CoSN 2015 Texas CTO Clinic Supports K-12 Technology Leadership Growth

Missed the 2015 CoSN Texas CTO Clinic?  Check out some missed highlights at Technology & Learning Magazine's web site at http://www.techlearning.com/blogentry/9469 

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The Data Privacy Fervor

The activity around student data privacy has reached a new level of fervor, with state and federal legislators locked and loaded, ready to take aim at vendors, districts, and teachers alike. There are an amazing number of parties and organizations weighing in on this very important topic, from parent groups, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), to many educational organizations like the National School Board Association (NSBA) and the National Education Association (NEA). 

There are literally tens of bills pending at the state and federal levels, with assorted rules for companies, districts, and school staff members. California was early to the game with its landmark SOPIPA legislation, which passed in September of last year. Others that joined, like Louisiana, passed laws that place teachers in the crosshairs, with looming large fines and possible jail time for each student data privacy violation. Yes, teachers do need to take protecting student data much more seriously, but are fines or jail time really the answer? We all need to start focusing on the basics, starting with policies, procedures, and staff and student training. 

Regardless of the pending laws affecting us in each of our states, the need to inform staff and students of the dangers of data over sharing and the responsibility to protect it have never been greater. If you are just starting your student data privacy journey, I suggest downloading the excellent Protecting Privacy in Connected Learning toolkit from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), which can serve as a privacy roadmap for districts. Also try visiting the Student Data Principles site, Stay Safe Online, and the Privacy Technical Assistance Center, which will give you the ammo needed to start moving your school forward with becoming a student data privacy advocate. 

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What keeps CTOs up at night?

Judson ISD along with two of my great counterparts at Tyler ISD and Calcasieu Parish Public Schools are featured in the eSchoolNews May 2015 cover story, “What keeps CTOs up at night?” which I have attached and can also be viewed online at http://www.eschoolnews.com/current-issue/ 

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Student Data Privacy Worries Grow

The worries and media coverage around the privacy of student data are growing as fast as the amount of funds being funneled into educational technology startups, and for good reason; The amount of apps and programs that are being used with students by teachers and schools are growing faster than ever, and often being implemented with little to no planning and oversight. 

Natasha Singer, of the New York Times, who has investigated the (in)security of educational applications produced by signatories of the Student Privacy Pledge, wrote a new story highlighting the difficulties faced by schools in managing all the apps and related student data. The story features Judson Independent School District amongst others.

At the same time a coalition of groups, including CoSN, the Consortium for School Networking, released 10 principles for protecting and guiding the use of the personal information of America’s students. 

It's great to see media coverage highlighting the issue that is also willing to recognize that there are many groups involved with trying to help schools with this issue.

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What is keeping education CTO's up at night?

During the recent February 2015 TCEA conference in Austin, several CTOs participated in panel about their most pressing issues and worries in their roles as CTOs.

What keeps CTO's up at night?  Check it out at eSchoolNews

The panel, moderated by Kari Murphy, Chief Technology Officer at Deer Park ISD included John Orbaugh, Executive Director of Technology at Tyler ISD, Karla Burkholder, CTO at Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City ISD, Barbara Brown, Chief Technology Officer at Lewisville ISD, and myself, Steve Young, Chief Technology Officer at Judson ISD.  Our dear colleague, Sheryl Abshire, Chief Technology Officer from Calcasieu Parish Schools, was unable to join the group.

eSchoolNews did a short follow up piece and interviewed several panelists for the article.

It is a quick and worthwhile read at: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/03/11/cto-night-752/?   

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FERPA & Student Data Privacy - Let the privacy tidal wave begin

Recently, I had an educator ask me if students collaborating together on an assignment, through a collaborative technology such as Google Docs, could be a violation of the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act, which most of us know as FERPA. Their concern was that as students work together, one student’s parent would be able to see the work done by the student their child was collaborating with on the assignment. This has never occurred to me as a concern, but it certainly begged investigation. After reviewing many websites, I did not find anything that would suggest a homework assignment in progress would at all be considered an educational record (and therefore protected by FERPA), as it is not part of a child’s permanent record at that point, nor is it in possession of the school at that point. In fact I did not find anything definitive that would suggest student work is FERPA protected at all. Graded work MAY be, as an individual grade itself might be part of the student record. But from the United States Supreme Court “Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo,” it is clear that an ungraded assignment is not an educational record, and therefore not subject to FERPA. 

The above is my interpretation and not a legal opinion, but it demonstrates how delicate the topic of student privacy is becoming. Increasingly, student data and privacy are being looked at with a laser focus by places like the State of California, President Obama, and organizations like Common Sense Media and CoSN. Expect to hear many more discussions and questions about what student data is shareable to further a student’s education and what data must be protected by schools and third parties.

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Thanks!

I am very humbled and honored that the Texas K-12 CTO Council (the Texas state chapter of CoSN) presented me an award as the Grace Hopper Texas CTO of the Year at their Winter Meeting in February.

Without the incredible support and hard work of my amazing staff, this would not have been at all possible.  My staff is an incredibly hard working talented group of professionals that does amazing things each and every day.

The other group I need to thank are all the amazing CTOs and Technology Directors around the state who are part of the Texas K-12 CTO Council.  This group of individuals exemplifies hard work, collegiality, and is a group that makes each and every member better at being leaders.

More info at Judson ISD: https://www.judsonisd.org/jblog/post.cfm/young-receives-hopper-award-as-cto-of-the-year 

Texas K-12 CTO of the Year

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E-Rate: The Sequel?

E-Rate: The Sequel?

While many educators have been enjoying the relative relaxation of summer vacation, there has been a flurry of activity in DC around the federal program known as E-Rate. 

E-Rate has served as a catalyst for school technology growth to power research, communication and online learning, since its inception in 1997.  E-Rate has provided schools with funding for powerful networks, which have become pervasive, and crucial to the functioning of the education process.  School networks are now a crucial utility to schools, much like electricity.  But networks need to change; much like the electrical wiring at schools has needed to be increased from the days where all that was plugged in was a filmstrip projector.  The uses of networks in education are expanding daily and the numbers of devices and users on them is climbing rapidly, with the advent of 1 to 1 and BYOD programs, bolstered by a host of online learning initiatives.

Several groups, such as CoSN (the Consortium for School Networking), have been advocating on schools’ and educators’ behalf and have been pushing the FCC to revisit E-Rate funding, which has been largely static, despite a massive increase in needs.  Just over a month ago, there appeared to be progress, with President Obama’s announcement of the ConnectED initiative.   And just this past week, the FCC voted to overhaul the E-Rate program. 

A true technology leader, Sheryl Abshire, Chief Technology Officer at Calcasieu Parish Public Schools, testified before the FCC saying, “E-Rate needs to move beyond assessing whether a classroom or library has an Internet connection to determining whether that connection’s speed meets the needs of users who seek to access and use the most up-to-date digital content, courses, resources, services and tools.”   We could not have asked for a better advocate on our behalf and it appears the FCC listened.

So now the rest of us need to help out; The next step for all of us is to provide comments on the new proposals as the FCC provides details on the proposed programs, so be sure to keep an eye on the FCC’s site.  

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Random Musings from the 2013 TCEA Conference

We are blessed in Texas to have one of the premier instructional technology conferences in the world hosted here in our state.  The Texas Computer Education Association, TCEA, put on a fantastic event in early February in Austin.  For me the conference is a wonderfully exhausting set of meetings, vendor interactions, and presentations.  So I thought I would share a few things that highlighted the event for me…

I started out the conference with an all-day meeting of about 100 of Texas’ premier education CTOs, CIOs, and technology directors.  The Texas K-12 CTO Council (part of CoSN) is full of high energy, collaborative, and super intelligent educational leaders from around the state.  If there was one common thread throughout the day, it is that we are all facing a rapidly changing technology landscape.  BYOD, tablets, online learning, and mobile devices are here to stay, and we all need to embrace this change and figure out very quickly how we are going to leverage them for learning, lest we become irrelevant.

Another significant amount of my time at TCEA was spent off site meeting with the Texas Education Agency (TEA), about how the agency can help districts authenticate staff and students through their Project Share gateway, allowing single sign on (SSO) for all state sponsored curricular applications.   While this may not seem exciting, it is a huge first step and one that potentially will save districts thousands of hours of lost instructional time, as students and staff struggle to remember one more set of login credentials.  While this is in the early planning stages, I want to applaud the TEA and Associate Commissioner, Anita Givens, and her staff for listening to the needs of districts, and following up by launching this long overdue initiative.  We all want our staff and teachers doing SOMETHING other than managing user credentials.  I can only hope that other states are this forward thinking in helping out over burdened districts.

So you may be reading this and wondering if I got to see and cool stuff or good presentations.   I had the pleasure of presenting with two of my awesome team members to a packed house on developing mobile applications (anyone can do this – I promise).  School districts having apps may be a new thing now, but I promise you, in a few years if you do not have one, you will be in the minority. Almost everything on the floor revolved around mobile devices, and we all know that apps rule the roost on mobile.  Our presentation is freely downloadable on Slideshare.

A couple of neat things intrigued me as well – certainly there were some great devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note, which when bundled with Samsung’s Smart School, looks like a great start on a fantastic manageable eco-system, where bundled with MDM, might offer make this a compelling investment over other tablets or devices.

Finally, one software system that caught my eye, because it’s emphasis on BYOD, was DisplayNote.  While this is not an inexpensive solution, it looks like a great way to unify a non-homogenous room of BYOD devices for teachers and students sharing content and collaborating. While the app may seem teacher focused, from what I have read, it looks like you could easily use this app and have students share their work and teach the class or collaborate together in small groups, using whatever device they brought to school that day.

While I have barely scratched the surface of a great event in this post, I promise if you look through this list of the 2013 TCEA convention session handouts, you will find some great things as well.   If you had the pleasure to attend, please tweet your favorite finds or sessions to @atemyshorts.

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Would you buy a new car with a blindfold on? Then why do so many schools ignore important factors when choosing devices for students?

Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/squeakymarmot/2049742432/

You obviously wouldn't buy a car with a blindfold because there are so many factors in buying the car that are important, including design, features, layout, condition, and the cabin interior.  Many very well intention-ed educators are eager to put devices in the hands of students and jump on the bandwagon saying “we need to buy (insert device name here) for all students.”  This is often done without ever taking off the blindfold and getting down to looking at a schools’ and students’ needs, with a heavy dose of total cost of ownership evaluation to see what makes the most sense in a particular learning environment.

There are a host of great reasons why many different devices might assist students in their learning; Different curriculum (not just the book, but all that is done in a class to help students learn), grade levels, special needs, state requirements, testing mandates, student use cases and more should all be considered in an evaluation of devices for student. 

I suggest starting off with a needs inventory.  Get started by listing out all the things that are non-negotiable that you need the device and students to be able to do.  A short example list such as this would be a start: 

1.       Need to be able to print to classroom printers.

2.       Need 1024x1200 resolution to support testing mandates.

3.       Need ability to save documents to Google docs.

4.       Needs to save to local storage when not connected to the internet.

5.       Minimum 8 hours battery life.

6.       Science class requires USB based probe support.

7.       Social studies curriculum requires student to be able to display screen to entire class.

You also may want to list some things that would be nice, but are not true requirements such as: three year warranty, comes with a case, and has a CD drive.

At this point put this all into a big matrix or spreadsheet to start the evaluation.  It would map put like this but would have many more elements:

Device	Total Cost of Ownership	Fully Supports Learning Ecosystem	Support Centralized Application Distribution
Android Tablet
iPad
Windows Laptop
Chromebook

The first column in one that is often ignored and beyond the scope of this blog post, but it is very important.  Looking at all the costs related to student devices is imperative in an evaluation.  The upfront purchase cost is just one part, but support costs, repair costs, and maintenance costs, etc. must all be included to get an accurate picture.  A great in depth resource on total cost of ownership, or TCO, is available from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) at http://goo.gl/BtC7L

In the end when the matrix is filled out, you should have a very good idea of what device will end up best meeting the needs of students and the district.  While sometimes it seems easier to keep the blindfold on, in the end you may end up with something that is unworkable and not sustainable for the long term. Why end up with an unreliable Pinto, when you can have a much better device at a lower TCO?

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Tech & Learning Magazine and SchoolCIO cover story on (Not So) Easy Money

Getting funding in times of very tight budgets is certainly challenge for any CIO.   Tech & Learning magazine has a great new issue called "Showing You The Money".  This issue is focused on how you can get funds, as well as save them.

The issue features several fantastic technology visionaries, plus me, give their (my) views on how we now have to work on justifying expenditures, using tools like CoSN's Value of Investment and Return on Investment calculators.  The article is entitled (not so) Easy Money and is found here.

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JISD's Chief Technology Officer Named Chair of Texas K-12 CTO Council

Yep - it's true......text below is from https://www.judsonisd.org/jblog/post.cfm/jisd-s-chief-technology-officer-named-president-of-texas-k-12-cto-council

Steve Young, Judson ISD Chief Technology Officer, has been selected by his state-wide peers as Chair of the Texas K-12 CTO Council.  The organization assists school districts across the state, in understanding how to plan for and implement important technology information. 

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Judson ISD Featured in eSchoolNews

eSchoolNews on Jan 24th, 2011 featured Judson ISD in an article entitled "Amid economic uncertainty, ed-tech leaders do more with less".

The article was written based on Judson ISD's presentation in a national CoSN Webinar on January 18th. The article appears here:

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/01/24/amid-economic-uncertainty-ed-tech-leaders-do-more-with-less/?

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Texas K-12 CTO Council / CoSN Summer 2010 Clinic was great!

The Texas K-12 CTO Council and CoSN co-hosted the annual Summer CTO Clinic in Austin at the UT Pickle Research center on June 23rd and 24th. The speakers, ranging from technology leaders, superintendents, to professors, led engaging discussion on leadership and technology in Texas schools.

An agenda with presentation links is available on the Texas K-12 CTO Council web site at:

http://www.texask-12ctocouncil.org/19881042617571840/blank/browse.asp?a=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&c=55321

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Judson ISD featured in CoSN's "Weathering the Storm 2010 Compendium"

Judson ISD is proud to be featured as a contributor in the CoSN's "Weathering the Storm 2010" compendium. The compendium highlights several school districts and their strategies for delivering the same or increased services in rough economic times. JISD Technology Services has vastly expanded its services and the applications we support over the last several years. So doing more with less is something at which we have had to become very adept.

Please check out the commpendium at:http://www.cosn.org/Default.aspx?id=177&tabid=4189

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