Member Profile: DataBus Chats With Mark Heydon

By Lisa Kopochinski, DataBus Editor

What are your responsibilities as tech advisor at Shoreline Unified School District in Marin and Sonoma Counties and as a Certified Chief Technology Officer as a member of the CTO Mentor Program Class of 2008?

I’ve been pulled back into the classroom these last two years, though I’m now “advising” faculty, administration, and our new tech support people — mostly anything that involves a keyboard rather than a mic. The day-to-day is no longer my bailiwick. I do planning, research, reports, training— “steering,” I guess you could call it.

How long have you been in the computer industry?

Memory 1: In 1979, with MasterCharge when I was a tech writer and hung out with the guys-only computer room in San Francisco—a very sci fi-looking enclave in the center of the building. All tapes and disks (the disks the size of old LPs (500k?)). CRTs were six-inch, monochromatic dragonheads with diagonal screens. Everything was command line.

Memory 2: 1985, found a new Mac in my dad’s office and accidentally wiped out his entire 500-person mailing list. Didn’t know how to recover it. Slid guiltily out the door.

Memory 3: Shortly after that, I walked into the local community college library where someone had set up a computer that connected with CERN in Switzerland. It had a blue background and teased users with “[image]” imbedded every so often in the text lines. It didn’t say I couldn’t touch it.

Memory 4: Set up and brought down token ring system in school’s business ed department.  Back then things were so fickle, if you didn’t tell anyone what you’d done, everyone blamed the equipment. Nonetheless, learned difference between tech staff and faculty: tenure.

What do you like most about the industry?

The people. Always the people. Especially the one so busy at the local, hands-on level. They have the best stories. Technology is the most human-centered phenomenon we have. We made it. It’s all about us. We don’t have to share it with a tree. The pure-human aspect makes technology rich with our hopes, dreams and possibilities.

When did you join CETPA and why?

It’s been so long…I think it was partially desperation. This is a rural school district and I wanted a place to go for support, to find people who spoke “education” rather than straight industry, people who combined a fascination with technology with a fascination with the mind of our students.

Where does CETPA need to grow?

The rural north, south and east. Small districts are so often isolated and don’t have the opportunity to share in CETPA because of distance and/or finances. I salute CETPA’s efforts to establish small, local interest groups. Relations with CUE are promising from the technician-teacher standpoint. Communications between these alien universes are difficult. What do we/they want? How can our mutual understanding be improved?

What is the greatest challenge facing the industry and how can it be overcome?

Ubiquitous high-speed access. Taking a look at the coverage maps of the long distance carriers shows a lot of white space, especially in rural areas. Solution?  Serious, engaged leadership that sees technology’s value along with our own leadership that is able to demonstrate technology’s value. Both start in the classroom with our working with teachers and administrators–challenging as well as listening to their needs.

What do you like to do in your limited spare time?

I read gobs of everything. And write.  Then I go out and make futile and often comical attempts at skiing, soccer, biking and playing in the stock market.

About the Author

Lisa Kopochinski has been the editor of DataBus magazine for more than 10 years. She can be reached at 916-481-0265 or at lisakop@sbcglobal.net.

Dreaming Your Dream School: Personalized Learning Takes Flight

By Dennis Deets

Suppose you are a 9^th grader. Horror of horrors. You wake up at 9:30am. You are a growing teen and need a lot of sleep. You eat and log into school. You see you have some options. Among your options, you can work on a science project that you and some friends are working on at the local animal shelter. You are developing skills addressed in the 9^th grade Natural Selection and Adaptations section of the Next Generation Science Standards. You mark on a Google form that you would like to meet with your team any time after 1:00pm at the shelter. You also see that your 11^th grade CCSS math assignment includes finding the mass and density of the local mountain that is used by everyone as a dog park.  But really, this is an ancillary math project designed to address some of the content standards. Your real math work involves mastering the Standards for Mathematical practice through your work in the program languages C++ and Python.

When working with your counselor, you have determined that by focusing on game design, you could demonstrate mastery of a number of the state-expected standards while pursuing something that interested you now.  And because your parents want you to think about your future, your solution is to tell them that you are going to make a fortune designing computer games.

Of course they want you to be a doctor.  Fortunately the counselor explained that by pursuing game design now, you would learn all of the things you need to get into college where later you might decide to pursue biology and pre-med. Maybe, but more likely a life at Blizzard is the place for you. You notice that your English teacher has left you a note that you need to finish your language conventions proficiency assessment. (She uses the word assessment; she means test)  So you plan. You need help with that exam. Infinitives and gerunds are still baffling. You have done all of the online tutorials and you still don’t really get it.  Finally, you have swim practice with the club team at 5:00pm.

You figure you can head in to school and meet with one of the peer tutors for help before the grammar test. You volunteer as a math tutor on Thursdays from 10am to noon as part of your community service hours, so you might as well take advantage of someone who knows the grammar stuff.  You see that the three others on your science team have also completed the Google form.  You have shared time at the animal shelter from 1:30 to 4pm. You send to your advising teacher your schedule for the day:

• 10:30am to 11:30am: work with grammar tutor at school. (You will take the test if the tutor thinks you are ready for it.)
• 11:30am to 1:00pm: hike up Mt Pembroke and collect measurements. (Your math teacher is all about recording and discussing measurement error.)
• 1:30pm to 4:00pm: work at the animal shelter.

After dinner and swim practice, you will work on my medieval literature and gaming blog.  And, oh ya, you will turn in your C++ Pong program to your tutor next Monday.

Ten minutes later, you get a text stating that your day has been approved and that your language assessment needs to be passed before Friday. This is your teacher’s code for saying you may need to spend more time with the grammar tutor and less time on Mt. Pembroke.

You text your friends to see if any of them want to do the math field work with you. You are using your blog in partial demonstration of the CCSS 9^th grade Writing and Speaking & Listening ELA standards.

Everyone is required to take one class on the old-fashioned semester system. (Some things never die.)  This allows teachers to organize group projects. Your course this year is science. In all of your other classes, you can either join the semester class with your peers or you can take the course at your own pace. You are responsible for finishing all of the 9^th grade content by the end of 9^th grade.  (There are exceptions to this, but schools are still not comfortable saying that it takes some people longer to learn things than others.)  But you can work ahead if you like. If you are struggling in areas, there are lots of support opportunities in place to help you learn skills and master concepts. The school has figured out, using computer adaptive testing and lots of portfolio options, how to determine whether or not you are competent at certain skills like analyzing arguments and modeling linear growth.  So, you do not need to demonstrate skills over and over again in each of your classes.

Furthermore, you will be able to demonstrate some subject area standards, for example, those pertaining to European history, through activities like your blog on medieval literature and gaming. Finally, all students are allowed to petition out of courses in which they have already mastered the content.  You have petitioned out of 9^th and 10^th grade math and are now working on Math 3. Next year you will be able to start on calculus or statistics and you will be able to work on college math courses by the time you are in 11^th grade. (By then you hope to have an internship with a game design company, but you are not really sharing that plan with your parents yet.)

Riverside Unified School District is a ways away from making this personalized learning high school a reality. But we are a lot closer than we were a year or two ago. Many sites in RUSD have begun implementing one or more aspects of personalized learning into their educational program. There are as many different definitions of Personalized Learning as there are persons learning.  But the main tenants include:

• Students actively planning their own learning experiences (often termed ‘agency’).
• Students having flexibility to pursue individual academic and career interests.
• Students learning and progressing through content at their own pace – often in blended learning environments.
• Student progression based on competency (as opposed to seat time).
• Students being supported by the community at large (and not just the school site).

This past fall, RUSD was awarded a planning grant to submit a Personalized Learning proposal.  It is our hope that we can secure the next round of grants providing funding through 2025 to fully implement their vision of a personalized learning school.

About the Author:

Dennis Deets is the Director of the Educational Options Center in the Riverside Unified School District, which includes the Riverside Virtual School. Before moving to the EOC last month, he was the Statewide CTAP Chair. He has worked in the education field for the past 28 years. Dennis worked as a high school principal and high school math teacher.  When not working on online education, Dennis spends his time reading, swimming and walking his dogs.  He can be reached at dennisdeets@gmail.com.

3D Printing and Global Innovation

By Henry Danielson

Last month I was at a superintendents’ symposium in Monterey and was privileged to see Juan Enriquez, who inspired me to write this article. Enriquez discussed 3D printing and the importance of educators needs to prepare students for upcoming technology. 3D printers are an important global innovation. Juan Enriquez states that 3D printing prototypes “are important because they make things that are hard for humans to build, and they decentralize manufacturing and prototyping, bringing in creativity and design from even the edges of the network.”

3D printers are changing this model; now we don’t need a large manufacturing plant to set up and create a prototype. I was blown away by this statement and observation. In Japan, instead of Internet cafes, people are exchanging ideas and prototypes thru 3D printers. I have attended local and large-scale MakerFaire in California and this is something we need to promote. Our students need to be introduced to free applications like NetLogo, which is a multi-agent programmable modeling environment. It is used by tens of thousands of students, teachers and researchers worldwide. I hope this opens some eyes up to the potential of 3D printers and teaching our students about 3D modeling.

For instance, Richard A. D’Aveni told the Harvard Business Review the following: “To anyone who hasn’t seen it demonstrated, 3-D printing sounds futuristic — like the meals that materialized in the Jetsons’ oven at the touch of a keypad. But the technology is quite straightforward. It is a small evolutionary step from spraying toner on paper to putting down layers of something more substantial (such as plastic resin) until the layers add up to an object. And yet, by enabling a machine to produce objects of any shape, on the spot and as needed, 3-D printing really is ushering in a new era.

“As applications of the technology expand and prices drop, the first big implication is that more goods will be manufactured at or close to their point of purchase or consumption. This might even mean household-level production of some things. (You’ll pay for raw materials and the IP—the software files for any designs you can’t find free on the web.) Short of that, many goods that have relied on the scale efficiencies of large, centralized plants will be produced locally.”

What it can do for education? Using this prototyping technology, students will be able to produce realistic 3D mini-models. It enhances hands-on learning and learning by doing—great for computer science, engineering, architecture, and multi-media arts students. My personal opinion is that this technology will engage students, teachers and the community and provide real world applications that excite and innovate for the future.

I hope this opens some eyes up to the potential of 3D printers and teaching our students about 3D modeling.

About the Author

Henry Danielson is the director of technology at Coast Unified School District, a CTO Mentor, and a lecturer at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo.

REFERENCES:

NetLogo

http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/

Juan Enriquez Ted Talk

http://goo.gl/aP04RS

Large Scale in San Mateo

http://makerfaire.com/

Local Mini MakerFaire

http://slominimakerfaire.com/

3D Printing “best of”

http://makezine.com/volume/guide-to-3d-printing-2014/

Member Profile: DataBus Chats with Sue Gott

By Lisa Kopochinski, DataBus Editor

What are your responsibilities as the director of assessment and technology for Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District?

On the technology side of the job I serve the staff and students of the district by ensuring that my team keeps all of the existing technology in the classrooms, labs and offices humming along and by planning for the district’s future technology needs. The district’s talented tech team and I covered ed tech and IT matters, so we work together to enhance the basic tech infrastructure as well as provide  technical support and professional learning opportunities for the kindergarten through 12^th grade teachers in Yucaipa-Calimesa JUSD. Another key focus of mine is student data management. As the CALPADS coordinator for the district, I collaborate with data stewards from the school sites and various departments throughout the district to standardize the format of our student information system data, review and analyze snap shots of the data, and then continually work to correct anomalies so the data accurately represents the students’ demographics and course enrollment information.

I also serve as the district coordinator for standardized testing in the district. In that capacity, I train site level coordinators to manage the exams and I oversee the ordering, processing, quality reviews and dissemination of the results to parents/students, school board and school staff members. I am fortunate to have the assistance of a highly efficient testing technician who is my partner for all testing matters, so I can focus most of my time and effort on enhancing the use of technology within our schools and on the management of student data.

I consider myself fortunate to be the administrator who oversees technology, assessment and CALPADS, because they are all so intertwined when it comes to computer-based testing. Years ago, when the position was created, technology and assessment seemed to live in two separate worlds in education, but with Smarter Balanced testing heading our way in 2015, all of my responsibilities are aligning nicely so I can coordinate easily with the curriculum and instruction leaders to prepare for the implementation of Common Core Standards and the use computer-based testing in a focused, streamlined manner.

How long have you been in the computer industry?

I started teaching in this district in 1983 and I’ve been using technology in education since day one of my career. That was back when Apple was finishing up the final rounds of donating computers for classrooms across the nation and Yucaipa was getting their first Apple IIe systems. I began working as a district administrator around 2000. At that time, I served as the public information officer, grant writer and data analyst, and was given responsibilities tied to the data quality of our student information system. I officially moved into IT and ed tech leadership by 2006, when this district’s first technology department was formed and I was assigned as the director.

 What do you like most about the industry?

I have always loved being a part of K-12 public education, regardless of whether I’ve served as a classroom teacher or in a support role, such as the one I am in now, as a director.  I am invigorated every day by the opportunities and puzzles that are present in educational technology. I find it exciting and motivating to work in such a fast-paced field and to work with my tech team and peers to find solutions when difficult challenges pop up. Our job is to keep up with the changes that are occurring, serve as technology leaders, provide vision, support and training for staff and to manage technology in our districts so that students have the tools they need to graduate and be continuous learners.

When did you join CETPA and why?

I’ve found educational technology leaders to be among the most friendly and supportive group of people I’ve ever encountered. When I attended my first CETPA conference in Palm Springs, back in 1996, several members introduced themselves to me and invited me to their bi-monthly, informal peer meetings that they held at various locations in Southern California.

Communication and collaboration at those meetings helped me learn the breadth of my new job responsibilities and I found the attendees were all keen to assist each other in any way possible.   It felt like a wonderful group of skilled mentors guiding each other toward success. Over time, the group grew and, in 2011, we became the first official regional chapter of CETPA. I’m no longer one of the newbies in the room, but I still never fail to learn something new at our meetings that can be put to use right away back home in Yucaipa to enhance the services my team and I provide for our district’s employees and students.

What are your responsibilities as chair of the CETPA Inland Area Technology Group (CIATG)? What do you hope to accomplish?

Fortunately, this group almost runs itself, so the responsibilities of the chair are mostly to keep everyone informed and stay organized. I plan the logistics of the meetings and send out reminders to keep everyone informed. CIATG maintains a listserv, so communication to and among members is a breeze. There are over 50 active members in the group and many of them generously offer to host the meetings in their district’s facilities, so that part is simple, too. A few months before each meeting, I gather input regarding proposed presentations from the vendors who’ve offered to host the Lunch and Learn portion of the meeting and I organize that info into a brief ballot/survey that gets added as a part of the registration form that I send out to members. As members register, they indicate which presentation best fits their current needs and I work with the “winning” vendor to set up the catering and presentation details so that everything is ready for the meeting.

Another section of the registration form asks members for questions they want to ask during the round-table portion of our meeting.  I gather that input, sort it according to common topics, and those topics become the main agenda items for the meeting.

One of the things that I feel helps keep members coming back throughout the years to CIATG events is that we are a very collegial group and we genuinely care about the success of each member. Each of the chairs before me modeled that in their terms of leadership so my main goal is to keep that up. We also add kindness and a touch of humor in all that we do at our meetings, so it is an enjoyable way to spend a Friday together as we share information that will make our jobs easier when we return to them a few hours later. I think that combination can’t be beat.

Where does CETPA need to grow?

We’ve already started to expand our meetings to reach to higher education but I think we can enhance that even more. I would like to see IT and ET (ed tech) leaders from community colleges and universities finding value in our organization so we can collaborate with them, as well as our peers in Pre-K- 12 public and charter school agencies.

I love that there are so many regional groups forming up and down the state of California.   These groups provide a forum for educational technology professionals to meet and learn from each other all year long. The more of these we can add in the coming years, the more we can be of service to each and every CETPA member, regardless of where their school district is located.

What is the greatest challenge facing the industry and how can it be overcome?

The pace of change in technology is our greatest challenge. Close second and third runners up, in my opinion, are funding issues and the priority level that technology has in our schools.

The way I see it, the pace of change can’t really be “overcome,” but we can work to move to the use of the cloud for many applications so that the pace isn’t a challenge that works against us, but for us.

The limits of tight funding in public education in California combine with that pace of change and can take one’s breath away some days, but I see signs that school funding in our state is slowly starting to improve after years of troubles, so maybe we’ve overcome that issue just by living through it.

The use of technology is integrated throughout all grades and subjects of the Common Core State Standards so technology is now being viewed as essential rather than “elective” in our classrooms. With that, priorities are shifting to make room for ed tech enhancements such as additional professional learning opportunities for teachers and educational leaders on our campuses and budget allocations for improved infrastructure, devices, peripherals and instructional materials to help ensure that educators have the tools they need to teach.

What do you like to do in your limited spare time?

My family and I enjoy spending time together, especially where there is a beach or a Disney Park, so we head to Hawaii or Florida whenever we get the chance to get away and we aim for Anaheim or a local beach for day trips.

About the Author

Lisa Kopochinski has been the editor of DataBus magazine for more than 10 years. She can be reached at 916-481-0265 or at lisakop@sbcglobal.net.

The Cloud is the New Local Network

By Rolland Kornblau

Lately it seems that everything is moving to the cloud. California has been through a few tough years of cutbacks which led to finding alternative resources for our technology networks.  Moving services to the cloud seems to be the trend for saving money and building stability.  Services such as mail, web, productivity, phone, wireless controllers and backup can be less expensive and more reliable when not hosted locally. Some services are even offered free of charge to education.  Additionally, technology departments save space, cooling and electricity without housing the hardware onsite.  Dare I mention the disaster recovery benefits?

I started my cloud experience with our website a few years ago. The hardware, software and webmaster hours, became too costly to sustain in financially challenging times. Hosting the website locally also required software licensed per webmaster for configuration, making changes more expensive. Once we moved to the cloud, we eliminated the webmaster, the web browser became the interface and we could make changes from any computer without any software installed. Because the interface was a browser, training necessary was reeducated when updates were needed.  School Loop was chosen as they offer free hosting, a browser interface with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and free support. This deal made sustainable financial sense.

A year ago, when my local email server was in need of a renewal license, I researched Google’s free mail offering for education. Some larger districts had already moved in that direction, so after a full review and vetting to stakeholders, I jumped on board. Google has been rock solid ever since.  Even with the last short outage, we have experienced about 99.9 percent uptime. An added benefit to running Google mail in the cloud is not having to run an extra SPAM filter.  With past onsite servers, the amount of SPAM received necessitated an extra appliance just to deal with junk mail. A compromised account locally also spewed out enough SPAM that our entire domain was blocked from sending mail at one point. Email is so ubiquitous today that it is hard to explain to people why their email is not being sent or received. In addition to the mail services, Google also offers many other collaboration tools. These services allow our district to run mail, productivity and collaboration applications all without cost.  Google was a good fit for our district, but Microsoft also has a suite of tools offering a competitive product with Office 365.

Over the summer, we upgraded our telephone system to a cloud hosted VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) solution through JIVE Communications. Since purely hosted VOIP solutions fall under Erate Priority 1, we continued to save funds.  JIVE runs their own connection to phone Telco, so we were able to disconnect our PRI lines from Verizon, increasing our savings.  The VOIP phones require POE (Power Over Ethernet) to operate, but our network switches met that requirement. We simply plugged in our preconfigured Polycom telephones with a network cable, they connected to JIVE and we started calling. There was a bit more backend setup with routers and porting our telephone numbers over from Verizon, but that didn’t get in the way.  Our voicemails now arrive through our email and changes are made through a web portal from any location. If power goes out, we have battery backup to hold the lines for about 45 minutes, but even if the outage is longer and the backup fails, the voicemail messages still come through our email. We can even post a global notification voicemail that we are experiencing difficulties to make callers aware of the issue. All of this without a server onsite.

As the need to offer and manage additional wireless services increases, the trend began to move wireless controllers to the cloud. The cloud-managed wireless access points just plug into your network, find their controllers on the Internet and download their configurations. Meraki, Aruba, and Aerohive — to name a few — all offer this type of solution. Some of these even allow location-based maps of the access points and users connected. I will most likely head down this road when my controllers need to be upgraded or replaced.  The only drawback for me is that the access points must be from the same vendor as the controller and I am presently vested in HP hardware. On the hardware side, it is very difficult to beat lifetime warranty for the HP switches, but the wireless support is another factor. I could also move from one controller per school to a cloud managed wireless controller that can be managed from anywhere.

Last, but not least, is backup for those computers and servers that are located onsite. The main reason for backup is disaster recovery, either locally or remotely so it makes sense to backup offsite if possible. At WCSD, we circumvent some of this need by backing up to a different site, but backing up to the cloud can be safer. Offerings made by Crashplan Pro, Drive HQ and Carbonite have backup solutions priced by the size of space needed.  Most backups can be set to automatic, just like your local backups. For speed and space concerns, many also have the same features offered in an appliance that sits locally on your network, or that can be moved to a physically different location with access to your network. Such a configuration would essentially be a Hybrid Cloud as some hardware would remain on your network in physical form.

Some other cloud services that are also becoming readily available are file sharing, software products and even the entire computer operating system like Chrome OS. The hardware may no longer sit on site, but do not think for a moment that having these services hosted will entirely eliminate your onsite technology department— if anything—it will be required to grow.  Technology itself can be magic when it works, but like air or lack there of, when it doesn’t.  A department is still needed onsite to make it all work. With SBAC and Common Core having technology in the root of the equation, it is even more important to have a solid foundation and crew to support all of this cloud computing network. Your technology department is the backbone of the system that is now required in education and the sky is the limit.

About the Author

Rolland Kornblau is the Director of Technology for the Whittier City School District in Whittier, California. He has been in Educational Technology for over 15 years and holds an MPA. He is a CCTO, ACSA and TechSETS Advisory Committee member.  A proud founding member of the Whittier Area Technology Leaders (WATL), he can be reached at rolland@whittiercity.net.