Those Crazy Days of Summer

While I not only admit to, but take pride in, my basically indolent nature, the paucity of blog entries lately can't be ascribed to laziness - regrettably. Summer for our technology department has become its busiest time. Major ongoing projects this summer include:

1. A major upgrade to our inter-building WAN from 10mg shared to 100mg switched bandwidth and doubling the capacity of our pipe from the WAN to the Internet cloud. Disruptions to most of our sites could be measured in hours, not days, but any network down time any more results in people not being able to get their jobs done. I am thinking one of the advantages of VoIP might be that when the network goes down, so will the telephones...

2.  Creation of about 100 "smart" classrooms, installing mounted ceiling data projectors and interactive white boards and requisite cabling. Thankfully, one vendor won the bid for all the equipment and the installation, so there is but "a single throat to choke" on this project (and no throat choking has been necessary so far.) But you don't undertake a project that involves 100 teachers, 30 administrators, and 15 school sites without getting a few questions and concerns about prioritization.

3. Upgrade of our e-mail server to Exchange.  We've around 1000 staff who use district e-mail. The new server has meant new passwords for everyone and new e-mail settings on most computers, both at school and at home. We're moving everyone possible to Outlook/Entourage as a mail client to take advantage of the shared calendaring, global address book etc., that the new server provides. This has been the first real change in how we do e-mail in the district in a dozen years. And some people don't like change. But perhaps you knew that already...

4. Individual hands-on training for  over 100 teachers getting new computers. This task has grown too large for our computer coordinator to do alone, so she has recruited me as "trainer of the last resort" to sit down with each teacher getting a new computer to go over all the computer's settings, software installation, e-mail set-up, and hardware tests. It takes about an hour with each teacher. Levels of enthusiasm and ability, well, vary. This really has been one of the best parts of my summer, however. One-on-one tutoring is rewarding for both the trainer and trainee.

 

This summer has been about change and the longer I am a "change agent" the more apparent it becomes that one must wait for the pay-off. It's tough listening to folks whose network is down, can't figure out their e-mail, or hate giving up even an hour of summer vacation to learn about their new computer. But I have faith that sometime during this school year, each of them will appreciate faster  access to the Internet, the global address book in Exchange, and a Widget or two on their new computer.

Tom Landry of Dallas Cowboy fame once defined leadership as "getting people to do what they don't want to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve." That seems pretty accurate this busy summer.

So the days are full. Evenings I am pooped or working on columns that are (over)due. Or selfishly I just sit on the screen porch enjoying a book and the bird life on the lake, trying to remember how summers used to be for educators. 

Comments

[C Nelson]

I can relate. We had fourteen of our 25 classrooms set up with mounted projectors, interactive white boards, and fancy sound systems during the last two weeks. The work was contracted out by the district as far as I know. This week when teachers returned, it was discovered that the folks who installed and wired the new hardware wreaked havoc on the already in place wiring for our TV distribution. So ITV is out here trying to repair their damage, and they are very frustrated with the lack of communication over the possibilty of undoing the tv system. One tv technician told me today for about $30, each interactive board could have been wired to be their tv as well. But now there is a ton of work to do to check and rewire tvs all over the district in the "smart" classrooms. I'm sure the tv people will be mindful of the hardware wiring. But it is truly a colassal waste of time for tv technicians to have to cme back and repair what was not broken until the new stuff was wired.

[VickieNJ]

You write: "the longer I am a "change agent" the more apparent it becomes that one must wait for the pay-off."

This reminds me of two of my favorite quotes:

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more uncertain of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions, and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new order.
—Machiavelli, The Prince (1513)

and

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
—Henry Miller, The Books in My Life (1957)