Technology in Portland Schools: January, 2008

Presentation Outline

Overview
Recent history and current profile
Service and support (CTS)
Programs, Projects and Staff Development

Communication
Websites for District and Schools
Teacher Classroom Websites
Parent Portal Access through Powerschool

Technology Projections
Classrooms of the future
the importance of Student, Staff and Financial Data
Technology Staffing Needs
The Cost of Doing Business

Overview

A. Recent history of technology implementation

Early 1980s:
PPS implemented software for the system-wide management of student data, attendance, report cards and scheduling, and for automation of the payroll system. The information system was accessible through computer terminals located in buildings (two in each secondary school and one in each elementary) and connected to a mini-mainframe computer housed at Central Office. This district-wide network established the model for the citywide enterprise network (INET) we share today. There were two full-time district staff, serving all technology needs. There was also a volunteer technology advisory board with members from most schools, and three middle-school teachers who taught 6th-grade computer classes to meet the State's computer technology graduation requirements. There were no staff dedicated to teacher technology use.

1988:
The first Macintosh lab in the City of Portland was installed at Deering High School, with IBM PCs in both high-school labs replacing the Apple II and TRS-80 technology.

1993:
More modern IBM PCs on a server-based network replaced the TRS-80s in 1993, dedicated mostly to word processing and other business applications.
1996:
The first full-time District Technology Coordinator was hired to support teacher and student computing activities.
It is interesting to note that the ratio of Technology staff to computing devices in 1996 was 1/100; today it is greater than 1/400!
Without consideration of staff training, the technical support recommendation from the PPS business community is 1 /75.

1998: the first District Technology Plan was developed by PPS with a diverse group of people from the PPS community. This 'living document' is updated regularly, and has been available on the Web since 2000; it is our primary reference in this report. In 2004, we redesigned the Technology Plan to fit the NCLB Standards, as is now required for all technology funding (including e-Rate) from the state of Maine.

Today:

A Snapshot of Portland Schools:

people:
7,000+ students
89 administrators
816 teachers
954 support personnel

technology devices:
45 network servers
Both Macintosh and PC platforms
4500+ network devices (student and administrative workstations, printers, network routers, wireless routing devices and phones)
(Many workstations are 5+ years old; and some have been donated by area businesses in keeping with PPS Standards)
2000+ wireless laptops and access points (routers) in middle schools, high schools and a few elementary schools

The PPS Wide-area network (WAN)

Portland Public Schools and the City of Portland share an enterprise-level network, known as the INET. This consists of five high-performance network switches interconnected via fiber optic cable and a fiber optic connection to each school and municipal building (fiber optic cable provided by Time Warner Cable.) The INET is managed jointly by the City of Portland and Portland Public Schools, and was significantly upgraded during the school year 2006-2007. We are still adding policies for traffic and security during this school year.

Portland Public Schools manages the backbone and local area network devices centrally with NetSight Element Manager software, which provides the picture shown above. This software allows the CTS department to proactively troubleshoot network problems and prevent outages.

The INET provides the following services to students, teachers and Portland Public School staff:

A central Internet connection guaranteed at 100 mb.
Firewall, email and Web servers with content filtering and anti-virus and anti-Spam protection.
Administrative and Student file server access.
Connection to the Pentamation financial system
Connection to the PowerSchool student information system

Following is a brief history of its development:

1998 - Portland Public Schools and the City of Portland join together to form a Citywide Intranet backbone.
2000 - Portland Public Schools upgrades local area networks to provide 100mb connectivity to workstations.
2001 - Portland Public Schools upgrades connections to the Intranet backbone from 10mb to 100mb at each building.
2003 - Portland Public Schools and the City of Portland upgrade the connections between Intranet backbone switches from 100mb to 1000mb (Gigabit Ethernet.)
2005-07 - Portland Public Schools and the City of Portland upgrade the entire INET to state-of-the-art network technology

B. Service and Support

The Computer Technology Services Team (CTS), has 9 full-time and one half-time employees, supporting classroom technology instruction and support, technical and network support, communication and information services, and student/financial database maintenance.

Below are some of the tools used by CTS to provide efficient support to all employees and students:

CTS Website, Blog and Newsletter

The CTS homepage contains information about and links to:
Standards (network, workstation, laptop), policies (acceptable use, Web permission forms) and purchasing information;
Staff Development opportunities and online self-training;
The District Technology Plan

Central Desktop Management for workstations
Imaging: the ability to format and configure a workstation in any PPS building in a matter of minutes. This dramatically reduces the need for customizing individual desktop PCs for each user.
Remote Management: the ability to diagnose, repair, train and configure workstations in any school building from any management workstation. This assists in faster problem diagnosis and reduces travel time as well as user 'downtime'.
Standardization: the ability to prevent unwanted activities on configured workstations

Online Problem Reporting Database

Five years ago, we introduced the PPS teaching staff to our interactive online problem reporting database. Teachers and administrators now have the opportunity to report computer problems and to check the updated status of their problem (reported, in progress, fixed, other) at any time.

This system provides a constant communication link to "customers", detailed data for problem tracking and analysis, and the facility for all CTS members to assist each other easily. We have since developed a similar system for building and CO administrators. As the system grows, we will be looking for a replacement for this system that provides a knowledge base and more sophisticated reporting

Because of the accessibility of the inventory, all CTS members are able to assist each other more easily; a concerted team effort can produce dramatic improvement in response time.

We have made considerable progress with the workload (median wait time reduced from 20 days to 2 days), and are constantly improving our efficiency. See below (data from part of December, 2007):

Although this is a great improvement, it is still not ideal. Some people, usually teachers, wait as long as 10 days.

B. Programs, Projects and Staff Development

Current and Recent CTS/PPS Projects and Programs

Network development, expansion of routing capability on the INET to provide greater security and traffic control:
Addition of Voice-over-IP (VOIP) phones to PATHS/EOC/Central Office/Riverton as part of a long-range expansion/upgrade plan.
Revival of PC labs and libraries with donations and refurbished workstations;
Addition of iBook carts to Deering, Portland and Casco Bay, using refurbished iBooks from the MLTI buyout;
Collection and preparation of student data (including customization to ME State mandated standard format) for MEDMS (ME Educational Data Management System);
Online access in Powerschool to all student assessment data, including standardized tests;
Implementation of Power Teacher online gradebook in all secondary schools and standards-based reporting in elementary schools;
Full-scale implementation of Powerschool Parent/Student access at Deering and Lincoln;
Financial System upgrade, including eventual Web access to employee information and job applications.
Web server for teacher instructional use.
NWEA online testing for all grade levels
Read180 supplemental reading instruction with online component

Staff Development:

Community of Learners Technology Offerings and Building-based Workshops:

Professional use to improve staff skills in communication, data analysis and assessment
GroupWise email system/advanced functions;
Online student progress reporting from PowerSchool;
Building-based Web editing;

Below is a profile of PPS teachers using technology to support instruction; the proficiency is divided into four levels: awareness (lowest), exploration, infusion and integration.

In 2005, 15 percent of PPS teachers were reported to be at the integration level.

Classroom instructional use to teach concepts, deepen student understanding, develop critical thinking skills, use self-assessment skills, and communicate learning
Electronic portfolios, including Digital video
Teacher Web Pages (Blogs),
Spreadsheets for data analysis

Below is a profile of PPS teachers using technology as part of instruction:

In 2005, 8 percent of PPS teachers were reported to be at the integration level.

Communication

The Portland Schools Website is centrally managed by CTS with editing access at several levels corresponding to physical or departmental sites. The school sites are edited by volunteers who collect information from teachers, parents and obtain approval of the building principal. Some of these volunteers are parents.

Building Technology Coordinators provide communication between CO and schools around technology issues. They meet monthly as a group with the Director of CTS. They each receive a stipend roughly proportional to the number of staff in their school.

Teachers now are able to develop their own Websites (blogs) for classroom use. These are supported and managed by CTS but all editing is done by teachers. These are linked from the online gradebook for secondary students.

This year, online secure parent/student access to individual student information is available from Powerschool, the SIS purchased and implemented in June, 2006.

This information includes

Attendance history

Current grades and grade history

Standard assessment scores

Standardized test scores (MEA, SAT, NWEA)

Teacher comments (for each teacher, each subject)

with links to

Teacher Web Pages

District events calendar

School lunch menu

School Bulletin

Two schools, Deering and Lincoln, have implemented the Parent Portal for all teachers and students. Other buildings will follow during the spring of 2008.

The Future of Technology in Portland Schools

A look at the classroom in the next few years:

High-school and middle-school students will have laptops with built-in digital video/still cameras and audio recorders to use in the classroom, some from carts;

Elementary schools will have pods of workstations and some laptop carts for intermediate-age students;

Classrooms will be equipped with digital phones, many with computer projection devices and Smartboards;

Administrators will use PDAs such as Palm Pilot, HP IPAQ, or Blackberry

The importance of student, staff and financial data

Required reporting (MEDMS) is ongoing; the State financial reporting system is changing in format;
Legal requirements for email and record retention are placing additional burdens on technology resources;

Student testing and standards-based assessment continue to increase;

By the year 2019, a student who enrolled in Kindergarten in 2007 will have nearly 20 tests on record.

Expectations of teachers for electronic attendance and grade reporting have changed dramatically:
During the school year 2003-2004, none of the Portland teachers were responsible for electronic attendance.
At present, nearly 100 percent of Portland teachers are entering attendance electronically.
All Portland teachers are entering standards and/or traditional final grades electronically.

Technology Staffing needs

The total number of CTS Staff members has not increased since 2002; the balance has shifted from classroom to device and network support. With the rapid growth of technology, the ratio of CTS members to network devices (computers, laptops, printers, etc.) has gone from 1:100 to 1:500!

Staff should be added at both the technician level and the network administrative level in order to bring this ratio closer to1/250.

CTS staff resources dedicated to teacher classroom support should be increased.

Building-based computer staff (Ed Techs) will be seen as an important need for the future.

Cost of doing business

Fixed license/support costs (Network software, INET support, Virus protection, Content filtering, Spam and Spyware, Financial and Student Information System) will continue to consume most of the CTS operating budget, stabilizing at about 50-60 percent.

Cyclic purchase and replacement of hardware should be implemented on a districtwide basis as described in the PPS Technology Plan, which will be revised constantly and re-evaluated every three years.

In recent times, the purchase and replacement cycle has been interrupted by budget crises; we have supplied classrooms with donated computers from Maine Medical Center and refurbished workstations purchased at low cost for the past three years.

Technology spending continues to decrease relative to the total school budget.

Graph of new technology spending (equipment) as a percent of the total budget by year.