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.
 

Due diligence

Not one of those who sigh or are critical of filtering decisions has their job on the line should Johnny access inappropriate content. Would those who are frustrated sit beside me in court or defend me in the court of public opinion? They certainly would not have to sit in the principal's office and explain to the sobbing mother who is clutching her book of faith. Kurt Paccio, Filtering Dilemma, Tech Ruminations.

I find Kurt's comment worrisome. (First, go read the entire post for context.) How many tech or IT directors have taken on the entire burden of making sure no student in their district finds anything disturbing on the Internet? I'll bet more than a few.

If schools are relying on filters (and tech staff) alone to protect students from inappropriate content, I hope the superintendent gets canned rather than the IT director. But both ought to know better. If Kurt has promised that his filter by itself keeps kids safe or if his administrator has the expectation that he will keep kids safe by filtering alone, both ought to find other work.

(Oh, my remarks are about public schools. I have no issues with religious or private schools in regard how or if  they choose to filter.)

Why you can't rely on filters:

1. Kids get around them. 

A 16-year old boy speedily found a way around a new porn filter provided by the Australian government's NetAlert internet safety initiative. Tom Wood, a student in a Melbourne private school, told media outlets that it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the filter, either the Spanish Optenet product or the American Safe Eyes filter. His technique kept the filter's toolbar icon in place, fooling parents or teachers into thinking the software was still working. ... After NetAlert officials discovered the bypass, they installed an Australian-made filter called Integard, which Wood promptly disabled in another 40 minutes.American Libraries, October 2007, p 42.

This is not an unusual circumstance. Check out SchoolBoredom.dom. Look up old Playboy websites using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Students can circumvent filters by:
•    Disabling stand-alone software through simple keyboard combinations.
•    Using specialized software such as that available from Peacefire's website.
•    Changing a browser’s proxy to an unfiltered site.
•    Using an anonymizer like Akamai.
•    Logging into the filtering server using a default administrator’s password if not disabled

2. Filters are not 100%. Studies, like those of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (2003) that examined nearly a million web pages, should fuel Kurt's concern. The researchers found the following:

• For every web page blocked as advertised, blocking software blocks one or more web pages inappropriately. 97-99% of the web pages blocked were done so using non-standard, discretionary, and potentially illegal criteria beyond what is required by CIPA.
• Internet blocking software was not able to detect and protect students from access to many of the apparently pornographic sites that appeared in search results related to state-mandated curriculums.

Another study conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School (JAMA, 2002) examined how well seven Internet filters blocked health information for teens at settings from least restrictive to very restrictive.  They found that at the least restrictive setting only 1.4% of the health information sites were blocked and 87% of the pornography sites were blocked. At the most restrictive setting, 24% of the health information sites were blocked with still only 91% of the pornography sites blocked.

3. Kids have access to un-filtered Internet access outside of school. We are totally derelict if we don't tech kids how to navigate and discriminate sites that are not appropriate for them. There is wide-open access at the coffee shop, at the public library, at their buddies' homes, and through their cell phones that have data access.

As in so many areas of student safetly, I will practice due diligence. I will take what steps I can and that are reasonable to protect kids. But I cannot guarantee anyone will never see a nekk'd body on the web from a school computer. Bad things will happen to kids and teachers despite our best efforts. Any individual's control is limited. Do what you can and sleep well.

We make it very clear that filters will not keep kids completely out of harm's way and that teachers need to monitor kids' use just as diligently as if there were no filters at all. And we teach kids not to click on links that look suspicious. The responsibility is shared for appropriate use - as it well should be. You'd like the approach, Kurt. Give it a shot.

Oh, I wonder what "the sobbing mother who is clutching her book of faith" was sobbing about? Access to information about evolution, gay rights, family planning or the Wiccan religion? I have yet to see a kid harmed by simply reading or seeing anything on the Internet. And heaven forbid we expand their minds with different points of view.

_____________________

Off to Orlando tomorrow to speak at the FAME conference and take my grandson (and his mom and my son) to DisneyWorld for a few days. As much as I would like to dislike DisneyWorld, my stupid grin starts the moment I walk through the gates and doesn't leave the entire time I am there. Yes, it does feel like a giant mouse picks one up by the ankles and shakes until it has one's very last nickel, but what the heck. I'm taking my camera so be warned!

Suppose we didn't have to use every new thing

Herb Wilburn gave me permission to take a response he made to this blog and creat this post. Herb's blog, Let's Just Suppose, is always thoughtful and you do worse than to put it in your aggregator.

Doug,

I've posted this, but wanted to send it to your posting since you are discussing teachers and technology adoption.

Let's just suppose we didn't have to use every new thing...

Today I cataloged and inventoried one of those interactive response units being sold to work with smartboards, whiteboards, and so on. The teachers using it are all excited, the kids think it's cool and I'm pretty sure the school tech people are cheering it on as well.

Well, not so fast, let's think about this. I've used these things at Dept of Ed meetings and as with most types of new technology, if one isn't careful, the lowest possible use is most popular. At the DOE mtg, we were given prefab multiple choice responses to the issues we'd met to discuss for two days. Now, rather than the give and take between thoughtful professionals sparking new ideas and conversation, we clicked on 1 if we wholeheartedly agreed, 2 if we sort of agreed, 3 if we didn't really disagree, and 4 if we just didn't care. OK, so those weren't the real choices but you get the idea. Worse, the instant gratification of this exercise was met with wows and gee whiz from all quarters. Sure we knew in seconds that 52% chose 1, but would they have chosen 1 if a passionate number 3 had spoken?

Now as professionals at a conference we should know how to correctly interpret and discard such nonsense when it occurs. What has me concerned is the underlying message we are giving kids by using this in classrooms. If we are just tallying up strictly objective, numerical, no doubter type answers, it's probably not terrible. But you know, you just know, that someone will want to be "on the cutting edge" and use it to gather responses to all sorts of questions. I'm afraid that the kids will come to expect, demand, immediate answers, immediate feedback as a matter of course. Life's not like that, at least not a considered, thoughtful life.

Sometimes, often, one needs to hear opposing views and think about them for a day or two. One might change their mind, it happens. I think I'm right when I take a position, but people and experiences have changed my mind many times. The idea that we will always arrive at the conclusion in one sitting is terrible training for our children.

I guess you can use these devices with my blessing if answer 4 is "Let me sleep on it."

How often do we as adults say and mean "let me sleep on it" before making a decision about technology - or anything else for that matter? And we complain our kids don't take time to reflect! 

 

 

 

Device at left seems to be a required purchase for some Arizona State University students. Do note "confidence " level indicator.