What do you do in the summer?

That question gets posed from outside the education community, with the general assumption being that everyone vacations all summer long if they work in the K-12 education environment. Not true. Furthermore, I think the assumption is that the K-12 technology coordinators and staff are simply in charge of "keeping the computers running". Sure, there are computers to replace and re-image. That doesn't even scratch the surface of everything these departments are asked to deal with during the summer and throughout the year. Here's my off-the-cuff stab at a list, and I'm sure that this isn't exhaustive:

Printers
Copiers
Web site creation and maintenance
Televisions
DVD
Media distribution servers/solutions
Digital cameras
Camcorders
Handheld computers and smartphones (both district-owned and personal)
Projectors
Wireless slates/pads
Interactive whiteboards
Student response systems
Student Information System
Instructional software of various types
Food service software
Point-of-sale hardware
Asset tracking software and hardware
Library management software
Internal district finance hardware/software
Servers to run all of this and more
Software licensing compliance for all of this
Switches and electronics in the wiring closets
Running and terminating cable for all of this to connect
Wireless environments (ever-growing) to support mobility desires
Security cameras
Badge ID systems for the user base
Building security (so those badges can be used for building entry)
Automatic lighting (in some cases, yep)
A/C needs for the data center(s) (this hardware generates tons of heat)
Support for Student Technology Leadership Program
Assistive and adaptive technology (for special needs cases)
Telephone systems (voicemail, handsets, trunk line configurations, etc)
Video distribution systems (cable TV and other local media)
Wide-area network connecting all schools to one another
Antivirus software for all workstations
Ensuring proper OS updates/patching of all workstations
Web filtering hardware/software, updates and ongoing issues
Facebook and social networking issues (significant enough for separate mention)
Establishing policy on things like personal device use (cellular, computers)
Crafting and updating a district technology plan for all of this
Professional development for staff so THEY understand all of this
Managing maintenance agreements for some/all of this
Having a system to track/manage work orders that might be called in on any of this
Keeping track of grant opportunities to assist with some of this
Dealing with vendors who constantly try to sell some/all of this
Managing the E-Rate program, which ties to critical federal funds

As I said, I'm sure this isn't an exhaustive list, but it's a good start. Some of these items are a job unto themselves. Some can take up a huge amount of time when/if something goes wrong. There's plenty to do throughout the year and, if these folks are taking a bit of time off during the summer, it's well-deserved. More likely, their time away is brief due to the fact that the best time to update/replace most of these components is during the summer while school is not in session. For you IT workers out there, if you're dreaming of having your toes in the sand, I hope you don't read this and awake with a fear that you're in quicksand...

Video distribution vendors...

I'm probably oversimplifying their offerings by titling this entry as simply 'video distribution', but these vendors are worth a mention nonetheless:

VBrick presented their IP video solution. They have presented to my region of school districts as well. I think we'll see the CIO role begin to encompass television and video delivery (if it isn't already for your district). The VBrick platform allows for scheduled delivery of video content and provides its own portal for delivery and searching for content. You can use the solution to capture content in multiple formats, store the content on a server for that purpose and play the video either on the desktop or on a separate dedicated display.

We also learned about Mediacast via a local reseller. This seemed to be a competitor to VBrick in many ways. With both solutions, you can encode selected channels from your cable provider. You can copy other media formats (VHS, DVD, etc) into the solution and manage copyrights more effectively by only allowing a licensed number of concurrent copies to play. With the right modules and equipment (like an "OnLocation cart", one could conduct and stream a live broadcast in HD.

Portions of these solutions (encoders, master control units, etc) are eligible for E-Rate discounts under the Internal Connections category. These solutions aren't for everyone, but these types of solutions may become a requirement as the instructional use of video from a variety of sources continues to grow.

A couple of vendor mentions...

I'm at a CIO conference/retreat and thought I'd take a moment to mention several products and vendors who have presented or attended:

M86 Security - An internet security company that had its basis in web (URL) filtering, they are in several KY school districts. Apparently, their latest product offering performs the web filtering, reporting and monitoring on a single box. They also have a secure web gateway product that is used to protect against so much of the malicious code that can be found on the web today.

CIPAFilter - Interesting name and guess what they do? There's a 90-day evaluation and their pricing structure is online and easy enough to follow. It does some context-sensitive searching rather than pure URL-based filter sets.

I'll mention the video distribution vendors later...

Hosted email and praise for KY tech leaders

I can tell just how buried I've been in my work. Not only have I taken less time of late for personal hobbies, but I've also apparently been very lax about blogging. All of that can be attributed to the KY K-12 education move to Microsoft's Live@edu hosted email solution.

It's difficult to digest everything taking place when you're in the middle of it all. Over the past two weeks, I've conducted several informational sessions and have now participated in some end-user training. There's so much swimming through my brain and I simply wanted to take a moment to think about a couple of things at a very high level.

First, we have many intelligent and dedicated technology leaders in this state. I feel overwhelmed at times when thinking about this project. I've had draft documentation in my hands for a while and have participated in regular conference calls about our plans. Many of our technology leaders are going into this with less information and less time to absorb that information. We've had several opportunities to communicate about the project, but things are really hitting home now that implementation is imminent. I've tried my best to communicate and assure everyone that it will be fine. At times, I'm the one that has to be reassured. Last month, many of our districts massed on a McAfee DAT update that wreaked havoc on networks around the state. Their "can do" attitude got them through the fix before they had time to completely absorb all of the details. To some extent, this project will also test our ability confidently to move forward without knowing all of the answers to every potential "what if" situation. We will get there and it will be largely because of their efforts.

Second, the solution really needed to be a cloud-based solution. There are other choices besides Live@edu. A quick scan of today's technology landscape reveals many hosted options for communication. How do we communicate today? Via mobile phone, Twitter, Facebook, blog entries, texting, Skype and - I almost forgot - email. Very little of that (soon to be none?) is hosted on a local file server. We're an increasingly mobile user base and the applications we use are mirroring that.

Along those lines, one potential concern with Live@edu is the built-in messaging components. Legitimate "what if" scenarios are brought up by districts. However, what successful communications company is developing an "email only" solution for today's users? Yahoo! has an IM client built in and desperately wants to be my collaboration portal. Facebook has the same thing. GMail has built-in chat via text, voice or video. It's where the industry is headed.

It's where we're headed. By IT, I mean "a hosted communication environment that has the potential to positively impact teaching and learning." It's fearful at times to move at this pace, but the need to be flexible and adapt to change is becoming one of the most important qualities of success. We will get there and, though there will likely be some bumps along the way, we'll be better for it.

McAfee and the 'false positive'

Note: Thoughts expressed here are mine alone. They may echo the thoughts of others, but I'm not publishing this on behalf of or in representation of anyone else.

Nearly everyone is aware of the issues of this week surrounding a problematic McAfee update. I could link hundreds of articles and I'm not sure anything else can be said that hasn't already been said. However, I suppose writing is therapeutic to some extent and I've had a few thoughts running through my mind as our school districts work to correct thousands of affected computers.

* Kudos to our school districts. They probably don't get enough credit as it is, but it's amazing to see how districts have massed on this problem and developed plans to touch thousands of machines. Their work is to be commended. These are dedicated workers who have given away countless hours (no overtime pay in a school district) to fix these machines. In addition, many CIOs made a tough spur-of-the-moment call to shut down every machine in their district. I'm not sure I could have made that call that quickly, being fearful that a false alarm would infuriate my user base. It was a courageous call and a correct one given the circumstances. I'm proud to work alongside our area school district technology staff members.

* The Internet records everything. McAfee's initial response was delayed and was out of touch with the difficult realities facing a good portion of their user base.

...a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to this release. Corporations who kept a feature called “Scan Processes on Enable” in McAfee VirusScan Enterprise disabled, as it is by default, were not affected...

McAfee went out of the way to point out that it was a false positive and not a virus. The end result was the same and no one I talked to was concerned about whether the problem was a virus or a false positive. Also, later reports indicate that the "Scan Processes on Enable" is not disabled by default in all cases. The language here implies that, had a customer not changed the default settings, they wouldn't be in this predicament. There's an implication that it wasn't McAfee's fault.

We are not aware of significant impact on consumers. We believe that this incident has impacted less than one half of one percent of our consumer base and enterprise accounts globally...

There may be some funny math going on here. If I had 199 consumers with a single copy of the software that weren't affected and I also had one corporate account with 1000 machines that were impacted, I suppose one could say that "one half of one percent of customers" were impacted. However, that doesn't accurately state the percentage of machines affected and it certainly downplays the significance. Again, the focus seemed to be that the incident wasn't a major concern. To affected customers, it was. Also, it's worth noting that a machine that constantly reboots and will not function is a "significant impact" and it's very hard to believe that, upon this press release, these symptoms weren't known.

To be fair, subsequent responses have a different tone and the company definitely took the matter seriously. Initial reports indicated that support information was hard to find. At this time, there is a link on the McAfee launch page. I'm not sure when that appeared. The bottom line is that effective crisis management, as exemplified in the Tylenol situation in the 80's, involves swift and wide-reaching action if there's even a chance of devastating impact to users.

* What if it were a virus? - My final thought is that, had SVCHOST.EXE truly been infected, was this the proper response? Should the file have been quarantined, rendering the machine useless and unable to communicate with the network? It's hard to say, but I'm sure this is one of the areas that will be investigated moving forward.

Free books and courseware

I'm continually amazed at everything that can be found on the Internet. We've had discussions in the K-12 environment about shrinking textbook funds and have rhetorically asked if textbooks are needed with the wealth of materials online. Given some of these resources that are available from the higher education community and other free resources, I think it's only a matter of time before we see more K-12 entities work to deliver instruction without traditional textbooks. A list of resources:

Project Gutenberg - One of the early entries in the 'free books' genre. You can find 30,000 free books to download here (free because their copyright has expired).

MIT Open Courseware - Want to take a course at MIT? This may not get you access to the instructor, but many of the materials used in all sorts of undergraduate and graduate MIT courses can be found at this site.

Google Scholar - Ever wished your students would find and reference 'scholarly' resources when searching Google for various projects? How about trying this beta search engine that seeks to limit your searches to scholarly literature?

Good stuff!

OnGuard Online - good educational resources

Just a quick note to make everyone aware of some good material available fron OnGuard Online. This is a partnership between many federal and commercial resources. One of the items that's been viewed very positively by my districts is a pamphlet called "Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online". The link takes you to the entire pamphlet and you can order free copies from bulkorder.ftc.com.

The Federal Trade Commission has its own YouTube channel. One of their videos is embedded below: