The Role of Filters in a Web 2.0 Environment
October 2, 2008
Will Richardson recently wrote a post titled Filter Fun where he argues that “I truly believe that filters make our kids less safe.”
As a member of the digital native generation, and a large proponent and practitioner of the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into education, I think Will’s post represents a strong, unjustified stereotype of the role of IT in education. He seems to be sparking an “us against them” attitude of IT versus the rest of the school. This is the wrong approach to solving an important school policy issue.
As Web 2.0 tools become more ubiquitous, school IT departments need to continuously revise their policies to move with the times.
In my experience, the best functioning school IT departments partner with administrators, curriculum directors, and teachers to create sensible policies that work for the entire district. In the case of security and content filtering, we worked with one district to create a Wiki for decision-makers to collaborate and design their own sensible policies on the matter. This was a creative way of building a partnership between IT and the school.
It is also important for Will and others to recognize why content filtering exists. For starters, it is the law! The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) mandates that “Internet safety policy must include technology protection measures to block or filter Internet access to pictures that: (a) are obscene, (b) are child pornography, or (c) are harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors).”
Obviously, pornography, obscene language, hate group web pages, etc. have no place in a school environment. School is supposed to be a safe place where parents are led to believe that schools are taking every opportunity to protect their kids.
Policies vary by school district and in some cases, any request made by a teacher to unblock a web site made is immediately acted upon after one phone call to our help desk. In other cases, there must be approval by some district-level administrator. Also, in nearly all of our school districts, group policies are set up for teachers, administrators, and students to have different levels of access.
In Will’s case, if he would have called one day ahead of time to ensure that the sites he needed were unblocked, and then tested his presentation with an IT person on site, then he would not have run into any problems. As the IT partner for a number of school districts, we are constantly doing this type of pro-active support to help speakers at our school districts.
In no cases do I think it makes sense for schools to provide unfettered access to the entire internet.
How to Support Technology in a Small School District
May 30, 2008
John Puskar from Classroom2.0 asks:
I am the technology coordinator for a rural SW Pennsylvania K12 district with about 2100 students and about 155 teachers. Its just me and another guy taking care of it all! Computers, servers, network, phones, security cameras, you name it….if it connects to something else….we ultimately end up being the ones to figure it out. We don’t use any outside companies for anything, we install it, fix it, replace it. Whatever needs done, we do it ourselves. Our budget is next to negative. I’m insterested in discussing with others best practices with limited resources. The school environment presents challenges that no other IT professionals will ever have to deal with. Every computer is a shared computer and that makes for some difficult obstacles to overcome. I am more than willing to share and learn what works and what doesn’t.
Quick answer - look into working with companies that can provide staffing and expertise as needed so you can better manage resources and plan for the future.
Now, given that Smart Solutions offers these kinds of services I’m somewhat biased in favor of this approach. I honestly believe, however, that by bringing in outside technology partners, school districts can provide better IT services at lower cost than they can by “going it alone.”
This is part of the reason I chose to come work for Smart Solutions, and it’s the reason I’d recommend John look into this approach for your district.
What John has described will likely result in the internal IT staff getting overwhelmed with day-to-day work and not having the time to think strategically about leveraging their IT assets.
My first few questions if I were John’s consultant would be:
- Does your district qualify for State/Federal funding through E-rate Priority 2 to help with their network maintenance?
- Are you working with surrounding districts to pool resources?
If you have other contributions to this important topic, please feel free to leave a comment in this post.
UPDATE 6-5-2008
John responded:
Nitin, just out of curiosity, how many employees does your company have?
“What John has described will likely result in the internal IT staff getting overwhelmed with day-to-day work and not having the time to think strategically about leveraging their IT assets.”
-After 10 years, it hasn’t yet………and I don’t think the amount of technology assets and useage will likely increase anywhere near as quickly over the next 10 years as it has over the last 10.“I honestly believe, however, that by bringing in outside technology partners, school districts can provide better IT services at lower cost than they can by going it alone.”
-I think this is what the “solution providers” just don’t understand about the smaller districts. There is no way a district with limited financial resources is going to continue to pay a full-time salary for a Technology Director that needs to outsource “his” work, which is an additional expenditure to the district. Because, when all is said an done, “partnering” with a vendor or provider, does not eliminate the need to have someone there all day, full-time. And if it did, what Tech Coordinator would in his right mind put himself out of a job?
My response:
Thank you for sharing your point of view. I think this is a fascinating discussion.
We have 4 offices in Canton, Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit. We have ~75 employees.
I am a bit of a neophyte to the IT and “solutions provider” industry, and therefore find your comments extremely interesting.
In general, I believe having specialists in Citrix, VMWare, Security, etc. as needed is more effective than one “network admin” doing it all.
The mix of skill sets could add up to one full time person, but the district can potentially rely on a team of individuals instead of one single person.
Our assertion is that your team, with the right support, could likely support up to 3-4 surrounding districts.
I also think it makes a lot of sense to work with a solutions provider for specialized services such as an end-user help desk, remote monitoring, etc. that an individual IT department could not provide.
I encourage you to write on here or e-mail me at njulka-at-smartsolutionsonline.com or call my cell phone any time at 216-374-6723 to continue the discussion.
Bottom line: I believe there are important options you can consider that have nothing to do with being “put out of a job.”
Challenges and Obstacles of Integrating Web 2.0 into the Classroom
May 30, 2008
Challenges and Obstacles of Integrating Web 2.0 into the Classroom
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach was kind enough to invite me to participate as a panelist in an Elluminate session with 80 superintendents from western New York.
We started the session with the superintendents brainstorming the greatest challenges to shifting to a 21st century learning environment. The main bullets from my notes were:
- Time for collaboration
- Privacy and security
- How to get ahead of the students instead of trailing behind
- How to educate boards and communities
- How to build a shared vision at the school
- Where to find funding
As the managed service partner for a number of districts across the region, the Smart Solutions K12 group faces these challenges on a daily basis.
As the last panelist, I had to rush through my talking points and was not able to fully explain my ideas.
This blog gives me an opportunity to more clearly state my philosophy on these topics. I believe that managing school district technology comes down to three fundamental components: policies, budgets, and leadership.
District technology departments are expected to be superheroes. As a short example, look at this article from ISTE. District CIOs need to understand:
- Leadership and visioning
- Planning and budgeting
- Team building
- Systems Management
- IT
- Business Leadership
- Education and training
- Communication
District technology budgets are being repeatedly cut, levies are not passing, and administrators are expecting IT departments to be leaders in collaborative technologies. It is clear that the current model of district technology management is broken.
Going forward, there is only one way that districts will be able to handle the myriad challenges of managing technology. This is to bring a team-based approach to technology management.
The IT department can no longer be all things to all people. For starters, IT needs to represent an executive level position with equal footing to curriculum directors or treasurers.
Next, IT should be considered a partner in the organization to help the school achieve its curricular goals.
Superintendants should also trust outside experts such as my fine co-presenters, Dean Shareski , Christopher Sessums, Dennis Richards , David DeShryver, and Vance Stevens – to help them understand best practices in integrating technology into the classroom.
Finally, the only way for this to be successful is through strong leadership at the district. District leaders, superintendents, and curriculum directors need to understand the importance of building 21st century classrooms and invest their time and energy into understanding this new environment.
Districts can overcome the obstacles of integrating Web 2.0 into the classroom with a combination of policies, smart budgeting, and leadership.