--- TIC-TECH message:
Hello All,
First of all, a bit of a disclaimer. I don't want to get in the middle of
whatever interaction took place between Peggy and her IS person. I also
want to make clear that the points made below are not meant to refute
Peggy's views. I am quite sure that she has put in many, many hours of
her own time and effort maintaining her building's systems and all
opinions offered here, are offered with due respect of this fact. I do
however, think there are issues of using students to do tech work which
have been simmering beneath the surface in our district for a long time.
I would venture this thought regarding high school students and network
privileges: in general, I don't think they should have any. I consider a
best practice to be having students on our NT server only while I am
standing there watching them and showing them how to do basic operations.
I generally either have them turn their heads when I type the admin
password, or change the password after we are done. Often I can
offer limited access which allows students to do various kinds of work
without admin privileges (note this is not a server maintained by IS
personnel).
I use students extensively to help around the edges with our
building-based technology. But I firmly believe that high school students
are not here to do our work for us, and should not have the same level of
trust or privileges as a district employee or outside professional.
So often students are used to do our work because we do not allocate the
proper funds to do the work ourselves. I think this frequently leads to
complicated and wrong-headed roles and trust relationships for our
students - which may include their less-trustworthy friends.
On the other hand, IS, despite their very best efforts, has never come
close to doing all the tech work which needs to be done at our school (how
could they?) and students have been quite helpful in filling in and
helping the Tech Coordinator here.
So how does one tell when students are being used inappropriately?
Here's my view:
1) If students are removed from a situation and the technology
collapses then you know they were being *used* to do our work and that
their activities were not strictly for their education.
2) If they have passwords which would grant network access, or
access to teachers' data (grades, attendance, etc...)
All of this IMHO; an opinion which I am sure will not be shared by all,
but one molded by some unhappy experiences and a lot of thought about
student roles.
I would also echo Mark's comments of a few months ago about IS people
coming in on top of building-level work needing to do so with great
respect and care. Often Tech Coordinators and others have worked very
hard to make things happen long before IS showed up on the scene.
*** tony
---------------------------
Tony Hand
tonyh@hale.ssd.k12.wa.us
Computer Systems Coordinator
Nathan Hale High School
Seattle School District
---------------------------
On Fri, 18 May 2001, Peggy J.Soong-Yaplee wrote:
> --- TIC-TECH message:
> Hi,
>
> I putting this out to the group because I am confuse and bewilder at times
> at the communication that comes across from IS.
>
> Today I was approached by my assigned IS person and was questioned why I
> made a student assistant in my technology program a Sysop on the NT Network.
> I have never ever heard until today that a student could not be a Sysop. It
> seems this was a policy discussed yesterday in a meeting, but by osmosis we
> should have known all this in our building automatically today and all
> along. Consequently I am told that my Admin privileges would be taken away
> and that if I didn't take this student off, it would be a threat to the
> entire network.
>
> This particular student helps on a regular basis with loading software;
> maintain computers, and adding names and password for the network use. This
> is a student who has been with me since the middle school and I trust him
> with the security of the network, since he has the knowledge and has helped
> maintain the network with me this year at Cleveland and while I was a
> computer teacher at Mercer. He has never abuse this privilege and has this
> right since the beginning of the 2nd trimester because he has been
> invaluable in maintaining the lab. So far as I know, we have not shut down
> the network, nor have we done anything to risk security. I think I am pretty
> clear as to what securities need to done. We do change passwords on a
> regular basis. We have not asked for help with new software that came in for
> the Multimedia class that was already running, but went ahead and loaded the
> software ourselves because no one else had time to do it. I do try and keep
> the lab and my classes running at the same time.
>
> All of a sudden I am told I cannot do this and if I continue, I would lose
> my Admin privileges. This is all very disturbing to me because, one, we are
> told to learn to maintain our labs because IS is busy doing other things in
> other buildings and they don't have time to fix things when needed.
> Teachers in buildings need to become more self-sufficient and not always
> depend on IS for everything. So, when we work on being self-sufficient and
> use what help we can get, we get reprimanded for it. I don't get it, does
> IS want us to be self sufficient or do we call them every five minutes for
> things we can do in one afternoon with student help?
>
> There are students in other school districts, like Issaquah, Bellevue and
> Federal Way who help maintain their school networks and this becomes part of
> the learning process. They are highly respected students and they are given
> the respect that someone who runs a network does. These students are
> learning through hands on experience and are usually our students who become
> successful in the IT fields. You would think that IS would want to groom
> some of these students to help maintain their workforce, since there is such
> a high turnover in the department. I would also think that the district
> would support this issue since we are so under staff in this area and would
> welcome the help. I have yet heard of a student who took the network down
> for helping in maintaining a lab. I have heard of students who have hacked
> into the system and took the network down. I hardly see a comparison.
> It's not like the network hasn't gone down for other reasons too and it
> certainly didn't stem from the schools.
>
> I just want clarification as to what we need to do to address some of these
> issues, rather than have an IS person upset with me when I was just trying
> to make their job easier and getting verbally abused for it. I am trying to
> maintain the lab and teach at the same time. The district has gotten a
> bargain, two jobs for the price of one. I don't get it, we try to do our
> part, and then we get in trouble for it. We try to promote IT as a career
> pathway for students yet because of the policies set in place by the IS
> department, we end up just doing a half way job. We have a Tech Prep
> agreement with the Community College and in many instances some of our
> classes in networking, computer repair, etc cannot count towards the
> articulation, because students don't have full privileges on a network, so
> parts of the curriculum cannot not be taught. I realize you can setup a
> separate network for them to work on, but does that teach them real trouble
> shooting? What better way to help a real network put into place and do some
> real troubleshooting and on the job experience?
>
> Somewhere down the line, when all the networks and wires are in place and IS
> is not so overwhelmed with all the wiring projects going on in the next five
> years. There needs to be a serious discussion between Tech Teachers and IS
> as to how to meet state requirements in Technology classes, articulation in
> the Tech Prep agreements, and just knowing what the curriculum is so that it
> can be delivered and taught in a classroom with out all the roadblocks that
> seem to be tossed in our way and impedes our ability to teach technology
> curriculum to it's fullest. I am willing to be part of this discussion and
> part of the solution, is anyone else out there willing to stick his or her
> necks out too?
>
> Peggy J. Soong Yaplee
> Infotech Infusion Teacher
> Cleveland High School
> psoong@cks.ssd.k12.wa.us
>
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>
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