et us now celebrate the phenomenal increase in the number of
computers in U.S. schools: In 1989, there was just one computer
to go around for every 27 students, but last year, that ratio
stood at better than one computer for every five children, according
to the research firm Market Data Retrieval.
But before we pop the champagne, let's consider the following
question: Has the technology support staff in the average
school district grown by a proportional amount?
The answer, very often, is no. These days, perennially short-staffed
school technology personnel are held responsible for installing,
maintaining, upgrading, and repairing an ever-increasing number
of instructional and administrative desktop computers, servers,
and networks. Today, the average school district runs close
to 800 computers, and as these computers become increasingly
integrated into the curriculum, the tolerance for downtime
drops proportionally.
While the E-Rate has served as a catalyst for school technology
purchases, there has been no similar subsidy for hiring qualified
technology support staff -- a commodity that is in short supply
even in private industry. (Last year alone, 750,000 information
technology jobs went unfilled nationwide, according to computer
industry estimates.) Schools often simply don't have the budget
to hire additional tech talent.
Things were easier in the old days. For the most part, computers
were confined to labs, where their use was easily monitored
and all the hardware and software assets were conveniently
clustered in one place. Networks were few and far between,
typically encompassing just a single lab or at most one school.
Casual "computer management by walking around" was the norm.
Today, the picture is different. Not only has the number
of computers in schools increased dramatically, but the computers
themselves have been dispersed to individual classrooms, which
is more convenient for students and teachers but much less
so for technology staff. And wide-area networks now connect
hundreds or even thousands of computers throughout a school
district, adding many layers of technology management complexity.
What's more, as desktop computers have grown increasingly
sophisticated, the number of ways they can fail or be damaged
through student misuse has grown proportionally. One thing
is clear: Because school technology has become increasingly
decentralized and complex, walking around with a bootable
floppy disk is no longer an efficient technology-support option.
The good news is, leading school district technology coordinators
and IT managers have responded to this challenge by developing
new strategies and adopting new support technologies to help
them manage their instructional computing resources despite
a small staff. Electronic School recently spoke with
several school technology leaders, who shared their computer
systems management strategies with us.
Better
support through technology
As school technology folks know, the corporate IT world has
it easy. For one thing, the word "personal" is almost always
a misnomer when personal computers are placed in schools.
In the corporate workplace, a computer is usually assigned
to a specific person; but in schools, a single computer is
often subjected to dozens of users in a single day. With each
additional curious and inquisitive student at the keyboard,
the probability of a support call increases.
Second, schools have the unique need to add and delete vast
numbers of users from the network every year, as students
enroll and graduate. Not surprisingly, two of the greatest
needs for school technology managers are preventing unauthorized
modifications and automating repetitive tasks, such as adding
users and installing software upgrades.
That's why school technology leaders say the first step to
smart computer management is to make use of software tools
that can ease the management burden. Such tools are available
for both Windows and Macintosh platforms, and they can be
a godsend to school technology personnel.
 As
the 15th largest school district in the nation, the Orange County
(Fla.) Public Schools have technology-support needs equal to
those of many large corporations: The primarily Windows-based
district has more than 40,000 desktop computers and 200 servers
at 157 separate building locations spread over 1,000 square
miles, serving 15,000 authenticated network accounts and more
than 156,000 student users in all. Looking after the care and
feeding of these assets is a technology staff of about 100 people,
says Gay Sherman, the district's senior administrator of network
services.
With a large number of users to manage, Sherman says one
of her favorite management tools is Visual CASEL (Classroom
Administrative System for Educational LANs) from Computer
Power Solutions of Illinois. Developed specifically for school
networks and working in conjunction with Windows 2000 Server,
Visual CASEL "is what every school district needs if it plans
to use Windows 2000 Active Directory," Sherman says. "Believe
me, we have been [creating user accounts] by hand, and this
product kicks butt."
Taking advantage of the Schools Interoperability Framework
standard for exchanging student data, Visual CASEL can automate
the creation of user accounts on a Windows 2000 Server network
by pulling student information directly from a student management
system such as Chancery Software's WinSchool.
"A lot of the hands-on administration we had to do before
is now automated with Visual CASEL," Sherman says. She plans
to use the software to generate unique user accounts for all
students in the district within a year -- a task that would
be unthinkable without automation. Nonetheless, doing so will
cost a lot of money, Sherman points out, noting Microsoft
charges a $5 licensing fee for each user account on the network.
In the meantime, younger students are sharing generic accounts,
which means their storage spaces are also shared.
Enter
the 'personal desktop'
Since the concept of a "personal computer" doesn't make sense
in schools, many districts are replacing it with the concept
of a "personal desktop" instead. Also known as a "roaming
profile," this personal desktop remains accessible to each
student from any computer on the network. In some ways, it's
like having a computer follow you around.
In Orange County, roaming profiles are made possible by using
Windows 2000 Server and Visual CASEL. When students log in
with a user name and password, they can immediately access
their personal storage folders on the network, regardless
of which computer they have logged in from. What's more, system
administrators can determine which applications may be accessed
by which students. Even Internet access can be turned on or
off for certain users or groups. And any attempt to delete
or modify critical files is stymied -- the system is effectively
locked down.
Used in combination with a thin-client Windows solution called
Citrix MetaFrame, Visual CASEL also allows students to log
in from home, access their personal directory files, and run
authorized applications off the district server. Another feature
allows for remote troubleshooting over the network -- a time-saver
for both technology support staff and teachers because it
translates to fewer disruptions in the classroom. Sherman's
staff also uses Microsoft Terminal Services to remotely manage
servers across the district, which means less time spent on
the road.
As a more efficient alternative to manually installing software
on desktop computers one by one, the district uses Altiris
eXpress LabExpert to install, configure, and update software
on a large number of computers in minutes -- without having
to be physically present. Event schedulers can be used to
reconfigure computers overnight, while both kids and tech
staff are sleeping.
Although Orange County hasn't fully implemented all these
solutions districtwide yet, that time is coming, Sherman says.
Part of the reason for the go-slow approach is the sheer number
of computers and the fact that the district has a mix of Windows
95, 98, and 2000 desktop computers -- as well as Macs. A homogenous
Windows 2000 environment would be much easier to administrate,
Sherman says, but she points to the cost of upgrades as a
stumbling block: "We can't afford the upgrade licenses for
every machine."
Windows-based PCs are not alone in their need for centralized
management in the school setting. Macs need these tools, too,
and California's Hacienda La Puente Unified School District
has worked closely with Apple Computer to help develop one
such tool: NetBoot, a neat management trick that allows a
small network of iMacs to boot off a central PowerMac G4 running
Mac OS X Server software.
The district currently runs 6,000 Macs in 35 schools for
both instructional and administrative use and averages about
four computers per classroom, says Chief Technology Officer
Michael Droe. Hacienda La Puente has a technology staff of
33 and was recently a pilot and alpha testing site during
Apple's development of the NetBoot technology.
"We've had a real good experience with NetBoot," Droe says.
"It's nice to have all the desktops the same, and it makes
software updates and license management much easier."
With NetBoot, classroom Macs pull both their system software
and their software applications directly from the server.
This means that updates and configuration changes can be done
once on the server -- and immediately reflected on all the
Macs that boot off that server. NetBoot also creates roaming
profiles that allow students to access their personal desktop
and network storage folders from anywhere on the network,
wherever and whenever they log in. Additionally, NetBoot protects
the individual Macs from damage at the hands of students by
locking down the System Folder and applications.
"The only downside is scalability," Droe says. Both the server
and the network can become bottlenecks, depending on the number
of Macs that are managed this way and the applications they
run. To use NetBoot districtwide, the technology staff would
have to run multiple servers and subdivide the network into
several virtual local-area networks, Droe points out. For
now, NetBoot is best suited to a single classroom or school,
although this might change in the future, he says.
For a districtwide management solution, Hacienda La Puente
instead relies on Macintosh Manager, Apple's latest workstation
management technology. The client portion of Macintosh Manager
is part of Mac OS 9, so any new Mac is ready for management
right out of the box. Through add-on software, older Macs
can also be managed this way.
"Mac Manager keeps students from digging into the System
Folder," Droe says. "We have students who are pretty creative
and will install things like password-sniffing utilities"
in an effort to hack the system. With Macintosh Manager, not
only are such attempts thwarted, but the software also makes
it easy to set up roaming profiles and home directories for
students on a central file server so they can access their
documents from any Mac on the network -- even over a dial-up
connection from home. Administrators also may restrict certain
users from having access to certain workstations. Up to 8,000
student and staff accounts and more than 1,000 simultaneous
users can be managed using Macintosh Manager, according to
Apple.
In smaller districts, severe budget constraints often mean
that technology managers must choose simple, inexpensive technology
management solutions that work. These are also often the districts
where technology staffers learn the finer points of triage
and have to make use of practical strategies that do more
with less (see sidebar).
As director of instructional technology at the Plymouth (Wis.)
School District, Gary Vance has several decades' worth of
school technology management and help-desk wisdom under his
belt. Vance, who still teaches one class, has at his disposal
a staff of just one computer coordinator (who also teaches),
plus one secretary and a couple of student helpers. The district
counts 2,500 students and 300 staff members on its rolls.
"We have a very small staff to handle seven buildings, nine
servers, and 600 desktop machines," Vance says. Each classroom
in the district has a phone with voice mail, a TV/video drop,
and six LAN/WAN data drops with e-mail, Internet access, and
file-storage services. The district also has automated library
services, student records, and grading. Although there's a
teacher at each school site who funnels support calls to the
central office and fills out work orders, the work itself
is done by Vance's district staff.
"We've had to become very creative very fast to survive,"
Vance says. "We would discuss almost daily what we could stop
doing, what we could delegate to others, and what we could
do differently or more efficiently and how to prioritize service
and support problems."
One of the creative approaches Vance uses to bolster his
staff involves recruiting students into an independent study
program to do tech support. "It's not a formal program, but
we recruit kids when they hang around and when we know they're
interested," Vance says. "If a kid puts in a full class worth
of time, we'll pay around five or six dollars an hour."
Unfortunately, being short of school technology staff is
just a fact of life, Vance admits. "We are not unique when
I say that staffing has not kept up with the demand for technology
and its uses," he says. "I'm sure most school districts are
in the same boat. As long as we're taxpayer supported, we'll
be scraping for cash."
Lars
Kongshem, former senior technology
editor of Electronic School, is a freelance writer living
in San Francisco.
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