Robert A. Stannard, Jr.

TECHNOLOGY IN THE YUMA SCHOOLS

Part I - The Problems

Reprinted with permission from The Yuma Pioneer - December 4, 2013

Introduction

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced the intention to issue an Apple iPad to each student in the district, a nearly $30 million effort. According to published reports, the program was recently halted and at least some of the iPads were withdrawn, reprogrammed and reissued. While we are certain Los Angeles will solve these problems, it is obvious that things did not work out as intended.

I believe in the application of technology in education; technology is even more important to Yuma than to a larger urban or suburban district. However, I learned years ago that planning is vital when implementing technology. There is a tendency, perhaps illustrated by the LA Unified iPad experience, that technology is a substitute for planning. At YSD-1, we have plans to implement technology in our classrooms for the benefit of our students.

Many thanks to The Pioneer for granting me space to discuss our school district. I’m going to discuss how technology is changing (and improving) the way we operate.  Then, I will present things in three parts, (1) the problems we face, (2) the work we have done so far and have planned for the coming season, and (3) our vision for what all this preparation and investment will mean for Yuma students.

The Problems

The Goal.  At YSD-1, we believe that we can provide as good (or better) an education for our students as any American school district. Technology, with its promise of a highly dynamic classroom and the prospect of genuine distance learning, will be the foundation of our effort to provide the same advantages students in larger school districts enjoy.

Environment.  A few years ago, one could operate a school building or a central office without a computer network (and its all-important connection to the Internet) for even a few days without great inconvenience. While the network was down, teachers went back to overhead projectors and white boards, and the school offices relied on fax machines, Xerox machines and stand-alone PC’s with printers to conduct business.

This is no longer the case. Even a few hours without “The Network” are difficult, and the loss of the connection with the Internet is even more problematic. Consequently, in addition to all the other factors that educators watch, we have to worry about power bumps, email viruses, bandwidth provider downtime, denial-of-service attacks, and even days with high winds ... Finally, the management systems used by city, county and state agencies are increasingly Internet-based.

Bandwidth. Because of limited bandwidth and the need to protect the internal network, most streaming content was blocked within YSD-1 up until recently. “Streaming content” is techno speak for YouTube, Vimeo and Pandora, to name just a very few. While there is much that many adults, especially parents, might consider worthless (or even offensive) on these sites, they contain many worthwhile recordings. YouTube contains not only the latest popular music video, but also Laurence Olivier's Hamlet and Richard Feynman’s physics lectures. Pandora has Miley Cyrus, but also a favorite version of Beethoven’s 5^th, the Best of Hank Williams and the original Broadway cast of Fiddler on the Roof.

(Having plentiful bandwidth is a profound change: interesting and challenging, but very positive and frankly quite exhilarating to this old engineer. We will explore and explain how profound in the next two weeks in Parts II and III.)

Facilities Knowledge. Because of technology, and also for dozens of other issues ranging from troublesome boilers to leaking roofs, we have explored our buildings thoroughly, from ceilings to crawl spaces and approaches to back doors. As stewards of the public’s property, we believe in good maintenance.

In an ideal world, we would build our network from scratch. Here in the real world, however, most of our upgrades happen at night, on weekends, or during work days when the task can be completed with no or minimal interruptions to our end users. This knowledge, acquired from long days and weeks working in our buildings and on our grounds, has been essential to allowing us to complete this work efficiently with minimal downtime.

Email. Email has become the predominant form of communication. Newer systems (one is already in place in YSD-1) offer the option of converting emails into text messages. Hard copy documents that used to be faxed are scanned and sent as attachments. Even voicemail is less common than a few years ago (folks just don’t leave-or listen- to voicemail as often).

YSD’s business office. The software that runs our payroll, our human resources systems, and our health insurance is web-based (i.e., run directly off the Internet). We keep our books and pay our vendors with another web-based application. In Yuma High School’s sports office, there is a similar suite of web-based software applications equally critical for scheduling and other required activities.

Student Data. Data Reporting has been a regular requirement since state standards and the accompanying assessments (CSPA, TCAP, etc.) have existed. Reporting occurs throughout the calendar year and continues to expand due to state and federal requirements. A few years ago, it was possible for a small district to do most reporting via a PC and a spreadsheet application such as Excel. This is no longer practical or even possible. All Colorado districts rely on school information systems to comply with data reporting obligations.

School Information System (SIS).  Yuma, like scores of other Colorado school districts, uses PowerSchool as its information system. SIS started out 20+ years ago as a tool for scheduling,  electronic grade books, and a few other applications, mostly directly related to the classroom.  As of the present day, they have evolved to cover most aspects of district operations except finance and human resources.

Online State Assessment.  Performed for years with paper and a #2 pencil, Colorado-required testing for Science and Social studies will begin online in April of 2014. All other subjects will follow into the online mode and paper-based state assessments will cease entirely in 2015.

Present Curriculum.  We presently use software in a variety of applications: as classroom supplement, as curriculum, and as direct instruction. These applications occur at all levels with students of all circumstances.

We also have a handful of students in the middle and high schools that take one or more classes from a Colorado Public Online School from within our facilities. This was the primary reason Yuma partnered with the Falcon 49 School District to form the Colorado Digital Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or CDBOCES earlier this year: to expand offerings and ensure quality of service.

Classroom Technology.  Many moons ago, in the era of Robert Stannard the Middle School Math Teacher, the PTA bought me new whiteboards and a large case of markers. I had whiteboards on every vertical surface of my classroom; my students and I made good and frequent use of them.

Successful as it was, it was the old way of teaching math. The classroom of the future will have interactive boards and wireless devices, not boards and markers. That classroom will be more efficient (i.e., do a better job for our students) than the classroom I remember.

Correspondingly, YSD-1 is piloting “smart” white boards (in this case made by the Promethean Company), tablets of several types, primarily iPads, and the use of a virtual classroom in both the middle and high schools.

Evolving Curriculum.  Our goal is to constantly improve the processes we offer our students for their preparation for life. We study what top rated Colorado high schools offer their students. The problem is that most of these schools are much larger than our district and (through the resulting economies of scale) can offer more than Yuma (or any small district) has been able to historically. We view technology as a way we can level the playing field versus large urban school districts, again especially at the high school level.

As we have explored this area, we’ve become aware that many instructional opportunities are available at little or no cost (Mandarin Chinese, for instance). In order to accommodate these opportunities gracefully, a lot of planning, staff training, and infrastructure improvement still need to be accomplished.

In summary, these are the problems we need to solve in order to serve our students’ needs:

#1.We need a radical increase in reliable Internet bandwidth.

#2. We need a network that is powerful, resilient and flexible.

#3. We need an advanced support structure for wireless devices.

#4. We need to fully implement the technology aspects of present and evolving curriculum through training, practice, and collaboration with our teaching staff.

#5. We need to prepare the district (again supported by training, practice, and collaboration) to reach the next level of performance in support of our students.

Next week: Part II - An explanation of our work to date, and our planned improvements for the coming season.

Part II - The Work

Reprinted with permission from The Yuma Pioneer - December 11, 2013

The Work

Introduction.  As steward of the public’s property, i.e. the land, buildings and equipment of the school district, Yuma School District 1 (YSD-1 or “the District”) believes in good maintenance. Stewardship includes regular fretting over school curriculum and busses, as well as paint, tile, toilets, lockers, electrical outlets, boilers, air conditioning, grass, shrubbery, roofs, lighting... 

Our team knows our facilities exceptionally well. However, special praise is reserved for Yuma’s IT Director,  Ms. Carrie Phillips, for the time spent over the last two years in ceilings, crawlspaces and utility closets, which has led to an invaluable and encyclopedic knowledge of our data and telephone networks (and the upgrades they needed).

The work on enhancements and improvements to the District's infrastructure is explained in two parts; outside and inside.

OUTSIDE THE BUILDINGS

It started with telephones that didn’t ring. The buildings had been connected by a single multimode fiber cable. This connection served both the computer network and the District's telephone system. We came to an abrupt halt with the first hard freeze of 2012, when one of the fiber lines located on 6th Street completely iced over and the compromised glass fiber lost the light into the ice.  For a week, Morris Elementary and Yuma Middle School had only intermittent network, internet, and phone service. 

This completely changed our priorities; we had to focus on the connections between our buildings.  We found that only a very small fraction of the fiber was underground, the rest was suspended in the air on poles.  An analysis of all the fiber runs yielded other issues. For example, capacity: we needed modern, single mode fiber, and a lot more of it. Also, reliability: our multimode fiber crossed over U.S. Highway 34 in the air. Whenever an oversized load passed through town, our cable had to be stretched upward out of the way at a nearly 45 degree angle (not a desirable situation). By adding new fiber lines, we would be capable of meeting the performance requirements for future curriculum and applications, while ensuring reliability by running the new fiber beneath the federal highway.  

In the summer of 2013, the District's buildings were joined together by 24 (“12 pair”) of single mode fiber, including a continuous run from behind the district office to the high school, nicely under the federal highway. For you technophiles out there, here is a list of other changes made to the network between the buildings:

Having repaired the existing multimode fiber, we can once again access up to six pair from the high school (YHS) to each of the district office (YDO) and the middle school (YMS) giving us a total intercampus bandwidth of  12 Gbps, best case. (We will need continuing repairs to maintain the viability of the multimode as a viable redundant facility.) We are cutting over to newly installed single mode fiber (12 pair from the YDO to each of YHS and YMS) scalable up to 1920 Gbps, total inter-campus (with full duplex, bi-directional, multi-wavelength SFPs). Using directional boring, the single mode was ducted beneath critical rights of way (to protect against damage from oversize loads) and avoid single point of failure (SPoF) issues where possible.  All aerial fiber runs have been upgraded to meet or exceed applicable codes (to include IEEE and NEC, as well as Telecommunications Acts 1996 and 2001, et seq. 2006 and 2012). Additionally, we have installed a redundant ISP connection to compensate for another SPoF issue regarding intermittent and limited (10 Mbps) Internet bandwidth (now up to 110 Mbps continuous and 1 Gbps peak with automatic failover).

The Telephones.  Our phone system is a “Frankenstein” hybrid, part 25+ year old analog components and part modern digital devices. As previously stated, it essentially relied on our computer network and used much of the same components to interconnect the buildings. Last summer, connections that support the telephones were repaired and/or upgraded. Our eventual goal is to replace this (Grand) Ma Bell hybrid with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). VoIP is an industry standard, marrying the computer network and the phone system into one. The added capacity of the “12 pairs” makes the network end of this a snap for some future year’s capital improvement project.

Internet Access. EAGLE-Net Alliance, a sometimes controversial quasi-governmental entity tasked with bringing broadband services to underserved K-12 schools across the state of Colorado, is our secondary provider of Internet access. The genesis of EAGLE-Net was a $100.6 million federal grant (part of the 2009 Federal Stimulus Bill). In early 2013, YSD-1 carefully negotiated a much larger “pipe” to provide bandwidth to serve our schools in light of the upcoming requirements of state testing and the delivery of content to our teachers and students.  Additionally, one of our content solutions will be streaming live video of one classroom to another, regardless whether a block away or across the country. Because of our experiences with our own fiber, we concluded that we must not rely on just one Internet connection. Therefore, a secondary connection was considered, and was successfully installed without a hitch. EAGLE-Net Alliance was one of several bids to provide us with this service, as well as a few other services that other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) could not deliver (such as Internet2; a consortium that “… provides the U.S. research and education community with a network that satisfies their bandwidth-intensive requirements.”, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2) ).

Bandwidth from EAGLE-Net enters our network at the district office (versus the high school for CenturyTel). With this arrangement, we are consistently experiencing a measured increase in available bandwidth of more than 10 times our previous maximum.

INSIDE THE BUILDINGS

Internet Security: Once again, according to Wikipedia: “a firewall is a software or hardware-based network security system that controls the incoming and outgoing network traffic by analyzing the data packets and determining whether they should be allowed through or not, based on applied rule set. “ ... A firewall establishes a barrier between a trusted, secure internal network and another network (e.g., the Internet) that is not assumed to be secure and trusted.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_(computing))

Our main firewall and content filter for the District’s network is the “Sonic Wall” device.  Because of the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 (CIPA), we are required to take protective measures to secure our network from hackers, spammers, and malware incidents.  This device has been fully configured to combine the two current ISPs, and is the major part of our school network to control who has access and who doesn't.  We monitor it continually to see what types of services, protocols and access has occurred on our network.  It can record what Web sites were being viewed, as well of who was looking at any particular Web site.   The device records the amount of bandwidth used by which user on what computer.  As an example of this protection, we recently had a “Trojan” enter our network and try to “call its mother ship”. Because of the Sonic Wall, it was denied the capability to do much harm. We determined the problem user and computer through the Sonic Wall logs, and, with this information, we were quickly able to repair the damage and return to normal operation.

E-mail Security:  Yet one more time, according to Wikipedia: “Electronic spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages (spam), especially advertising, indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, [..] social networking spam, social spam, television advertising and file sharing spam. It is named after Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch in which Spam is included in almost every dish.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic) ) [and MPFC s2:e12 “Spam”]

Our main line of defense against email spam is the Barracuda.  This device scans all outgoing and incoming email messages to check for any viruses that can be hidden in a message.  It also has a knowledge base of viruses and a way to check if an email message is coming from the right source.  Without this device, we would be subjected to all type of spammers.  To date, we have an activity record showing:

Blocked: 1,959,020 email (not a verified source) Virus Blocked: 5,234 (Email had virus attached) Quarantined: 8,277 (language and content)

Power Security: The Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is a major part of the school network infrastructure.  The UPS is in place for when electricity is not available, giving us the time to turn off major components properly.   If you just pull the plug of a computer or server, eventually there will be hardware failure. 

Data Security: Documentation is vital, and data loss can hinder productivity.  As we continue into this digital era, we have to maintain multiple copies in different locations on the network, as well as off site locations.  We are currently considering an improved solution for email and critical data to be backed-up on a frequent, regular basis.  We are also looking at an offline solution to backup our whole server to protect against any type of loss of hardware.

Network Structure: There is an optimal organization of the components of a network. Components can be hooked together in many ways that will allow the network to function, but there is only one way (one ordering) that is superior to all others. Our network was functional, but far from optimal. Although many components have been added, a corresponding number have been pulled offline, tested, cleaned (reconfigured) and moved to different locations. Again, for the technophiles out there, here is a list of changes made to the networks inside the buildings:

The new WAN/MAN hardware (consisting of 3 Amer Networks SS3GR1028F L3 capable routers connected over single mode fiber to make an 802.3ae compliant MDF backbone, both inter-campus and into the VMware virtual server chassis) acts as a top layer of glass "icing" over the existing intra-campus LANs, which are predominantly copper. Simultaneously, these LANs are being reconfigured with additional internal glass connections, while flattening the topology for a maximum network diameter of 7 (enabling MSTP managed, partial-mesh connectivity to enhance bandwidth utilization and network robustness).  In addition to the MSTP advantages, we are instituting VLANs to improve traffic control and load balancing, as well as comply with PII data security policies and requirements (both at rest and in motion as per NIST and CO-OIT). Further to that issue, we have hardened our ISP confluence router to minimize 0-day and other network threats.
 

Maintenance. There is a natural cycle to the upkeep of every classroom: Cleaning, painting if necessary, and replacing ceiling tiles, etc. As part of the IT upgrade, this cycle now includes the following: Testing the room for wireless network (Wi-Fi) coverage (and making adjustments to antennas as needed); the wiring is upgraded to include additional network outlets, as well as a 120 VAC outlet approximately every six feet. In our older buildings, the rooms were designed to support … a typewriter and not much else. This effort started last year in the high school, but will methodically include every classroom in every building within two seasons (at most).

No workspace layout is optimal for more than a school year, and often even less than that. We wish to be as flexible as possible to support our students’ changing needs. This change in the way classrooms are maintained allows teachers and administrators to reconfigure spaces quickly and without direct IT involvement. 

New Hardware. The number and quality of the workstations (PCs and “thin clients”) has increased in the last 12 months (the total tally of new hardware is 120 in the Yuma High School, alone). We have also improved the average lifespan of our PCs by several years.   When one of the older PC machines does become unusable, we replace it with a different type of device called a “thin client”. Thin clients are less expensive, both to buy and maintain, and don't need individual attention to upgrade software. We want to expand this type of infrastructure to the computer labs in the Yuma Middle School and Morris Elementary, where our inventory includes 130 four- to six-year old PCs.

Part III Next week, our vision for what all this preparation and investment will mean for Yuma students.

Part III - The Vision

Reprinted with permission from The Yuma Pioneer - December 18, 2013

The last in a three part series. One final thank you to “The Pioneer” for its generous support.

The Vision

In the first two parts of this series, we described the state of our network and computer systems at the start of this administration, and what great strides we have made since then.  Technology is relentlessly progressing, and we must leapfrog the current status quo in anticipation of changes that aren't on the horizon, but already staring us in the face. In order to effectively meet this future, we must envision how and where we need to change to quickly be in step with the opportunities flying by. (Somewhat like maneuvering an aircraft carrier group to meet the oncoming planes.)

This vision (which is continually subject to modification as we learn from our experiences) comes by adding several “tools” to our metaphorical toolkit: The continued expansion of the physical network, the implementation of classroom technology in the service of our teaching staff, the further inclusion of interactive curriculum and the enhancement of distance learning facilities to help our students excel.

Most every room in the District should be connected to “the network” (both local area and the Internet), either wired or wireless. Wireless users should enjoy the same functionality and security as those having a hard connection. Thankfully, this will include some enjoyable aspects, such as extending lines to the stadiums, gyms and the field house (Sports video on demand, anyone?)

(On a side note: The District is a partner in the Yuma County Broadband Task Force. We see a chance to share our experience for the benefit of the community. Additionally, the District is exploring the possibility of re-activating the fiber connection between our offices and the Quintech building, which was Yuma’s elementary school in a previous life, all for the public good.)

Every teacher should have readily available; a functional mixture of student workstations, interactive instruction devices (tablets) for curriculum presentation, classroom teaching and administration tools and as well as more than adequate network bandwidth. In addition, staff and faculty training, along with an inclusive dialogue that adjusts to individual experience within the classroom, will be essential for success.

We will adopt new, technology-enhanced curriculum. We will do this not because it is new, but for the promise of greater efficiency and for the benefit of our students. We don’t intend to pioneer new curriculum (at least at first), we plan to adopt curriculum successfully developed elsewhere to meet Yuma’s needs.

A prime example of high technology curriculum/software is Rosetta Stone. This highly interactive application has become a fixture at YSD-1 over the last 18 months. Used three ways:  helping non-Spanish speakers to learn Spanish; for immersion of older, new–to-Yuma ESL students; and as an aid to general foreign language instruction. Rosetta is capable of teaching any major language. In the coming season, YHS plans to start a new section of a language (Portuguese? Mandarin?) previously well beyond our resources. Rosetta Stone is wholly dependent on a robust network, specifically highlighting the issue of reliability. If you commit to helping a student daily with Web-based curriculum, you have to be able to deliver every day, without fail.

The term Distance Learning (DL) describes taking a class from an instructor who is not at your location; it really doesn’t matter whether the instructor is in Denver or Mexico City. The DL classroom, a combination of real-time video and interactive curriculum, makes one feel like “they’re there”. The District seeks to offer classes, especially at the secondary level, that would not otherwise be possible. The installation of special classrooms for this purpose is slated for completion in the summer of 2014.  Adult education is another promising area with potential for expansion, supporting both Yuma parents and the community at large.

As stated in Part I, we continue to use another form of DL for a handful of students in our middle and high schools, who, from within our facilities, take one or more classes from a Colorado public online school. With the help of our partner, the Colorado Digital BOCES, we plan to slowly expand these offerings at the middle- and high-school levels. 

The District believes that the need for innovation is greatest at the high school level, at least at first. In the last few years, there has been a revolution of sorts in new, exciting education models that offer distinct improvement over the traditional high school paradigm. As previously stated, YSD-1 seeks not to pioneer new designs, but to adopt designs effectively proven elsewhere. Two specific examples worth mentioning: High Tech High (http://www.hightechhigh.org/about/) and the Khan Academy (http://kahnacademy.org).  As described in this excerpt from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KahnAcademy.org) Kahn Academy is recognized as a repository of resources useful for education at all levels:

“Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The stated mission is to provide 'a free world-class education for anyone anywhere’.”

“The website features over thousands of educational resources, including a personalized learning dashboard, over 100,000 exercise problems, and over 4000 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare, medicine, finance, physics, general chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics, microeconomics, and computer science. All resources are available for free to anyone around the world. Khan Academy reaches about 10,000,000 students per month and has delivered over 300,000,000 lessons.”

WIRED: Khan Academy - Flip the classroom

http://vimeo.com/26787727

TED: Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

Salman Khan: School Day of the Future

http://vimeo.com/19192034

Khan Academy is many things, but primarily it is an accumulator of content, high quality content. Today, we are aware that a great deal of high quality content is available to YSD-1 at low or no cost; we just need to be able to store, retrieve and deliver the content efficiently. (We are not tied or otherwise committed to Khan Academy, but the availability of so much content for free, very different from the norm, was worth additional detail.)

We have been doing our own homework, too.  We've been studying how to effectively incorporate proven technologies into the District at all levels. What's on the reading list? Lots!  The most recent being Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling [by Frederick M. Hess, Bror  V. (Valdemar) and H. (Hang) Saxberg.  (of course, available electronically)].  Through this book, and others like it, we're finding that technology can assist learning in many ways, including learning how to use technology to assist in learning.

In order to further enhance our use of available resources, we have plans to create classrooms dedicated to remote learning (initially for our students to receive instruction, but later for creating our own content to assist in DL in Yuma County and, hopefully, other rural areas).  These dedicated classrooms may also be made available for alternative education programs (perhaps including evenings and weekends in addition to regular school hours) in order to benefit the entire community.

As is the way of technology, the options are always expanding.  How we're using our new resources tomorrow could look downright quaint a year from now.  And in five years, who knows?  Maybe we'll have connected classrooms in sister cities where we'll teach them what we know (English and Spanish) and they'll return the favor (Japanese? Mandarin? Portuguese?).  The only certainty is that things will continue to change faster and faster.  We just need to take the time to tailor it all to fit us in our culture.

So, regarding technology in education:  Evolution, not revolution, is the way to the future.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------