How does your school district support technology? - Classroom 2.02024-03-28T17:23:05Zhttps://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/649749:Topic:137250?commentId=649749%3AComment%3A256801&x=1&feed=yes&xn_auth=noI am an IT support administra…tag:www.classroom20.com,2009-01-07:649749:Comment:2568012009-01-07T19:53:50.981ZMarty Caisehttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/Marty60
I am an IT support administrator for a large school district 70 campuses and growing. Fair amount of staff is a hard number to come up with. It really depends on a few factors not just your available budget for salaries. Take a look at your network infrastructure and your current situation regarding end-user support.<br />
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From a network support side depending on the server side solutions you already have in place some have maintenance packages available which would not require staffing. Other…
I am an IT support administrator for a large school district 70 campuses and growing. Fair amount of staff is a hard number to come up with. It really depends on a few factors not just your available budget for salaries. Take a look at your network infrastructure and your current situation regarding end-user support.<br />
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From a network support side depending on the server side solutions you already have in place some have maintenance packages available which would not require staffing. Other systems may have an online type of support where support personnel can simply remote into the system and correct software related problems, perform upgrades and recommend hardware upgrade solutions.<br />
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I think end-user support is somewhat more critical and not just because there are more end users than that of servers. It is more critical because it is this technology that is in front of students and much more visible to those who pay for it - taxpayers. While top manufacturers like Dell and HP have onsite technical support services, this is becoming more challenging because of univited visitors who schools try to catch at the front door (one reason RAPTOR has become such a wonderful tool) . In house technical staff is more common, but can be expensive because of facilities, salaries and turnover. Technicians can be hired and trained but many who come into the field want to move up fast (I am living proof) and the end result is a quick turnover of staff and the hiring and training process starts all over again.<br />
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When I started at the district I am at we had 8 technicians, 4 engineers and 2 network technicians for 60 sites. Now we have 26 technicians, 7 engineers, and 4 network technicians for 70 sites. This increase was due to the fact that every campus had a Campus Network Coordinator. A teacher who also wore the hat of a basic technician. This CNC was responsible for looking at problems and reporting them to the technicians through a work order system. This created a problem because the expectation became to overwhelming for some CNC's and other CNC's performed more of these responsibilities than that of their primary role - teaching. As a result, the CNC program was disolved and funding was allocated so additional IT Support staff could be hired. This required a great deal of planning.<br />
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The plan worked for us and continues to improve. We took our large high school campuses and worked with the campus administrator so a technician could be on site every school day. We did the same thing with the middle schools (1 technician for every 2 middle schools), and the remaining campuses and departments were assigned technicians at a 7:1 ratio. This helped us balance the work load and address problems very quickly.<br />
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I realized that it was not so much the completion of work that was important, that did not change much - it was the first response to the problem that was more vital. This is why communication with those who report problems is very important. The sooner they report it the sooner your IT department can fix it and the IT folks can't fix problems they know nothing about. It is also a good idea to find some time to educate your users. As an IT support person, teach these users to report to you symptoms and not fixes - they are not the IT expert - YOU ARE, it would make your job a whole lot easier.<br />
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I would be happy to work with you if you would like, mcaise24@msn.com Nitin, just out of curiosity,…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-30:649749:Comment:1459682008-05-30T16:30:54.182ZJohn Puskarhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/JohnPuskar
Nitin, just out of curiosity, how many employees does your company have?<br />
"What John has described will likely result in the internal IT staff getting overwhelmed with day-to-day work and not having the time to think strategically about leveraging their IT assets."<br />
-After 10 years, it hasn't yet.........and I don't think the amount of technology assets and useage will likely increase anywhere near as quickly over the next 10 years as it has over the last 10.<br />
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"I honestly believe, however, that…
Nitin, just out of curiosity, how many employees does your company have?<br />
"What John has described will likely result in the internal IT staff getting overwhelmed with day-to-day work and not having the time to think strategically about leveraging their IT assets."<br />
-After 10 years, it hasn't yet.........and I don't think the amount of technology assets and useage will likely increase anywhere near as quickly over the next 10 years as it has over the last 10.<br />
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"I honestly believe, however, that by bringing in outside technology partners, school districts can provide better IT services at lower cost than they can by going it alone."<br />
-I think this is what the "solution providers" just don't understand about the smaller districts. There is no way a district with limited financial resources is going to continue to pay a full-time salary for a Technology Director that needs to outsource "his" work, which is an additional expenditure to the district. Because, when all is said an done, "partnering" with a vendor or provider, does not eliminate the need to have someone there all day, full-time. And if it did, what Tech Coordinator would in his right mind put himself out of a job? that trusty butter knife migh…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-30:649749:Comment:1459412008-05-30T13:17:30.786ZPaul Andersonhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/PaulAnderson
that trusty butter knife might have helped with the toaster! or at least with the toast the new one for $12.00 made!.*LOL*
that trusty butter knife might have helped with the toaster! or at least with the toast the new one for $12.00 made!.*LOL* LOL.....I once worked for a D…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-30:649749:Comment:1458352008-05-30T00:26:47.904ZJohn Puskarhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/JohnPuskar
LOL.....I once worked for a District that the office employees wanted me to fix a paper-shredder......apparently, they mistook it for a book-shredder. Needless to say, armed with a trusty butter knife, it met its match with me!
LOL.....I once worked for a District that the office employees wanted me to fix a paper-shredder......apparently, they mistook it for a book-shredder. Needless to say, armed with a trusty butter knife, it met its match with me! "....if it connects to someth…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-29:649749:Comment:1457932008-05-29T20:33:16.819ZPaul Andersonhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/PaulAnderson
"....if it connects to something else....we ultimately end up being the ones to figure it out." I hear ya on this one, although I did draw the line when someone asked us to fix a toaster!
"....if it connects to something else....we ultimately end up being the ones to figure it out." I hear ya on this one, although I did draw the line when someone asked us to fix a toaster! Stu, I am the technology coor…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-29:649749:Comment:1456982008-05-29T13:42:58.074ZJohn Puskarhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/JohnPuskar
Stu, I am the technology coordinator for a rural SW Pennsylvania K12 district with about 2100 students and about 155 teachers. Its just me and another guy taking care of it all! Computers, servers, network, phones, security cameras, you name it....if it connects to something else....we ultimately end up being the ones to figure it out. We don't use any outside companies for anything, we install it, fix it, replace it. Whatever needs done, we do it ourselves. Our budget is next to negative. I'm…
Stu, I am the technology coordinator for a rural SW Pennsylvania K12 district with about 2100 students and about 155 teachers. Its just me and another guy taking care of it all! Computers, servers, network, phones, security cameras, you name it....if it connects to something else....we ultimately end up being the ones to figure it out. We don't use any outside companies for anything, we install it, fix it, replace it. Whatever needs done, we do it ourselves. Our budget is next to negative. I'm insterested in discussing with others best practices with limited resources. The school environment presents challenges that no other IT professionals will ever have to deal with. Every computer is a shared computer and that makes for some difficult obstacles to overcome. I am more than willing to share and learn what works and what doesn't. I work in a large suburban di…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-13:649749:Comment:1415212008-05-13T21:57:27.446ZEd Fontana-Daguerrehttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/EdFontanaDaguerre
I work in a large suburban district which also has a good deal of tech resources available. They are good about providing hardware and we have not had many problems with getting the tech people in to service hardware issues.<br />
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However, applications, updates and access are becoming such an issue that the use of technology has started to be crippled. It is not uncommon to find that the web site you were planning to use for a lesson has been blocked or that you need the latest version of an add-on…
I work in a large suburban district which also has a good deal of tech resources available. They are good about providing hardware and we have not had many problems with getting the tech people in to service hardware issues.<br />
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However, applications, updates and access are becoming such an issue that the use of technology has started to be crippled. It is not uncommon to find that the web site you were planning to use for a lesson has been blocked or that you need the latest version of an add-on to use the application. We are unable to download updates. There are differences in the level of access available on different machines, so we have to be careful to try everything on the machines we will be using with a student using their account. A perfect example of this issue is that our district is offering technology classes has had sites we were using blocked. I am no expert on either of t…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-09:649749:Comment:1402812008-05-09T20:50:21.656ZPaul Andersonhttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/PaulAnderson
I am no expert on either of these, but from what I have read and dealings with squid so far, you don't need much of a machine. My squid box handles approximately 25-50 simultaneous users, it is a P4 3GHz with 512MB ram and 40GB hard drive. Here is a link to Dans Guardian page that might help a little. <a href="http://dansguardian.org/?page=whousesit">http://dansguardian.org/?page=whousesit</a><br />
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From what I have read and understand, SATA drives would be better than IDE (ATA), and smaller, faster…
I am no expert on either of these, but from what I have read and dealings with squid so far, you don't need much of a machine. My squid box handles approximately 25-50 simultaneous users, it is a P4 3GHz with 512MB ram and 40GB hard drive. Here is a link to Dans Guardian page that might help a little. <a href="http://dansguardian.org/?page=whousesit">http://dansguardian.org/?page=whousesit</a><br />
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From what I have read and understand, SATA drives would be better than IDE (ATA), and smaller, faster access drives are better than larger slower access drives. A seperate volume for the cache is recommended by many (I don't have it that way). I think my machine could probably very easily do 100 users. The most important things are faster access drives and enough memory. Processor doesn't appear to be much of a factor. I think I would be looking at dual hard drives (mirrorred, for reliability, 40-80GB, 1-2Gb of memory. But I think you could probably get by with 1 40GB Drive and 512MB -1GB ram.<br />
I use Ubuntu server edition, and have webmin installed for managing the server. I use SARG for looking at the log files. Webmin makes managing a snap. I just followed one of the many howto's available, and it works great! I also use putty and installed openssh for managing.<br />
If you have an older computer "lying" around, give it a try. I think you will be amazed (when I first set it up, I had it on a celeron, with 256mb, and I think that could probably have done everything that you need).<br />
The only thing that I would recommend, is that you try to stay away from the GUI interface (or unload it), as it adds a lot more overhead and gets in the way. When I use webmin and look at my resources, even when the server is busy, the resource usage barely moves! Once you have webin installed and running, you will never have to look at the server screen again (almost), as all updating, etc can be done from webmin.<br />
Let me know if you need anything else! How many users would Squid an…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-09:649749:Comment:1402702008-05-09T19:51:47.666ZGeorge Somershttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/bigdogdaddy
How many users would Squid and Dan's Guardian support? Or, what hardware should I have for 100 users? Thanks.
How many users would Squid and Dan's Guardian support? Or, what hardware should I have for 100 users? Thanks. That's my plan, but to move t…tag:www.classroom20.com,2008-05-09:649749:Comment:1402682008-05-09T19:43:36.042ZGeorge Somershttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/bigdogdaddy
That's my plan, but to move the proxy/filtering/firewall services off to a Linux box. Thanks for your reply.
That's my plan, but to move the proxy/filtering/firewall services off to a Linux box. Thanks for your reply.