CETPA DataBus Summer 2011

SUMMER 2011 VOLUME 2011 • ISSUE 3

Technology Gone Wild!

Technology as a Tool, Not a Solution?

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Cautionary Tales

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

California Educational Technology Professionals Association

Summer 2011 | Volume 2011 | Issue 3

ARTICLES 6 President’s Message

By Steve Carr

8 Best Practices

By Phil Scrivano

10 Technology as a Tool, Not a Solution?

By Rolland Kornblau

12 Preventing IT in-the Middle Attacks: A Cautionary Tale

By Christopher Thompson

16 Open Source Program Analysis

By Matt Muller

20 E-Rate Update

By Fred Brakeman

23 Call For Speakers 24 Member Profile DataBus Chats with Luis Wong

26 Resource Guide and Ad Index

Databus is the official publication of the California Educational Technology Professionals Association (CETPA).

Databus is published four times a year as a service to our members and information technology managers for California’s K-12 school system.

The CETPA and the Databus assume no responsibility for the statements or opinions appearing in articles under an author’s name. The services of an attorney or accountant should be sought in legal and tax matters.

All copyrights and trademarks are proper ty of their respective owners. Except where otherwise noted, content in Databus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Publisher California Educational Technology Professionals Association Managing Editor Tim Goree timg@fsusd.k12.ca.us Assistant Editor Diane Foulks dfoulks@fldusd.k12.ca.us

Advertising Manager Cici Trino Association Outsource Services (916) 990-9999 Fax: (916) 990-9991 cicit@aosinc.biz

Layout and Design Lori Mattas Printing and Mailing Copeland Printing

Editor Lisa Kopochinski (916) 481-0265 lisakop@sbcglobal.net

Summer 2011 • DataBus 5

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT

Stephen Carr, Chief Technology Officer Ventura County Office of Education 5189 Verdugo Way Camarillo, CA 93012

Technology Gone Wild!

By Steve Carr, CETPA President

C

PRESIDENT ELECT

ETPA Communications Director Tim Goree came up with this issue theme and what a great one it is. It takes off from some of the EdTech listserv’s “Friday Funny” threads. We have all experienced crazy anecdotal stories, outlandish requests, lack of planning emergencies or simply technology that has simply gone wild. This issue will focus on some of these stories and will hopefully provide you some comic relief or, at best, some lessons learned.

I have taken the time to ask colleagues from our districts and our own technology department to share some of their stories that I hope you will find entertaining and perhaps illustrative.

J. Todd Finnell, Vice President of Technology

Imperial Community College District 380 E. Aten Road Imperial, CA 92251 PAST PRESIDENT

Dr. Kelly Calhoun, Chief Technology Officer Santa Clara County Office of Education 1290 Ridder Park Drive San Jose, CA 95131 TREASURER

Gregory W. Lindner, Technology Services Director

Elk Grove Unified School District 9510 Elk Grove-Florin Road Elk Grove, CA 95624 SECRETARY

Steve Thornton, Director of Technology

Charles Poovaken: Ocean View Elementary School District nnn

I had a teacher

Menifee Union School District 30205 Menifee Road Menifee, CA 92584

who placed a

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

very angry Help

Andrea Bennett

915 L Street #C424 Sacramento, CA 95354

Desk ticket

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS

because all the

Tim Goree, Director of Technology Support Services

Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District 2490 Hilborn Road Fairfield, CA 94534 DIRECTORS AT LARGE

Aaron Barnett, Information Systems Director

Moreno Valley Unified School District 25634 Alessandro Boulevard Moreno Valley, CA 92553

Sandra Ching, Director of Information Services

Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District 1301 Orangethorpe Avenue Placentia, CA 92870

Julie Judd, Director of Technology Moorpark Unified School District 5297 Maureen Lane Moorpark, CA 93021

Brianne Meyer, Chief Technology Officer Irvine Unified School District 5050 Barranca Parkway Irvine, CA 92604

Peter Skibitzki, Director of Administrative Operations

Placer County Office of Education 360 Nevada Street Auburn, CA 95603

Wade Williams, Director of Network Services

Stanislaus County Office of Education 1100 H Street Modesto, CA 95354

6 DataBus • Summer 2011

e-mail that she put into her DELETED ITEMS folder kept disappearing!

I once had a user whose main phrase when anything went wrong was that, “I cannot do my work, the Internet is down.” She would say this if her print jobs weren’t printing, if sound didn’t work, etc. Apparently, anything that went wrong was related to the Internet going down.

Back in the early 2000s, I once knew a librarian who wanted to make sure she never lost data. She would always back up her library system every day on 3.5 inch floppy diskettes. This backup spanned multiple diskettes and she would spend about 30 minutes at the end of the day making sure she had a backup. One day, I asked her where she kept it, because I figured it was in a safe or something at the school site. On the contrary, the exact phrase she told me was, “I bring it home and store it in my underwear drawer.” Granted, this person was as old as my grandma at the time and that image has haunted me still today.

Al LaCroix: Santa Paula Union High School District As you all know, a secure password is essential to keeping your identity and data secure. During a recent audit by Microsoft, it was discovered that a user had an extremely long password. When asked why her password was so long, she replied, “I was told my password needed to be eight characters long and have one capital.” Her password was MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGuffyTallahasee.

nnn

Ted Malos: Ventura Unified School District Ventura Unified School District had a “Net Day” at Pierpont Elementary School in 1997. Net Days were week-end community gatherings with support from Pacific Bell to put one network jack in each classroom for Internet access. In those days, the Pierpont connection towards the Internet was not the 1,000 Mb (1 Gb) link via the iNET that Ventura has today. In 1997, Pierpont’s .128 Mb ISDN link to the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Office performed at about one tenthousandth the rate it is today. The ISDN link was not just slow, it was sorely intermittent. On foggy days, it would go up and down. During rainy days, it did not really work well at all. This was painful for the school, for my department, and for the Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Office. During Net Day, I asked the Pacific Bell folks on hand to help us move the ISDN wire from a box outside the school office to continued on page 25

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BEST PRACTICES

Communications or Priorities

T

By Phil Scrivano

nnn

When we look at the role of IT Leadership in education, I believe most of our stories could be told as “unusual” in the industry of enterprise level technology services. nnn

he theme this issue discusses “unusual stories from the field and what we can learn from them.” When we look at the role of IT leadership in education, I believe most of our stories could be told as “unusual” in the industry of enterprise level technology services. In this article, I will give three examples that illustrate “unusual” and demonstrate their significance for education.

The district I work in is as complex as any other district in our state. Recently I have been working on a printing problem. We have a failing fleet of large copier/ printer/scanners, which print at a cost of $.04 per click.

A “click” is a copy, print from a computer or scan.

Year-to-date, we are exceeding 24 million clicks with machines that are down 30 percent of the time. We own the machines and there is no budget to replace the 30-plus units in our district.

In order to gather data about the situation, we installed a probe on the network that gives us information about each print job (click) from any device connected to the network. After three months, data shows us that 40 percent of our printing is done in the classroom at a cost of $.60 to $1.00 per click.

The solution to acquiring a new fleet of large copier/ printer/scanners is to control printing at the classroom level to three to ten pages per day. For this control, we can lease new equipment for five years and save—at the most conservative estimate—$15,000 per year. Bottom line, we are not asking teachers to print less, just to walk to the office to pick up the print job.

My focus group committee, aka the Starbucks morning group, consists of an attorney, a pharmaceutical rep and a few others, all of whom have students in the district. When I discussed this approach with this group, the attorney stated that there is no problem here. The owner of a company would just say control printing. I explained that in an education setting with professionals, this type of top down giving orders is usually met with resistance. My first step was to propose the idea at two school site staff meetings thinking that the teaching staff would desire new equipment. The reception was not good at the site level. One second grade teacher expressed this thought to me: “I listened to what you are saying, but all I hear is that this is another way for the district office to control me as a professional.” She further explained that by “district office” she includes the state and national testing frenzy and requirements to stay credentialed.

The next example has to do with wireless connectivity at school sites. A few years ago, some sites were given teacher wireless connectivity using home consumer level $30 access points that required a Mac address, secure key and a VPN authentication back at the district office in order to connect. This setup is so problematic that in the past few years there have been many problems with teachers bringing in their own personal access points, then causing loops or IP conflicts on the network. Teachers have been forbidden to bring in their own equipment while, at the same time, enterprise wireless is not in the budget.

8 DataBus • Summer 2011

Recently, I was at a site and noticed as I walked through the campus many “Dlink” or “Netgear” SSIDs available.

All were locked and not accessible to me. When I discussed this with a teacher I expressed that my goal in life was not to be a police officer, and I asked if they would explain this to me. What I understood from this conversation is that there is a person—most likely a student—who knows how to configure these devices on campus and when one teacher observes the network engineer on campus, an email is sent out to unplug all the devices.

The third example has to do with direct leadership in the educational technology department. Every department has projects to be completed over time and it is the job of the leaders to ensure progress and communicate this progress to the IT team, district leadership, staff and the community. I do this in several ways including direct communication with cabinet, the school board technology committee, all staff emails, a blog, and Twitter/ Facebook feeds. Recently I had a two-hour conversation with my network manager about communications in our department. I discovered during this conversation that the issue had little to do with communications. The issue is aligning the priorities of everyone involved. At the conclusion of this meeting, each of us were able to align and agree to our top three priorities, which now match up. The next week we were making excellent progress toward our mutual goals.

I am also applying this same priority alignment strategy with the first two issues brought up in this article. For the issue of controlling teacher printing, I am working with the teachers’ union, which has an interest in capturing the savings to help obtain a union priority of bringing down the increasing burden of health benefits for teachers. If we can come to an agreement, my second-grade teacher will hopefully see a direct benefit to walking to the office to pick up a class set of worksheets.

For enterprise wireless, the issue is far more complex, but worthy of attention. When we have situations like this that cause good people to break the rules in order to make progress toward a priority, we have a big problem that needs to be addressed. We are working with parent groups and other funding sources in order to see if we can find a solution outside our long-lasting budget crisis. As long as teachers see that I am addressing this need with a real plan, my hope is that staff will be less inclined to break the rules. It is clear that when we communicate that the answer is “NO,” our users hear that they need to take technology issues into their own hands.

As a group of school technology professionals, let’s keep in mind that our district priorities need to align with the personal priorities of all the stakeholders involved in the process.  Phil Scrivano is the Chief Instructional Technology Officer for the Las Virgenes Unified School District in Calabasas, Calif. He can be reached at pscrivano@ lvusd.org.

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TECHNOLOGY OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

Technology as a Tool, Not a Solution?

By Rolland Kornblau

The Problem

Teaching

I have worked in educational technology for 14 years now, and I cannot tell you how many times I have encountered issues that people wish to solve with the latest and greatest innovation—a.k.a. “technology.”

This may sound strange coming from a technology person, but having this background affords me the understanding that while I may be able to solve most problems better and faster using said innovations, I cannot solve all problems. I may not even be able to make the issue go away simply by adding technology.

I would offer the argument that technology is merely a tool—like a hammer—that must be implemented correctly toward a solution to be effective. This also leads me to the realization that simply having a hammer does not make every problem a nail. I may need another tool, like a screwdriver, to complete the job. Luckily, there are many different tools available under the umbrella of technology.

My district has implemented a one-to-one laptop program that has been extremely successful as we had spent a large amount of time researching, planning and training to prepare for the program. Thought was put into the kind of hardware, whether to lease or purchase, professional development, maintenance needed and results expected, all of which have paid off in student engagement and achievement. We have also seen an increase in curriculum comprehension due to the technology. Is this program beneficial? Was technology the solution to raising test scores? I can say that it helped. The laptops had something to do with it, but they were not the solution to the problem. The teachers first had to prepare how to best integrate the laptops into the curriculum and facilitate classroom learning via the technology. The teachers were the reason the kids learned. The laptops were simply used as a tool to facilitate the experience. The bottom line is that using laptops resulted in greater engagement with the subject matter, which produced more learning, but were they the solution?

10 DataBus • Summer 2011

Communication Today, we have more ways to communicate with one another than ever before. We have email, voicemail, blogs, texts and there is also the trusty telephone. Does anyone even need to visit the office or cubicle next door when they can video chat? There is also the fun side of technology that nobody likes to speak of, and that’s when the technology fails to work. Have you ever not received an email or had trouble sending a large file? Has your computer crashed or gotten a virus that turned your day into a flurry of finding post-it notes and small bits of paper for backup?

That, my friends, does happen. Good backup can help alleviate the problem, but has technology been the solution for all of the aforementioned communication? Although I really do love my iPad, iPhone and laptop, I also enjoy sitting down with a real book or even a paper and pencil every now and again. Yes, the electronics may be better, stronger and faster, but do they solve all of my communication woes? They become a tool for speed, sometimes accuracy (although the darn auto-correct feature on my phone doesn’t always correctly reflect what I am trying to say), but I’m not convinced they are the solution.

Learning

but we can save a lot of time looking back to our original policies as the basis instead of putting out a new policy specifically addressing technology for the solution.

Summary We do need technology, especially in education. We have to teach using our current environment to seamlessly integrate with our students and our environment. I argue that it is becoming increasingly difficult to take a child that has access to a computer, cell phone, music player or game console outside of school and make them use only a book, pencil and paper when they are in school. There is a tremendous disconnect that can be bridged by incorporating some of these items into the school day, but I would also challenge the person that states that technology is the answer to review the information available. I propose that technology is a necessary tool of the 21st century and beyond. But a solution?  Rolland Kornblau is the Supervisor of Network Services for the Whittier City School District in Whittier, Calif. He has been in Educational Technology for over 14 years and holds an MPA. He is an ACSA and TechSETS Cadre Member. He can be reached at rkornblau@whittiercity.k12.ca.us.

Most K-12 pedagogy does not allow Wikipedia to be used for research. How can a website be allowed to furnish information that is posted by noncertificated personnel? How can we trust information that has not been researched thoroughly by an Ed.D or a PhD? Has anyone heard of a peer-reviewed document? Usually, the more peers that have reviewed an article, the better. If you could have an article review worldwide, would that not be better than a local review? Well, Wikipedia does this exceptionally well. Changes, users and previous posts are not only available, they are traceable. Information is updated quicker and is more accurate than something written in a book even a few months ago. Speaking of information, when was the last time you looked something up in a book when you needed up-to-date information?

Doesn’t everyone Google everything today? Employers looking to hire, shoppers looking to buy, scholars looking to research all run to their computers, type in www.google.com and proceed to surf through the results. Ah, you read my mind, those results can be influenced by paid ads, mischievous individuals and frequency of requests. How then is this the ultimate solution? It is faster, arguably more accurate, but a solution?

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Policy Dr. Kelly Calhoun gave an awesome lecture at the Lead 3.0 Symposium on Policy. I use the word “awesome” sparingly and only when something gets me to think a complete 180 degrees from how I perceived a subject previously. How many of you reading this have spent a great amount of time thinking about or actually rewriting your acceptable use policies every time a new technology comes out? I am guilty of this. At first, we had email and Internet policy. Then came MySpace. Then texting. Now, Facebook, iOS devices and cyber-bullying. Our written policies cannot keep up. Dr. Calhoun proposed that all policy should indeed include electronic media and communication, but can be reflected back to the policies already in place. Is cyber-bullying really that different from bullying? Isn’t email an electronic version of passing notes? There is a bit more to this, but that is the general idea. Updating our policy to reflect technology is wise,

Strategic Relationships

Summer 2011 • DataBus 11

TECHNOLOGY

Preventing IT-in-the-Middle Attacks:

A Cautionary Tale M

By Christopher Thompson

y department’s director has always had a focus on security. In addition to practicing it here with the over 11,000 computers and more than 40,000 users within our school district, he has endeavored to teach it to others as well, making IT professionals and CBOs alike aware of the threats present, both internally and externally, to a network and how to best protect against them. It was in this pursuit that I found myself assisting with a session on network security to be presented at a conference for school business officials. Among the subjects that I would be presenting would be Man-in-the-Middle, or MITM, attacks.

The principle behind an MITM attack is simple: A computer positions itself between the two ends of a conversation on the network and intercepts or modifies the communications between the victims.

The particular form to be demonstrated was ARP Poisoning, wherein the attacking computer tells the victim computer that its MAC address (layer 2 in the OSI model) is the MAC address of the computer it was trying to reach. By telling this to both computers, both sides of a conversation can be seen. A further complication is found, however, in trying to see both sides of a connection with a computer outside the immediate network. This is rectified by redirecting

computers’ requests for the network gateway, just as it would another computer, and then acting like a gateway itself.

I was using a program called Ettercap (http:// ettercap.sourceforge.net/) for my portion of the demonstration. I was using the Linux version, running it on my Dell D600 laptop under a USB-booted Linux environment. I started small, placing my laptop on a lightly-used subnet at the district office.

I also tried it on the local administrative subnet, just trying to listen between computers. I figured out the basic configuration options and started to see some traffic, mostly things I initiated. But I wanted to see more. I was curious as to what would be seen if an MITM attack could be carried out on a key gateway, thinking this would help me convey the gravity of the situation in my presentation. At that time, then, I turned my attention toward the administrative gateway through which passed nearly all network traffic going in and out of the district.

It seemed so simple: Once the poisoning started, there would be a brief interruption of any established connections, but they would quickly reconnect, now routed through my laptop where I could see them as well as any other traffic. At first, it was quite interesting. I noticed that a large number of our computers continued on page 14

12 DataBus • Summer 2011

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Preventing IT-in-the-Middle Attacks continued from page 12

The principle behind an MITM attack is simple: A computer positions itself between the two ends of a conversation on the network and intercepts or modifies the communications between the victims.

seemed to be trying to update their anti-virus software from the Internet, rather than our internal servers. I was making a note to share this with our systems administrator when the phone calls started coming in.

I refer you to the number of computers and users listed at the top of this article. While our number of computers was a little smaller then—perhaps around 8,000 or so—they were still accustomed to having their traffic handled by a beefy Cisco 7200-series router.

My little Dell D600, with its single 100MB NIC and small amount of RAM, was no match for the load. People throughout the

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district began calling as their Internet connections, email, and other functionality slowed to a crawl. As I heard the clerical staff fielding the large volume of calls, I quickly ascertained that I was the cause of the matter.

Trying to solve the problem I had created, I stopped the sniffing process. That was when things got really bad.

Ettercap considers an MITM attack and network sniffing to be two completely separate operations. You can sniff network traffic without poisoning the network, or you can use the poisoning portion of the software without sniffing the traffic. Therefore, when I told Ettercap to stop sniffing the traffic, it did so, but without reversing the ARP poisoning. As a result, we went from a slow district gateway to no district gateway. It took us a few minutes to figure out what had happened. (Once the network was down, it went from ‘me’ to ‘us’ in a hurry.) But, once we did, we restarted Ettercap and ended the poisoning. Afterward, the network soon returned to normal.

Lessons learned? First, a laptop is no match for a purpose-built router when it comes to heavy network traffic. Second, we needed to check our anti-virus configuration. The most important lesson, however, was that before testing anything on the production network, I needed to consider the effect it might have on the network, and on the district as a whole. Additionally, even though a process or a program may work on a small scale, it does not automatically mean that the same process or program will work on a larger scale. What made things worse in this case was that this was something that had no direct bearing on the district or its operations.

Yes, an MITM attack can be a significant threat to network security. An even bigger threat, though, can come from your own IT staff if they are inclined to test out things they only half understand while taking advantage of their elevated access permissions. I still test out network security software on my laptop.

Now, however, I think long and hard before plugging in the network cable into anywhere “interesting.”  Christopher Thompson works for the Moreno Valley Unified School District as a Systems Administrator focusing on finance and Business Services. When not busy sabotaging his district’s network, he can be reached at cthompson@mvusd.net.

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Open Source Program Analysis

D

By Matt Muller

istrict and school technology leaders are searching for unconventional ways to stretch every technology dollar. Open source solutions (both free and at greatly reduced cost) designed specifically for the school environment allow technology departments to save money while offering end-users high-quality alternatives to commercial applications. Technology leaders should be careful, however, to thoroughly vet any solution to ensure a positive return on investment (ROI).

This article offers four criteria a public school or district can use to evaluate software programs with suggestions on how to apply the criteria to open source solutions. The four criteria for evaluating software applications are: 1. Ease-of-use 2. Scalability 3. Flexibility 4. Return on investment Ease-of-use is the starting point for any software program. Systems that are not inherently intuitive demand more training. Even where web-based training tools are employed, the time demand for the end-users can still be quite steep. Further, unless the software application can be directly mapped to an increase in student achievement, it is very difficult to engage teachers in rigorous training programs. An easy-to-use system therefore becomes a necessity rather than a luxury. An easy-to-use program drives a higher adoption rate and—as more users access the program the institution—achieves a greater return on the investment.

With the advent of the relational database, there is no excuse for a software application to not scale.

So the question of scalability really becomes one of product design. Any application that requires longitudinal analysis or the import/export of data must be built on a relational database. Do not expect open source programmers to build their applications on Oracle or MS SQL. However, in recent years, several robust databases have come to the forefront that offer just as much power and flexibility, but at a fraction of the cost. Two of the best are mySQL (http://www.mysql.com) and PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org). For some organizations, scalability demands are not as stringent. As technologists, however, it always pays dividends to anticipate the future needs of the end users, so retaining as much information as possible is always a prudent measure. In addition, scalability can be used as a proxy for sound application design.

The flexibility of a system has multiple components. At a minimum, the applications must interface with other programs. Very few open source applications are SIF certified since there is an application fee for products to go through the certification process. Some programs do have SIF agents, however. And, if the program is developed on a relational database, ODBC drivers perform many of the same roles as a SIF agent.

Another key element of flexibility is the capacity of the system to adapt to future requirements that are as of yet undefined. While some functions continued on page 18

16 DataBus • Summer 2011

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Open Source Program Analysis continued from page 16

With the advent of the relational database, there is no excuse for a software application to not scale. So the question of scalability really becomes one of product design. within the K-12 environment are relatively static (the process of checking out a library book has not changed, except for the addition of scanner technology), other processes change quite often (state reporting being the obvious example). Since many open source solutions do not have the same level of support as commercial programs, the district should ensure that the process for making changes to the program is straightforward and can be performed by the district, if necessary. Also, the institution should have a backup plan should the primary internal resource become unavailable.

Finally, we come to the most contentious aspect of the open source debate: cost. Open source is sometimes used as a synonym for “free.” A new wave of developers has extended this definition and there is some confusion in the industry as to what open-source means. (Please do not send the author GPL documentation as he is referring to the perception in the marketplace rather than the strict definition.) Whether offered for free or at greatly reduced cost, product development is shared among the greater user community, typically resulting in a high-quality program for less than the cost of a commercial solution. As with any software application, the

upfront cost is just one variable in the investment equation.

Ongoing support and maintenance as well as internal support costs can negate the financial gains of selecting an open source solution instead of a commercial application. A thorough understanding of the ongoing support costs, as well as the internal resources necessary to support the application across the product life-cycle is therefore critically important. Specifically, technologists should consider the following factors: hosting or hardware costs, annual support fees, integration costs, training requirements, and help desk set-up.

A key factor for return on investment calculations is setting an appropriate time horizon for net present value (NPV) calculations. Also, avoid trying to fast track an implementation to improve the return. Moving too fast in an enterprise application roll-out is a major risk factor for adoption failure.

County support agencies or education services centers (ESC) are often a valuable resource when forecasting resources for application deployment. Often this agency has experience with multiple product roll-outs in different districts and, therefore, can offer advice on best practices. In addition, support agencies can pool resources such as programmers that can benefit multiple districts that could not afford that type of resource on their own. The open source model, therefore, is especially well suited to states where support agencies that serve multiple districts exist.

We will now explore some open source programs available to districts that meet our criteria. This list is not exhaustive, but should illustrate the breadth of solutions available. A great location to check for new programs is sourceforge.net. As the author works for an open source student information system, those applications have been intentionally excluded from the list. Finally, some of the applications listed below can actually be included in multiple sections. They are categorized by how they are most often used in the K-12 environment.

Many, many more applications exist and I encourage readers to share their favorite applications with me at matt. muller@fuqua.duke.edu. If nothing else, you may be able to get a reduced support fee from your commercial application providers by mentioning the names of a few of these programs.  Matt Muller is a Director for Focus School Software, creators of Focus/SIS, a student information system licensed via partner sourcing (a hybrid of commercial and open source licensing). Matt has an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Duke University and has served as a teacher, school technologist, researcher and guest lecturer. He can be reached at matt.muller@focus-sis. org or mulle02@fuqua.duke.edu.

18 DataBus • Summer 2011

E-RATE UPDATE

E-Rate Update

S

ince I last updated you in the spring edition of the DataBus magazine, new E-Rate updates have come out or will have come out by the time you get this article.

CIPA

By Fred Brakeman

In a recent briefing I attended with FCC staff, it appears that the new cyber bullying regulations are set to be released and/or will be released by the time you are reading this article. The good news is the new rules won’t go into effect until July 1, 2012, which gives you some time to update your CIPA policy and associated documents. It is recommended you take these changes to your board to have them ratified. For more information, go the SLD website at http://www.universalservice. org/sl/ and look under Latest News, Important Notices, and Reminders.

Gifting Rules and Regulations When the FCC released their 6th Report & Order on September 28, 2010, they imposed much stricter regulations on school employees who accept gifts, meals and inducements from E-Rate Service Providers and the Manufacturers who supply equipment and services to E-Rate Service Providers. Basically, no one in the school district that remotely has anything to do with the planning or decision to use an E-Rate Service Provider can accept any type of gifts (including meals) of more than $20 on any separate occasion or more than a total of $50 per year from a service provider.

During the review process for the Year 2011 E-Rate applications, Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) reviewers are asking detailed questions regarding which 20 DataBus • Summer 2011

employees within the district are involved in the decision making process to award contracts to E-Rate service providers and if those service providers have provided any type of gifts to school district personnel, and if so, what was supplied.

Because there have been so many questions sent to the FCC to clarify these gifting rules, it is expected that the FCC was to release new clarifications on these new rules in the June/July time-frame. The current changes went into effect on January 1, 2011. Again, go the SLD website at http://www.universalservice.org/sl/ and look under Latest News, Important Notices, and Reminders.

Year 2011 Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) Review Now that we have been in PIA for a while, here is a list of the most commonly asked questions PIA reviewers are asking: Provide more detail on the services requested on the Item 21 attachments. PIA reviewers are requesting much more detailed information including the quantity and type of service and bandwidth of the service. If it is a Priority Two service, be prepared to provide a complete material list, unit pricing and verification that all the material is eligible for E-Rate funding per the Eligible Services List. If it’s a web-hosting service, be prepared to verify that the web-hosting company has cost allocated out all ineligible services.

Copy of the service provider’s contract. Make sure you supply a copy that has been signed by both parties after the 28-day bidding period is over and dated before you filed your Form 471.

Documentation about the district’s procurement policies and verification that the district followed those

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procedures for any new services requested this year.

As we had advised in the last DataBus magazine, PIA is fine-tooth combing all information regarding funding requests for maintenance. Be prepared to produce documentation that shows you only applied for funding for eligible services under the maintenance category.

Preparing for Year 15 (2012) E-Rate Funding Yes, you should already be planning for your upcoming Year 15 E-Rate project. Here are some items consider: In Year 2011, schools and libraries requested approximately $400 million more in Priority One services than ever before. Because there is an annual cap of $2.25 billion dollars (plus rollover monies from previous years), Priority One funding is taking more and more of the dollars allocated for the program. If this trend continues, there probably won’t be any monies left to fund any Priority Two projects except for the highest discount schools, those eligible for 90 percent E-Rate discounts, in Year 2012. If you are a 900-percent school district, or at least in the high 80s-percent range, you may want to consider accelerating those plans of putting out to bid and procuring Priority Two services in Year 2015.

There is a strong likelihood that Year 2012 may be the last year that funding will be available for Priority Two funding unless the FCC can pull more money into the program or change their eligibility rules.

If your district intends to apply for Priority Two

funding, you must have an approved technology plan that goes through the end of the E-Rate funding year (June 30, 2013). If your current technology plan is up for renewal before July 1, 2012, you will need to have the plan written before you file your Yr 2012 Form 470(s).

USAC management has already confirmed that the Year 2012 Form 471 filing period will start on or about January 1, 2012 and end on or about the middle of March, 2012.

If USAC management keeps to the same schedule they have followed in past years, you can start filing Year 2012 Form 470’s on July 1, 2011. Why not start early so you are not in a rush at the end of the year and/or waiting until the last minute to file your Form 471s?  Fred Brakeman is President of Infinity Communications & Consulting, Inc., a full service consulting firm including E-Rate/CTF and Microsoft Ed Tech K-12 consulting, technology design services, and low voltage construction management and inspection services serving approximately 20 percent of all the school districts and county offices of education in California. Infinity Communications & Consulting is located in Bakersfield, California with field offices in Fresno and Emeryville.

He can be reached at fbrakeman@infinitycomm.com, office phone (661) 716-1840, or via mail at P.O. Box 6069, Bakersfield, California 93386. Please visit www. infinitycomm.com.

School solutions that

think like you do.

It’s solutions that empower. It’s service that excels. It’s a team that understands every K-12 education professional has a job to do. And it’s a commitment to making that job easier. Maybe that’s why Tyler’s financial, SIS, transportation, information warehouse and district planning products are being adopted by more and more school districts everyday. Want school solutions that think like you do? Visit tylertech.com or email us at info@tylertech.com.

22 DataBus • Summer 2011

CETPA 2011 - November 8-11, 2011 - Westin Long Beach and Long Beach Convention Center

Serve, Lead,Innovate CETPA K-20 TECHNOLOGIST CONFERENCE

SPEAKER SESSIONS

Join your colleagues at CETPA and share your expertise!

We have demanding careers that are by their very nature in a constant state of change. The CETPA Conference is all about sharing what you are doing or have done and sharing skills that provide attendees tangible, practical ideas to assist them with their own projects and plans.

Your contribution is what makes the CETPA Conference the #1 conference in California for educational technology professionals. We encourage you to be an active member and submit a presentation application for one of the 75-minute breakout sessions at the 2011 CETPA Conference at: HTTP://CETPA.NET/PUB/HTDOCS/2011-SPEAKER-REGISTRATION.HTML Remember, you may use your K-12 voucher funds for conference registration.

CETPA Will Continue With Its Four Popular Strands • Secure, reliable infrastructure • Technology tools for Education • Policy and programs that impact education and technology • New learning environments

Session Format CETPA offers traditional break-out sessions, Hands-On Labs, as well as round-table and panel discussions. Sessions are 75 or 150 minutes long. If you are interested in holding a panel discussion, please submit it with the names of the participants. Please use “Round-table” or “Panel” as the first word in the title.

Photo provided by the Long Beach Area Convention & Visitors’ Bureau

Session Rooms Breakout rooms can typically seat 40 to 50 conference attendees. Popular sessions can accommodate up to 80 attendees. Internet access and a projector will be provided.

cetpa.net

A Sampling of the 2011 Session Topics • K-20 Videoconferencing • Web 2.0 • Education for a Smarter Planet • Google Apps • Enable Multimedia 3-D Educational Apps over 802.11n • Moodle and UC College Prep • 21st Century Digital Brains • E-Rate/CTF Annual Update • E-Rate Competitive Bidding Requirements

• Construction Management for E-Rate Projects • Technology Tools to Increase Student Achievement • Server Virtualization • Cloud Computing Helps Shrink K-20 Budgets • Security Assessments that help build Web 2.0 policies • Implementing Cost Effective AV Technology in Classrooms

• Child Welfare and Cal-PASS Integration • Smart Phone Apps • Assessment Management Systems • Integrated Data Management • Benefiting from California Free Digital Textbooks (FDTI) • Employee Privacy in the Electronic Age • Forensics: Identifying Misconduct in Your School • Securing the $$$ You Need

• How to teach math in the 21st century • Digital Age Learning • Laptops in the Elementary School Classroom • E-Rate: Updates, Audits and Best Practices • Achieving Better Parent Communication • K12HSN: Program Updates • Brokers of Expertise: Support for Teachers

With the exception of Friday’s Training Sessions, Preference will be given to applications received from educational agencies, followed by educational agencies partnering with an exhibitor (submitted by the educational agency) and then exhibitors. Room scheduling will be ongoing for educational agencies and begin August 1st for exhibitors. Session topics as well as the date of submission may be used when scheduling.

If you are an exhibitor speaker, please keep in mind that direct promotion of products or services should not be the intention of the speaker. It is encouraged that Friday sessions are training sessions and may be vendor and product specific.

Summer 2011 • DataBus 23

MEMBER PROFILE

DataBus Chats with Luis

By Lisa Kopochinski, DataBus Editor

Wong

What is your title at the Imperial County Office of Education and your responsibilities?

My current title is chief technology officer and my responsibilities include managing the day-to-day technology operations of the county office, several local districts and special programs that we operate on behalf of the county and the state. Every day, I have the opportunity to lead and manage a great team of professionals in the areas of technical support, enterprise infrastructure, network services, education technology and application development. I feel very fortunate to work for an organization that recognizes technology as a strong support pillar of the organization and that values the services and potential that technology can offer to fulfill our mission. Our team provides technical support services to five school districts in Imperial County; we provide and extensive fiber optic network to approximately 89 sites in the community, we design and develop web, business and human resources applications for our districts, we provide EdTech support and are we are lead agency for the K12 High Speed Network. My biggest responsibility is to ensure that we are using technology in a meaningful way to support our school districts, student programs and our community partners. Our team strives (and is proud) to provide the best value in the services that we have to offer.

How long have you been in the computer industry?

When I was a kid, I remember having a gift for operating electronic devices and I’ve been hooked ever since. I recall disassembling televisions and video cassette players (and whatever I could get my hands on) just to see how they worked. I also recall the days when you would program your own games on the Texas Instruments game consoles, which led me to pursue a career in computers and networks. I graduated as an electrical engineer with a degree in telecommunications in 1998 and have worked in the industry for approximately 24 DataBus • Summer 2011

15 years. I have to say that this industry has offered me many opportunities to grow and I have experienced many areas from designing electronic circuits, programming in binary and multiple computer languages, providing technical support, building networks, configuring servers and storage systems, designing high availability server clusters, designing and implementing electronic messaging systems and much more. I have to say that this industry is very exciting, but also very challenging.

Keeping up with latest trends and—at the same time—implementing complex projects, with limited resources and time can be challenging at best.

What drew you to the industry? What do you like about it and why?

The never-ending challenges intrigue me in this industry, but what I do enjoy the most is that technology has the potential to solve many problems and make processes more efficient. I’m passionate about making a positive difference where new technologies are implemented to make our work (and life) much easier, efficient and significantly raise the quality of the work product.

Working in education these days makes all that more exciting with the numerous opportunities that we have today to use technology to change the way our children learn, play, engage and create. With two small boys, I’m personally interested on how technology in education will unfold, and I’m excited about what they can do with today’s gadgets.

When did you join CETPA and why?

Hard to pinpoint the exact year, but I would say I joined the CETPA community approximately seven years ago. I recall at the time that our edtech director made a strong suggestion that I attend the CETPA conference because of the opportunities it offered to network with other colleagues and learn about the trends in technology in the K12 field. I have not regretted join-

ing ever since. Unfortunately, I did skip the conference a few years to give other folks an opportunity to attend. Over the years I’ve made some great friends and the networking opportunities provided by CETPA are invaluable. The CETPA listserv has provided numerous opportunities to learn, share ideas, experiences and pitfalls to avoid. The members in this talented community never fail to impress me with their great questions and most importantly with their thoughtful answers. CETPA members, the board and the operational staff are not only knowledgeable, but there are great individuals that truly care and you can quickly embrace as friends; this in itself makes it all worth it.

Where does CETPA need to grow?

Recently, I learned CETPA is making efforts to expand collaboration amongst members by creating regional groups. I think this is a great idea and has the potential to strengthen relationships and keep the community engaged through the year.

The education business will experience substantial changes in the next few years, and technology will take an even more significant role in the educational experience of our children. It will be important that organizations, like CETPA, keep at the forefront of these changes and that it collaborates with other similar organizations in the education space so it can advocate for its members. Professional development is an area with lots of potential for CETPA and an opportunity to grow as an organization.

I think CETPA members have a wealth of knowledge and experience; if we can figure out an easier way distribute this knowledge available, it would be great benefit to the members. The CTO Mentor program is an excellent example of a great professional development experience, but it can only

target a small group due to its rigorous standards. Targeted and more specific topics can be covered in these regional groups and provide more professional growth opportunities to the membership.

How is the state’s deficit affecting you?

There is probably two ways to look at the current difficult economic climate that we all face. On the down side, it becomes increasingly challenging to maneuver and make decisions on projects and initiatives when resources are very limited. Decisions need to be considered more thoughtfully a nd ma nag i ng ex pec t ations becomes more challenging. Our customers demand more service and we lack the resources to continue to support them in an adequate manner. On a positive note, its forcing us to revisit our existing operational practices and ensure we are efficient as possible and we reduce wasteful practices. It offers us an opportunity to reevaluate the way we do business and that we look for ways to do our work better. Discussing the organization priorities is essential in these times because technology has the potential, in these tough times, to accelerate good transformation and do more with less.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Time with my family is something I’m very protective of and with two small boys, I try to enjoy them as much as possible (they go by very fast). I also enjoy running in the mornings to help keep in shape and relieve some of the stress that comes with business.

In the little time that is left, I enjoy building and flying radio control airplanes. I own a couple of 1/3 scale aerobatic planes (approximately eight-foot wing span) which I get to fly every other Sunday. I’ve cherished this hobby for more than 20 years and I hope my kids will embrace it someday so they can experience the thrilling moments this hobby has to offer. 

President’s Message continued from page 6

a box inside the school office. They told me that they would not touch that, but did not object to our moving it ourselves.

We opened the cabinet to get to the wire and were surprised to find that the wire was punched down in the right place, but had been “over-punched” so that the only solid connection was the wire’s plastic insulation—the wire itself was cut. Using a punch-down tool, we gently re-punched the wire. After that, the circuit remained slow (.128 Mb) but it was a solid reliable connection. The connection remained reliable until April 1, 2004 when Ventura cut over to the iNET.

of your computer between your thumb and index finger, making a loop around the cable with your fingers, and carefully follow the cable all the way to the power strip or wall outlet without letting go of the power cable.” The caller indicated that it was dark back there and that they couldn’t see where it went beyond the dark recesses behind the desk. I asked if there was a light fixture that they could position to afford a better view. The caller’s response; “That won’t work! We’re all sitting here in the dark because the whole building lost power over an hour ago.”

Cathy Reznicek: Ventura County Office of Education

At a site visit to a school that had a teacher as their accepted and respected tech guy, he asked us to fix the graphics orientation on a student monitor. It was 90 degrees outside and his fix was to place the monitor on its side. Once placed back on it’s base, using the graphics properties to set it properly at 0 degrees, I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him it was a feature to see what a landscaped print would look like.

A tech received a call that a computer did not work—no power, tried everything we could…etc. It turned out they had the power strip plugged into itself, not the wall!

Jane Mintz: Oak Park Unified School District I had a teacher who placed a very angry Help Desk ticket because all the e-mail that she put into her DELETED ITEMS folder kept disappearing!

David Luff: Ventura County Office of Education Someone called needing help with their computer. The screen was dark and the keyboard didn’t work. I suspected the power cable had somehow come unplugged from under the desk and asked the caller to check the power cable all the way to the wall outlet. Suspecting “operator error,” I instructed the caller to “place the large black power cable in the back

Don Gerkensmeyer: VCOE

Trish Averill: Ventura County Office of Education

We received a call from one of our school sites that everyone had lost connection to the server. At the district office, we could not ping the server so we drove up to the site to troubleshoot. We found that the server had been unplugged from the UPS by a visiting repair guy so he could plug in the laminating machine. 

Summer 2011 • DataBus 25

Resource Guide & Advertiser’s Index COMPUTER HARDWARE

FINANCIAL/HUMAN RESOURCES

TKO Education (877) 219-6228 www.tkoeducation.com Please see our ad on page..............................14

Sungard Public Sector (866) 965-7732 www.sungardps.com/plus360 Please see our ad on page..............................13

CONTROLLER LESS WI-FI, LESS HARDWARE MORE VALUE

Tyler Technologies (800) 431-5776 www.tylertech.com Please see our ad on page..............................22

Aerohive (866) 918-9918 www.aerohive.com Please see our ad on page..............................21 ERATE/CTF CONSULTANT TECHNOLOGY DESIGN SERVICES

Infinity Communications & Consulting (661) 716-1840 www.infinitycomm.com Please see our ad on page..............................26 FINANCIAL AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Infinite Visions/Windsor Management Group (888) 654-3293 www.InfiniteVisions.com/CETPA Please see our ad on page................................3 Smartetools (760) 242-8890 www.smartetools.com Please see our ad on page..............................18

NETWORK SOLUTIONS PROVIDER

NIC Partners (909) 919-2806 www.nicpartnersinc.com Please see our ad on page..............................11 SOLUTIONS PROVIDER

Decotech (800) 597-0757 www.decotech.com Please see our ad on page................. Back Cover NWN (Western Blue) (800) 660-0430 www.westernblue.com Please see our ad on page..............................15 STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Eagle Software (888) 487-7555 www.aeries.com Please see our ad on page................................2

Edupoint Educational Systems (800) 338-7646 www.edupoint.com Please see our ad on page................................4 Infinite Campus, Inc. (800) 850-2335 www.infinitecampus.com/california Please see our ad on page................................7 Pearson School Systems (877) 873-1550 www.pearsonschoolsystems.com Please see our ad on page..............................27 Sungard Public Sector (866) 965-7732 www.sungardps.com/plus360 Please see our ad on page..............................13 Tyler Technologies (800) 431-5776 www.tylertech.com Please see our ad on page..............................22 TRAINING RESOURCES

Nimbus (916) 641-0638 www.nimbusonline.org Please see our ad on page..............................17 TURNKEY TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS AND CURRICULUM INTEGRATION

IVS Computer Technology (877) 945-3900 or (661) 831-3900 www.ivsct.net Please see our ad on page..............................19 USER ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

Advanced Toolware a division of Tools4ever (888) 770-4242 www.advtoolware.com Please see our ad on page................................9 AD INDEX

Advanced Toolware a division of Tools4ever. ....... 9 Aerohive...................................................... 21 Decotech.......................................Back Cover Eagle Software............................................... 2 Edupoint Educational Systems....................... 4 Infinite Campus, Inc....................................... 7 Infinite Visions/ Windsor Management Group........................ 3 Infinity Communications & Consulting........ 26 IVS Computer Technology........................... 19 NIC Partners............................................... 11 Nimbus........................................................ 17 NWN (Western Blue)................................. 15 Pearson School Systems.............................. 27 Smartetools................................................. 18 Sungard Public Sector.................................. 13 TKO Education............................................ 14 Tyler Technologies....................................... 22 26 DataBus • Summer 2011

PowerSchool

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50 states • 64 countries • 4,800 customers 133,000 national user group members nearly 10 million students

PowerSchool®, the fastest growing, most widely used SIS available today, helps parents give their children the support they need to succeed in school. In California, more than 849,000 students and their parents are able to check grades daily in PowerSchool. This is just one of the reasons more schools and districts have chosen PowerSchool over any other Student Information System.

Take a look at PowerSchool and learn how parents, students, and educators are all seeing success.

Please visit www.PearsonSchoolSystems.com or call 877.873.1550 to learn more.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliate(s). All rights reserved. 570VE20110616