monitoring of particular users. I'm not trying to slander the TMG product and imply that it cannot do these things, but there's a reason that these other companies charge a premium and I can only assume that it's due to some advanced features, perhaps ease of use, etc. If you desire some of these advanced features, other products may fit your specific needs.

I'm inclined to compare this market to the old debate of VMWare and Hyper-V in the virtualization market. VMWare was earlier to market and has a strong reputation in this market. Microsoft's Hyper-V offering was later to market and, at least initially, might not have had all of the features that the VMWare suite had. At the time, one could market higher cost for higher quality while the other marketed a lower-cost product that provided all of the features that many customers might want. I think this is how I would currently categorize TMG. It provides many of the features (if not all) that many customers in this market desire.

At any rate, all of this is subject to change but it's what was on my mind at the moment. This and 50 cents would have bought you a soft drink several years ago. :)

The Art of "Walking the Line"

Editor's Note - I've really got to do a better job of keeping this blog updated...

I continue to be amazed at the number of discussions I'm having or hearing about regarding iPads and their deployment in the K-12 environment. I'm not surprised that users want to deploy them, but I am surprised that discussions and purchases are taking place in a time of major budget-crunching at the district level. At a recent CIO meeting, our group had a good discussion about iPads and I wanted to take a moment and expand on one point that was stressed during the meeting. To be an effective CIO, you have to walk a fine line when topics like iPads are brought up within the district. Let's talk about the balancing act:

An effective technology leader wants to make best use of their dollars and resources. Most districts have some subset of desktop computers, laptops, netbooks, projectors, interactive boards or slates, document cameras, digital cameras, video camcorders, webcams, student response systems and probably other items that I'm forgetting. It's difficult to justify the entry of another type of device if we aren't taking full advantage of these other resources. The cost of an iPad can be debated as well, as districts might desire to add a protective cover, a mobile cart or an extended warranty to cover the iPad for the second year.

Wait... second year? Yes. This, of course, brings to light the fact that some instructors are looking to replace other devices with an iPad. Do we replace devices that have been used for 5 or 6 years (or longer) with device that cannot be warrantied for longer than two years? Well, it can't be a total replacement anyway because you'll need to synchronize the iPad with some other computer. I suppose you could argue that the iDevice craze is just a way to get more eyeballs in front of the iTunes store, but that's a debate for another time. Suffice to say that iTunes and synchronization is part of the challenge. It deserves its own paragraph, but getting these devices to pass traffic and authenticate via most K-12 networks is more than a small challenge due to most applications' inability or unwillingness to play well with a proxy server or with Microsoft-based authentication, both of which are realities in many networks.

I didn't write this to bash the iPad, though, so let's inject some balance into this conversation. The most important job of a CIO in the K-12 environment is to support the instructional process as best you can. All of the items mentioned in the previous two paragraphs are legitimate concerns and will need to be addressed. However, users want these devices and there ARE some really impressive instructional uses for iPads. Do you need interactive flash cards? Do you want to learn to play the piano? Do you need help with phonics or specific sounds? Spelling? Foreign language tutorials or translations? A graphing calculator? You know the conclusion here... there's an app. As tech leaders, we also know that there are other tools that can provide any and all of these. Are the other tools as easy to use? Are they in one place? WILL they and ARE they being used? "Ah, but these won't be used effectively either." No, probably not in all cases. But they will in some. They apparently aren't going away. Three million were sold in the first 80 days and over 14.7 million in the first 3 quarters on the market. Analysts estimated that over 1 million of the iPad2 devices were sold on its opening weekend.

I'm not posting this to sell these devices either, though. The point to be made is that society in general seems to be embracing this trend. Our technology leaders research, test and rightfully point out concerns and difficulties that may arise with proper deployment. There comes a time, though, when district leadership can think that "the CIO doth protest too much" and assume that you're simply being lazy, stubborn or a general roadblock to progress. Whether or not that is fact, perception becomes reality. An effective leader must have balance and "walk the line" between being diligent about the technical concerns while also knowing when the instructional desires require that a product or initiative move forward in spite of technical hurdles (or others) that may arise.

Pew researches "Generations and Their Gadgets"

The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently released a study regarding "Generations and Their Gadgets." Let's take a quick look at the overall findings and trends. They surveyed about 3,000 adults 18+ about the 'gadgets' they own:

* 85% own cell phones. It was 95% in the 18-34 demographic. For the K-12 crowd in favor of classroom cell phone usage, this echoes what you see every day, which is that nearly everyone has a phone, can we leverage it, etc. For the K-12 crowd against phone usage, I suppose we could argue that many aren't full-blown computers and that simply having an item isn't reason enough to mandate its usage as part of the educational process.

* 59% own desktops and 52% own laptops. As expected, the numbers are higher for the younger and, for the 18-34 group, we see more laptops than desktops. This could spark a discussion about desktop vs laptop deployments. If you're a 1:1 district, I could see doing away with labs. However, in the more 'traditional' setting, desktop-based labs still make sense as long as our teaching styles involve students sitting in rows and performing similar tasks. I know that we can argue that the room design is driving the instruction rather than the other way around, but most schools are wired for this setup and I don't see it changing across the board in the near future. You could use this to argue that teachers should use laptops rather than desktops. Some districts are looking into this and I do think the topic is worthy of discussion within your district.

* 74% of the 18-34 group own an iPod or MP3 player. Are we recording lectures and archiving them for download? Should we be? Would it help? I see this as one area where could really make some improvements. The ability to easily record audio and video is there. Anyone can do it. This data shows that many have devices that could be used to listen to a recording. The cost point on these is such that these could be provided to those who do not have them. I suppose loading up an MP3 player with hours of instruction (or posting it online) and having the homebound student download and listen sounds boring and tedious. It is an option, though, and I could probably find some kids who would argue that it's no less boring than their typical school day. :)

* The e-Book and iPad/tablet figures are at about 5% each. This would explain why I'm getting asked about these quite a bit. They are the latest things and bring the potential of electronic textbooks and, for the iPad/tablet category, thousands of apps for educational usage. Each have their downside as well, but the fact that these are even being included on the survey should tell you something.

To me, the generation gap is most telling when you look at the percentage surveyed who state that they have none of these devices. Overall, it was 9%. However, 43% of the age 75+ responders and only 1% of the age 18-34 responders were in this group.

It's an interesting report from an organization that has done some really good surveys over the years. Give it a look and think about what the results might mean for your district.

A Case Study - One Problem With Multiple Tech Solutions

Just a quick post to think through an instructional issue and to note the various ways our minds work in the technology industry. This occurred in one of my school districts and I'm sure that others have dealt with something similar. As you read, think about alternative solutions you might come up with and compare various pros and cons.

Scenario: A district has a problematic student that disrupts class on a regular basis. The student has been sent to in-school suspension or similar settings. To complicate matters, the students has been flagged as having special needs and, as such, there are limits on the number of times the student can be sentenced to in-school suspension as a solution to the disruption. The district wants to find some way to remotely deliver instruction to this student, as the student has certainly learned that "acting out" in the traditional classroom setting is a ticket out of class. The proposal is that the district would place this student in some supervised setting but still allow for instruction to be delivered remotely to that location.

One suggestion: How about two laptops with webcams and Skype? This provides some advantages. The student could potentially see/hear the teachers and the hardware could be used in other areas once this issue is more permanently resolved. Of course, I need to be sure that the teachers are well versed in using Skype and are checking that their audio and video settings are properly configured. I'm not sure about the quality of the audio and video. Also, the student's end has to be configured and the laptop itself might provide sufficient temptation for the student to drift elsewhere on the web to avoid instruction. This could work and has worked in other cases, but this was not the route that the district chose.

Another suggestion: Could we purchase a couple of iPod touch devices and use the FaceTime application to remotely communicate? To be honest, I wanted the district to test this option, as I believe it has some promise. The potential advantages over the previous option is that the iPods would be more portable than the laptops and the FaceTime application should theoretically be easier to use than the Skype/laptop combination. There were concerns about the screen size, but we noted the fact that you could use an adapter cable to connect the iPod to a larger video source such as a television. We would have needed to test the network and learn the process for two FaceTime users to connect without either being a true phone-based connection. I wasn't sure if that connection would have been over the district LAN after the initial connection or if it would have somehow needed to go out to the web and back in, which really wouldn't make sense. It's an intriguing option, but not what this district chose.

The chosen solution in this case: The district has connected a Uniden video surveillance system and is using the cameras and monitor to serve their needs. To be very specific, they bought this system. As I understand it, the cameras are moved from room to room and do an adequate job of providing audio and video connectivity for the student to be exposed to the classroom instruction. Also, the student isn't given direct access to the surveillance monitor. Apparently, the monitor has composite A/V connections which are hooked to a television for the student to watch.

I know this could lead to any number of posts about lost interaction, cost involved and other topics, but that wasn't my point to the post. I simply found it interesting that several technology-related options surfaced to try to solve a particular business problem. It happens every day and you probably have your own examples. I'm not saying that this is even the best solution - this is just one district's approach and it seems to be working for them. They made decisions based on cost, the ease of use for all involved and based on the quality and type of content that they wanted to deliver. I found it interesting and hope you do as well. Take care!

National Education Technology Plan - Continuing the Look at Infrastructure

In a previous blog post, I looked at the first two recommendations in the 'infrastructure' section of the National Education Technology Plan. I thought I'd take a moment to highlight the other items noted in this section. The third recommendation in this section is:

Support the development and use of open educational resources to promote innovative and creative opportunities for all learners and accelerate the development and adoption of new open technology-based learning tools and courses.

Note that the word "open" is mentioned twice. From what I've seen, there's a connection that needs to be made between the wealth of freely available educational resources on the Internet and the educational standards that are set at the state and national level. There's work that needs to be done to tie resources to standards. I've heard many people point out that a whole lot of "teaching to the test" takes place in our classrooms. As it pertains to this recommendation, would you argue that a whole lot of "teaching to the textbook" takes place. I'm sure it's easier to purchase a textbook and cover the content, chapter by chapter, without paying much attention to the content standards that are expected to be covered. The log is that the textbook must cover the content; otherwise, why would I be provided with this book? The free resources are out there, but most teachers aren't going to volunteer to be the ones to tie them to particular content areas and replace a textbook that they may have. It would seem that it can be done, though. Who will take that challenge? It is being done in Vail, Arizona.

The next recommendation:

Build state and local education agency capacity for evolving an infrastructure for learning.

Part of this recommendation focuses on the need to transform from in-house data centers to more powerful cloud-based centers. It makes sense that, if you followed the other recommendations and had widespread broadband, a device for everyone and open-source teaching materials that, yes, you need cloud-based data centers. One thing we've done in Kentucky is transition to Microsoft's Live@edu for email and other collaborative tools. Kentucky's standard SIS package, Infinite Campus, is externally hosted for many districts as well. Districts have also moved to subscription-based models for several pieces of instructional software. I've heard of web-based modules for HVAC software and, if it hasn't happened already, I'd say this is the direction that library management software and transportation software will head as well.

More to come as time allows...