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...

National Education Technology Plan - A Quick Look at Changing Infrastructure

I'll dust off the blog for a moment to reflect on one section of the National Education Technology Plan (linking the Executive Summary). It's an interesting document and worth more time than I'm giving it. This morning, I'm reflecting on the recommendations in the 'infrastructure' section and comparing it to past standards we've had in Kentucky over the years. The goal in the infrastructure section of the NETP is stated simply enough:

All students and educators will have access to a comprehensive infrastructure for learning when and where they need it.

One shift we can see over the years is the emphasis on access anywhere and anytime. Our devices are smaller in size and more powerful than those of a few short years ago. Remember when we had processor wars and a race to a higher and higher gigahertz rating? What processor is in your iPhone or Droid? Do you know? Do you care? Our older state technology plans called for standards on student-to-computer ratios, number of data drops and phones in the classrooms. Since that original plan - a visionary document back in 1992, by the way - we've seen wireless access grow, devices change immensely and we're surrounded by projectors, IWBs, document cameras and other teaching tools.

For the sake of time, let's skip to the recommended actions. First:

Ensure students and educators have broadband access to the Internet and adequate wireless connectivity both in and out of school.

Broadband and wireless are the words I'll key on. With "broadband", what does that mean? How fast must it be? The plan goes on to use the word 'adequate' and stresses the need for that speed in the community and at home. What the CIO can fix is the school, so let's focus there. It sounds simple, but one call to action should be that your technical staff should try to do some basic research from a few random workstations and make sure that the performance is adequate. If it isn't, that's a problem. With the word "wireless", my thinking has come around over the past few years. Originally, I would have said to hold off on wireless implementation and invest when you foresee wireless devices that would actually take advantage of the wireless infrastructure. At this point, it seems that virtually all of the growth and development surrounds wireless connectivity. If your school district doesn't have adequate wireless connectivity within its schools, now is the time to act. With the changes that need to take place in education, the mobility of the learner is key and our schools need the wireless infrastructure to support that mobility.

Ensure that every student and educator has at least one Internet access device and appropriate software and resources for research, communication, multimedia content creation, and collaboration for use in and out of school

This one is certain to generate discussion. Years ago, the talk was to get to a 6:1 student-to-computer ratio. In most area schools, we're probably in the neighborhood of 2.5:1. Statewide, we've seen a bit of movement as it pertains to 1:1 initiatives but, even in those districts, it's usually limited to high school students. I've heard nobody speak of a device for EVERY student and I think we can agree that the reasons tend to center around lack of funding, inability to support the environment and, at this point, a teaching environment that isn't ready to take advantage of a device in every K-12 student's hand. In fact, if you'll permit one more copy/paste, I like the follow-up statements to this goal, as they reference several concerns that we rightly recognize and need to address:

Only with 24/7 access to the Internet via devices and technology-based software and resources can we achieve the kind of engagement, student-centered learning, and assessments that can improve learning in the ways this plan proposes. The form of these devices, software, and resources may or may not be standardized and will evolve over time. In addition, these devices may be owned by the student or family, owned by the school, or some combination of the two. The use of devices owned by students will require advances in network filtering and improved support systems.

This paragraph hits several key points. Why a device for all? Engagement, student-centered learning, and online assessments. What type of device? It may not be standard. Who pays? It could be a mix of district-owned and personally-owned. Of course, no standardization of the device and the mention of 24/7 access causes concerns about filtering and network security, and those are mentioned as well.

Maybe I'll come back and address the others, as I'm short on time at the moment.

Change: Inevitable (and fast, it seems!)

I guess anyone can be a prophet if they predict the obvious and wait for it to happen. In a previous post, I had discussed the increasing pressure to implement personal devices in the K-12 environment. Of course, I was only writing based on what I was seeing and reading elsewhere. Fast forward a few months and it seems that the pressure is increasing... and quickly.

I've talked to at least three school districts in the past week that are all getting pressure to implement some type of new device into the environment. For districts that think it's only happening to them or that it's only in our area or state, this isn't true. It's across the country and across various enterprises. Take a look at this Gartner blog post. I'm not as concerned about the market share of a particular company, but note the initial comments about consumerization affecting the enterprise and the "...increasing number of Macs being brought into the enterprise." These are the conversations I've been having, so I suppose I simply wanted to get a few thoughts down to state to the K-12 CIO that "you're not alone."

It feels that way for some, though. Administrators see these new devices (the iPad being the most common example) and demand that their IT staff get these in the classroom. I've seen some of the applications that are out there and I can certainly see the educational benefit. For the things they can do, devices like this have been built for ease of use, fast response and crisp audio/video output. Their cry is "why not?"

The local IT staff has been conditioned to look out for the district. They know that they are most likely the ones that will field the calls when things don't work as well as first imagined. Do you want to print? Does this need to hook to a projector? Do you want to use Flash-based applications? Do you want these apps to go to the web through our required proxy solution? Who's handling the iTunes synchronization? Are these being signed out and in? How are we keeping these charged? If we're in an Active Directory environment, are these devices supposed to communicate with local servers?

You get the idea. By the way, some of these hurdles can be overcome. Right now, though, this seems to be the latest example of one segment of administration pushing for implementation while the IT staff begs for time and resources to better understand and account for the business requirements. As an IT leader, you're right to ask these questions. However, be aware that there are times where the situation dictates that you implement or be viewed as a roadblock to progress.

A quick search will reveals countless articles about consumer devices entering the enterprise and the need for our security models to change. This is one blog entry discussing this trend and it's easy to find others. Without dragging out the crystal ball again, I'll simply state that we're probably all facing major change in the way we've thought about our networks and securing them. For now, take some solace - limited though it may be - in the fact that it isn't "just you". It's all of us. As that blog entry indicates, it could be more about the data than the device moving forward.

The thought of data driving it all made me think of the Web 2.0 video "The Machine is Us/ing Us".