December 2006 — Features
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2006 Innovators
:: KEEPING IT CLEAN
Innovator: Jim Culbert,
Duval County Public Schools (FL)
Breakthrough: Content filtering
Kids will be kids, which is why the drive to use technology to block access to internet pornography is so important to protecting the computing environment at Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville, FL.
ID, PLEASE? To ensure district
computers are not being used to
access pornography, Culbert wants
to implement better forms of authentication.
The effort began last year. After monitoring reports generated by the school’s enterprise reporting system, district CIO Jim Culbert notified Duval County School Board members that students and staff were using school computers to access pornography on the web. Mortified, the board commissioned Culbert to find a content filtering solution to make the network safe again.
Culbert went to work. He surveyed the market for a number of content filtering solutions and learned that because the district has more than 200 remote sites, securing every corner of the network would not be easy. Complicating matters were staff issues: Duval County lacked the information systems personnel to manage more than a handful of content filters. Eventually, the district settled on the R3000 line of products from 8e6 Technologies, which could be managed centrally from the district’s data center.
Immediately, the new filter provided Culbert and other IS officials with a clear picture of the categories and types of content that students and staff were accessing. The data enabled officials to see exactly what content was inappropriate and exactly where that content was coming from. Then, the district created a committee of teachers, parents, administrators, and media specialists to establish which categories of content it would allow students and staff to access.
The next step was to put in place a policy that would deal with anyone who repeatedly and intentionally accessed inappropriate websites. The policy set thresholds that would prompt additional reports to be run. “If somebody has, say, 20 hits in a week in the category of adult pornography,” Culbert says, “that would automatically trigger us to run a report that shows all the activity for that user for the week.”
Ultimately, this effort led to the creation of an acceptable use policy that every district employee was required to acknowledge and electronically agree to before being given access to the network. Students signed a version of the AUP as well, and were required to get parental permission before they were allowed internet access.
Today, every time they log in, users are met with a banner to remind them of the policy. Everything users do on the network is monitored—they are advised to have no expectation of privacy when using district computers or equipment.
Down the road, Culbert says, the goal is to block unauthorized users from getting online, and to identify every user that accesses the internet though better forms of authentication. As Culbert says, a school district can never be too safe.
:: OPERATION: HIGH TECH
Innovator: Randy Clarkson,
Prairiland Independent
School District (TX)
Breakthrough: Technology literacy
At Prairiland Independent School District in northeast Texas, educators are celebrating a recent push to increase technology literacy among its students and teachers.
The project spans a variety of areas. First, the district installed data projectors in each classroom on its four campuses, as well as electronic whiteboards with video-capture technology. Next, Prairiland implemented dedicated servers from which teachers and students can download PowerPoint presentations, streaming videos, and other academic materials.
For its two new Video Technology Labs, the district purchased Intel-based iMacs loaded with OS X and Windows XP, as well as specialized software including iLife ’06 Suite, Final Cut Pro, and Wire Cast. Students also received iPods to use as digital notebooks.
TECHIES Prairiland high school students
in their new Video Technology Lab.
For teacher training, the district chose Atomic Learning, a web-based tutorial for published software, technology techniques, and more. All teachers are required to complete 15 hours of training per semester. The interface allows for self-paced study.
According to Randy Clarkson, the district’s technology training facilitator, the value of the program can be seen in teachers’ improved use of technology, the excitement of the students, and the increased involvement of the community in the use of the available technology resources. Clarkson adds that the district expects to see positive results in the form of higher scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and the ACT/SAT, and more college credit earned through distance learning courses.
Still, the influx of technology has not been without its challenges. Clarkson says he and his colleagues weren’t sure how teachers would react to all the new gadgetry, considering that they’d have to be trained in it before they could apply it in their classrooms. Over time, educators embraced the training.
Improvements will continue. By the end of September, the district had set up new iMac labs, each with 25 computers, at both of its two elementary school campuses, as well as a mobile computer lab with 30 computers at the junior high school. In 2007, Prairiland will make similar use of a computer lab to teach an electromechanical course on its high school campus through an agreement with a nearby junior college.
Clarkson says that while the technology is great, the best part of the effort has been the way students and other users have reacted to it. “The accomplishment that we are most proud of so far is the excitement of the students at being involved in realworld applications of technology and the excitement shown by the faculty and staff,” he says. “The value of this program to the school and community is immeasurable.”
