Category: IT

Developing User Self Sufficiency

I have previously written in relation to the large number of support calls received by IT departments in schools especially towards the start of the new academic year.   A significant portion of these calls relate to users forgetting how to do something using technology, with a number of these relating to what I would consider simple issues.    Using Windows+P for example is a common solution to the common problem of computer displays not showing on classroom projectors, instead showing only on the desktop monitor.  But should IT teams still need to deal with such simplistic issues in a world where Google can quickly serve up the answers?

Self Sufficiency vs. ease

I suspect one of the challenges here is simply ease.   With a good IT support team, a simple issue can be quickly solved with an email or a phone call, with little effort on the part of the user.   This ease of solutions, with every occurrence, reinforces that this approach is the easiest, most convenient and therefore the correct and preferable approach (for the user at least!).

A preferable solution viewed either from the long-term point of view or from that of busy IT support teams, is that users be able to fend for themselves, that they are willing and able to make use of Google to find solutions to their own problems.   Again, if this was to become the common approach, it would eventually reinforce itself as the best approach.   In doing so users would become more self-sufficient and resilient to issues, while IT support teams would be freed up to deal with the issues which are more technical in nature or cannot be solved through a simple Google search.   This always reminds me of the teaching approach used in primary schools of “C3B4ME” or see 3 before me, which encourages students to ask friends, search the internet, read books, and generally consult 3 sources before approaching the teacher in relation to a problem or challenge.

Part of the challenge in the above may relate to the cognitively demanding nature of teaching.   A teacher is considering content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, the individual traits, and behaviours of each of their students, assessment (formative and summative), timekeeping and many more things in a lesson, so if the cognitive load can be reduced a little by fielding IT issues to IT support, I can see why this may occur.

Usability

I also think it’s important to acknowledge how system and app usability has changed over the years.   When I first started using IT most products, including productivity software and even games, came with detailed instruction manuals.   Now I will admit to not reading these and instead jumping straight it, which is how I suspect most people would have operated, but when you hit issues you had something to refer to as this was therefore you first port of call.    These days more consideration has been given to usability making the learning curve for many apps shallower than it may have been in the past.  Detailed instruction manuals are no longer provided as solutions are more “usable”.  This seems like a good thing, so why do IT support teams still get so many calls?

The general perception of usability is correct in general terms, but when looking at specific solutions in schools it may not hold.   So, a user might have been able to work out TikTok and Facebook on their own with no help but when they hit the schools management information systems (MIS) they struggle.   The MIS is then saw as highly specialised, which to an extent it is, so this merits a call to IT support rather than a look at the help tools or a Google search.

What are IT Services for?

The other question I have in relation to this issue is, if users do become more self sufficient and solve more of their own problems, what does this mean IT Services teams will be doing?   As I mentioned earlier, I believe they would simply be freed up to focus on more technical issues which can’t be easily solved through the support of Google.   I also think the extra time available would also allow them to spend more time looking at how to better use technology, rather than simply repeating the same solutions to repeatedly occurring simple issues.

Conclusion

The challenge for IT teams of encouraging user self sufficiency while still being helpful and user focussed is an ongoing and long-term challenge.   Human habit, ease and user confidence are all wrapped up in this, making the challenge very much a human rather than technological challenge.   This is an important consideration and to me highlights the need to focus on a longer-term plan and the little day to day actions, including the potential to “nudge” behaviours towards the intended outcome of improving users technological self-sufficiency.  

Ultimately IT teams in schools want to see technology used to maximum impact.   I think developing user self-sufficiency in relation to technology, and likely user confidence as associated with self-sufficiency, will help us better achieve this.

There is no tail

I have previously written about how technology is sometimes seen as the solution to all problems, even where sometimes the problem relates to process or people, and therefore is unlikely to be significantly addressed by technology.   A related issue is where technology is seen as the silver bullet but able to act on processes without the engagement of the process owners and those the understand the process. Basically where IT teams are asked to solve a problem using technology without the support of process owners.

This issue often raises memories of concerns being raised as to the tail wagging the dog, in relation to technology, or concerns that what should be happening in relation to an organisational unit or process is controlled and directed by the technology.    I have always understood this view as a teacher.  The process, learning, shouldn’t be directed by the technology, it is the students and the learning which should direct things.    The issue though is that this is overly simplistic.   There are limits of technology, there are risks related to technology use, there are drawbacks or disadvantages as well as advantages to using technology.    As such the technology available, risks, etc need to be taken into consideration and as a result may influence and direct how technology is used in learning, and therefore the learning itself.   It’s a two-way street, although on a continuum I will always come down more on the learning or process side of things rather than the technology side.   Technology should be an enabler.

My concern here is where the IT or technology staff are asked to come up with a solution to fulfil a certain need, IT is the silver bullet, but the task is almost handed off to IT staff rather than engaging IT and technology staff in a partnership with the owners of the process or issue concerned.    The IT staff are unlikely to understand the process in question so how are they to develop or identify a solution which would meet the requirements?  Even if they identify a solution which meet the end requirements, there is the potential that the process involved will not meet the needs or requirements of the process owners.    In order to be successful this challenge needs to involve both the IT staff, bring technology and IT understanding, and the process owners and operators who understand the specific needs and requirements around the process being looked at.     The two groups of staff need to work in partnership each bringing their own expertise, knowledge and experience.

Conclusion

IT projects have a horrid habit of going both over budget and over time.  This tendency occurs across different industries and also within education.    IT staff might not fully understand the problem, the process owners might not clearly communicate the problem, IT staff may try to apply the problem to the solution rather than finding a solution for the problem, there might be scope creep over time, and that’s just a handful of things which can make an IT project more complex than is ideal.   For me the key is partnership and each group of people bringing different things to the table.   What if there is no dog and there is no tail?

The Wi-fi’s not working? Or is it Facebook?

The other days outage of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram highlighted to me the complexity of internet services, and how they rely on various technologies, hardware, software, and companies to make things work.  This is the reality, yet the perception is that it is simply “Facebook” or “WhatsApp” a single simple service.

The same is true in schools in particular in relation to Wi-Fi.   How many times have I heard about issues with Wi-Fi?    I would suggest, too many, yet “the Wi-Fi isnt working” implies simplicity where it doesn’t exist.  The need to “fix” the Wi-Fi suggests a single point of failure, a single issue or technology to look at, where in reality the service relies on a number of different technologies and different companies to make work.

Some possible issues

Starting with the user device might be a useful place to start.   This can impact on Wi-Fi.   Recently my team came across a device where the DNS (Domain Name System) server was set to that of Google on the device rather than getting the DNS from the schools’ network.  For safeguarding reasons, we want to see the DNS requests so prevent the use of DNS servers other than our own so this student instantly had issues accessing internet services due to this.  I suspect they may have changed the DNS server for the purposes of bypassing home filtering such as that provided by the likes of Sky broadband.    Next there are students who may be using VPNs to bypass filtering.   Again, depending on the VPN used, this might impact their internet connection or the speed of their internet connection.    Updates which havent been installed on devices may also have an impact or possibly updates to the apps on device rather than the device itself.        

Moving beyond the device, the Wireless Access points may cause issues in terms of signal strength or in terms of their capacity to handle requests for different connected devices at the same time.   I will admit they also may occasionally fall over of their own accord.   It may also be that a “noisy” device is saturating the APs with requests leading to an impact on the service.   Or the issue could be to do with network switching or even the internet bandwidth available to serve all users.    Again a noisy device on the network could be impacting overall network performance.   Your DNS servers or DHCP servers, which provide devices the IP address they require, could also be at fault if they are not operating as they should.   And this is just scratching the surface of the potential causal or contributory factors.

And it doesn’t stop there; The issue might not even be within the school and could relate to issues with the service or site the students are trying to access.   It may be a reputable service which is simply having issues at a given moment in time, a bit like the recent Facebook issue, or it could be a less reputable site which simply isn’t trustworthy or reliable.  It could be that the site uses authentication from a third party, such as Facebook, and this is what is causing the issue, or that the site uses an Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) vendor and it is they who are having problems.    It could even be a largescale internet routing issue.

Conclusion

This all makes me thing of the Arthur C. Clarke quote regarding advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic.   The challenge is Facebook and internet services in general appear to be simple, in we can all easily use them.   There is no magic there, and as such there can be no magic in their inner workings.    Or at least that is the user perception.  This however is untrue.    There is magic.    There is the magic of so many different technologies, hardware, software and companies working together in unison to deliver the services we come to expect, or at least doing so most of the time.    That is until something goes wrong somewhere in the chain leading to that familiar cry:   “The Wi-fis not working!”

Technology can solve all?

Sometimes there is a belief that technology can make all processes more streamlined and efficient.   I will admit that technology does have the potential to make some or maybe even most processes a bit more efficient through automation, validation of data, etc.   It can also allow us to reimage workflows and processes, however there are times when this isnt the case.

The issue I am getting at here is trying to use technology to solve a problem where the problem itself doesn’t exist in the technology domain.   This might be using technology to solve a human problem or using technology to solve a problem with a given process.

Consider a complex process involving lots of different people who provide approvals at different stages of the process.    This might be seen as a poor process as it may result in action not being taken due to a small number of people not responding or providing their approval.  If this is a manual email-based process it seems logical to use technology to make the process more automated and remove some of the manual processing from the equation.    We might be able to setup reminders, etc to stop people failing to respond.   The issue for me is that the problem may be the complexity of the process.   Does it need to be done this way?   Why do we do it this way?    Is it simply because we have always done it this way?   Does it need all of these approvals?    Could the process be simplified?  

For me, before we look at using technology, I think we need to examine the underlying processes, people, etc first with a critical eye.   We need to avoid trying to use technology as a blunt solution to solve process or people related problems, instead dealing with these problems first before then looking to technology.

This isnt necessarily easy.  In the past I have spent time with departments looking at and mapping their processes and then querying why each part of the process exists.   In some cases there has been a reluctance to accept any changes (“We’ve always done it this way”) therefore either necessitating a bespoke solution or a highly complex off the shelf setup.  Neither of these options work due to potential costs, both financial or resource, and dangers of fragility associated with complexity.  In these cases, I have had to walk away and indicate there may be dissatisfaction with current processes, but there is also a lack of willingness to make concessions and accept change as required of any new solution.   It’s a no deal situation.

I continue to want to support the greater use of technology generally, but I am equally concious that we need to use technology where it matters and where it has impact.    Sometimes technology might only present a marginally gain but at high cost.    We cannot simply look at an issue and expect technology to solve it.    It’s that old, famous phrase: “crap in, [technology enabled] crap out”.  

IT Services and Admin

Sometimes the borders of responsibility to IT systems are a little blurred.   Take for example a complex HR and payroll system.   The IT team might know the technical requirements and how to get the software up and running.   They might know what integrations with other systems exist, including integration possibly with the schools Management Information System and with Active Directory for example.    But will they know how to solve a problem with an HR workflow which has been setup within the HR system?

This is where the lines blur.   As the HR and payroll system is an IT system, sometimes it is assumed that IT support teams will know the user interface and how it works.    Sadly, this is seldom the case and given the number of systems which a school might have, is it any wonder that IT teams can’t be expected to know how each system works and the user interface for each system.

Let’s just consider some of the systems a school might have:

Management Information, Payroll, Asset Management, Safeguarding, Trip Management, Room Booking, Parent Evening Booking, School Website, Parent payment gateway, Parent Communication Platform, Human Resources solution, Visitor Management, Cloud based productivity suite (e.g. Office 365), Timetabling solution….. and that doesn’t include the IT specific platforms and several other solutions which may be used in schools.

For me the key in deciding IT involvement relates to the need, or not, for domain specific knowledge.    The payroll systems for example will likely need some accounting and payroll understanding along with understanding of school payroll related processes.    It needs knowledge from the payroll domain, knowledge IT teams won’t necessarily have.   As such administration of this system should sit within Finance or Payroll, where the required domain knowledge exists.

Personally, I do however think there is a place for IT support teams to have some skill, experience and the ability to provide training in the schools’ core productivity solution, such as Office 365, including understanding how it can be used by teachers.  Productivity suites tend to be flexible for applications in different domains, however in their use within teaching and learning, this clearly would suggest need for knowledge from within the teaching domain.    For me though, as teaching and learning is the key aim of a school, there is therefore significant value in IT teams being able to support this aim.    

I think as we use more and more IT systems, the lines between what IT support or services teams can do in relation to IT systems and what they cannot continue to blur.   Also, as the IT systems we use in every day life become more and more user friendly I also think this increases the perception that trained IT staff can troubleshoot and support all IT systems, hiding the fact that role or process specific systems continue to be specialist and required specific domain knowledge.

If I was to sum up, lets use a medical analogy:  IT Support teams are like your GP.   We keep things generally running, are good for your general queries, but when it comes to brain surgery, or the payroll system, am not sure I would want them carrying out the operation. Equally am not sure a brain surgeon, or someone for payroll, would make a GP……. or an IT Technician.

IT Services: Week 1 of the new academic year

The first week of a new academic year is probably one of the busiest periods of the year for IT teams in schools and colleges across the UK and also the world.  Here we have seen a 10% increase in calls logged, when compared with last year and that excludes countless walk-ins and telephone calls where the resolution was quick and therefore never logged.   Comparing last week with the previous year average, last week is around twice the volume.    So why is it so busy?

Returning staff and students

The first week sees all your returning staff and students once again logging on and accessing school systems.   One of the challenges though is that it may have been 2 months ago or more that they last logged in.    This means there is always several forgotten passwords or queries about how to use a particular system or find a particular report.   For some reason printers and copiers in particular make frequent appearance on IT call logs at the start of term.

The need for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) also throws some challenges in here, where staff have bought new phones, and where their old phone was setup for MFA.    This then requires support is provided to setup MFA on their new device.

System Changes

Although teaching staff may be on holiday over summer, a lot of the IT upgrade work occurs during this period.   This means that teaching staff may come back to slightly changes in the IT setup and processes.    You can never underestimate the impact even the slightest change will have on some users.    As such, the likely system changes conducted during summer contribute to a busy first week as staff need to adjust and build new habits.

And it isnt only schools which make changes; Some EdTech vendors will also take the opportunity to upgrade or update their platforms.  Again, this will cause some users difficulties leading to a “quick” call to IT.   Occasionally this can cause big issues where changes don’t go according to a vendors plan, resulting in service disruption.    Sadly, this is largely out of IT Services control however that won’t stop users directing their frustrations and annoyance towards the IT team.

New students and staff

I have already mentioned the challenge of returning users having forgotten how things work or how to do things, but then there are the new staff and students for whom the school’s setup, systems and processes are totally new.    Despite whatever training or support they have been provided, they are likely to need support; During their opening weeks they will likely need to learn so many new things, from school processes, staff names, their way around site, etc, and as such it won’t all stick, and where its an IT issue that doesn’t stick, it’s a likely call to the IT services or support team.

Last Minutes changes

We always hope things have been planned in advance, but each new academic year brings with it plans or ideas which were only agreed or decided upon recently just before the year begins, thereby requiring last minute actions.    This is often very frustrating, as despite some of these ideas and initiatives having value, the worst time from an IT point of view to make changes or try to implement new things in a hurry is the start of the new academic year when you are already under pressure. 

Conclusion

The start of the new academic year is always going to be busy.   I am not sure there is much we can do about this as most of the factors listed above are unavoidable.    I think the best we can do is to look to those areas which are avoidable and seek to do just that and avoid them.   We also need to carefully find ways to mitigate issues through providing JIT (Just-In-Time) training resources and directing users to these.   If you can empower users to solve their own issues as much as possible IT teams can then focus on the issues which need their support and where users cannot resolve themselves. Developing ways that teaching and support staff can share ideas, difficulties, etc, among themselves can be an important solution here.   We have an EdTech Mutual support team for example where staff can share questions or issues, with other staff then able to provide the solutions, workarounds, etc.   I will note this is also a good resource for IT teams as it gives insight into the issues and on occasions gives us solutions which we hadnt considered.    The need for prioritisation is also important, to focus on the jobs which have the biggest impact.  This requires users be understanding to the limited resources IT teams, no matter how big they are, will have.    

In conclusion, if I was to end with just one message it would be, be kind and considerate to your IT services and support teams at the start of the new academic year.    This is a very very busy time for them, much as it is for most school or college staff, however they may have also been busy throughout the summer.  

Well done to the IT people in schools and colleges around the world;  By the time you read this most of you will have survived the first week (and maybe the second) of yet another academic year!   Keep up the great work!

Lateral attacks

More than ever there is a need for healthy paranoia in how we deal with all communications we receive.

Cyber Security

The other day I was looking at Facebook and a post appearing to come from one of my relatives outlining how they had made easy money based on a guide on a website they had found.   The post seemed out of character and therefore I treated it with a healthy amount of paranoia.   Having contacted my brother in law via text it became apparent he hadn’t posted the comment on social media.  He had in fact been hacked however prior to my text he was unaware.

This highlights the dangers of lateral attacks.   Rather than come straight at us the cyber criminal attempts to get to us via a trusted person or organisation.    Due to the increasing cyber risk we are all becoming more sensitive to the potential malicious approaches by strangers and how these may in fact be malicious.   The cyber criminals have therefore pivoted to trying to use one person or one organisations accounts to gain access to others.  As such they will look at the contacts of a compromised email account and then approach these contacts using the compromised account to send the emails hoping that the fact the sender is someone we are familiar with and therefore trust that we will be less suspicious and more likely to click the links or open the attachments.

Given the fact the number of breached accounts now outnumber the number of people on the planet it is no surprise that the lateral attack is becoming more common.

The fact an email comes from someone we don’t know is no longer the key indicator of a malicious email as increasing the emails may come from those we know.   More than ever there is a need for healthy paranoia in how we deal with all communications we receive.

We also need to be more vigilant of unusual activity on our own accounts which might signal an account compromise and a malicious outsider trying to quietly use our accounts for lateral attacks on our friends, colleagues and other associates.

Moving to the cloud

The cloud?

In what is my third post looking at aspects of IT Strategy I thought I would write a little about moving to the cloud.   I note that the ISC Digital group recommends schools move to using Office 365 or G-Suite, both of which are cloud based services, as part of their bursars 6 pack advice.

There has a long been worries about security and control over cloud-based solutions.   My feeling is that largely these concerns have decreased with time and as cloud services have matured.  Additionally, understanding of cloud services has developed however I note recently a conversation in relation to a school which hosted its data locally and was building its own solutions for reasons of data security, so the concerns haven’t gone away.    In discussing cloud services, I love the idea of the cloud simply equating to “someone else’s computer”.   This description works for me.  In using cloud services for your solutions you are simply replacing your on-site servers with servers someone else owns, located somewhere out on the internet.   The question though in using cloud services is one of asking whether the someone else you are using can offer something you cannot and whether or not you trust them.

Looking at G-Suite and Office 365 as cloud hosted productivity suites I can see a number of things which are being offered which aren’t available in a locally hosted solution.    Both Microsoft and Google have significant technical support teams plus resiliency and redundancy capabilities way beyond what is possible with a schools IT support staff and on-prem solutions.   They are able to collate threat intelligence from vast numbers of systems and users to help protect all those using their services.      They offer a consistent revenue based costing model rather than the capital heavy costing model associated with on-premise data centres and servers, plus they offer easy scalability in terms of adding users, storage, services, etc.

As with most things this isn’t however a one-sided argument and there are other considerations which need to be taken into account.   The need for internet access is one of the key considerations as if your internet connectivity is unreliable or if your bandwidth is limited then deciding on cloud hosting is likely to be a bad idea.    Access to data may be another concern, as with locally hosted solutions you will have full unfettered access to the databases containing your data whereas in the cloud you may have limited access, through APIs for example, or may have no access other than that provided by a solutions user interface.    Sharing of data may be a concern as your third party, such as Google or Microsoft in the above case, will have access to your data so we must consider how much we trust them to not misuse this access.    Another consideration might be in relation to solutions which don’t need internet access, only requiring local network access, which therefore may be safer kept locally hosted.   It isn’t simply a case of just jumping to the cloud, there are considerations and concerns which need to be weighed up.

One of the main concerns in relation to cloud services is the terms and conditions and understanding your rights and responsibilities under these terms.   The terms and conditions should identify the overall approach to security which a vendor takes including how they may or may not share data, what happens should you cease using the vendor, their approach to breach and vulnerability notification, and any provision allowing for you to audit a vendors activities. Now I am not going to write much on this here as I will share some thoughts on this specific issue in a future post where I can explore it in more detail.  What is key however is the need to carefully check the terms and conditions especially in relation to complying with your data protection/GDPR obligations and also in relation to business continuity and disaster recovery.    It is important to take a risk based approach and weigh up the benefits and potential risks and assure yourself and your organisation that risks are acceptable and that benefits are worth any risk.

I continue to view the use of cloud based solutions or the use of the cloud to host an organisations own solutions positively.   I can see lots of advantages and benefits.  I also so more and more of our systems, data and services moving to the cloud in the coming years however I am also conscious that the cloud is not a silver bullet and is not necessarily appropriate for all situations.   We need to consider moving to the cloud or cloud based solutions carefully.   That said, I am not sure how that is different from normal behaviour as any change or introduction of new solutions should be considered carefully with a view to advantages, drawbacks and risk management.

Planning for Resiliency

This is my second post related to IT Strategy, following up on the previous post regarding “Seeking Value” but this time looking at the resiliency of systems and infrastructure particularly around when things inevitably do go wrong.

Resiliency: Keeping it all working

I recently heard Mark Steed speaking at the EdTech Conversations event in London where he referred to his approach to the use of Educational Technology at JESS in Dubai.

In his speech, he talked about a “no excuses” approach to systems and the infrastructure on which educational technology solutions rely. His view was that if the foundations on which EdTech use are built are not solid, and if things such as Wi-Fi or the wider network don’t work or are intermittent then users of educational technology, be it the students or teachers, will simply turn off and seek non-technology solutions. Winning them back in the event of reliability issues being extremely difficult or near impossible. As such building strong technology foundations, a resilient infrastructure, is therefore key. Planning for when things might go wrong is a must.

As with most things building resiliency isn’t simple. In a world of infinite resources we would simply double up (N x 2), or even double up plus add spares;  So in the case of our Internet provider we would require two separate diversely routed fibres so that, in the event one fibre was damaged, we would be able to run off the 2nd fibre. We might then have a third redundant backup solution, possibly with lower capacity, and again diversely routed. All of this sounds good and minimises potential downtime from fibre damage within the incoming internet services however this all comes with a cost, first in terms of financial costs of additional lines and also in terms of additional hardware and support costs. We don’t live in a world of infinite resources and therefore decisions need to be taken as to how much resiliency we build in. This is where the usual risk assessment and management processes must kick in.

Let’s consider the key pieces of infrastructure which may exist and issues around each:

  • Internet Service Provision, Firewalls and Core Switches

As we use more and more cloud services, internet access and school internet provision becomes critically important. Due to the critical nature of internet access, when looking at Internet service provision, firewalls and core switches, the two main focal areas I would consider are doubling up where finances allow or carefully examining the service level agreement along with any penalties proposed for where service levels are not met. In the case of firewalls and core switches, cold spares with a lower specification may also be an option to minimize cost but allow for quick recovery in the event of any issue. When looking at the SLAs of providers in terms of their support offering for when things go wrong consider, is it next business day on-site support or return to base for example and how long their anticipated recovery period is.

  • Edge Switches and Wi-Fi

In the case of edge switches and Wi-Fi Access Points we are likely to have large numbers especially for larger sites. I would suggest that heat mapping for Wi-Fi is key at the outset of a Wi-Fi deployment, in making sure Wi-Fi will work across the site. In looking at resiliency for when things go wrong my view is an N+1 approach. This involves establishing a spare or quantity of spares based on the total number of units in use and the level of risk which is deemed acceptable. High levels of risk acceptance mean fewer spares, whereas a low level of risk acceptance may lead to a greater number of spares.

  • Cabling / Routing

Cables break plus various small animals love to chew on cables given half a chance.

As a result, it is important to examine your overall network layout with a view to any weak points where a single failure might impact on large areas or large numbers of users within the school.  Where possible plan for redundant routes such that any single failure can be quickly resolved by using an alternative route thereby minimising downtime while you wait for repairs.

  • School Management Solutions (SMS) /Management Information Systems (MIS)

I include the schools MIS system given its criticality in relation to parental contact info, student registration, etc. It is a critical system within a school. As such it is important to consider how it is backed up and how recovery would be undertaken. It is also important to test the processes. I have conducted tests in the past which have shown the recovery process did not perform as expected; Had I not tested, the first I would have known about difficulties would have been when I needed to recover the MIS for real, which is a time when the last thing you want is for things to not go as planned.

 

I note that the above is not an extensive or comprehensive list and I might have included classroom display technology, Mobile Device Management (MDM), Network Access Control (NAC), CCTV, access control and a whole manner of other solutions which may exist, however in the interest of keeping this post brief and to the point I have left these off.

For me, the key in relation to resiliency is a risk-based assessment of your systems and infrastructure.

We need to know the risks and their impact on the school. Armed with this information we can prioritise our available resources towards the aspects of our infrastructure where the greatest level of resiliency is required. The other key consideration is transparency and ensuring school leaders are aware of the risks which exist, where the available resources have been prioritised and where decisions have been taken not to deploy resources, plus the reasons why.

My concern with resiliency is that it is often something which people don’t worry about until things go wrong. Then come the difficult discussions as to why preventative measures or recovery plans hadn’t been put in place. Better to consider resiliency regularly and ensure that the state of play, including the risks, are all made clear to all. At my school, we approach this as part of an annual IT risk assessment process including risks related to resiliency. If you don’t have a risk assessment which includes a discussion of resiliency, it would be my strong advice to create one.

 

IT Strategy: Seeking value

I have been planning to post on IT strategy in relation to some of the areas which I believe need to be considered.  Initially my thought was for a single post covering a number of different points, some being obvious and some less so obvious, however as soon as I started writing it became clear that each point could be a post in itself or would result in a really long single post.   As such I decided to undertake a number of separate posts of which this is the first:

Seeking Value

I remember someone telling me that IT is the 3rd most expensive thing in a school after staffing costs and the cost of the building and school estate.  With such a large part of a schools finances invested in technology it is important to make sure that we are getting value.   Now I note my use of the word “value” as opposed to impact; This is due to impact being often associated with examination outcomes.   In my view this is a narrow view on technologies potential within education.  Exam results, for example, don’t provide a measure of the positive effect which technology can have to a student with Asperger’s who previously found it difficult to interact with the classroom discussion but now can do so easily via an online chat facility.    For me value suggests a broader classification which might include using technology to engage a particular student who previously wouldn’t or couldn’t access learning, like in the above example, it might include introducing new experiences to students which were either difficult, dangerous or costly without tech or it might be using technology to bring about new more efficient processes for teachers such as dictation of feedback, etc.   Value is much more diverse and also context specific than exam results.  Seeking value in our technology should be a key objective in all technology decision making but mustn’t be confused with cost cutting.

I have often heard about how technology should be led by teaching and learning needs.   I agree with this to an extent in that technology shouldn’t dictate what is done in the classroom, however we must be careful that whatever technology we are considering using brings about value.   It is all too easy to fall for the salesman’s spiel regarding the potential or to focus on a particularly nice feature and not appreciate the wider implications of a technologies use.  I remember VLEs being heralded for the potential they had to change learning giving students access to resources and allowing teachers to set homework and provide feedback, etc.  Sadly, in my view, they never really provided value as first there was the cost of the software, then the resource cost of training and of creating, posting and updating content, then the limited ways that content could be organised and presented which stifled the creativity inherent in good teaching.  The cost versus the benefits never added up for me, and with this I didn’t see the value.    I can name a couple of other technologies which have been rolled out due to their potential to impact teaching and learning, but where the costs and resultant value is doubtful at best.

A discussion of value in relation to an educational technology project is never an easy one given the concept of value is potentially so broad and all encompassing.  Important things, such as a detailed consideration of value, are seldom easy.   Judgements on value are also often subject to the different perspectives of the people involved in the project.   To that my answer is to look to the schools values and what it stands for and to see if the proposed technology fits with the schools wider aims.   If it doesn’t then the project should be dropped.  If, however it does then a trial or pilot study may help surface the value or lack of in the technology being examined.   Discussions with other schools may also help to establish value.    Assuming value can be established from such a trial a wider roll-out, either to a bigger pilot group, to a specific group or even whole school can be considered and planned.

I have now added “Seeking value” as one of the value statements for my IT Services team, as a reminder and key focus in supporting IT across the school.   It is my belief that it is important that we all have a similar reminder as we explore the many different and emerging technologies and technology solutions which might be considered for use in our schools.   Before proceeding we need to ask ourselves: Does this add value?