Training Your Technicians - DRAFT Proposal #edtechchat

Is this a crazy idea? Sometimes, you think something for so long, that you start to think it makes sense and maybe, it doesn't. 

Source: http://goo.gl/ycsm2

Check out this DRAFT proposal I'm putting together...constructive feedback welcome!

Proposal

This proposal recommends that the District fund Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) A+ training for all Technician I and II staff members and pay the cost of certification exams for first attempt. Certification and training must be linked to job descriptions and advancement.

Background

District technicians in the District are currently auxiliary staff members who are low-paid and need access to training opportunities that enable them to better serve the District technology support needs.

District

technicians often learn as they go, but seldom receive any formal training. This lack of training impairs performance, impedes student learning, and results in longer down-time for

District

faculty, staff, and students. Other school districts have begun or have been sending their technical support staff for training and paying for certification.

Need

As a result, district technical support staff need access to structured learning opportunities that help them to better understand the best trouble-shooting possible in schools. For a variety of factors, technicians are unable to pursue training and certification on their own. Peer training opportunities are limited due to the small pool of knowledge available.

Cost

The total cost of sending all technical support staff through specialized training and obtaining certification is $11,380.00. Below, please find the details on the budget:

Technician Training

Need	Audience	Training Type	Cost
Staff lack the critical problem-solving skills for resolving district technical issues.	5 technical staff	CompTIA A+ training through TestOut LabSim courses	$4000 =(5 staff x $800 per course 1 seat license)
District Technology Office lacks a way to differentiate between levels of technicians aside from salary.	5 technical staff	CompTIA A+ Certification Exam	$1500 =(5 staff x $300 per exam)
		Total Cost	$5,500

Technology Management

Need	Audience	Training Type	Cost
Staff lack the critical problem-solving skills for resolving district network issues.	2 technology managers	Cisco Certified Network Assistant (CCNA) training through TestOut LabSim courses	$1390 = (2 staff x $695 per course 1 seat license)
Linux support for existing systems	1 technology manager 1 technology director	CompTIA Linux+ Training	$990 =(2 staff x $495 per exam)
VMWare Server Support	1 technology manager		$3500 = (1 staff x $3500 per training)
		Total Cost	$5,880

Prices are based on TestOut.com’s LabSim online video training series. A list of prices is available online at http://www.testout.com/home/it-certification-training/product-list

The District Technology Department has 3 levels of technicians:

1. All technical support staff (5) will be given the opportunity to complete CompTIA A+ training and test once, supported by the District.
2. Technicians that complete CompTIA A+ will be eligible to be considered for promotion to Technician III.
3. Other technical staff--systems integration manager, staff manager (2)--will have the opportunity to pursue CCNA, Linux+ training to support District initiatives.
4. This is a one-time offer for any employee. All employees incur the cost of future certifications. To remain in the position, staff must successfully complete re-certification in 2 or 3 years (depending on the area) and maintain that.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Fake It 'til You Feel It

Or, as Dale Carnegie said, "Act enthusiastic and you'll BE enthusiastic!" Yes, at 17 years of age, I was learning to act my way into the kind of person I wanted to be, thanks to Dale Carnegie. Oh, what invaluable training that has been and I've worked hard to pass it on to my children. Thanks, Dad!

"Fake it until you feel it." Ah, old advice that helps one overcome their fear. Reading a story yesterday about a Mom rescuing her children, someone asked, "I didn't know you were so brave! How did you screw up your courage to take these steps?" The response was about what you'd expect. "Brave? Bah! I wasn't brave, just more frightened of what would happen if I didn't do anything!"

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” ~ Mark Twain

“I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers. There aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.” ~ W. Clement Stone  

“Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.” ~ Napoleon Hill

Are you frightened of what might happen if you don't DO anything? I have to be transparent and share that I am often asking myself, Is this the right action to take? The appropriate response? Sitting around the lunch table with colleagues, I shared how I'm trying to bring about a fundamental change in my thinking, a change I think is desirable. It's proving quite difficult, even though colleagues tell me I'm achieving a modicum of success. What is that goal? To internalize the principles in Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations. Of course, while I experience success some days, failure dogs my steps on others.

The feeling results in one of my favorite Robert Quinn, author of Deep Change, stories. Three professors are walking down a hall, each highly respected. When one of them received tenure, he confessed to his friends that he didn't know enough. He felt like a fake.

Perhaps the condition of NOT being a fake is realizing you don't know it all, realizing a commitment that you have to keep re-evaluating who you are.

What I want to know is, how long does it take to turn into the person who actually 'feels' comfortable, confident, and competent on the inside, rather than the person who believes they are a fraud in these three categories, and taking a new setting hour by hour and hoping they don't get discovered in their inept-ness. Source: Quoted in The Bamboo Project

Michele Martin, The Bamboo Project blogger, shares her perspective:

Your real question is did I feel like a fraud inside and, if so, how did I get over it? Here's the thing. There are days when I feel very good about myself professionally and then other days when I feel like I don't know what the hell I'm doing at all--a complete, inept imposter.  The days when I feel confident, competent and comfortable are gifts.  I can do things to encourage the gift to come more often, but I can't control it all the way. I can only try to create the fertile ground for the gifts of grace and ease to come to me. 

Her response is "spot-on." I am an inept imposter. In fact, recognizing when you feel like an imposter is a source of power, enabling you to avoid arrogant posturing, insecure retaliation against others. It's an opportunity to tap into the power of the team.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Freak Out about Leadership - #Ubuntu

LeadershipFreak consistently writes blog entries on leadership that I have to read. Isn't that great? As a person in a leadership position, I often self-evaluate...do an expansive gut-check, asking questions that are posed.

Here are some take-aways that Dan Rockwell points out (read the whole blog entry):

• Incompetent leaders have teams who turn on each other.
• People, who need control or credit, fight to get it and refuse to give it.
• Naughty fighting focuses on people. Nice fighting focuses on issues.
• Past tense conversations never create the future.
• High performers, who don’t fit, ruin teams. 

Wow, that first one makes me ask, "What kind of leader do I need to be to create conditions that promote teams that interact with each other in real ways?" Perhaps, ensuring that the rules of engagement are clearly marked, that we know how to interact with each other. There are always people on a team who are smarter than everyone else, who know it all...and there are others who resent that, who aren't afraid to push back against injustice, and pretty soon, it's all over. You've spent the meeting arguing about personalities rather than focusing on the issue.

The second one--control or credit--reminds me of folks who are on the hunt to rip up other people when/where they've made a mistake. In these cases, you ask what you really want. If the desire to be right or get credit wins, then that's what happens at the cost of what should have been your real objective (whatever was best for the organization in that situation). Often, it ends up being about personalities, about disagreements.

Even high performers can cause issues, as Dan points out. Having worked with my share of "prima-donnas" who think they are so good that they don't have to learn anything from anyone, you realize that you'd probably settle for a B-player with a great attitude than an A+ player with a crappy attitude.

In fact, that's what one of my assistant superintendents told me. It's all about attitude. When i reflect on how little I know, I'm grateful that my ego hasn't let me forget that I know quite a bit. 

But there are times when I feel at my most knowledgeable, when I'm in expert mode and feeling cocky and arrogant...it's those times I have to hit the brakes and ask, "When did you become a demi-god?" That's when you have to watch out for trouble. 

Today, a new team member was welcomed. On her welcome card, I shared the definition of one of my favorite words--Ubuntu.

'I am what I am because of who we all are'.

You know, I try to remember that most of all.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Yawn, a terabyte at Flickr

Ok, I've already paid my $40 for two years of Flickr, moved much of my image collection over there from PicasaWeb--which was murdered by Google in its attempt to make Google + more attractive--but Flickr has left me desiring more.

As I heard on NPR today, Yahoo acquired Tumblr. But everyone is hoping that they won't do to Tumblr what they did to Flickr and Delicious...let them languish into near obscurity or worthlessness. Still, Flickr appears to be trying to do something different, maybe Yahoo's attempt to say, "Hey, we still care." But a terabyte of storage...well, who cares? I have 9 gigs of photos, but a terabyte isn't going to turn me into an avid photographer.

What's missing on Flickr is what drew me to Instagram (everything I post on Instagram goes straight to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, etc)--the Power to Share easily with my social network, my family and friends, with complete strangers.

Flickr is Web 2.0, while Instagram is Web something else. Sure, Instagram has had its PR problems, but...sharing is what makes Instagram powerful, and Flickr just an old shoebox.

Image Source: http://goo.gl/xvtIJ

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Check out Miguel's Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Free Antivirus/Anti-Malware for Schools

How much can antivirus/anti-malware cost a school district? As much as $300,000 for a 3 year contract, depending on the number of "endpoints" you have to protect. Even small districts suffer the cost of protecting Windows and Macintosh computers again viruses and malware.

Although great appliances (e.g. Fortinet, Barracuda) stand like sentinels against the army of malware that try to penetrate your school district's defenses, seeking to hog your bandwidth and tear through your computers, each endpoint still needs individual defenses. In case the malware breaks through, what can stand in the way?

That's why paying for a solution like Symantec, Sophos, Kaspersky, and others can make the difference. But the cost is incredible. Couldn't you, as a technology director, spend that money in another way to impact teaching, learning and leading with technology?

Enter avast! Free for EDU. This is an antivirus/anti-malware solution that's available at no charge to schools, comes with a management console, and a million other features worth taking a look at:

All public educational institutions in the US are eligible to use AVAST’s premium, business-grade avast! Endpoint Protection Suite at no cost. Each educational license includes two central management control options, which enables IT administrators to remotely manage antivirus protection on mobile devices, laptops, desktops and servers across any campus, large or small.

• Two central management control options (with each educational license)

• Protection for Windows endpoints (Mac OS X compatibility available soon)

• Protection for servers supporting 5–30,000 endpoint devices

• Remote management for all supported devices on campus

Several school districts are already taking advantage of this, and I know one district I work with closely is investigating this, doing a pilot for the Fall, 2013. How's your district working to not spend money protecting itself from ne'er-do-wells?

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Check out Miguel's Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

What's Lost When You Go #iPad - Dealing with 5 Concerns

"What else is lost when we go to iPads?," asked a colleague from a school district. His question threw me off a bit as I pondered it for a moment. What's LOST? I reflected, wondering what had been lost. Then, I stumbled around a bit, I ran across this link +Lisa Johnson (@techchef4u) had shared to what had been learned after a year of 1 to 1 iPads:

As you can see from the slide, the presenter highlights some key areas. As I review these concerns, I don't see them as insurmountable issues that block iPad adoption. And, a concern I don't see that one would think might be a show-stopper, isn't listed. More on what that concern is later.

For now, let's take each of these concerns in turn:

1) Need for keyboard and stylus.
One of my first efforts as an iPad user was to get a keyboard. I use my keyboard for wrting, blogging, typing in notes during meetings. In fact, I can't imagine my iPad without a keyboard attached or one nearby. However, a lot of the work that gets done on an iPad--such as Haiku Deck presentations, adding captions to images, words in comic strips with Strip Designer--don't require a keyboard for dissertation usage. Why not invest in 4-5 keyboards and make those available in an iPad enabled classroom? For me, the real magic isn't the focus on words, but on video and audio projects available. After all, Garr Reynolds' advice (Presentation Zen) is to avoid lots of words on a screen...and the era of Powerpoint is over.

But for serious writing, that is getting in the flow of writing, I don't see it happening without the keyboard. As to stylus, I seriously wouldn't waste my money. That's MY preference, though.

2) Tool for Projecting Student iPads.
The Reflector app on a Mac is absolutely wonderful and I've used it to share my iPad screen via a digital projector. It's inexpensive, works on Mac and Windows and also routes audio from your iPad to the Macbook. That means if you have a sound system hooked up to your Mac, you don't have to mess with unplugging cables and plugging them into your iPad.

Of course, I still carry my iPad dongle so I can hook up directly to a digital projector.

3) Ability to Print.
This is easily solved. You can invest in an AirPrint compatible printer (Dell is now selling them) or setup your ipad to print via IP address to a network printer--which is how laptops and/or computers print to a network printer--so that's pretty easy. You can use an inexpensive app like Print Central ($8.99) to enable your iPad to print just like your other devices.

4) Consistent Process for Submitting Work.
Yes, it's actually quite easy to submit student created work. If you can get that work into the Photo/Camera Roll, then you can easily "collect" or submit it. The best way is to use Google Drive, since it's gotten quite easy to submit work. Or, if you prefer, Edmodo.com. There are many other possibilities, but Drive is the best (unless you want to use Dropbox, but their terms of service don't make it easy for under 17 year olds).

If you don't want to depend on cloud storage, why not show students how to get their work from their ipad to a computer (or the teacher's iPad) by using Readdle Documents?

5) Process for Backing Up Work and ePortfolios
Creating ePortfolios can be tough. In addition to merely getting work off the iPad, you have to find a system that students can use their iPad to interact with. Again, using GoogleDrive works well since students can store their work and then create a document that links to that work. 

The Real Issue - Workflow
So, what's the main concern not listed? Workflow. To achieve all this on an iPad, you have to step away from the side of the pool and venture for the deep-end of iPad workflows. Most people I've seen don't have the desire to learn how to do something on an iPad. They start, but then quickly give up when it comes to backing up work, creating content. Why? I'm not sure. The iPad is a phenomenal creativity engine but you have to gas it up...and your imagination is the fuel.

What's lost when you go with an iPad over Chromebooks, etc.? Well, it's not about what you lose, but what you gain and whether you have what it takes to push yourself to learn a new workflow. If you won't do it, then the iPad will end up as yet another failed technology in K-12 schools.


Image Source: http://goo.gl/5efXY

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Check out Miguel's Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Move Your Stuff in the Cloud

http://mover.io/

Earlier this year, my enthusiasm for CloudHQ knew no bounds (except financing)! I was thrilled at a tool that let me move content from one cloud storage space (e.g. Evernote) to another (e.g. Dropbox). Yesterday, I played around with another one--Mover.io.

I successfully migrated content from my Box.net account--after all, who wants to move all that stuff oneself?--to my Dropbox account. In the process, I received the following email, which bodes well for others who'd like to move content from one space to another:

Hello from Mover,
Thanks for signing up! I hope you find Mover to be a useful and friendly tool.
Everyone starts with a free account. We give you $10 in credit which will let you transfer up to 10GB of data!
Common questions and answers can be found via our support site at http://support.mover.io.
If you have any troubles getting started please don't hesitate to let me know! It's my job to help :)
Thanks,
Eric Warnke       

10gigs of data! Pretty fantastic!

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Check out Miguel's Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Google + For Schools vs Hangout

This past weekend, a few of us tweeted at each other about enabling Google + in schools. Throughout the whole discussion, I equated Google + with Hangouts. While Google+ is great and all, I've really embraced Twitter as the avenue for crafting my PLN. It's become the rock solid foundation of my PLN. While I could switch to another, I have to admit that twitter remains my go-to tools to introduce folks to.

Some folks are developing Google+ resources for their school districts, such as Jay Atwood's (@jayatwood):

We're rolling out Google+ to some faculty and high school students. I whipped up some video tutorials on the basics to help so I thought I'd share. 

• Getting Going on Google+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vNw37mOz4E

• Meet Your Google+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeqVzND1_ug

• Circle Basics in Google+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXNUl0lkNQQ

• Hangouts on Air in Google+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjQ3d0Wails

The emerging playlist is here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2Nrs6rglVNHPpUZ9NPsj0FrzCF9EUvEG

I have to admit what has the most interest for me is Hangouts, especially as a replacement for Adobe Connect. Could Hangouts do the job? That's the question...and if Hangouts is a part of GoogleTalk (or replaced it), can it stand alone separate from G+?

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Check out Miguel's Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Get It Done For Free

If you're a school district that still using Microsoft Office on most desktops, you need to stop. Really. 

Curious about Bring Your Own Technology? Read Embracing Bring Your Own Technology: In classrooms at East Central High School over the past month, students enhanced learning through the use of their personal, mobile devices with the encouragement of classroom teachers and campus leadership!

It's a point that Jeff at The Thinking Stick makes quite well:

In the US, 74 of the top 100 Universities use Google Apps and 7 of the 8 Ivy League Universities use Google Apps. Love that they released these figures as just two weeks ago I had an IT Director tell me students still needed to know how to use Word as that was the standard. According to Google itself over 5 million businesses use Google Apps. What this tells me is platform no longer should be the focus. Word processing the skill should be.

Last week, I had to seriously crunch some numbers. I didn't have to go to a desktop application once. Instead, at work, I use GoogleApps for Education's Sheet. I seldom start up LibreOffice anymore, even though it's continued to be developed.  And, MS Office...even though it's installed on my computer, I avoid that like the plague. You may not believe me, but I haven't used MS Office in years.

If you have to use something on your computer, use LibreOffice, which just came out with a new version:

LibreOffice is a comprehensive, professional-quality productivity suite that you can download and install for free. There is a large base of satisfied LibreOffice users worldwide, and it is available in more than 30 languages and for all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, ...). 

What's outstanding about LibreOffice?LibreOffice is a feature-packed and mature desktop productivity package with some really great advantages:
It's free – no worry about license costs or annual fees.
No language barriers – it's available in a large number of languages, with more being added continually.

LibreOffice.org

Perhaps we should all be making videos, slide shows, etc. But sometimes, you just have to crunch numbers, word process...and LibreOffice or GoogleApps can get it done for free.

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Check out Miguel's Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Encrypting Your Data? You Should Be

Source: Technology Review

"In response to declining utility of CALEA mandated wiretapping backdoors due to more widespread use of cryptography, the FBI is considering a revamped version that would mandate wiretapping facilities in end users' computers and software. Critics have argued that this would be bad for security (PDF), as such systems must be more complex and thus harder to secure. CALEA has also enabledcriminals to wiretap conversations by hacking the infrastructure used by the authorities. I wonder how this could ever be implemented in FOSS."

via Slashdot

I encrypt everything, whether it's earth-shatteringly confidential (ok, NOTHING I have is that) or mundane stuff (99% of my stuff) like important receipts, contracts, tax returns, medical records, and financial transaction records. I'm actually thrilled to read the following news that the FBI is having trouble eavesdropping on private citizens because there is more widespread encryption.

Can police search a cell phone as part of lawful arrest and search it? NOPE! Read this: 

This case requires us to decide whether the police, after seizing a cell phone from an individual's person as part of his lawful arrest, can search the phone's data without a warrant. We conclude that such a search exceeds the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment search-incident-to-arrest exception.

If you're using Google Drive, Dropbox.com,  Box.net, or the many other cloud storage solutions, you should encrypt your data before it's put in the cloud. You can use many solutions, whether it's individual file encryption tools like AESCrypt.com, 7zip compression utilities, or Truecrypt.org and/or Boxcryptor.com,

For organizations that have confidential data, I was thrilled to find out about a solution known as OneHub.com. It's a solution that reminded me of a solution like Dropbox, but with AES encryption security built-in. Here's a quick tour:

You can create folders to house your data!

GoogleDocs integration...note that all docs are saved as docx files in OneHub

Document previews are available.

easy to download folders of data!

Some of it's main features appear below:

• Looks very similar to Dropbox.com and/or OwnCloud.org
• Features a folder sync utility...think Dropbox installed on your computer where anything you put in the folder is automatically synched.
• Onehub works directly with Google’s document platform, Google Drive, to allow you to create and edit files from inside your Workspaces. You can even simutaneously collaborate on the exact same document with your fellow workspace members, all from within Onehub. When the last editor saves the document, all the group’s changes are saved back to Onehub.
• Share your files with others by inviting them to a Workspace, folder or file. Users receive a branded email with a single click to set up a password and access your content.
• role-based permission system. The role is set when the user is invited and can be changed at any time by an Administrator or Moderator.
• Secure links provide direct access to any folder or file without requiring a Onehub account. With the Team Edition and above, you can set passwords and expiration dates.
• Works for iOS devices, Android, Windows mobile, and more.

What's more, you can install it on your own servers or go vendor-hosted. I found out about it from a law firm who wanted to exchange confidential documents with a public school district. Pricing is also pretty reasonable.

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Check out Miguel's Workshop Materials online at http://mglearns.wikispaces.com

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure