Getting the most from your tech dollar 8: Maximize your E-rate funding

Over the next few days, I'll be addressing some strategies school districts use to get the most from their technology dollars. See the full list here. Any budget stretching strategies you're willing to share?

8. Maximize your E-rate funding

For the past dozen years, E-rate (aka the Universal Service Fund), has made a major contribution in helping many school districts, including ours, pay their technology bills. Administered by the Federal Communications Commission, a tax on telephone services is distributed to school districts on a formula based on Free and Reduced Price Lunch rates. Applications, regulations, and allowable services are all rather byzantine and make federal income tax guidelines seem like Dick and Jane in comparison.

Given the amount of money involved and the complexity in properly obtaining and using these dollars, I would recommend:

• Using an E-rate consultant. Like a good tax preparer, a reliable E-rate consultant will help make sure you apply for all the services for which you are eligible, prepare the documentation completely and in a timely manner, and help answer any auditing questions that might arise. Our consultant has earned her fees many times over.
• Working with regional telecommunication consortia. A number of our services are purchased through a regional consortium who then becomes the E-rate applicant. Again, the consortium has expertise that the local district may not - as well as increased buying clout.
• Saving everything. In case your district is audited (and to keep from scrambling every year to find documentation for the application), keep all service contracts, all communications from the Schools and Libraries Division, and any reports related to school demographics, public hearings and other requirements. I keep mine in accordion folders, all clearly labeled by year. Everything.
• Taking the process seriously. There are very strict deadlines and documentation for submitting applications and documentation for E-rate. Rules change on a yearly basis. Make E-rate a priority, read all updates, and attend any training offered by your state or region on E-rate rules. Respond quickly and completely if questioned by the SLD. 
• Lobbying your U.S. Representative and Senators. This is one federal program that is worth letting your congressional delegation know is worth attention. It needs to stay solvent given the increased reliance education has on its networks and telecommunication infrastructure. And the program benefits ALL schools.

In my 20 years experience in educational technology, E-rate is the only sign that the federal goverment truly cares about telecommunications in schools. Don't miss out on the one good think out of Washington. 

BFTP: The Technology Agnostic

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post April 30, 2006

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not. - Eric Hoffer

Whether it is because of a) how God made me, b) how nature engineered me, or c) how Mom potty-trained me, I am more skeptic than believer. This skepticism extends to religion, politics and, especially, to technology use in school. But of course, if you’ve read anything on the Blue Skunk, you’ve guessed this.

Both believer and skeptic are alike in one important way: both think the other is a fool. I am always surprised when I post a blog entry or write a column that raises perfectly rational questions about some sacred cow,  then get a slew of emotional responses. (The LWW says I write such things because I like pushing people’s buttons. Maybe.)

or if you will...

Age has moved me from left to right on the believer-skeptic scale. Yes, even I was once a young, dewy-eyed, newly-hired technology director with mountains to climb, buildings to be networked, a screwdriver in hand, and trust in my heart. What happened? What vendor’s broken promise; what project that went over budget; what equipment failure during a critical demonstration; what useless research finding finally broke my sweet, idealistic spirit? Job may well have been able to maintain his faith in Jehovah; I could not maintain my faith in Jobs.

Now I’d never dream of trying to convince a jihadist not to have faith in his virgins nor separate a political pundit from his bleak cynicism. Such attempts would be fruitless if not immoral. But I will try to persuade as many readers as possible that  as conscientious educators we better serve our students by being skeptics than evangelists.

Yes, share what works. If a technology use engages and motivates students; if it helps make them better communicators or problem-solvers; if it even, heaven forbid, helps them do better on tests, we should document and share these experiences.

“Documentation,” however, needs to be more than a simple story. Stories indeed can be powerful, but stories alone will not persuade us skeptics. And when it comes to things educational, skeptics' ranks are growing  – especially among parents and politicians. We need numbers, evidence, bottom-line stuff, and, as my statistician friend likes to remind me, ‘The plural of anecdote is not data.” Sure, tell that cute story about how Janie got all bright-eyed about PowerPoint, but the skeptic will smile and worry about all the other kids in Janie’s class. Cynics know that anomalies make great stories too.  Stories need to be the face of data, the personalization of evidence, the memorable example of a supportable conclusions. 

It behooves us all to be technology agnostics, I suppose – neither completely convinced of educational technology’s value nor lack thereof. And in all fairness, we should be library agnostics as well. Although it pains me to say so.

I'm  glad that there are passionate people in education – folks that are excited about not just what they do, but about possibilities as well. People who care enough to have feelings about an issue. Teachers with hope and vision and faith. Believers, if you will. You are, of course, complete fools. But please, stay that way. 

Getting the most from your tech dollar 7: Standardization

Over the next few days, I'll be addressing some strategies school districts use to get the most from their technology dollars. See the full list here. Any budget stretching strategies you're willing to share?

7. Enforce standardization through single point purchasing

As a rule, I am against educational monocultures. I've yet to see one activity, one teaching style or even one type of schooling work for everyone. Having a variety of resources and a variety of ways they can be used insures that the widest possible range of learning styles will be addressed.

But technology standardization has some definite advantages, including cost-savings. Standardizing on technology equipment, software and services:

• Increases bulk purchase discounts. (You'll get a better cost if everyone buys the same database instead of each school buying different databases.)
• Decreases inventory of supplies and parts. (Stocking only one lamp for LCD projectors is more efficient than stocking 20 different lamps.)
• Increases the amount of time devoted to training. (If training can be done on a single wiki instead of half a dozen, more time can be spent on workshops and support materials for that single product.)
• Decreases the need for technical support. (Teaching staff how to empty the cache on one web browser is possible; teaching staff how to empty the cache on a dozen browsers is impossible.)
• Increases the likelihood of compatibility with legacy systems. (Oh, the games that come with our math series don't run on our operating system? The salesman said they would run on anything!)

I've found that having an enforced policy that all technology purchases need to be made through a single department, hopefully the technology department, is the only way to create such standardization. As the department in charge of training and support for everything that beeps, buzzes, blinks or takes batteries, we are already spread very, very thin supporting a limited set of technologies.

Yes, sometimes individual preferences can't be honored. You may like Pages, but the district supports Word. You've got a PC at home and the district asks you to use a Mac. You like your Kodak digital camera but the only camera available for checkout is a Canon. I'm sorry.

Actually we don't stop anyone from buying anything they want. A principal wants a document camera from Bob's Pretty Good Discount Electronic Store and Bait Shop, we say "Go for it. Just know that you are on your own for training, support and repair."