State
of Technology in Portland Schools: February, 2007
-----Created by the Computer Technology Services Team
Introduction
Twenty years ago, 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 city-wide 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.
There were
approximately twenty TRS-80 student desktop computers on peer-to-peer networks
at each high school; these were placed in a lab and available only for students
of computer programming in Basic. Apple II technology was present in all
buildings in limited numbers, and in 1988, the first Macintosh lab in the City
of Portland was installed at Deering High School. IBM PCs on a server-based
network replaced the TRS-80s in 1993, dedicated mostly to word processing and
other business applications. The first full-time District Technology
Coordinator, to support teachers and students, was hired in 1996. It is
interesting to note that the ratio of Technology staff to computing devices in
1996 was 1/100; today it is 1/400! Without consideration of staff training, the
technical support recommendation from the PPS business community is 1 /75.
In January 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 WWW since 2000; it is our primary reference in this report. We
are presently redesigning the Technology Plan to fit the NCLB Standards, as is
required for all technology funding from the state of Maine.
The *community group has remained in place as the Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) with term memberships lasting two to three years. Twice a year this group meets for purposes of information dissemination and review (District Technology Plan, Chapter 6).
Building Technology Coordinators provide communication between CO and schools around technology issues. They meet monthly as a group with the District Technology Coordinator. Position Description: see PPS District Technology Plan, Appendix 3.
The Computer Technology Services Team (CTS) is the 9-member group of full-time PPS technology employees, representing classroom technology instruction and support, technical and network support, communication and information services, and student/financial database maintenance.
CTS Team
Members:
Donna Green, Director
Barbara Coleman, SIS Data Specialist
Michael Lamoureux, District Technology Leader
Jon Korda, District network Administrator
Geoffrey
O'Brien, District Network Administrator
Jay Weisberg, District Network Administrator
Stephan
Carroll, District Technician
Joshua Coleman, District Technician
Mostafa Rostampour, District Technician
Below is a
representation of the PPS Technology Staff and Committees:
This report
is divided into six major areas:
|
Service and Support |
Standards |
Technology Goals and Objectives |
Achievements/Connected Activities |
Staff Development |
Hardware Inventory |
|
Service and Support |
The Computer Technology Services (CTS) department provides services for:
6,900 students
465 administrative staff
1150 teachers and support personnel
26 network servers
Both Macintosh and PC platforms
3000+ network devices, some are printers
(Many are 5+ years old; and some have been donated by area businesses in
keeping with PPS Standards)
PPS Wide-area network (WAN)
This section will be updated in June, 2007 after
a substantial INET upgrade
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 will be significantly upgraded during the school year 2005-2006.
Portland Public Schools centrally manages the backbone and local area network devices 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.
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
2006-07-Portland
Public Schools purchases and implements the PowerSchool SIS
Central
Desktop Management for administrative workstations
the following features are available from a central management workstation:
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
Problem Reporting Database
Two years ago, we introduced the PPS teaching staff to our interactive online
problem reporting database. Teachers 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
Since the database was put online, over 1600 problems have been reported.
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 results,
as evidenced below. This following picture illustrates two recent snapshots
of the support situation for students and teaching staff; each bar on the
graph represents the number of problems (identified by the entry number) resolved
in the given number of days.
CTS Tech Performance for December, 2005/January, 2006
50%
of the problems took at least 20 days to resolve
CTS Tech Performance for October, 2006/January, 2007
50%
of the problems took at least 5 days to resolve
Although we have made considerable progress with the workload (median wait time reduced from 20 to 5 days), we are aware that more improvement is needed. CTS has requested the half-time position that was cut last year to be restored in the next budget cycle. With this additional staff, we plan to improve network performance and thus reduce the number of problems reported online.
The addition of 1300 MLTI (Maine Learning Technology Initiative) state-funded laptops ( iBooks) and wireless networking equipment in the middle schools during the past three-four years has created an additional technical support need that cannot be addressed with the current district-wide or building-based staffing. Two years ago, we added a half-time Ed Tech position to each middle school budget, dedicated to laptop maintenance. This position will be needed as long as we retain the laptops.
This year, Portland was given the opportunity to purchase the 4-year old iBooks when the state supplied new models. These have been upgraded and are currently serviced by CTS since there is no warranty remaining. Because of the low cost of the units ($48 each plus $54 for memory and hardware upgrades), the 6th-grade students in all three middle schools now have access to 1/1 technology in their classrooms. Each high school has 2 carts of 25 iBooks each available for checkout by all classroom teachers.
|
Service and Support |
Standards |
Technology Goals and Objectives |
Achievements/Connected Activities |
Staff Development |
Hardware Inventory |
|
Achievements/Connected Activities |
Accomplishments since 2002:
100% of Portland workstations have access to
a
Gigabit Enterprise network which includes a 10 mb Internet connection
a centralized electronic library catalog
site-maintained/district supported Websites
Online computer problem reporting databases
recent purchase of PowerSchool Student Information
System to house district- based student data and provide reporting capability
100% of Portland teachers and administrators are using district-supported GroupWise email
20% of Portland teachers are exploring the use of technology in their classrooms
23% of Portland teachers are infusing technology into their daily instruction
25% of Portland teachers manage their own dynamic classroom Web Pages (BBoards)
25% of Portland
teachers are using email for communication of teaching ideas, learning
opportunities, and online classroom resources
*our survey instrument for these numbers was upgraded during the spring of
2004. Comparisons of 2004 and 2005 data are now displayed in the PPS Technology
Plan. 2006 and 2007 data will be available at the end of June.
Current CTS Projects
Network
development, expansion of routing capability on the INET to provide greater
security and traffic control:
Addition of digital
phones to PATHS/EOC/Central Office as part of a long-range expansion/upgrade
plan.
Revival of PC labs and libraries with donations
and refurbished workstations;
Introduction of
1/1 computing for students at Casco Bay High School;
Addition
of 2 iBook carts to Deering and Portland, using refurbished iBooks from the
MLTI buyout;
Replacement of Secondary Assessment reporting tool
(during 2005-06) with PowerSchool;
Collection and preparation of student data (including
customization to ME State mandated standard format) for MEDMS (ME Educational
Data Management System);
CTS Support of new MLTI middle-school iBooks on
the District network;
NCLB Title IID
Technology Grant-Technology Mentoring Project
Pilot of PowerGrade
online gradebook in all secondary schools
Full-scale
implementation of PowerGrade at Deering for Semester 2
Ongoing upgrade of administrative data storage,
reporting capabilities using PowerSchool student information system;
Addition of remote desktop capability for OS-X
desktop computers;
Addition of Anti-spyware and Anti-Spam software
and aol filter to the network;
Web
server for teacher access in development
Ongoing
Maintenance:
Network expansions and upgrades;
Server-based applications such as virus protection,
Internet and Spam filtering, email
District Web Page and Teacher Web Pages;
Student
Information System and Financial System upgrades;
All desktop software applications;
1300 student and
100 administrate laptops.
|
Service and Support |
Standards |
Technology Goals and Objectives |
Achievements/Connected Activities |
Staff Development |
Hardware Inventory |
|
Staff Development |
Staff Training for:
Administrators,
specialists and classroom teachers to make district student data available
to all staff;
Community
of Learners Technology Offerings
Teaching and administrative staff on Groupwise
email system;
All teachers on use of online progress reports
from PowerSchool and PowerGrade;
Building-based
Web coordinators/editors;
Each year, CTS provides a structured class in Web Editing using DreamWeaver;
support is available to Web Coordinators/Editors throughout the year.
Teaching staff and students to use electronic portfolios,
teacher BBoards, spreadsheets and digital video. With additional NCLB Grant
funds, we have been able to work with Middle School Teachers to promote and
model the use of spreadsheet and laptop i-movie applications to teach concepts,
deepen student understanding, develop critical thinking skills, use self-assessment
skills, and communicate learning
CTS maintains a Web page with online self-training documents and reference support links for many district applications.
The District-based Technology Leaders work to ensure that this infrastructure is serving the intended purpose:
-to
provide that "all students are learning for their future" using
technology as an
important and seamless tool,
-to support all teachers in their classroom instruction so that
technology is part of the teaching and learning, documenting, assessing and
communicating about that learning and
-to provide all administrators, faculty and staff with online assessment
information to support decisions that impact student learning. The continuing
support for these full-time positions has generated statewide respect.
|
Service and Support |
Standards |
Technology Goals and Objectives |
Achievements/Connected Activities |
Staff Development |
Hardware Inventory |
|
Standards |
The CTS Web Page contains standards for hardware, software, and Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) for both students and staff. These are reviewed periodically by the DTC with input from Building Technology Coordinators. We have also published purchasing guidelines for building administrators.
|
Service and Support |
Standards |
Technology Goals and Objectives |
Achievements/Connected Activities |
Staff Development |
Hardware Inventory |
|
Technology Goals and Objectives |
|
Goal 1: Equity of Access All students
and staff will have access to suitable current technology, training
and instruction. Goal
6: Administrative Staff Learning Goal
8: Technology infrastructure and technical support Goal 9: Supporting Resources Teachers and administrative staff will have timely access to appropriate, up-to-date information, by utilizing online and other resources supported by PPS |
In the spring of 2004, we redesigned the PPS Technology Plan to fit the NCLB criteria required by the State of Maine and E-Rate. At the same time, we added objectives addressing all administrative purchases and training. The plan was approved by the DTC in May and approved by the ME Dept of Education in June, 2004. It will be revised again for June 2007.
|
Service and Support |
Standards |
Technology Goals and Objectives |
Achievements/Connected Activities |
Staff Development |
Hardware Inventory |
|
Hardware/Software Inventory |
PPS 2006-07
Hardware/Software Survey Results
to be available in May, 2007