After 20+ years, why are schools still scared of the Internet?

A friend recently e-mailed me a question asking what to do about a staff member who refuses to sign her school board's Internet Acceptable Use Policy. Whaaaa????

My response:

Is your AUP board-adopted policy? If so, she does not have to sign it to be bound by it. When one signs a teaching contract (or any employment contract) one is agreeing to abide by school board policy. Why are teachers required to sign the AUP and not every board policy? I would ask. 

If this is some document the tech department has created, she probably doesn't have to sign it. I suppose you could take away her Internet privileges, if she doesn't. ;-)

As my friend suggested, the requirement that the Acceptable Use Policy be signed separately is a "a holdover from the 'technology is a spooky new dangerous entity for which we need special rules and regulations' days."

So just how long will it take before schools stop seeing the Internet as a threat rather than an asset? A a permanent part of our world, our culture, our education?

But then again we still have to have Banned Books Week since some adults in schools are still afraid of print. And that's been around a lot longer than the Internet.

Sigh...

Image source

Changing the tires on a moving car

29. Philosophy on implementing large technology systems: I'd rather be optimistic than right

Pardon my French, but implementing, changing or even upgrading any complex technology system is a son of a bitch. I have seen people who are strong, happy and resilient reduced to tears during such processes.

Keep the following in mind.

• The system will eventually work.
• There’s an important purpose for the change.
• People will not want to go back to the previous system after they have had a chance to get familiar with the new system.
• No amount of training will ever be enough for some people.
• It’s not just you - businesses, universities, and technology centers experience problems as well.

I try to remind my boss that a large technology implementation should never evaluated until it has been in place for at least a year.

Keep the faith. Be optimistic.

                               from Machines Are the Easy Part, People Are the Hard Part (free download!)

Yippee. For the third time in my technology director career, I have the honor of managing a change of student information systems. (See DIPS and home access, 10-28-2007)

For those readers who may not work in schools, the student information system (SIS) is that complex database that does a few minor things like keep track of student grades, attendance, discipline incidents, course histories, medical records, and schedules. It is used as the data source for other databases that involve transportation and food service and assessments and learning management systems and adaptive learning programs and HR and finance and payroll and special education programs and library systems and a whole raft of other things that require usernames. Teachers, administrators, secretaries, librarians, and increasingly students and parents all use it on a daily basis. The data it holds need to be clean and accurate and up-to-date in order to use that data to file reports to the state which results in funding coming back to the district.

The SIS is a very, very big deal.

We don't have a choice in changing SISs since our current SIS will no longer be supported in two years. And since next year will be an even busier, potentially more chaotic year due to some grade realignments and other big changes, we are going bite the bullet and do a mid-year transition. This year. Were I writing the bullet points in the opening quote today I would add

• There is never a good time to implement a large technology system - only less bad times.

While this process will be like the proverbial "changing tires on a moving car" I believe it will be less traumatic than many will anticipate. The new system will be instantly better. We have good support from our current SIS provider. Data will transfer. We have good staff in place. The need for adequate PD at all levels is a given among stakeholders. And just last year we changed email systems mid-year and lived to tell the tale. We have confidence.

This is probably a good thing we are making this change. Some of us were getting a little bored.

The book as object

Show me your bookcase, the ideas that you've collected one by one over the years, the changes you've made in the way you see the world. Not your browser history, but the books you were willing to buy and hold and read and store and share. Seth Godin

My books are read. They’re loved. And they’re carefully preserved so that they can be read and loved again, by myself or by friends or future children -- or used bookstore shoppers. Claire Fallon

Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book. Smell of Books

One of the first things I do when visiting someone's house is to peruse the bookshelves. As Godin above suggests, the books people save tend to tell you a great deal about their values. For the visitor, the physical book becomes a gateway to understanding a bit about another person. I tend to stay away from political discussions if I find Ayn Rand on the shelves.

When my grandson Miles asked for a Kindle for his 10th birthday, I was happy but also a little bit surprised. Both Miles and his brother are big readers and have some pretty extensive collections of physical books. Miles will continue collecting titles, I'm sure, but they will be digital and invisible to anyone visiting his room - or future home.

Over the past several years, my physical book collection has shrunk by 90%. I have a few favorite paperbacks of fiction that I know I will one day re-read, a few influential business/technology books, some travel guides, and a small collection of old books that I inherited from long dead relatives, including my grandmother's Webster's Second Unabridged Dictionary (c1945) that could easily double as a coffee table.

I am perfectly happy to read and collect digital books. For me, the "book" is not about the object but about  ideas and stories and emotions and experience. I've no real attachment to any one printed iteration of a particular work for a  long time.

Fifty Shades of Grey supposedly gained popularity because it was being accessed via e-book readers. The person sitting next to you at your kid's ball game wouldn't know that you were dipping into badly written pornography. Sounds about right. Unless I advertise it on GoodReads, nobody really would know what I was reading either given that I read only e-books.

I like this privacy, and I also believe such privacy is good for our struggling readers. Children are often embarrassed by their reading level, when forced to choose books others may view as written for younger readers. Carrying a device allows one to read at one's ability level without fear of ridicule.

I respect, but don't understand, those for whom the physical object of the book is paramount. Keep collecting. It's good for the paper and bookshelf industries.

Just make sure to hide your tasteless volumes.