There are two types of tests that are typically administered to students: standardized and standards based. For IT professionals who are designing systems to administer the tests, there is no difference; devices must be able to establish reliable and secure connections to the servers where the test is housed, user accounts must be created, and Read More
I’ve seen the requests from many desktop support teams: “Before you add technology to grants, please include us in your planning.” I understand their rationale. They are responsible for installing, configuring, and managing it. It must integrate with existing systems and be reliable, robust, and secure. I would be sensitive to their requests and I Read More
A colleague asked for an appointment this morning. She wanted to be sure she was properly reading the logs from the LMS. If you did not know, your LMS tracks everything that you do. What you clicked, when you clicked it, and from where you clicked it are all recorded by the LMS. I have Read More
The candidate for a vacant technology coordinator position, that filled the role of CIO but also spent a good deal of time sharing the work of technicians during high-demand times. When asked, “How would you respond to the teacher who returned from a conference and asked for help configuring systems to use a tool they Read More
When upgrading the computers in a school that enrolled students in grades K-12, the new technology coordinator did not change the minimum complexity requirements of passwords for the organizational units containing student users. When they first logged on to computers, they were prompted to change their passwords and were met with the complexity requirements. Students in the Read More
Regardless of the nature of the organization in which they work, all IT professionals are very familiar with the importance of network and data security; this is a lesson taught in preparation programs and all organizations inplement data security practices. IT professionals working in schools should also promote data security, but they must be sure Read More
In biology, exaptations are those structures and functions that evolved for one purpose, but then were applied to a different purpose. The typical example is feathers, which were originally structures adaptations that allowed for thermoregulation, and later were adapted for flight. An analogous process occurs with technology; it is used for purposes unimagined by the Read More
Let’s consider a situation that illustrates how proper, appropriate, and reasonable configurations of IT can influence teaching and learning. I was asked to help resolve some “network problems” in a school. Math teachers had complained that students could not access the online grade book from the computers provided under the recently begun one-to-one initiative. It Read More
In recent years also, collaborative problem-solving has become an expected practice in educational planning. When a leader explicitly indicates the effort is collaborative, that is a sign that the leader expects the decisions will be unpopular and the leader is likely to displace blame to the group.
Now that networked devices have been available for decades and become mainstream as greater parts of the population became users, it seems reasonable to expect that anyone who seeks to work as a professional in education will arrive on the job prepared to operate or learn to operate desktop, laptops, and even tablet computers they Read More