DIPs and home access

Not long after I took my current job in 1991, my dad came to visit. I gave him the nickel tour of my offices - the secretarial area, the printshop, the repair area, the film library, the book processing area, the mail room, the computer tech workspaces, etc. After I explained all my department was in charge of and introduced him to my staff, he turned to me and said quietly, "And they put you in charge of this?"

As I reflect on the task ahead of me this fall and winter - evaluating the need for a new student information system, potentially selecting a new one, and then implementing the change that will touch every teacher, every administrator, and every parent in the district, and potentially every student - I too wonder "should they have put me in charge of this?' The task is daunting to be sure.

We did this once before in 1997 when we replaced the stand alone OSIRIS student information system with the networked SASIxp SIS, added classroom-networked attendance and gradebooks, and started the parent portal. It wasn't pretty for a while. It's when I formulated Johnson’s Policy on Implementing Large Technology Systems: I’d rather be optimistic than right. (For a more extensive look at our district's technology planning philosophy and processes, link here.)

This is a simple diagram of our DIP (District Information Plan) in 1997:

And this is what the draft of our 2007 DIP is looking like: (Click on the image for a larger pdf version) 

While our 1997 plan called for:

1. No data to be entered manually more than once.
2. Make sure all data bases allow for easy importing and exporting.
3. Never use paper when electricity will do. (How many paper forms can you convert?)
4. Use electronic storage for seldom used or often modified documents. (Curriculum guides, etc.)
5. Give the end user a part in choosing the system.
6. Balance ease of access with the need for security. How much home access is necessary?
7. Make it impossible to do the job any other way.

the School Interoperability Framework was not available, and databases have since seemed to grow like weeds.

Two other major changes have occurred since 1997:

1. We've succeeded with our objective 7 above: Make it impossible to do the job any other way. If this stuff doesn't work, many, many people simply can't do their jobs - or do them as efficiently and effectively. Trust me, we hear about it when the network is down, even for a few mintues.

2. Parents' and students' expectations of access to school resources from home grows every year. While we've worked on this deliberately, we've not reached the level of transparency and student/parent centeredness that visionary Jeff Utecht suggests.

It could be argued that parents and students ought to have access to all data that pertain to them. If we re-color the chart above, that means that everything but the gray elements below should be readily available to homes:

I expect some interesting discussions to come from our review and possible selection of a new SIS, and perhaps a new model of data management in the district. I'm extremely fortunate to have an excellent tech staff and some brave user-volunteers to serve on the evaluation committee.

With help like that, even putting me in charge shouldn't be too bad.
 

Google Docs - maybe not

Google’s overall goal is to have a record of every e-mail we have ever written, every contact whose details we have recorded, every file we have created, every picture we have taken and saved, every appointment we have made, every website we have visited, every search query we have typed into its home page, every ad we have clicked on, and everything we have bought online. It wants to know and record where we have been and, thanks to our search history of airlines, car-hire firms and MapQuest, where we are going in the future and when. John Arlidge  Google. Who's looking at you? Times of London Online, October 21, 2007. (Thanks to Stephen's Lighthouse for this link.)

As do many Internet users, I take major advantage of Google products. The search engines (of course), the iGoogle startpage, gmail, and more recently, Google Docs. Our tech department has even been tossing around the idea of replacing our Exchange e-mail/calendaring/contacts server with an institutional version of Google Apps. The ease, effectiveness, and cost - or lack thereof - make Google's stuff very, very seductive.

But are we paying a hidden, very high price - our privacy - for Google's services? I agree with Stephen Abrams when he suggests that "[The above] article should be must reading in all information literacy education. Our users (and ourselves) should be making conscious choices."

I've written about the need for teaching students to be making informed choices about how much information they provide online "So Tell Us a Little About Yourself" that goes beyond simply protecting oneself from strangers. My recommendation in 2003 was:

“How much do you want others to know about you?” is a question we should be asking our students to ask themselves. It is a question that can only have a personal answer. But it should be an informed answer.

I'll stand by that. And suggest that the issue is more important now than ever.

Oh, for those of you who Twitter each stray thought, personal itch, and titch of gossip, do you ever wonder who might be collecting and analyzing these bits?
 

International School Library Day

International School Library Day
Fourth Monday in October each year

(From International Association of School Libraries' - IASL's -  website) 

International School Library Day was proclaimed by the IASL President, Dr Blanche Woolls, in 1999 and reaffirmed by the IASL President, Peter Genco, in 2005.

The first International School Library Day was celebrated on 18 October 1999, with the theme, "A Day in the Life...".

The ninth International School Library Day will be held on 22 October 2007.

International School Library Day 2007
Date: 22 October 2007
Theme: Learning: Powered by your school library
Join us in celebrating this day!
IASL's Coordinator of International School Library Day is Rick Mulholland of Canada