The Sick Day

typingtest.com is blocked on the web filter, but facebook.com isn't - my ninth graders thought that was hilarious. Do you think you can fix it? Sorry to bother...

After staying out late the night before with, ahem, some fellow ed-techies and feeling something nasty in the back of my throat, I woke up with no voice and what felt like the flu. Not so great when you find yourself not only talking, but repeating all day. I opted to stay home, if only to stop the nasty cycle of viruses in schools. You get sick, but you come anyway and pass it on to 25 third-graders, who then pass it on to the entire school community. That is, unless, you're one of those folks at the end of the chain. Then, it probably just doesn't matter. I don't like to chance being Typhoid Mary, though.

After waking up to my usual alarm, I stay awake, because I know the e-mails and/or phone calls may start at any moment. I check in on our server, which is doing OK. E-mail is outsourced, so that's reliable. Sara, the High School tech integrator, reaches me by 10:30 with the web filter e-mail.

Of course, even when I don't touch the web filter, it can get wonky. I remote back into our server to take a look.

I'm not a huge fan of our web filter. As far as web filters go, ours is great, but in concept, the two of us don't mix. Most parents want to hear we have one of these, and our administration, fearful of the particularly litigious parents, always want the safe side. So, we have one, and I pick my battles, so my dislike for them is only conversational at Children's Prep School. Folks have yet to put our (somewhat unusual) allowance of facebook.com and my conversational dislike of web filters together. I suspect I'll hear it from the head at some point, but two and a half years in, I haven't heard a peep. And, if he says something, I know I can distract him with the endowment. Works like a charm...

I do a quick browse and see that typingtest.com is categorized as "Game Playing." I have to do this frequently because the updates on our webfilter sometimes changes categorizations of innocuous websites to categories that are blocked. I mostly chuckle at this, but teachers and students find it frustrating, especially if they could see that website the day before. I think quickly about unblocking just the domain and then think about Occam. I set the entire "Game Playing" category to Monitor instead of Block. We'll see how this goes. Even though I don't like filtering, I do have fun playing with the filter itself. It's a mean little tool, and even if I don't block everything folks think I should, it's best used when teachers think students are doing something questionable on a computer in class, but are afraid to confront the student themselves - or because the student is just too fast. I just have to do a quick search through the filter's logs, and blocked or not, the student's traffic is there.

Some students say that my system of doing things is a little creepy - like big brother. I suppose it could be if I watched the traffic scroll by all day. But I don't. I depend on the students to do somethign stupid before I actually log into this thing. And then, hopefully, I won't have to look at it again for a very long time.

Not Exactly Typing Class

"But do you teach typing?" I blink at the parent standing across from me. A difficult question.

You see, I was taught typing. I'm thankful for it everyday, but it bored me to tears. I test drive all our typing software personally, for at least a half hour before deployment. I don't put stuff out there that bores me or that I find hard to use. I want the kids to use it. I see where their parents are coming from. Typing is useful. However, my department gets such limited class time with our kids - even with our attempts at integration - that, sometimes, formal home-keys training gets pushed aside.

"We practice it in the lower grades," I say carefully "and we keep a list of free and low-cost typing programs that Annabelle can use from home, if you feel she needs extra practice."

Dennis, my former boss, was never taught typing. In fact, in my former department of eight, I was the only one who could touch type. And it's that that I think about when I talk about typing. Fellow IT and teaching professionals, who I thoroughly admire, and none of them could touch type. Is lacking that skill really that bad?

"Well, The Johns School teaches typing and has laptops for every child - what can you offer that they can't?" I look for help from Jane, the Admissions Director, who, I'm sure, did not plan this cornering. She raises her eyebrows waiting for my response. I look back at the parents. "Ma'am, while we don't offer a laptop for every child, we do offer an 8:1 student-teacher ratio, and open labs for all students. As far as typing goes, our graduated students consistently report feeling better prepared with computers skills than their peers when they enter college. I'd like to think we have an excellent program that focuses on a diverse set of critical thinking and creative skills. Not just typing."

It's a load, partially. This woman has been visiting schools all month. A mouthful of computer curricula jibberish can't really match up to a "free" laptop for her child. You can hold a laptop.

Jane begins a shpeil about our new gymnasium and they start down the hallway. What's difficult about this scenario is that these students will be entering a world that we don't know how to prepare them for. All Thomas Friedman aside, the best these parents can ask is that we are actively aware of that fact. The "free" laptop is just icing.

How Many FTE?

"So, how many FTE will this position be serving?" The slick candidate from the failed mutual fund looks at me as if he's nailed this question. He's interviewing for our entry-level helpdesk position.

Hiring, for me, is tenuous. I've told Sara, our High School Integrator, that I look for myself when I hire. Her comment: "Oh. That's not good." I suppose, in a pure, theoretical way, it's pretty bad. However, I like to think that my temperment and skills lend themselves very well to a school environment.

"FTE isn't really a relevant number in a school..." I say this cautiously. I know several things about this guy already. He thinks that because he worked at a high-pressure mutual fund that K-12 is an obvious breeze. I'm not enthusiastic about that misconception.

George, our recent hire for the same helpdesk position, lasted approximately three months. He seemed a good pick at the start: a recent college grad, smart, learns fast, had briefly worked in sales at a large computer company, but was looking for something softer. He'd come as a recommendation from my boyfriend, Scott, who'd handled some purchasing through George and was impressed by his knowledge and enthusiasm for technology and not-for-profits. He was even interested in teaching! You can't buy entry-level candidates like George. At least, not on paper.

Unfortunately, George was not suited to Childrens Prep. At least, not in a helpdesk way. He quickly got caught up in the gossip and drama that surrounds, especially, young people entering a school for the first time. He became almost paranoid, and, at first, I found myself getting swept up in it. And then, a few things started to click when I would gently approach people about the supposed fiery interaction George had with them. They, often, had no idea what I was talking about. I did my best to talk him down, because he was, at the end of the day, personable and a fast learner. But, he resigned when he saw the NAIS Job Board up on my screen and assumed I was going to fire him. He didn't even give himself a chance.

Of course, Childrens Prep is ripe with folks who, when they are angry or upset, are really eager to tell their colleagues that they think you may be incompetent. Its not the case in all schools, but it is a Childrens Prep. It's upsetting at first, especially when you walk into one of those conversations. That is, until you realize that it's easy to swing from incompetent to brilliant several times a day. And at the end, they'll tell the parents, alumni and administration that you're great and they couldn't live without you. Even if their mouse isn't working. Although, sometimes, they will throw that last part in, too. But I can empathise.

Mr. Slick shakes his head, "No, I mean, how many full time employees do you have?" He says this slowly, so that I'll know what he meant by FTE.

"I know. You have to remember, in a school, not everyone gets their own computer, and you're serving the students, too."

"Yeah, but," he jumps in. I cut him off.

"Full Time Employees, we have 120. Students? That's more like 450. And I'd expect you'd serve their needs, too, when it comes to the machines they use. So, it could be 58, or it could be more than 500. In the summer, it's more like 20. There's no final answer on that question. I think a better question is how many computers do we have to support. The answer to that hovers around 380."

He nods and makes a note in the leather Trapper Keeper he's been carrying with him and smirks at the paper. He still thinks it's going to be easy.

Later, after dropping Mr. Slick off at the parking lot, Sara and I are walking back to our offices.

"I didn't like him one bit." Sara says this quickly.

"He was OK. He was just very...." I pause.

"He was very corporate. I have an MBA. I know guys like that. He just wouldn't work here." She thinks for a moment. "I mean, I didn't know what schools were like until I started teaching. I realized very quickly that skills you need to work in a business are not the same skills you need to work at a school."

I've been in schools my entire career, so I'm not sure how to answer her, but I'm pretty sure I know what she's talking about.

"I liked the guy yesterday." Sara closes her thought. The guy who came yesterday did tech for a small church in the area. "He was like the male version of you."

I smile.

Date Night

"You know, I don't even think Microsoft can survive in it's current form. It can't be so closed. Open standards are going to rule in the future, I'm telling you. I'm not even going to bother learning Active Directory." Scott is an Ed Tech evangelist for a local four-year college. He's also my boyfriend. Many of our most intimate conversations happen on the topic of pedagogy and best practices. I nod as he rants.

"You know, it wouldn't hurt to learn it - it's the most common directory system right now, and even if it won't be in the future, it's going to take a very long time to die out. You're talking, like, Futurama-in-the-future. Not next year."

Scott giggles a little at my comment. "You shouldn't be spending your time on that shit. You should really start moving Linux into your school. Fuck all that licensing. You can handle it"

Here is where we differ. I'm all for not paying for things and using open standards, however, in reality, we're not in a vaccuum. Perhaps I'm a little more war weary than he is, but while the concept is nice, the last time I picked a server OS, I stuck with Microsoft. I pipe dream about OS X servers for directory services and LAMP boxes instead of Whipple Hill or FinalSite, but at the end of the day, I'm not the only one making decisions, nor can we rely on all our technologies being Linux friendly - especially when it comes with dealing with our parents, donors and greater community.

I inherited a Windows School and a transition to Mac, if I decided to make one, would be very slow, more because of cultural issues than technical ones. Our vocal parent community is, oddly, a staunch set of "but that's what they use in the business world" users. They're successful folks, mostly in finance and real estate, and it's just what they know. They're successful and they want their kids to repeat that success, right down to an Operating System. I get it. It's silly, but I get it.

Windows Servers, if you want to be able to sleep at night and not stress when it's time for you to move on, is your safest bet if you have the means. Almost every host-your-own web 2.0 application ties nicely into Active Directory. Heck, even OS X server try to. Google just about anything having to do with a Windows Server, and I bet money that thousands of other sysadmins have had the exact same problem, and if even a small percentage post on a forum about it, you're likely to find a solution, or at least a nudge in the right direction. Windows Servers also means you're not completely irreplaceable, which, oddly enough, I usually see as a good thing. I like taking vacations once in a while, and I work hard for them. Linux would, probably, encroach on that for a while, even if it is just in a Professional Development and Training kind of way.

I don't engage Scott on this point. He's the more ambitious of the two of us. I made concessions to the man long ago. He's still fighting it. My energies, meanwhile, allow me to spend more time on the fun part of my job: teaching teachers and teaching students. Don't get me wrong, Scott is good at that too. However, I'm not Scott, and folks like him will be the leaders into this brave future he sees coming. I see it too, in all it's inevitable glory, but I'm content to be two steps behind.

The Rules (Please Abide!)

1) Computers, do not good teaching make. Ignorance, on the otherhand, can ruin it.

2) I can't filter that for you. Filtering will get us nowhere. Just ask any former fascist state.

3) Ask questions when they arise. I don't know what you don't know unless you tell me. Your kids work the same way.

4) I can't fix your mother's computer. I actually want to help you, but I have hundreds of computers that take up my entire day, everyday, and when I go home, I really just want to play with an abacus and listen to 78s.

5) Yes, they make a software that will automate that, but suggest it. Don't demand it.

6) Give your co-workers and fellow students a hand when I'm not around. Learning often happens by teaching. Even with computers.