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funding
AdvocacyCTO/CIOFundingProfessional Learning

Technology Funding Increased in ESSA Budget

by Jennifer Bergland
written by Jennifer Bergland

Great news! On March 22, 2018, President Trump signed the 2018 Omnibus Appropriations bill which included $1.1 billion for the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants which are outlined in Title IV, part A of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Compared to the 2017 budget, this is an increase of $700 million. Congress also included $2.1 billion in Title II, Part A which districts can use for professional development for their teachers, including training on the effective use of technology through TCEA and other providers. Advocates feel this is a huge win because the president’s original budget cut both Title IV, Part A and Title II, Part A completely out of the budget

Title IV, Part A Grant Funding

Title IV, Part A grants are called block grants because states and districts do not have to compete for the funds. They have to turn in an application, but all districts who comply with the regulations will receive the funding. Districts do not apply directly to the Department of Education. The funding flows to the states and they then disburse the funds to the individual districts. ESSA allows the state agency to keep five percent of their state’s allocation for state initiatives related to the goals of the program.

Title IV, Part A grants are to be used to provide programs in three prescribed areas. Districts are required to spend 20% of their funds on initiatives that will provide well-rounded educational opportunities and 20% of their funds on efforts to ensure that their students are safe and healthy. Districts must also use part of their Title IV funds on activities to support the effective use of technology. In fact, if they so choose, they can spend up to 60% of their funding on these types of activities. However, there is a provision that limits a district to spend only 15% of their funding for the purchase of technology infrastructure. This includes software applications and technology devices.

 

This means that districts will have more money next year to send their staff to outstanding technology learning events such as the Elementary Technology Conference, the Innovative Learning Strategies Conference, and the 2019 TCEA Convention & Exposition. Or use those same funds to bring in TCEA professional development providers to your district for a customized learning experience for your staff.

Allowable Expenditures 

ESSA

  • Provide educators with professional learning tools, devices, content, and resources to:
    • Personalize learning to improve student academic achievement;
    • Discover, adapt, and share relevant high-quality educational resources;
    • Use technology effectively in the classroom, including by administering computer-based assessments and blended learning strategies; and
    • Implement and support school- and district-wide approaches for using technology to inform instruction, support teacher collaboration, and personalize learning.
  • Build technological capacity and infrastructure, which may include:
    • Procuring content and ensuring content quality; and
    • Purchasing devices, equipment, and software applications in order to address readiness shortfalls.
  • Develop or use effective or innovative strategies for the delivery of specialized or rigorous academic courses and curricula through the use of technology, including digital learning technologies and assistive technology.
  • Carry out blended learning projects, which may include:
    • Planning activities which include:
      • The development of new instructional models (including blended learning technology software and platforms),
      • The purchase of digital instructional resources,
      • Initial professional development activities, and
      • One-time information technology purchases.
    • Ongoing professional development for teachers, principals, other school leaders, or other personnel involved in the project that is designed to support the implementation and academic success of the project.
  • Provide professional development in the use of technology (which may be provided through partnerships with outside organizations) to enable teachers and instructional leaders to increase student achievement in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including computer science.
  • Provide students in rural, remote, and underserved areas with the resources to take advantage of high-quality digital learning experiences, digital resources, and access to online courses taught by effective educators.

This is great news for school districts. The types of projects that can be accomplished with these funds will be very beneficial to students. I encourage you to review the provisions of Title IV, Part A so that you can engage in conversations with other instructional leaders at your district to determine how these funds can be leveraged to support the effective use of technology.  Look for ways you can provide transformative professional development that equip teachers to use digital technology in a blended learning classroom. (TCEA can help with this!)

Resources for ESSA

Source: Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash

 

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collaborative learning
CTO/CIOLeadershipProfessional Learning

Collaborative Learning at the TEC-SIG Spring Meeting

by Joe Vasquez
written by Joe Vasquez

Are you an education technology leader who is often pulled in hundreds of directions as you deal with all the different school technologies and applications? Whether you’re launching a new security system, writing a technology plan that work cohesively with curriculum, or setting up new processes for the latest technology devices for staff and students, the TEC-SIG Spring Meeting has something for you. It offers collaborative learning at its best.

What Is TEC-SIG?

TEC-SIG is a Special Interest Group in TCEA dedicated to the critical work being done by CTOs, technology directors, and technology coordinators in schools. Focused on top-level leadership problems and solutions, the group offers a safe, informed place for those involved in making decisions about technology use to discuss new trends, best practices, and technology management. TEC-SIG has three face-to-face meetings a year and also provides an active listserv where tech leaders share ideas and collaborate to solve problems.

collaborative learning

The Spring Meeting

Join us on April 19-20 at the TCEA Headquarters in Austin, TX, for a conference designed specifically to support educational technology leadership, integration, and best practices while encouraging networking with other dedicated professionals. The sessions will focus on CTO topics, professional development, infrastructure planning, instruction, and more. Here are just a few of the sessions being offered:

  • Adventures in a Small Texas School 1:1 Program
  • Making Google Work for You – A Successful Online Testing Experience
  • Security (Cameras, Door Locks, and Gates) Best Practices
  • Strategic Innovation: Planning for Their Futures
  • Take Digital Learning Journeys to the Next Dimension! Creating Virtual Reality Experiences

For a full conference schedule, click here.

Register Today for Collaborative Learning!

Connect with other passionate and like-minded educators that can assist you with your technology initiatives, help answer important questions, share their expertise, and just chat about what’s happening in their lives. Don’t miss the opportunity to learn in an interactive environment, explore new technology trends, and expand your network while engaging in discussion at the TEC-SIG Spring Meeting.

Registration is now open, so make your plans to attend today!

 

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E-rate
AdvocacyCTO/CIOFunding

E-rate: Building on 20 Years of Progress

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Since 1998, the E-rate program has provided subsidies to schools across the nation to support the cost of telecommunications and Internet services. At the core of this universal service funding program is the belief that all students in all locations throughout the country deserve equal educational opportunities and the ability to study, work, and thrive in our increasingly digital world. For 20 years, E-rate has made that belief an attainable, affordable goal for school districts across Texas.

E-rate

“E-rate plays a huge part in our budgeting for technology. It’s a critical program that allows us to be aggressive in our planning knowing that at least for bandwidth we’re going to be reimbursed. It makes our budgeting possible, and we know that as bandwidth needs grow it’s going to be economically sustainable. We may invest more money upfront into our bandwidth, but knowing that the end user experience is boundless and allows them to do much more is worth it – we’re putting [the user] first.” – Chris Cummings, Director of Information Technology, Klein Independent School District

The Classroom Connectivity Initiative, a partnership between the Office of Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Education Agency (TEA), and national non-profit EducationSuperHighway, recognizes that access to high-speed Internet is non-negotiable for student success. It addresses three key components: fiber, bandwidth, and WiFi.

E-rate

In addition to those components, the initiative is tackling connectivity challenges in Texas by helping districts access state matching funds. Designed to support schools with the cost of getting scalable infrastructure to their front door, these funds could help solve a major issue schools face in connecting to high-speed Internet. This is all possible because the Second E-rate Modernization Order stated that if a state created a fund to support schools with the cost of special construction, the E-rate program would contribute an additional 10%, on top of a school’s calculated discount to match the state’s contribution.

Here’s an example of how a school district may take advantage of the state matching fund:

  • School district applies for 80% E-rate discount.
  • Texas state matching fund contributes 10%.
  • E-rate state matching provision contributes additional 10%.
  • 100% of special construction costs are covered for the school district.

E-rateSchool districts across the state can benefit from the funding, and a majority of those eligible are in rural areas. We’re continuing to work with schools to make sure they understand how to use the funding to improve Internet access for their students.

 

Here’s what we are hearing so far:

“Fast Internet speeds are a crucial part of delivering high-quality digital learning to our classrooms, and scalable fiber optic-based Internet connectivity has been an elusive goal for some time now in our district. With the added construction cost of being a rural district, we would always struggle to move forward. While we are still in the middle of the approval process, the availability of the Texas state matching funds this year gave us the momentum to begin the E-rate and state match application process to ensure we provide the best opportunity for our students for years to come.” – Billy Polasek, Technology Director, Stockdale Independent School District

The state match is only available for E-rate funding years 2017 and 2018. The Form 471 Filing deadline is March 22, so it’s important to get started by visiting TEA’s Classroom Connectivity Initiative website.

As the end of the E-rate cycle approaches, additional tools are available for school districts that already have scalable infrastructure. School leaders can find their district on Compare & Connect K-12, EducationSuperHighway’s free tool designed to compare broadband speeds and pricing to neighboring districts to power negotiations this year.  More details on eligibility can be found on the Classroom Connectivity State Match FAQ. For questions, email classroomconnectivity@tea.texas.gov.

Guest authors: Kai Addy and Alyssa Cubello, EducationSuperHighway

Photo Credit: iPhone and Backpack by Josh Felise on Unsplash; Photo of Governor Abbott taken by ESH.

 

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interoperability
CTO/CIOLeadershipTechnical SupportUncategorized

EdTech Interoperability and Why It Matters to K-12 Schools

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

The use of disparate software products can be a way of life for many K-12 schools and districts. Teachers use anywhere from five to 10 software products – or more – from a gradebook and LMS to products for special education and assessment. Principals and administrators likely use one product to maintain their overall student data information and others still for cafeteria management, transportation, and automated calling.

With all of these separate products made by different companies, education technology interoperability — how well software products communicate, or speak, with each other — can be a lost cause. Users pay the price through wasted time entering or recovering passwords, duplication of data from a lack of communication between products, limited productivity, and weakened educational opportunities for students.

The Benefits of Interoperability

Interoperability within schools and districts is essential for efficiency in powering operations and in maximizing technical ROI. According to the U.S. Department of Education, interoperability between digital systems “has been a design goal for many system architectures and standards groups for decades… The benefits of interoperability are tremendous. It can permit schools and teachers to better exchange data with each other about students who move from one place to another.”

Other benefits schools and districts can realize through interoperability of educational technology products include:

  • Saving money by reducing operational costs. Systems that work together reduce the cost of building and supporting a diverse infrastructure.
  • Saving time and preventing costly errors. Eliminating multiple sign-ons, lost or forgotten passwords, and duplication of data entry improves efficiency and leads to more accurate data.
  • Enabling “best-of-class” solutions. When systems integrate seamlessly, schools and districts can choose the right solutions for their specific needs to enhance student outcomes.
  • Maximizing existing investments. Investing in tools that can integrate enables you to leverage the tools you have already purchased.
  • Improving student data communication. Schools and teachers can better exchange student information accurately.

What to Look for in Educational Software to Maximize Interoperability 

  1. Compliant and Certified
    Products should be Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF®) compliant and SIF® certified; these designations ensure that applications can interact and share data seamlessly in real time, work cross-platform over modern technologies, allow automated reporting, offer single sign-on, and more.
  2. Flexibility and Scalability
    Make sure your student data is in a system that provides for flexibility and scalability. It should feature a standardized method for data exchange to enable timely access to important information across multiple systems.
  3. API Functional
    Products should offer their own REST (REpresentational State Transfer) Application Programming Interface (API) so that custom plug-ins created by licensed partners can be installed, and are controlled by, system administrators.

While using disparate tools may be commonplace in many organizations, K-12 schools and districts that focus on purchasing education tools that are interoperable with other software they are already using are future-proofing their technology. In the process, they can save staff money and time, improve efficiencies, and bolster capabilities for helping students succeed.

To Learn More

Find out how to eliminate traditional technology silos and empower teachers to manage the entire instructional process more efficiently with the award-winning PowerSchool Unified Classroom™. Uncover the hidden costs of disparate K-12 IT systems by downloading the white paper.

 

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better leader
CTO/CIOLeadership

Doing This One Thing Will Help Make You a Better Leader in 2018

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

With the new year already underway, you hopefully have had a chance to make a few meaningful changes to make life a little less hectic so that you can enjoy the moments with coworkers, friends, and family more. And, if you’ve started the new year without knowing exactly what goal you would like to consider to be a better leader for the new year, consider this one: be more specific. This really resonated with me while reading one of Shari Harley’s blog posts on being specific with feedback. The great thing is that this goal doesn’t add more tasks to your to-do list or require you to sit through a six-hour seminar. Let’s break it down.

Be Specific with Feedback

One of the main jobs you have as a leader is communicating with others, both of what you expect and in providing feedback. Here is where the goal of being more specific comes in to play and can make a big difference with your staff (and really, anyone you interact with). We are pretty good about communicating what we want, but tend to do less well when it comes to giving specific feedback or clarifying what we are saying thank you for. For example, instead of saying something like “Nice job, Bruce, on the PEIMS report to principals,” try making it more specific such as “Nice job, Bruce, on simplifying the PEIMS data and making it more meaningful for principals by breaking it up into the subgroups. That will help them understand the data better and make better decisions sooner.”

As you make your feedback more specific, you are affirming your employee of specific skills and/or thinking that you value and would like repeated. In doing so, it also helps you become more aware of the value your staff bring to the department in serving students. Another example of specific feedback examples could be instead of saying, “Great job on the trouble tickets, Carl,” try saying something like “I noticed the average time to resolve trouble tickets has dropped some. I’d like to hear about what you are doing differently that is making the positive impact.” This allows the employee to know that you recognize the improvement even if you aren’t aware of the details of what was done to bring it about…and that you are interested in learning more about what your employee does.

Be Specific When Saying Thank You

Being specific while saying “Thank you” can make your communication more meaningful. I was once talking with a friend when my boss passed by and said a generic “Thank you” to me. I grinned, nodded, and said “No problem.” My friend asked what I did to get the appreciation. Sadly, though, I wasn’t sure, so I just shrugged and said “Beats me.” There were several things that I think my boss could have been referencing. But without any specifics, I was left in that ambiguous moment of not knowing what exactly I did that was meaningful enough for my boss to make a point of saying thank you. Being more specific would have been helpful (and meaningful), especially if my boss had said something like “Thank you, Bruce, for following up with that principal for me on the use of that new app. She said you really helped her.” Similar to giving specific feedback as mentioned in the previous paragraph, being specific when we say thank you allows the other person to know specifically what you appreciated (and what you want to see more of).

As you seek to be more specific in your communication, let us know how it goes. We’d love for you to share of a time when someone shared specific feedback or a specific thank you with you. In the meantime, keep looking for opportunities to make a difference in the lives of those you lead.

 

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OER
CTO/CIOEducational TrendsFunding

Finding Quality OER Made Easy

by Jennifer Bergland
written by Jennifer Bergland

*Updated 01/02/2020: Added ClipSafari as a resource.

When a teacher, school, or district makes the decision to begin creating and using Open Educational Resources (OER), they must decide if they are going to create their own materials, use materials already created, or adapt existing OER to meet the instructional goals of their students.

My advice is to adapt existing materials. There are so many resources available now that it makes sense to curate existing resources and tweak or remix them as necessary. That’s the beauty of OER. Because the resources are tagged as open, they were designed to be adapted. You just need to be sure you know what Creative Commons license governs the use of the OER. Still confused about Creative Commons licenses?  See Miguel Guhlin’s blog post on the subject.

The question becomes then where to start. With all the resources available, you may be asking yourself “How do I find what I need?” Let’s see if I can help answer those questions. I’ve done a little curating myself to assist you in finding what you need. We’ll start by looking at using common search practices and wikis, then drill down to specific types of media, and end by looking at some specific sites for education.

General Searching for OER

  • Google: The most obvious place to start is to use the advanced Google search. Type in your search term; then, after you search for that term, click on Settings and select Advanced Search. 

OER

Then click on the Usage Rights menu and select the one that best fits  your need.

OER

  • CC Search: This sites allows you to search for items that have been tagged with a Creative Commons license over a variety of websites. But you need to note they don’t verify the results will actually be a Creative Commons licensed material. Also, it’s not a search engine, but rather they use various search engines. You select which search engine you want to use depending on the type of media you are looking for.

Wikis

Each of the Wikis included in the Wikimedia Foundation have a Creative Commons license for each wiki entry.

  • Wikibooks: This wiki has a collection of books that are openly licensed. I searched for U.S. History and found an online book of U.S. History. A district could take this content and add to and/or adapt the material to create a text on U.S. History. The wiki even includes photos that could be used. If you like it as it is, you can even create a PDF of the content.
  • Wikiversity: This is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning. You can find learning resources for the arts, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, science, and technology.
  • Wiktionary: This wiki is a dictionary that offers permission to use their definitions in your OER. It includes the etymology of the word and even different translations of the word in other languages.
  • Wikisource:This wiki has items that are in the public domain, including government documents.
  • Wikipedia: This is the original open wiki. Since it has a Creative Commons license, the information can be used in an OER as long as you follow the license.

OER Images 

There are several really good sites that you can use to find photos or clip art for your OER.

  • Pixabay: Pixabay photos are public domain, but they also have some images for sale.
  • Unsplash: This is one of my new favorite sites to find free photos. The photos are beautiful, easy to identify and collect, and you are given the right to use, remix, and adapt for both non-commercial and commercial purposes. You are not required to give attribution for the photos you use. However, they make it really easy to give attribution, so I usually try to do so.OER
  • ClipSafari: This is a repository of high quality clip art images. All the images are available as PNG and SVG files. They are all licensed under the CO0 license, which is a public domain license, giving you permission to use copy, modify, and distribute as you like.
  • Wikimedia Commons: This is part of the Wikimedia family.

OER Videos

  • Use the CC Search tool to find YouTube videos that have a Creative Commons License, or when you are searching for a video within YouTube, put a comma after the search term and type  ‘creativecommons’. For example: ‘abraham lincoln,creativecommons’.
  • Vimeo: To find Vimeo videos that have a Creative Commons license, insert a search term on the main page and click enter. Then click on the Filter menu located on the left side of the page and click on one of the types of CC licenses you would like to use.
  • Internet Archive : This site has free movies, films, and videos. I found a 1955 TV show based on the characters in Huck Finn and another video titled “Mark Twain’s Mississippi.”  It focuses on the literary character of Huckleberry Finn to examine the Mississippi River’s influence on Mark Twain and his writing.

OER Audio Music

Education-Related OER

  • OER Commons:  This is a digital library of open educational resources. It also has the Open Author tool that helps you create your own resources, lessons, or modules. The advanced search tool allows you to drill down to find what you need. There is also a section for groups to work together on resources. These groups can be public or private. This is a national site, so most of the materials will be aligned to the Common Core standards. Teachers in Texas will need to realign them to the Texas TEKS.
  • Amazon Inspire: All materials in the Amazon Inspire have a Creative Commons license. The materials are either downloadable or links to pages. This site is still in a beta format.
  • Open-Up Resources: This is a non-profit that has open instructional materials for both math and ELA. Check out this blog post on their math curriculum.
  • The Texas Education Agency has partnered with Rice University’s OpenStax and Study Edge to develop some math OER specifically created for Texas schools.
  • The Orange Grove: This is Florida’s OER Repository.
  • cK12.org The CK-12 Foundation offers OER that can be adapted to suit the needs of a school, district, or student. El Paso ISD is using the CK-12 materials to build their own OER.
  • Kahn Academy : These are short tutorial videos on a wide variety of subjects and topics. Pre-assessment questions are included, as well as practice quizzes a student can take as she views the videos. The videos are actually stored in YouTube, so they may be embedded in an LMS, a website, or can be used on the Kahn Academy site.

Hopefully you are getting the idea that there are many places you and your team can find good quality OER. I have just scratched the surface. If you are coming to the 2018 TCEA convention (and if you aren’t, why not??), join Tom Murray and myself as we delve more into the topic of OER. Our session is on Wednesday, from 12:00 to 1:30. I hope to see you there. I’ll post the session resources here after the convention.

We Create photo by “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash and Passion Led Us Here photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

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Windows malware warning
CTO/CIOCybersecurity

Meltdown and Spectre: Implications for Schools

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

If you have missed the recent news about two computer chip-based vulnerabilities, count yourself fortunate. These vulnerabilities affect every device sporting an Intel chip, which has serious implications for schools. The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities can open the door to hackers who can get apps or software onto your device of choice. That’s not as hard as you might think. Worse, computer chip maker Intel says they are releasing updates for all devices made in the last five years. Yes, that’s right, fellow technology directors. It’s time to discard those old five plus year old CPUs and upgrade. What a golden opportunity for comprehensive equipment replacement.

Affected Devices

Affected devices include probably every piece of technology, except maybe Raspberry Pi, you have in your schools or at home:

  • Desktop and laptop computers (Mac, Windows, GNU/Linux)
  • Servers featuring Mac, Windows, GNU/Linux operating systems, including virtual machines
  • Chromebooks
  • Apple iPhones and iPads
  • Android smartphones and tablets.

Meltdown and Spectre

“The two hardware bugs can be exploited to allow the memory content of a computer to be leaked. Such a leak could potentially expose stored passwords and other sensitive data, including personal photos, emails, and instant messages,” says Alastair Jamieson, NBC News. Wondering what might happen? Watch this short video to get insight into the problem.

These two malware processes can skim private or confidential data from your device, including encryption keys your device uses. This is a hardware design problem rather than a software problem. The easiest way to solve the problem per US Cert’s Vulnerability report, as cited in this video when the problem first arose, is to replace your device (Source). Yikes! For some districts, that’s the long-term fix.

In the short term, you have to mitigate the vulnerabilities. To do that, be sure to update your device’s operating system, as well as follow the steps suggested below.

Taking Action

Want to take action, but not sure what to do? Here are some next steps to take now organized by device. I’ve read numerous reports and condensed what you need to know in the space below.

Google

Google has provided a detailed response to the vulnerabilities. Let’s take a quick look at some affected aspects of Google devices and services.

For the Chrome browser, you can enable an optional feature in the Chrome browser. The feature is known as “Site Isolation.” Enabling this feature mitigates the vulnerabilities.  The feature, once enabled, isolates websites into separate address spaces. The benefit? It prevents an attacking website you have visited from obtaining your login and password credentials for another (Source).

Here’s how you can keep your online login/password from being stolen:

1) Copy-and-paste the following into your Chrome browser:

chrome://flags/#enable-site-per-process

2) Then, click ENABLE, as shown below:

Here are some other affected devices. You can see the complete list online at Google’s site:

  • Chromebook: For your Chromebook, updates are already rolled out or in process. Google’s website shares “OS versions prior to 63 are not patched. Chrome OS systems started receiving version 63 on 2017-12-15. Some Chrome OS devices are end of life and no longer receiving updates. To check your specific model, see this page.” For example, I can check on my Acer C720 Chromebook online to see if “mitigations” are available yet. The Acer C720, unfortunately, shows “No.”
  • Android: For your Android device, it will be difficult for these vulnerabilities to be exploited. Future updates for Android devices will address the vulnerability.

The following are NOT affected: Google Suites/GoogleApps, Google Home/Chromecast, and Google Hub/WiFi.

Microsoft

Microsoft has recommended that Windows 10 updates be completed prior to adding firmware updates. You will want to:

  1. Make sure that you have compatible antivirus programs installed (e.g. BitDefender Free is one of my favorites, but not yet on the approved list via Security Researcher Kevin Beaumont’s list as cited here and here).
  2. Apply all available Windows operating system updates, including January, 2018 Windows security updates.
  3. Apply the firmware update for your particular device.

As you can see from the screenshot above, my own Microsoft Surfacebook running Windows 10 features “False” as the setting for most items. Unfortunately, those should all be set to “True.” To go through this process, you will need to follow the process outlined at Microsoft’s website.

Apple

Meltdown and Spectre also impact Apple users. That’s right, if you use a Mac or iOS device (e.g. iPhone, iPad), you are affected. Here’s what you can do to protect your iOS or Mac device:

  • Install all updates on your iOS device as soon as they become available. iOS users should already have access to an update to their Safari browser (which may mean you use that browser exclusively…hmm).
  • Only install new apps from the approved Apple store (which means jail-broken iPhone users will want to be extra careful. Thank goodness, those are rare in K-12 school settings, except for high school BYOD situations).

How Do I Begin?

If you’re a technology director, you need to take a few steps to prepare for the coming hardware meltdown. If you don’t already have an equipment replacement plan in place with a secured budget, then you need to get one in place. Want to learn how to engage in project management (and, wow, you are going to need it), then why not sign up for TCEA’s Project Management Fundamentals webinar? Be sure to follow the project management action steps I adapted for K-12 education and have used successfully:

 

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Technology Lending Grants
CTO/CIOFunding

Grants Available to Help Provide Home Internet Access

by Jennifer Bergland
written by Jennifer Bergland

On December 12, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) opened its Request for Applications for the Technology Lending Grants. These grants, established by Texas Education Code §32.301, are part of the implementation of HB 3526 which passed during the 85th Session of the Texas Legislature. Providing Internet access at home is a strong legislative priority and why TCEA strongly supported HB 3526.

I vividly remember the comment. I was speaking to some Texas technology directors to garner their support for more affordable broadband for Texas school districts when Joy Rousseau of Arp ISD stopped me and said, “If you solve the problem at school, but don’t solve the problem at home, you haven’t solved the problem.” Instantly, I knew she was right. If students don’t have access to the Internet at home, there will continue to be a digital divide, which is now known as the homework gap.

This homework gap is real. According to the 2016 Speak Up Survey , 61% of Texas middle school students and 79% grantsof high school students indicate they use the Internet at home at least a few times a week. 54% of the high school students use it every day. The student’s Internet use is not dependent on whether the teacher purposely assigns homework that needs the Internet because only 13% of Texas teachers indicate they do so. Students are going to the Internet for help in their homework because it is the library of the 21st century. Students without this home access are at a distinct disadvantage. They have fewer ways to access content and are not learning the necessary skills of finding accurate information to answer their research questions.

Purpose of Grants

The Technology Lending Grants made possible by this bill provide $10 million in funding for districts to purchase personal, portable wireless devices such as laptops, tablets, or other technologies that can provide students access to digital materials to meet school objectives while at home. In additional to personal devices, the grant funds can also be used to help provide Internet access itself at home.

grants

The grants are designed to help school districts ensure that all their students have access to digital content and tools at home to improve the homework gap. There will be approximately 144 grants awarded, ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 each. The deadline to apply is Tuesday, February 6, 2018.

Free Grant Writing Webinar

For schools looking for help with the grant process, TCEA will be offering a free webinar with tricks and tips for writing and submitting grants. The webinar, which is open to anyone, will be January 9 at 2:00 p.m. The webinar is open to anyone.

Important Deadlines

  • January 10, 2018 – Last date to submit FAQ’s to TEA contact person.
  • January 19, 2018 – Due date for Notice of Intent to Apply (but not required)
  • January 19, 2018 – FAQs posted to TEA Grant Opportunities
  • February 6, 2018 – Due date for grant application
  • February 14-March 4, 2018 – Competitive review period
  • May 1, 2018 – Beginning date of grant
  • August 31, 2019 – Ending date of grant.

Eligible Applicants

See the General and Fiscal Guidelines, Eligibility Requirements. LEAs are eligible to apply for funding through the 2018–2019 Technology Lending Grant program. Applicants must meet the following criteria to be considered for funding:  

  • LEAs must have an enrollment of at least 40% economically disadvantaged students at the participating campus(es).
  • Eligibility will be determined using the 2016–2017 Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) Campus Report data from the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS); and  
  • LEAs must have a Technology Plan on file with TEA for the 2016–2017 school year or show evidence of a current local technology plan on participating campuses. See Required Program-Related Attachments on page 18 of the Technology Lending Program Guidelines.

For information about applying for one of these grants, please see the TEA Request for Applications.

Photo of Student on Couch by imgix on Unsplash

 

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CTO/CIOCybersecurity

The Game: When Disaster Strikes (Part 3)

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“It’s the processes and procedures, working with all the other customers. We have to get them to understand the importance of planning. One way is to do tabletop exercises as practice to see what we would do in the event of a disaster,” said Mark Gabehart (Round Rock ISD). As Mark’s voice filled the respectful silence as he spoke, his turn of phrase caught my ear. Whatever did he mean by “tabletop exercises?” In this blog entry, we’ll discuss the value of tabletop exercises for being prepared when disaster strikes in the areas of cyber security, disaster recovery, and business continuity. You will also find a complete game that you as a technology leader can use right away.

Developing the Tabletop Exercise

Upon looking up the phrase, I stumbled across this definition:

The tabletop exercise is a meeting to discuss a simulated emergency situation. Members of the campus review and discuss the actions they would take in a particular emergency, testing their emergency plan in an informal, low-stress environment.

Some suggestions for developing tabletop exercises include the following:

  • Exercise(s) should engage participants.
  • Participants with diverse backgrounds should be expected to work together to craft an organizational response to a hypothetical incident.
  • Each scenario requires knowledge of, as well as presents the opportunity to enhance, actual cyber security, disaster recovery, and/or business continuity plans.
  • The exercise makes manifest opportunities to hone team member strategies and skills to capably resolve real life problems.

Problem-based learning (PBL) often finds its home in emergency planning. In an actual disaster recovery situation, the natural process for school districts to follow involves dealing with the consequences, reflecting on what happened, determining how to best mitigate the consequences, and then working to ensure the incident does not reoccur. Depending on the severity of an emergency, putting the pieces of status quo back together again may be difficult. Doing so in the days and weeks after an event may prove impossible. How can schools and districts solve problems in advance?

Let’s take a closer look at the theoretical, research-based underpinnings of learning by experience.

Power of Experiential Learning

“Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience,” says David Kolb (as cited in source). This may actually resemble the diagram shown below:

the game
a Scenario-based Learning Model

While each disaster has its own mix of consequences unique to a situation, following an experiential learning approach (a.k.a. scenario-based learning, as my colleague Diana Benner (@diben) pointed out to me) to prepare can save the day. Let’s walk through what this process may look like.

The Game

When Round Rock ISD’s Chief Technology Officer suggested tabletop exercises, I imagined having access to a digital card deck of scenarios. Below, please find a link to my ongoing effort. It features twenty plus scenarios with more in the works. As you can see, it is modeled after a card game with a similar name. However, this version features embedded videos.

View the Game | Get a free copy (requires Google Suites account)

The Game will provide school district and other teams with a variety of scenarios from my own experiences, as well as YouTube news video clips of actual events. The scenarios address cyber security, cyber safety, disaster recovery, and business continuity. As such, they are a perfect tool for small and large district Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) seeking to mobilize their emergency response teams.

For the sake of organization, allow me to rely loosely on the aforementioned scenario-based learning model.

1. Scenario/Story Presentation

Cross-functional teams, including members of Business (Risk Management), Curriculum, Transportation, and other key areas, would be present.

2. Hands-On Lab

In the hands-on lab, each group would investigate and evaluate their respective plans to see if it deals well with the scenario. For example, while the technology department team might have strategies for encrypting data on hard drives, the business department might lack a policy for requiring encryption when exchanging data with third party vendors. This can be significant. Loss of a laptop with encrypted data falls under the Texas Safe Harbor laws. Decrypted data exposed while in the hands of a third party vendor (e.g. Texas Department of Agriculture, for example) does not.

Group members who detect an absence of a strategy (e.g. failure to protect data via encryption) must prepare action steps to formulating one they can bring for team discussion.

3. Team Discussion

After reviewing internal policies and identifying gaps and weaknesses, group participants work together to craft a comprehensive solution that makes one policy of multiple approaches to a problem. Individual teams will prepare their work and share it with the whole group for assessment with more probing analysis for alignment.

4. Homework/Decision-Making

In this final stage, all are committed to continuing to fine-tune existing disaster recovery and continuity plan to address unforeseen scenarios. This step involves presenting to the superintendent’s cabinet. Engage everyone responsible via professional learning.

Get Started Now

Players, get your teams together! It’s time to solve those tough problems. You won’t be wasting your time, not with over 1,200 cyber security incidents and countless data breaches affecting millions of people in 2017 alone.

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open
CTO/CIOEducational Trends

Why and How El Paso ISD Went Open

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Four years ago, my very first meeting with my new superintendent went something like this. Having never met him, I nervously walked into his office. After some introductions and minor chit-chat with a group of people around the table, we all sat down and he asked me this question: “Why do we buy textbooks?”

I struggled for a response and finally delivered the absolute worst answer that a superintendent hired to bring innovation to a school district could hear: “Because…we have always bought textbooks?”

Luckily, I believe that was the answer he was expecting to hear because no one else had offered a better answer. He looked at me and the other people in the room and asked rhetorically “Why do we pay for information that is already out there for free?”

It Starts by Asking Why

His question cuts to the heart of Open Educational Resources (OER) as learning tools. Why do we have to pay for information that is freely available? When you think about it, who owns the periodic table of elements? Who owns the water cycle? The list of prepositional phrases? Right triangles? The answer of course, is no one. That knowledge is in the public domain for everyone to learn and use. What we pay for is how that information is packaged and merchandised.  

OEROur district’s journey into OER had begun. During that meeting, I was tasked with finding out how our district could save money by creating our own textbooks using as many OER materials as possible. The district had just gone through the adoption process for science instructional materials and had estimated it would cost close to $2 million for 18,000 students. What if we could use that textbook money in another way? Perhaps to purchase technology for students?

Investigating Options

I remembered meeting a young lady at the 2012 TCEA Convention who worked with an organization called OERck12.org.  Being a nerd, I recorded an interview with her and posted it online. Revisiting that video, I soon contacted the folks at ck12.org.  They had textbooks in science and math through a system in which districts or schools could adopt and modify the texts to meet their instructional needs. This could enable us to add and subtract whatever we wanted (as long as the material was not copyrighted) and call them our own. The only caveat was that we had to share whatever we had created with the larger community.

Starting with Science

Within six months, EPISD had created, with the help of Ck12, four science textbooks: Integrated Physics and Chemistry, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. All were matched to our scope and sequences, as well as to the Texas standards. All were curated by our own teachers who knew our students’ needs better than any anonymous publisher in New York.

In the ensuing years, we have created more science, math, and social studies textbooks. All have been curated by EPISD teachers using OER collected from a wide variety of freely-available sources, such as Rice University’s “OpenStax” project.

Going Open Is a Process

Creating and adopting your own texts from OER material is not without headaches and risks. Teachers balked at first at our “free” textbooks, thinking something must be wrong with them. “Why are you using a free book?” was an often-heard question.   

OER

Finding open resources for some courses is problematic, but with the U.S. Department’s  #GoOPEN movement, of which EPISD is a proud founding member, more and more content is becoming available daily.

Have we achieved 100 percent OER nirvana? Not yet. There is still a lot of work to do, and we are iterating our processes as we go. But by starting down this path, we have begun a process that can only lead to more OER content being used. This in turn can have powerful benefits for our budget and ability to supply more technology resources in our schools. 

You have to start somewhere. Which, now that I think about it, probably would have been a good answer way back in that first meeting.

This is a guest blog by Tim Holt. Holt is a 32-year educator with experience in classrooms, research, and instructional technology. He is a past president of TEC-SIG and recipient of the ISTE “Make it Happen” award. His blog, Holtthink was named one of the top 50 most influential ed tech blogs in 2014 and 2015. He lives in Canutillo, Texas and is the Director of Technology Pilots and Innovation for El Paso ISD.

 

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