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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Keeping Student Data Private

In a world of cloud services, mobile computing, and one click data sharing, keeping student and employee data private is becoming increasingly difficult.

Yours truly and and some great CTO's from around the United States shared their thoughts on this topic with T.H.E. Journal recently.

Read the thoughts at http://thejournal.com/articles/2014/04/10/keeping-student-data-private.aspx

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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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Help us help our customers please!

While this may seem a mundane topic, I want to talk about the stalwart backbone of most IT departments:  the help desk.  The busier my wonderful IT staff gets, the more devices and schools they support, the more we are increasingly needing a robust system that can support the increasing demands placed on our busy staff.

Like many schools IT departments, we never allocated a lot of budget funds to the help desk.   We have used a few different systems, which to some extent always seems to be just OK or good enough.   Maybe we got a deal on the software, maybe we could not afford something better, or in the case of our current system, the help desk came as part of a larger software bundle.  It was easy to justify using something that we basically got free as part of another department’s larger software bundle purchase.  But at the end of the day, we now know that the software indeed was a very small insignificant part of the software package.  It has basically been ignored by the company for years, in spite of many customers’ requests for features we feel are needed for increasingly hard pressed IT staffs.

After doing some looking around at what is being offered currently in the help desk market, there are clearly a lot more players and options to choose from, then there were ten years ago.   SaaS and the cloud have had a huge impact on this market.  There are many very affordable cloud based systems available that might be a great tool for IT departments.  Here is a decent (but by no means comprehensive) list of some cloud based systems: http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/communication-roundups/10-online-support-and-help-desk-apps/ . There are still many traditional hosted systems as well, which still can be very attractive offerings and competitively priced.

And from my research, cloud does not at all necessarily equate to a help desk being inexpensive. One of the most comprehensive help desk systems I have seen, which offers a plethora of advanced features for change management, etc. is incredibly expensive and probably not within the reach of most school IT departments.

So what does our IT department need in a help desk?  Well….good question.  I have started a long list of what we would like to see.  While the list is not done, it gives a pretty good idea of what we are wanting.  And my guess is, that many other IT departments, in schools and other industries, would probably like an affordable help desk systems that offers these same set of features.  The features list is available on my CTO Technotes blog at: http://ctotechnotes.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-requirements-list-for-solid-it-help.html

This blog entry is cross posted with the great folks at SchoolCIO

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My requirements list for a solid IT help desk

After looking for a while at many help desk systems available, I have been refining a requirements list for a new system for our IT department.  This list is not complete, but I have the feeling that if an affordable help desk system can meet these requirements, we will be very likely to take a serious look at the system and give it a thorough test drive.

1. System should offer robust API access, ODBC access to data, OR direct access to SQL tables.
2. System should offer possibility to manage IT equipment orders with associated tickets needed for setup, installation, etc.
3. System should have Active Directory integration to handle user data and authentication.
4. System should be browser based and works in all modern browsers.
5. It should also should work on mobile phones, tablets, etc.
6. System should allow option to utilize SSL security.
7. System interface must be simple and intuitive.
8. System should feature a Quick ticket for phone support - ie one screen problem and resolution recording for phone support.
9. System should feature end user ticket creation through web, email.
10. Help desk staff should be able to update tickets through email.
11. System should feature automated email notification of user on tickets creation, updates, and closure.
12. System should intermediate all email between help desk agents and end users - and keep all communication fenced within the ticketing system.
13. System should offer comprehensive/customizable customer satisfaction survey at the closure of every ticket.
    1. Satisfaction data should be exposed through the API.
14. System should feature a method for recording of how the ticket was created (web, email, phone).
15. System should allow creation of FAQs/Knowledgebase - this should be categorized and searchable
    1. Should allow tickets to be converted to FAQs.
16. System must allow for unlimited end user web access (no licensing or limits for end users.)
17. System must allow for concurrent agent licensing - OR preferably unlimited  agents.
18. System should allow linking of individual help desk tickets to global issue, allowing resolution of global issue to update/close all linked tickets and send corresponding email notification(s).
19. System should feature a Global Notification Banner or method to inform users of issues or outages.
20. System should have ticket categories.
21. System should have configurable, rule based SLAs.
    1. They Should be able to be tied to ticket categories.
    2. SLAs should adhere to business hours, holidays.
    3. SLAs should allow to for certain statuses to not affect SLA(ie awaiting parts.)
    4. Should readily show technician which ticket(s) are in danger of not meeting the SLA.
22. System should support custom work-flows based on categories and for approvals as needed.
23. System should allow for multiple service/help desk projects to provide functionally separate service/help desks – i.e. one for Human Resources and another for Technology Support.  These should have separate queues, but allow for tickets to be reassigned across queues.
24. System must offer robust customizable reporting capabilities in both text and graphical formats to track trends, call volumes, technician totals, category totals, average service times by category, average service times by technician, SLAs met, etc.  
    1. Reporting data should be exposed to the API.
25. System should support automatic rule based escalation - this may be tied to SLA rules.
26. System should have configurable tickets statuses.
    1. Statuses should allow for creation of statuses that do not count against tickets resolution time.  
27. System should allow for file attachment to ticket by users and/or agent.
28. Add multiple users to a ticket.
    1. Any ticket email notifications should go to all users on ticket, once added.
29. System should allow for two way email communications within the system - no end user ticket replies should ever be sent to the agent's personal email - they should go directly into the system.
30. When looking up users with identical names, we should be able to see distinguishing data from Active Directory (title, location, etc.)
31. System should support configurable locations that can be part of a ticket.
    1. Reporting should report on location.
32. System should have ticket agent collision detection.
33. Allow tickets to be emailed by agent.
34. System should track a parts inventory with pricing information.
    1. Parts should be able to be added to tickets and provide a cost on the ticket.
35. System should allow for ticket escalation based on time.

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The Technology Quick Fix

After the marathon season of conferences and presentations, I have succumbed to an unexpected mid-summer illness.  Maybe this was a random occurrence or my body’s way of letting me know you have been pushing too hard too fast for a while.

All the presentations I have given and the conferences, meetings, and seminars I have attended speak to my need to learn and share with others, as well as the need for those of us in the technology world to try to get some feeling that we are somehow keeping up with the monumental shifts that technology is bringing to education and elsewhere.  I have learned a lot and then again I have learned that there are a host of great tools and technologies out there, and they are getting better every day.  But I have also never been so clearly a believer that, as these technologies improve, they will somehow transform an under-performing school or teacher into the best of their breed. 

The more I see great presentations on new technologies, systems, and devices, the more I worry that these are often bought as a quick fix for low performance, bad leadership, or other struggles that school systems and teachers face.

Yes many of these incredible technologies have great promise – but as school IT leaders we must always be willing to have some tough conversations with those we work with about making sure that these technologies are brought in not as a fix for bad teaching or leadership, but as a way to make great teachers and even better teacher.  This is really that only way that these technologies can really help schools excel in the long term.

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Sweat the Small Stuff

Photo by See-Ming Lee http://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/3921035528/

I read a very interesting blog post on Linked In by Jon Steinberg.  In his post, he acknowledges that while there is value and a time and place for long term strategic thinking, the real work gets done when we focus on the details at hand.  As he states, “The real work gets done day in day out operating a little bit better.”

In K-12 technology, many districts spend a lot of time devote to creating a technology plan, often driven by the necessity of having one for receiving priority two eRate funds.  These plans can add a lot of value to our organizations, but at the end of the day they can be meaningless if we cannot get our day to day activities right.  Better yet we should always be focused on ways to improve what we do, and how our organizations operate.   If we can’t master the details of the here and now, how are we going to achieve the long term goals in our technology plans?

Too often, I see colleagues, business partners, and other schools miss little details or worse yet, not even worry about the details. Not worrying about the details can make you and your organization look inept and worse yet, can cause projects to miserably fail.  All of this cascades and eventually destroys credibility and ability to execute goals and plans.

In our IT world, with tens of systems being more interdependent each day and thousands of staff, students, and parents relying on us, the details are becoming more important than they ever have been.  Missing a step, forgetting a small piece or data, or misunderstanding system interdependencies can all lead to huge problems, and slow down projects, kill systems, and ultimately put a bad light on IT.

So there may be good reason why we wake up at 3am sweating the small stuff; that small remembered detail can mean the difference between success and failure.

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What? My iPad can do more than email and Web? iPad productivity apps (cross post with SchoolCIO)

There is one device that follows me around all the time at work, when going to meetings, while traveling—and it also goes home with me each night. It is my iPad. It is my ultimate productivity tool. I see many tech directors, CIOs, principals, and superintendents carrying theirs around as well. But what often surprises me is how many leaders just use their iPad for email and Web browsing, not exploring many of the fantastic iPad productivity apps that really can make this device shine. Many great iPad productivity apps can help leaders become more organized and effective.

 

So I want to share many of the apps that I find very useful below in my productivity app list. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it ought to really help you get a great start on using your iPad for more than email and Web browsing.

 

Note: All prices are accurate as of 10/28/2012.

  

Stock iPad Apps
Safari	Web Browser	Included with iPad
Contacts	Syncs with Exchange (Outlook) and Google	Included with iPad
Email	Syncs with Exchange (Outlook) and Google	Included with iPad
Calendar	Syncs with Exchange (Outlook) and Google	Included with iPad
Camera	Takes pictures and video.	Included with iPad
Photos	Access, email, and share your photos.	Included with iPad
FaceTime	Real time video conference with other iOS users.	Included with iPad

Notetaking Apps
Evernote	The e-filing note cabinet of choice – use as your memory.  Stores emails, text notes & audio.  Syncs across many devices and web.  You can easily share notes.  Includes a great search feature!	Free
Notability	Any easy to use simple text, written, audio and photo note app – email or PDF notes.	$0.99
GoodReader	PDF annotation and reader software – a bit complex but very powerful, with Google Drive and Box support amongst many others.	$4.99
PDF Expert	Simple PDF annotation with WiFi transfer and Box support.	$9.99
Audio Memos Free	Voice recorder, email up to 3mb files, WiFi download.	Free
Dragon Dictation	Voice to text transcriptions.	Free

Office Apps
Pages, Numbers, and Keynote	Apple’s GREAT office apps for Word Processing, spreadsheet, and presentations.  These are the apps to use if using iPad for content creation.	$9.99 each
QuickOffice Pro HD	All in one office suite – edits Microsoft Office docs and syncs with Box.net and WiFi file transfer. This more affordable suite is geared towards just editing.	$19.99
CloudOn	Cloud-Based MS Office with Box synchronization	Free
Digits Calculator	Great desktop calc with editable, comment-able eTape that can be emailed.	$1.99
Dictionary.com	Great dictionary and thesaurus.	Free

Book  Apps
iBooks, Nook & Kindle	eBooks from the big three.	Free

News Apps
Pulse	Incredible customizable news aggregator.	Free
FlipBoard	Another great customizable news aggregator.	Free
News360	Great news aggregator with excellent social media integration.	Free

Other Useful Apps
Box	Box is a great secure corporate level file sharing service. Use this app to synchronize files to the cloud and web browser.  Can sync files between computer and iPad.	Free
Twitter	Great social networking tool to expand your PLN.	Free
iThoughtsHD	Easy mind mapping with Image & PDF export, Box, and WiFi sync.	$9.99
Skitch	Simple annotation app – take a photo and mark up ideas and notes (syncs to Evernote).	Free
Explain Everything	Annotate and narrate on screen then export video – great way to narrate presentations then share.	$2.99
VDI and Remote Desktop Clients (I use Citrix)	There are many virtual desktop clients that you can often use to access work from remote locations or which you can use at work to get a full Windows desktop on your iPad.	Vary

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