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CTO/CIO

Explore insights and strategies for CTOs and CIOs in education. Discover tools and resources to support technology leadership and innovation.

TCEA Partners with Alertus to Offer School Safety Grant

by Kristy Breaux October 21, 2019

written by Kristy Breaux

Technology serves a number of functions. It can help educators create effective learning, assist in simplifying administrative responsibilities, and even help keep students, staff, and faculty safe.

That’s why TCEA has partnered with Alertus Technologies to award a school safety grant for a full emergency notification system to one of our members (see eligibility requirements below). The estimated total value ranges up to $75,000, depending on the size and needs of the selected school. By partnering with Alertus to provide this grant for customizable mass notification systems, we’re working to expand access to a foundational element of ed tech: school safety.

The Emergency Preparedness Grant includes:

Alertus Mass Notification System Software
Alertus Enhanced Notification Services and Support
Up to 40 Alert Beacons
Up to 4 Duress Buttons

Eligibility

Applicants must be a registered non-profit organization or a government entity such as a school, library, or public agency.

About the Program

Since 2002, Alertus has been a pioneer in the emergency mass notification space, helping organizations find innovative solutions to emergency preparedness. Through the Alertus Emergency Preparedness Grant program, under-resourced organizations will have access to hardware and software solutions to effectively prepare and respond to a crisis situation.

Interested TCEA members can apply for the Alertus Grant via the online application form. Priority will be given to high risk and high-need organizations.

We are thrilled to be able to partner with Alertus to give our members the opportunity to give their students, staff, faculty, and communities the peace of mind in knowing that when an emergency happens, they will be able to send and receive potentially life-saving notifications quickly and clearly through the Alertus Mass Notification System and its integrated devices.

You can learn more about the program on TCEA’s Grants page. If you have any questions about this program, please email kristy@tcea.org.

Photo: Bruno Reyna

October 21, 2019 0 comments

Guideposts to a Shared Technology Vision and Plan

by Miguel Guhlin October 19, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

Want a road map that you can follow to shape, advance, and accelerate a shared vision? Need to craft a vision for empowered learning in your school or district? In this blog entry, we’ll explore a few key concepts and ideas. You will also get access to rich repository of curated ed technology planning content.

Start with Why

“What I’m starting to gain a greater appreciation for is that the best results are achieved…by talking about the why,” says Julie Zhuo. In every school district I’ve had the opportunity to serve, roadblocks to planning come up. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have made every effort to start with why. As Simon Sinek points out in his viral TED talk, most of us often begin with what. For educational technology enthusiasts, the what and the how are enchanting places to begin. For superintendents who say, “Let’s put iPads in the hands of every child,” it’s about the what. For many technology directors, figuring out how is the job they embrace. Seldom is why addressed since it’s easier to assume that everyone knows the why.

In this blog entry, we’ll explore some key points any veteran campaigner knows. Those just starting out, though, will find this an invaluable roadmap of guideposts.

Guidepost #1: Problem Definition

“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution,” said Albert Einstein. When we skip the why, we often avoid the problem. After discussing the why, it’s critical we jump into defining the problem. You can use any variety of problem definition strategies you like. Some include engineering design process, the Big 6, Six Sigma, and crucial conversations.

A well-defined problem often contains its own solution within it. That solution is usually quite obvious and straightforward. Define problems well, you make them easier to solve. This means saving time, money and resources. Source: Entrepreneur

Bill Lewis (CTO, Seguin ISD) suggests the following steps. Each is essential to solving the problem of ed tech visioning and planning:

Create a year-round collaborative environment that fosters relationships between instruction and technology.
Keep board and district goals aligned.
Create a process where the instructional needs drive all decisions.
Be intentional with the integration of technology and instruction.
Address the infrastructure needs of technology to support student and staff needs.

To ensure the success of the vision, the ed tech plan must reflect the problems the organization faces. That is to say, it must take into account the goals, culture, and pedagogical vision. To the degree that it does not, it fails to capture the problem and reveal the solution. The best way to achieve this is through meetings with stakeholders. Remember that it’s not the plan that’s important; rather, it’s the planning process that shapes the future.

Guidepost #2: Aspirational Standards

“What are we here to do?…What is the best alignment between what we have to offer and what people need?” asks Irene Au. Often, technology plans lack a connection to their why. The stakeholders themselves may not even know the why. These next two guideposts put the why square in their sights.

Two quick ways to focus stakeholders are to share frameworks and standards with them. One framework of skills you could share includes Tony Wagner’s Seven Survival Skills. The skills, says Wagner, are transferable and designed to empower students to harness the changes the future brings, such as artificial intelligence (see Wakelet of resources on the rise of AI).

Looking for standards that target the knowledge and behaviors leaders, teachers, and students need? The power of standards is that they present unifying vocabulary everyone can use. This is quite powerful and allows you to shift the conversation in your district.

Guidepost #3: Instructional Needs

“The technology we introduce must serve a purpose. That purpose must be to enhance learning through improving pedagogy,” says Dr. Michael Cowling. Dr. Cowling (Senior Lecturer of Educational Technology) goes on to say, “Simply using technology for technology’s sake just doesn’t cut it.”

American students face a crisis. No, really, they are. According to Marc Tucker’s book, Leading High-Performance School Systems, we have some work to do. Tucker points out (watch the video):

Research shows the U.S. now has one of the worst educated workforces in the industrialized world.
Millennials, the core of the workforce, are now among the least well educated.
Americans ages 16-34 are at the bottom of the ETS survey on reading, numeracy, and problem solving.

Worse, as cited in this TCEA TechNotes blog entry, current technology usage leaves much to be desired. In fact, Lori Gracey shares the following takeaway:

“High levels of technology use in the classroom tend to correlate with lower student performance.”

Rather than hide this information, we need to shout it from the rooftops. The reason why is that research-based strategies, strategies that work, and maximizing instructional time are more important than ever. Technology is essential to our future success. The future places higher-order literacy demands on all. It’s critical and urgent that our children know how to read, write, and think and to be able to do all of those at a very high level.

Technology can be a part of the solution, but it’s not the silver bullet many of us hoped for. How it fits in is the subject of the next guidepost. In that guidepost, we will prepare to answer the question, “Does technology make a significant difference?”

Guidepost #4: Digital Teaching and Learning

“We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teacher’s hand. It is the pen and paper of our time. It is the lens through which we experience much of our world,” says David Warlick. Let’s answer the question of how technology can make a significant difference.

Technology use in schools has centered around various approaches, such as the following:

Constructivist approach: It is a paradigm or worldview. This approach suggests that learning is an active, constructive process and the learner is an information constructor. People construct or create their own subjective representations of objective reality.
Project-based learning (PBL): We have explored various PBL approaches here at TechNotes. And here’s a Wakelet you can look at as well.
One-to-one device: This approach suggests that giving every student may result in significant gains. The truth is, “It depends.”

Others (e.g. blended learning, flipped learning, STEM/STEAM) have advocates as well. The truth is no approach works unless we include and focus on high academic standards for students.

Once on the job, teachers continue to get training, or “professional development,” that has little basis in science. And their supervisors and instructional materials often assume the validity of non-evidence-based practices. (Source: Natalie Wexler, Three Reasons Classroom Practice Conflicts with Evidence on How Kids Learn. Forbes.com.)

Want to ensure technology makes a significant difference? Then make sure that it’s readily available, enjoys fast internet connections, and scaffolds communication and collaboration. Aside from that, put in place evidence-based practices. That may mean retraining your teachers and introducing them to evidence-based practices. Then doing everything to support their transition. Need support on how to make the transition? Check TCEA’s Research-based Practices and empowerED program.

Providing greater access to technology and the Internet don’t make any difference in learning UNLESS the teaching is also changed. (Source: Latif Jameel, “Will Technology Transform Education for the Better?” as cited in TechNotes)

Guidepost #5: Assessing Technology

“There is WiFi on Mt Everest! There are ZERO excuses for our students to not have WiFi access in their schools and homes,” says-Tom Murray. As an educator, it is important to understand the various lenses you can use to observe and assess the use of technology.

These frameworks serve as aids to campus administrators who may not understand what to look for in the classroom. Given the high stakes of what’s happening in the classroom, research-based assessments are a must. There are various approaches you can take to assess the effect of technology. One suggestion is to NOT link it to student achievement. Instead, focus on using technology as a way to enhance the effectiveness of professionals’ work.

Approach #1 – Technology audit. Make sure your technology infrastructure is ready to go.
Approach #2 – Gauge stakeholder insight. To do this, consider gathering data. One way is to use the Clarity Brightbytes survey as a benchmark assessment.
Approach #3 – Deploy educational framework. There are various frameworks. Find an overview online. Not all frameworks have the research background.

These three approaches can make or break your technology planning effort. John Hattie suggests that the T3 Framework can maximize the impact of most technological interventions. But keep in mind that progress can only happen if we change the dominant “tell and practice” teaching model.

Facilitate District Visioning and Planning

Looking for a way to facilitate school-changing conversations? TCEA can make this a reality for you. This multi-meeting process guides your stakeholder group through planning for real, lasting change. It involves developing a district technology plan vision, goals, and strategies. A quick overview includes:

A technology audit
Multiple meetings to study audit results and transform those into strategies and goals
Crafting examples strategies
Reviewing technology plan formulation
Putting the new plan into an attractive format

Having skilled facilitators to assist you is a relief. Ready to start your journey? Contact TCEA’s Executive Director, Lori Gracey.

As you might imagine, navigating the guideposts may be difficult. But it can be easier if you remember what your role in shaping an ed tech vision and plan can be. Rather than advocating for unproven innovations, empower people to see a way ahead that research supports. In that way, you make possible a learning journey for all stakeholders.

As promised, here’s the technology planning Wakelet full of amazing resources you can use now.

October 19, 2019 0 comments

CTO/CIO Leadership Professional Learning

Find Solutions at the Campus Technology Specialist Academy

by Andrew Roush October 10, 2019

written by Andrew Roush

As ed tech experts on your campus, technology specialists spend their time, effort, and expertise helping other front-line educators develop the skills they need to be successful. Your school’s CTOs and tech directors, tech specialists, instructional coaches, lead teachers, and others carry out the technical solutions your educators require.

Now, TCEA is giving you a chance to build that skill set, grow your professional learning network, and discover the best solutions, techniques, tools, and practices for instructional coaches. It’s an event created just for those who keep campus tech up-to-date, secure, and guide its useful implementation. Want to know more?

campus technology

A Specialized Academy

The 2019 Campus Technology Specialist Academy, November 13–14 in Austin, Texas, is filled with sessions that have been specifically designed to meet the needs tech specialists and empower them to make a difference in the lives of teachers, staff, and students they work with. Discover methods for making instruction even more effective, learn how to renew and evaluate your work, and get useful tips on the latest and most popular apps, software, and systems.

Attendees will:

Learn best practices for supporting teachers integrating technology
Build integration and training skills to make your PD more impactful
Solve problems and develop relevant solutions to become more effective
Gain resources to share with your teachers
Develop a network of support for ongoing motivation and inspiration

An Innovative Learning Experience

We’ve taken care to design a one-of-a-kind learning event. Sessions are led by TCEA’s own ed tech experts, as well as professional educators, influencers, and industry leaders. Hear from them all at the TCEA conference center, an innovative learning environment that encourages out-of-the-box thinking and problem solving.

This year’s sessions are thoughtfully selected to reflect a wide variety of timely topics, from the best ways to use common apps to ways to put theory into practice, and from social media best practices to effective coaching techniques — all with an eye to the smartest ways to integrate technology.

Location and lodging details are available on the event website. Registration includes a complimentary one-year membership in TCEA. Get all the details, including the full schedule, here. Then register and learn with us in November!

Photo: NESA by Makers

October 10, 2019 0 comments

fingerless gloved hands on a laptop keyboard

CTO/CIO Cybersecurity

Are Schools Easy Targets for Cyber Threats? The Latest Report Says “Yes”

by Miguel Guhlin October 9, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

Ransomware attacks penetrated the defenses of 500 schools in 2019. The K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center attributed only eleven incidents in 2018 to ransomware. When you think about schools, do you imagine an impenetrable fortress? Sixty-eight percent of IT leaders list cyber threats as a top priority. In spite of that, cybersecurity defenses are thin. A new report from Absolute Software describes just how thin. In July and August of 2019, the number of total security incidents jumped to 160. This exceeded the total number of incidents identified in 2018. Here are some key findings from this report released in October 2019.

While the focus on technology delivers many benefits to students and educators, it also creates more complexity — and more work for resource-constrained teams. Within a few years, K-12 IT leaders have gone from managing a couple of operating systems, a handful of apps, and a few hundred devices to managing hundreds of versions of operating systems, apps, and extensions; and thousands of devices.

Finding #1: K-12 Schools Are Digital Now

In compiling data for their report, Absolute Software discovered some startling information. For example, ninety-four percent of schools have high-speed internet. In schools, technology spending has increased sixty-two percent from 2016 to 2019. And eighty-two percent of districts provide student devices in one-to-one or similar programs. But going digital has consequences for schools, exposing them to fresh dangers. For example, since 2016, there have been 700+ cybersecurity incidents. Schools are the second highest target of ransomware. See the interactive map below. Olive green bubbles represent education.

View interactive map

Did You Know?
To combat ransomware, the U.S. Senate and House have passed legislative bills to create the DHS Cyber Hunt and Incident Response Teams Act. DHS will “maintain cyber hunt and incident response teams to help private and public entities (like schools, students, employees, local government) defend against cyber-attacks.”

In spite of schools going digital, twenty-one percent of devices are used less than an hour a day. Approximately 60 percent of students don’t use devices at home. Putting devices in schools has resulted in 17,000 crime-related device losses in two years. Of those who use school devices, thirty-four percent fail to return them.

Students themselves are doing everything in their power to circumvent those protections. There may be no malicious intent — the students just want access to content that may be restricted on school devices — but their actions create gateways for malicious outsiders.

Finding #2: Staff and Students Open the Door

“Educators in all contexts need to open the door to authentic teaching and learning,” says Wes Fryer. Unfortunately, a lot has changed since 2006 when Wes said that. Forty-two percent of schools have students or staff that actively circumvent security. This often comes in the form of unique proxies or rogue virtual private network (VPN) apps. When schools opened the door, more than authentic teaching and learning snuck in.

With an average of 10.6 devices per school harboring web proxies and rogue VPN apps, schools are also at risk of non-compliance with applicable student safety laws.

Finding #3: Digital Tech, A Management Challenge

Spending time troubleshooting a device in class wastes instructional time. When devices fail, schools rely on native client/patch management tools. With so many different devices and operating systems in schools though, there is no one tool for all. For example, consider that Absolute Software found the following was true:

93 percent of schools manage up to five versions of common apps
137,000 unique application versions
6,409 unique Chrome OS extensions
11 device types
258 unique operating system versions across Windows, Chrome, Mac, and others

Managing that many different systems and devices could give anyone a headache. It’s no wonder technology departments like to standardize on platforms and tools. To manage them, they bring in various client management systems. Of those, there is a fifty-six percent failure rate of client management tools. To close the gap and make things work, technicians have to engage in a manual resolution process. Worse, most departments are under-staffed. This means you have a perfect storm for data breaches.

Our study reveals that schools that have encryption in place experience agent failures on an average of nine devices per day — almost half of which never recover, leaving students and staff at risk of potential data breaches

Finding #4: Underutilized Devices

One of the most disheartening points in this report speaks to underutilized devices. Whether on or off campus, many devices are used for less than an hour a day. Twenty-one percent of devices fall into this category. Sixty percent of students don’t use devices schools have purchased for them at home.

In my own experience, this can mean that devices that sit idle are easy targets for theft. Thirty-four percent of users fail to return devices at school year’s end. That is, these devices are “lost or stolen.” Another eye-opening statistic? Forty-six percent of devices are stolen from cars. Some of those devices will contain sensitive data that is not encrypted (Learn more about Texas Safe Harbor and encryption via this Wakelet).

It is irresponsible to invest more public dollars into new security technologies if the basic measures — visibility, control, and resilience — are not operating effectively first. Getting the basics right will enable IT leaders to redirect this budget toward enhancing or expanding digital equity initiatives.

Finding #5: Solutions

The report offers potential solutions. It encourages schools to start by getting the basics right. With K-12 technology spending set to grow to $342 billion by 2025, the basics are important. Those basics include:

Visibility: Better awareness of what happens on student-managed devices
Control: Tighter controls over what gets put on devices
Resilience: Ensure basic tools work and use funding to get tools that fill the gaps

End-user training (e.g. staff, students) remains an ever-present high priority.

Critical Questions to Ask

How is your technology department strengthening the basics? How are you addressing the need for end-user training in a comprehensive way? How are you ensuring technical staff have the support and training they need? Yesterday, you could hire low-paid high school graduates. Today, they need a world-class education in cybersecurity and client management. How are you closing the gap?

Schools have gone digital, and with digital learning comes a host of problems. Chief among them are increasing ransomware attacks, difficult device management, and data breaches. To resolve these issues, schools need to get the basics down and close the gap in end-user training.

October 9, 2019 1 comment

CTO/CIO Technical Support

A Conference Built for System Administrators

by Andrew Roush September 30, 2019

written by Andrew Roush

When it comes to ed tech, system administrators and tech support professionals are at the center of everything. Frontline educators rely on their school or district’s tech admins to ensure the hardware, software, network, and other infrastructure they need is operational and up to date.

That’s why TCEA’s 2019 System Administrator and Technical Support Conference, October 24–25, is designed to meet the needs of sys admins and tech support. This event offers useful and practical information to individuals like you who provide technical support for PreK-16 educators. It’s not just an ed tech conference; it’s an ed tech conference for you.

Going In-Depth

Ready to geek out? We’ve created a comprehensive package of strands that covers the real-world problems system administrators are encountering while offering solutions they can use. Presenters go in-depth on the innovations, techniques, and tools you need to know. Our strands are targeted to meet your specific needs. Topics discussed will include:

BYOD Management
Chromebooks
Emerging Technologies
End User Technical Support
Google Apps for EDU Implementation
iOS Device Management
Network/Wireless Management
Security
Technology Management and Support
Windows

Get Connected

The 2019 Sys Admin conference is also designed to help you connect with your peers. Our attendees include, but aren’t limited to, chief technology officers (CTOs), data managers, information technologists, network engineers, technicians, administrators, tech directors, and more.

The interactive sessions you’ll attend are presented by industry-leading experts and will allow you to experience the very best resources and tools in hands-on ways. Want to see the latest from top vendors? We’ve got you covered there, too. And while you’re doing all that, you’ll be expanding your personal learning network and making connections that can benefit your school or district.

Curious to see how the 2019 SysAdmin conference can benefit you? Learn more and register here.

September 30, 2019 0 comments

CTO/CIO Leadership

The Real Duties of a Technology Director

by Lori Gracey June 27, 2019

written by Lori Gracey

When I became a technology director, the job description was a little sparse. At that time, it was a relatively new position across the state (yes, I am that old!) and very few C&I leaders really knew what we were supposed to be doing. But I did have an idea in my mind. I thought that my job was to craft a vision for the use of technology that meshed with the district vision for teaching and learning. And then help move the educators in my schools toward achieving that vision with the addition of hardware, a strong network, and lots of professional development.

What I Didn’t Know

In looking back, that was certainly meant to be the main focus of the job. But it’s all of the other things that took up my time that seemed to define being a tech director. And after traveling around the state recently talking with technology leaders, I think it’s still true today. See if any of this resonates with you. Or, if you are thinking about becoming a CTO, make sure that you can perform all of the jobs below before you start applying!

The Real Duties of a Technology Director

Purchase and set out copious amounts of chocolate for all professional development offerings.
Have at least two of every kind of tech adapter that has ever been made, including for outdated equipment.
Make coffee at the drop of a hat (even though I don’t drink coffee).
Be able to fix anything electric.
- “Lori, the copier isn’t working. Can you fix it?”
- “Lori, do you know how to repair the automatic gasoline measuring equipment for the school buses?”
- “Tech person (yes, some people actually called me that), the lights in my room go off when I plug in my projector. Is that bad? Can you fix them?”
- “There’s a new scoreboard on the football field that we can’t figure out. Can you show us how it works?”
Remember everyone else’s passwords, including students, and be able to recite them as needed.
Translate what the system administrator says into everyday language so that you can explain why the network is down.
Know, and regularly practice, 43 different ways to troubleshoot a technical problem.
Give advice about home computer, home theater, home WiFi, and home-anything-else-that-plugs-in problems.
Work with the CTE teachers to help them with their (welding simulation software, sewing/embroidery machine computer, setting the correct time on the microwaves in the cooking kitchen, helping them select the best automotive computer system to purchase).
Offer sound advice about online STAAR testing.
Pick up the right kind of donuts for the technical guys (no nuts, no pink icing, with meat).
Offer sacrifices to the infrastructure gods on a regular basis so that the network NEVER goes down, and it especially doesn’t go down right when the superintendent needs to use it to plan his vacation.
Constantly explain to parents that the Internet is not a tool of Satan and that yes, their children should use it.
Be able to promise the school board, without laughing, that adding more technology will definitely, guaranteed, bring up test scores.

With all of that being said, I can honestly say that being a CTO/technology leader is absolutely, without a doubt one of the best jobs in the entire world. Who else gets to play with really cool tech every day and work with dedicated educators and excited students!

What about you? What are your favorite, least understood, or parts of being a tech director that you never expected to be in charge of or that absolutely drive you crazy? Please share; you’re not alone!

June 27, 2019 0 comments

Advocacy Coding/Computer Science CTO/CIO Cybersecurity Digital Literacy Professional Learning STEM/STEAM Technology Applications

86th Texas Legislature Wrap-Up

by Jennifer Bergland June 5, 2019

written by Jennifer Bergland

All good things must come to an end, but only someone who loves politics would consider the legislative process a good thing. I’m one of those people. I love every minute of it, even the ones that go past midnight! Looking back over the past four months, I am happy to report that TCEA was able to move our vision of education forward through legislation and have some promising opportunities to help shape the future of Texas schools. I have created a 2019 Bill Analysis document that include the specifics about the bills that will impact digital education, but below is a quick summary of the more important bills.

Computer Science and Coding

Legislature We had some huge wins in the area of computer science and computational thinking this session. Our six-year goal of providing weighted funding for the 9-12 Technology Application courses has finally been achieved. In HB 3, the school finance legislation, the weighted funding for CTE was changed from grades nine through twelve to grades seven through twelve. In addition, the bill specified that CTE courses and programs include Technology Application courses. This means that Technology Application courses from grades seven through twelve will receive the same weighted funding as CTE courses, which is 1.35 (instead of the normal 1). HB 963 requires the SBOE to consolidate the 9-12 Technology Application courses with similar courses found in the CTE curriculum. The goal is to eliminate duplicates and identify the purpose of each of the courses. Finally, HB 2984 requires the SBOE to update the K-8 Technology Application standards to ensure that they include coding, computer programming, computational thinking, and cybersecurity. It also establishes a committee to create a strategic plan for K-12 CS education to increase computer science instruction and participation in public schools.

Broadband

Legislature There are two pieces of legislation that are going to impact educational broadband. The first is HB 1960 which creates a Governor’s Broadband Council that will advise the governor on issues related to broadband access to unserved areas. This is progress, but not as much as we hoped for. There are few, if any, areas of Texas that are unserved. The original bill included underserved areas, but heavy lobbying by the large telecommunication companies eliminated that language from the bill. However, we consider this progress because we finally have some entity at the state level that will look at the state’s needs for broadband from a strategic perspective. For too long, all state entities have tried to provide affordable, scalable broadband for their own purposes when it would be much more cost efficient to survey the needs across agencies and entities and design a plan to meet all the needs. HB 1960 at least establishes a council that could do this in the future, if given the authority.

The second bill that may help with broadband is HB 3906. This is an assessment bill that requires online testing by 2022-2023. The bill requires TEA to evaluate the availability of Internet access for each school district and identify changes to state law or policy that are necessary to improve the availability of Internet access. This may open a door for more aggressive action in parts of the state that are “served” but are underserved.

Digital Learning

HB 3 established a Blended Learning Grant program and then funded it at $6 million a year. TEA’s Math Innovation Zones are how the agency is fulfilling this requirement. It is good to know that the agency has funding to continue these types of grants.

Legislature

I have already mentioned that HB 3906 requires TEA and the SBOE to implement online testing by 2022-2023. Before this can happen TEA and the SBOE must devise an implementation plan that is approved by the legislature. The planning for this type of implementation will require heavy district input, which will largely come from their technology departments. This has the potential to finally focus some much needed light on what the state must do in order ensure that all students have access to technology, not just for assessment, but for learning throughout the year. In order for students to be successful on an online assessment, they must first be technically proficient and familiar with the type of device they will be using when taking the assessment. This translates to more access to digital tools for all students.

Funding

HB 1 is the budget bill for the 2020-2021 biennium. Listed below are some of the appropriations that were made that will impact digital education:

Technology and Instructional Materials Allotment – $1,101,430,204
OER curation – $20,000,000
Blended learning teacher training – $2,000,000
Blended learning grants – $12,000,000
TxVSN administration – $800,000

HB 396 allows districts to use their TIMA on software that will help manage instructional resources, including the usage and effectiveness of digital materials. HB 4611 stipulates that 50% of the funds that the Texas General Land Office sends to the legislature for education must be appropriated to the TIMA. If this had been in place this biennium, there would have been $3 million more placed in the TIMA. In addition, the budget stipulates that the SBOE should restrict instructional material proclamations to 75% of the TIMA and should consider school district’s technology needs when determining the size of the percentage of the Permanent School Fund sent to the legislature. 50% of this distribution goes into the TIMA. In translation, this means the SBOE should be sending the legislature enough money from the PSF to fund both the instructional material needs of school districts and also their technology needs.

Cybersecurity

SB 820 requires each school district to establish a cybersecurity policy that determines the cybersecurity risks to the district and a plan to mitigate those risks. The district will also be required to designate a cybersecurity officer who will oversee the policy. In addition, the district will be required to report to TEA any cyber attack that breaches the system security and notify the parents of the students whose information has been compromised.

Professional Development

There are several opportunities in the bills mentioned above that will provide professional development in digital learning. The Blended Learning Grants are largely designed to provide professional development for educators in blended learning, not to mention the funding provided to UTeach to continue to provide this type of training to Texas teachers. Also, this is a good chance to remind districts that the TIMA may be used to provide professional development on the use of technology. In addition to these bills, the legislature passed HB 2424 that requires the SBEC to establish rules to create microcredentials in fields of study related to an educator certification class. This was one of TCEA’s legislative priorities, so we are excited to see this bill pass.

What’s Next

The legislative session has come to an end, but the hardest work is ahead of us. Enacting legislation is the first step in changing things. Now we begin the process of working with the different agencies and entities to ensure they are enacted well. Stay tuned for more blogs about many of these legislative initiatives and how you can provide input.

Credits

Photo of the computer code taken by Sai Kiran Anagani on Unsplash. Photo of cables taken by Jordan Harrison on Unsplash. Photo of teacher interacting with students taken by Mimi Thian on Unsplash Photo of teachers taken by Kylie Haulk on Unsplash.

June 5, 2019 0 comments

CTO/CIO Leadership

Seeking a Data Solution That Works

by Miguel Guhlin May 16, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

Seeking a data solution that works for your district team can be difficult, no matter the size of your district. In previous blog entries, we’ve discussed various aspects of this process. Let’s take a quick look at the challenges districts face.

A Clear and Urgent Need

School districts have a clear and urgent need for a comprehensive data solution. In his article for ASCD’s Educational Leadership, veteran technology director Doug Johnson writes:

Schools are awash in data. Everything from 3rd grade reading test scores to payroll data to an inventory of each iPad purchased with Title I dollars is now stored in databases somewhere in your district.

Demographic data; attendance data; academic data (including an increasing number of test scores); and even teacher performance data are proliferating. Finance systems, transportation databases, helpdesks, and application and credentialing systems used by human resources departments are among the managerial databases used in most districts. To get an idea of some of the different data systems a typical school district may use to gather, store, and view information on students, see the sample flowchart (source: Power Up! Navigating the Seas of Data, ASCD’s Educational Leadership).

School districts often seek a data solution that meets various criteria. Those criteria include:

Easy to access solution that district/campus staff can interface with
Tiered levels of access to student data
Data that is accessible, filtered, and disaggregated
Improves strategic decision-making
Saves time and money

Let’s dig in a bit more.

Why You May Need a Data Warehouse

School districts collect a wide variety of data. As Doug Johnson points out above, your district may have plenty of unusable data. Collected with positive intent, the data is seldom used to analyze student needs. Quality of instruction based on the use of data to form strategic plans or policy goes unanalyzed. What’s more, the data can often resides in scattered, antiquated infrastructure. This means multiple source systems exist in data silos that are inaccessible and not useful or available when needed.

Worse, district gatekeepers lock up the data and only provide the data via requests from key personnel. These key personnel may not be the people who need the data most. Worse, the timing of the requests can delay access for the people who need the data to make quick decisions.

Finding a solution that addresses these concerns can be tough. Here are some steps you can follow.

Three Steps to Dynamic Empowerment

Ready to empower your organization to change? It can be a bit of a daunting process. Let’s explore three steps that can make change possible.

Step 1 – Identify your current practices and what to change

In this step, you need to meet with stakeholders. The grittier your appreciation and grasp of the problem, the better. This step has three slow things you can do. They are slow steps because you will want to spend time on these. Don’t rush the insights that will flow from them. You will have to assist stakeholders in the field uncover the uncomfortable problem.

Here are the three slow steps:

Discuss current needs and challenges. For a data solution, this can often involve identifying wasted time. Time, data aggregation errors, and tracking interventions are some of the problems encountered.
Gain insight. Do this with in-depth interviews with staff in classrooms, campuses, and departments. What insights can you glean from the data problems they are trying to solve?
Listen, listen, listen. Be sure to practice reflective listening, taking notes as stakeholders share their insights. Look for patterns in the stories they tell. Patterns about data problems can provide you with what you need to develop a solution. These solutions must adapt to the specific needs of stakeholders. Get the details on what those needs are.

One powerful way to capture these insights involves video recording. You won’t need to record everyone. That said, don’t forget to analyze current processes. Meet with staff at all levels, documenting the processes they use. Process diagrams are a great way to help identify improvement opportunities. Hunt inefficient or ineffective approaches down.

Here is an example of an ineffective approach in my previous school district. Counselors were not entering codes for a particular course. This meant that sorting students in the data solution did not work as well as it could. A quick training helped the counselors understand what they needed to do.

Other ineffective approaches can be more difficult to resolve. They may involve working with vendor partners, getting them to adjust their processes. Are there any points of failure in how data flows? Make sure to identify source systems and corresponding data.

Step 2 – Make data analysis easy, effective, and insightful

Finding the right solution partner can be daunting. These types of solutions are difficult to build in-house and can cost districts hundreds of thousands of dollars. Worse, many school district personnel may not know how to parse data for import/export. What your district needs is a data solution that serves as a repository. Even with all the data in one place, a data analytics portal may be missing.

“We are thrilled with the way data from our disparate source systems comes together in one place. The dashboards, scorecards and watch lists provide insights into student performance that otherwise would take much longer to realize or run the risk of going unnoticed. These visualizations accelerate our teachers’ and leaders’ ability to make data-driven decisions that help our students succeed.” (source: Jonathan Hulbert, East Central ISD as cited in Press Release by Certica and K-12 Dynamics)

“A data analytics portal provides insights into your school district data,” says Traci Clarke. “It assists in supporting decisions and alignment of strategies with organizational goals.” In our conversations, she mentioned that a data analytics portal needs to do at least four things:

Integrate data from many source systems
Ease strategic planning and monitoring of key performance indicators
Make it easier to identify trends in district, teacher, and student performance
Serve as a single solution with district-wide, role-based dynamic reporting

It’s important to find a data solution provider that has several major components. Let’s explore those.

Data Solution Elements

Key elements to a data solution include the following:

Integrated data warehouse with dashboards, scorecards, watchlists, key performance indicators, and more
Reporting with advanced analytics and disaggregation
Role-based access and privacy controls
Flexible enough to enable adding any data source, both old and new
Scaleable enough to grow with the district
Hosted, compatible with newer technologies, and mobile

This type of solution should work with data from several tiers of information. For example, consider these tiers of compatibility, listed in order of priority:

Tier 1: Student and Staff

Student Information System (SIS) including enrollment, class schedules, attendance, discipline, and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
Classroom, state, and district assessments
Digital gradebook
CollegeBoard (e.g. SAT, ACT)

Tier 2: Enterprise Resource Planning

Finance, human resources, and payroll
Time keeping, staff development tracking, and health management
Inventory control

Tier 3_: Transportation and Food Services

Bus routes
Food services (e.g. student/employee meals)

(Adapted from source: Conference Presentation by Miguel Guhlin, Traci Clarke, K-12 Dynamics, and Virgil Kirk)

Step 3 – Build partnerships

Finding the right data solution provider is an adventure all its own. My recommendation for finding one? Shop around. Ask other school districts what they are using for a data warehouse. You can easily do this by joining TEC-SIG and posting your question to hundreds of other tech directors in the TCEA Community. At worst, you will get a list of possible solution providers. At best, you may find a well-priced solution. Another suggestion involves checking out conventions like TASBO and TASA. These conventions cater to enterprise resource planning (ERP) staff in school districts. In fact, that’s where my assistant superintendent first met K-12 Dynamics’ Traci Clarke. My district formed a partnership with K-12 Dynamics that took time to form.

In the end, building a strong partnership with one company paid dividends for my district. The journey was long, hard, and requires constant maintenance. Without a strong commitment, your effort to seek and install a data solution that works will fail.

May 16, 2019 0 comments

CTO/CIO Leadership

Metrics and KPIs Made Easy

by Miguel Guhlin February 21, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

“I want you to come up with metrics,” said my assistant superintendent. He wasn’t speaking only to me. His gaze went around the room touching on each of the directors seated in front of him. “They should be short, to the point, and tell me in one page how you are getting things done.” This was my first introduction to the concept of key performance indicators (KPIs). In this blog entry, we’ll explore some ways you can use KPIs to gauge effectiveness.

Defining KPIs

Before we jump into KPIs, let’s take a moment to define them. A well-defined KPI can make it easier to gauge success. Here’s a definition that I use with folks attending my webinar for TCEA’s IT/Director Certification:

KPIs are an actionable scorecard. They focus your strategy. They are metrics that make management, control and achievement of desired results possible.

There is a purpose to setting up KPIs, says Steve Young (former CTO for Judson ISD, San Antonio, TX, now CTO for VIA Transit). He says, “It is to create an easy-to-understand visual representation of metrics. The goal is to integrate and automate data analysis from a few key systems and share this data in a public way.” This makes it simple for staff to update data and for the end user to see it, too.

Spotlight District: Crowley ISD Features a Digital Dashboard

Jerry Allen, CTO, uses several tools to power the District’s digital dashboard. He combines Google Sites, Sheets, Domo, and Pingdom. The first three yield a wide variety of viewable data. The last, Pingdom, provides insight into the status (e.g. offline or up/down) of web-based services.

Created by author, **View Canva version**

Types of KPIs

There are many types of key performance indicators. While you can find a complete list online, here are a two examples:

Input KPIs measure assets and resources invested in or used to generated results. For example, they could help you gauge the answers to these questions:

How much has staff spent to enhance employee knowledge and capacity? Think of this as useful for online or face-to-face certification programs.
How much time has your staff spent planning a future initiative or project?

Output KPIs measure financial and non-financial results of activities. Two output KPIs include the following:

How many people did the HelpDesk or onsite support serve in a given time?
How many staff members received professional learning on blending technology into the curriculum?

Whatever KPIs you decide to use, make sure of one thing. Align them to your organization’s strategic goals. Then make every an effort to put these KPIs online for others to access. Once you start making KPIs for technology, the curriculum department will be after you to make some for your own.

Case Study: Crowley ISD

Since I first saw web-based data dashboards highlighting KPIs in my work in San Antonio ISD a scant ten years ago, the technology has gotten easier. In East Central ISD, I made KPIs with Google Sheets and Sites. Each Sheet had to be filled in with data collected one row at a time. Then the data was graphed. On a published update schedule, the graphs were updated. To be honest, my cobbled together data dashboard was light years ahead of anything any other director could put together at that time.

Now you can create data dashboards with low-cost tools that update in real time. Crowley ISD’s Jerry Allen has done a phenomenal job of featuring usable data.

Take a quick visit to Crowley ISD’s Data Dashboard website (a Google Site). In no time, you’ll be drooling (like I was) over the data available. When I asked Jerry Allen how he started off, he said, “I started putting numbers in a Google Sheet. The Sheet connects to Domo, which gives me embed code for a live graph. I put that code on a Google Sites page.” Over time, the people who owned the data learned how to add to it themselves.

As you might imagine, putting data into Google Sheets and then reflecting that data as a graph via Domo is quite straightforward. What KPIs are you using (or could be using) to capture your department’s efforts in alignment to district strategic goals and objectives?

Sample KPIs

Looking for examples of KPIs specific (link goes to Google Doc you can get a copy of) to your area? Here is a quick round-up of a few popular ones you can find online.

Instructional Technology

Percentage of Classes Using Technology
Percentage of Administrators Using Technology
Social Media Engagement
Level of Teaching Innovation (LOTI) or Brightbytes Clarity Survey Data

HelpDesk

Calls to HelpDesk Per Month
Average Handle Time for HelpDesk
Average Response Time for Onsite Support

Technology Administration or Infrastructure

Technology Budget as a Percentage of Total Expense
Out-sourced versus In-sourced Services Cost Overview
Cost and Quantity of Devices Deployed in Schools
Inventory: How many items are part of an active inventory, have been removed from inventory, are “aged” and have become obsolete. This should be connected to the equipment replacement plan and costs planned in advance.

Another approach you can take is to rely on an SLA. An SLA is a “service level agreement” that you share with your stakeholders. It describes what services you offer, the level of priority assigned to each, and response time. A critical computer lab at the high school goes down? How often does that happen? How quick did your team respond? Get a copy of an SLA I adapted from another CTO for use in a school district I served.

Metrics and KPIs Made Easy

As mentioned earlier, there are various tools for creating an online KPI dashboard. While you can pay a pretty penny for these, you can put your own together. Do you like KPI tools like Domo, Pingdom, Google Sheets + Google Sites, CatchOn, or Microsoft’s Power BI? Need some inspiration as to crafting KPIs? Check out these examples to get you started.

Want to learn more about KPIs? Why not sign up for the TCEA IT/Director certification course?

February 21, 2019 0 comments

Chromebooks CTO/CIO Cybersecurity Google Tips and Tricks

Protecting Confidential G Suite Files

by Miguel Guhlin February 11, 2019

written by Miguel Guhlin

“I’m working with a few schools. They only wish to send password protected files. The files will go outside their organization,” says John M., a Google Certified Trainer*. “From a Windows machine, that’s fine. But we’ve moved to a Chromebooks-only environment. How do you add a password to exported files, like DOCx or PDF, that get sent via email?” In this blog entry, we’ll explore several no-cost (free) options for protecting file attachments. Ready to take a closer look at the problem and possible solutions?

The Problem

In organizations with Chromebooks only, how do you encrypt files? On a Chromebook, you can’t run traditional programs available on Windows or Mac. This means you have to find web-based solutions to share files and encrypt. For schools and organizations in Europe, John points out GDPR is a concern. Before we go into possible solutions, let’s review what GDPR is.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new legislation. It applies to all companies who collect, store, and process any data. While focused on data belonging to European Union citizens, it has wider effects since GDPR applies to all companies across the world. This means that it affects Americans, as well as EU citizens. GDPR went into effect on May 25, 2018 (source: video). American companies must comply, even if enforcement in the United States remains unclear.

Exploring Solutions

How do you safeguard sensitive information in a G Suite EDU environment? How do you add password protection to a file and send it via email in Chrome OS? To organize solutions, you first have to ask yourself a few questions:

Do I need to protect the content of the email itself?
Do I need to protect the file attachment?

Let’s look at a few tools you can use.

Protecting Email Message Text

If you need a solution to protect email content, the actual body of the message, use one of the following. Each offers AES-256 level encryption.

g suite encrypt

One solution to explore is Paranoia Works Text Encryption Tool PTE). It is a browser-based tool that makes it easy to encrypt an email’s message text. The interface works in an simple way and safeguards the content with encrypted text. It offers these steps:

Encryption:
1. Set a password.
2. Write or paste a text into the Unencrypted Text area (green bordered).
3. Press the Encrypt button.
4. An encrypted text will appear in the Encrypted Text area (red bordered).
5. Copy the encrypted text and use it however/wherever you want.

Decryption:
1. Set a password
2. Write or paste an encrypted text into the Encrypted Text area (red bordered).
3. Press the Decrypt button.
4. A decrypted text will appear in the Unencrypted Text area (green bordered).

For Chromebooks that can run Android apps, you might want to get the app. The app is Secret Space Encryptor for Android (shown below) via the Google Play Store. See the online tutorial.

An alternative text encryption tool you can use is FourmiLab’s browser tool. This latter tool provides a streamlined view (shown below) without documentation.

g suite encrypt

Your organization should standardize on either PTE or FourmiLab’s solution. Save either tool to the Chromebook for local use, even when not online. What’s more, you can use these within Google Docs, too. That is, you can choose to encrypt the text in a Google Doc, but you will have to copy and paste the content in and out of a Google Doc.

The main benefit of these tools is that they are free, no cost options.

Protecting Email File Attachments

John’s original question focused on files exported from G Suite. This could include DOCx, PNGs, JPGs, PDFs, PPTx, and many other formats. G Suite for Education provides for several via the SAVE AS option. If you want to protect these files in transit via email to external parties, how can you do that? How do you encrypt them so that only the recipient, to whom you’ve provided the password, will be able to see them?

g suite encrypt

One web-based tool you can use includes FileLock.org. This works in a similar way to PTE and FourmiLab. You access a website, select a file on your Chromebook (e.g. DOCx you’ve saved from a Google Doc), and then encrypt it. Then you attach the encrypted file to your Gmail message (as shown below).

g suite encrypt

Note: Be sure to use secure passwords for encrypting text or files. You can use any variety of online tools to create unbreakable passwords. Password Generator, LastPass Password Generator, GRC Generator, or Packetizer will work fine.

Protecting Confidential G Suite Files

As you may imagine, there are a host of commercial solutions you can use to safeguard G Suite files. Both Boxcryptor and Cryptomator offer enterprise level solutions at different prices. You can also take the added step of preventing the sharing of confidential information. The main benefit of the solutions offered here is that they are free, open source, and available at no cost. Combine them with an organizational procedure to support effective use.

*Question adapted with minor readability edits from one posed to Google Certified Trainers (GCT) Google group.

February 11, 2019 1 comment

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