Thinking It Through

I have been at the technology game for a long time but I can’t really call it a game any more because it’s just not that much fun. As a Technology Director, I spend more of my time limiting student and teacher access, outsmarting potential hackers, and just saying no to anything that seems the least innovative. This is not why I went back to school to earn my masters and doctoral (full disclosure, ABD) degrees. I envisioned that I would feel the fulfillment of helping children to interact with technology in ways that would make their days more interesting, not more frustrating.

The main question I’d like to pose to fellow technoeducators is this: How do we bring the fun and excitement back in a world increasingly ruled by CIPA, DOPA, litigation, and, let’s face it, predators and scam artists who would take advantage of our students?  What tools can help us encourage collaboration and creativity but still provide the structure to protect our students? On some days, I feel more like a lifeguard than an educator!

Most of the districts at which I’ve worked do not allow student e-mail due to liability issues if students were approached and/or sent inappropriate e-mails from school. Makes some sense but how do we reconcile that viewpoint with our responsibility to help students become informed, collaborative learners?  My technology partners and I have an opportunity to present to our board; due to federal and state reporting requirements, we’re not reporting on the ways that interactive tools are assisting our children to become deep, flexible thinkers, but on how we are meeting CIPA requirements and teaching Internet Safety.

Please share the ways in which your district/school balances open access with student safety. What are some of the procedures and lessons you use to scaffold your students on their way to becoming global citizens? I would love to hear how the balancing act works in your classrooms.

I am fortunate to work with an instructional tech partner who is smart, passionate…..and challenging. He is doing a great job encouraging teachers to embrace technology in their classrooms. As a result, our students are more engaged in the classroom, especially when they’re working on multimedia projects. Sounds like a dream, no?

Reality intrudes when my department attempts to provide adequate storage space for these fabulous projects. As we all know, creativity with iMovie knows no bounds. Unfortunately, our servers do. At approximately a gig per minute for storage, the multimedia projects of 9500 students quickly inundate our storage capabilities. If we try to store on the building servers, the back-ups start to fail. If we write the files to our central SAN, the bandwidth falls to its knees.

So, my question to all of you – how do you manage this? What is the most effective way to support students and staff while retaining some semblance of network efficiency?  Education is a strange animal in that we store more GB of data than most major corporations. One KidPix slideshow equals many Word documents!

I have worked in a variety of capacities from IBM programmer to kindergarten teacher (in that order yet)!  I try to be flexible and to view all sides of the issue, primarily through the lens of the classroom. It is difficult to bridge the gap between saying yes to all worthwhile projects and maintaining a robust network.

I would love to hear from others how you balance these two demands.