The Fourth Question

Early in my consulting in the early 1990s I came up with four basic questions that schools had to struggle with as they integrated technology. I think they are still the ones to ask today, even though the answers and issues now vary. 

The four questions

1. Where does technology fit?
2. What is the correct staffing?
3. How do you future-proof?
4. What should be the style of the technology leadership?

Like a lot of the early tech people in the early 1990s, I was simply someone that liked gadgets and building things and I somehow found myself playing with a computer. Summarizing what I said in the introduction, in 1990 probably less that 10% of homes, schools or businesses had computers. Or computers as we think of them today. IBM made computers for businesses the size of garbage trucks but the average person was not using one.

There was no internet, no email, no networks, no wifi, no online applications, no databases. Teachers had VHS cassette players and laser disc players. Schools had phone trees to get information distributed fast to the parent body about snow days or emergencies. Kids played Oregon Trail and Where is Carmen San Diego on Apple IIs.

So for the first many years to basic push was to get more things into more hands. But it was a balance. You could not require families to apply online because 50-60% of the market did not have internet access, and it especially was problematic for families from lower economic backgrounds.You could not send grades by email or over the internet for the same reason. With databases and FirstClass the school itself was making great strides in terms of communication and productivity, but it was way ahead of the families or the business world. 

I created a FileMaker database for tracking progress and shared it with the Dean of Faculty. This IT Proficiency Database listed all the faculty and staff, and rated them 1-5 in a number of technology areas or yes/no. Today it seems ridiculous, but these were some of the categories. 

• Uses email
• Uses FirstClass
• Uses CommentWriter for comments
• Can word process (1-5)
• Can use a spreadsheet (1-5)
• Owns a computer
• Has access at home
• Has computer access at school

Each month I would give the Dean of Faculty and each department head their scores. This helped in providing training and advise to the various parts of the school. Some departments starting sending all meeting info and general information through FirstClass – no paper in the boxes anymore. The resistant ones would complain because they constantly were not hearing about events or meetings. One by one they joined on.

Around 1992 FirstClass added a gateway to connect to other email systems and people using AOL or PCLink could then send and receive emails from teachers and staff. Slowly the user base grew. 

So my job was to get as many people doing as many things as possible, and wait for the world to catch up.

By the late 1990s, however, rapid changes in technology had come to banks, investment firms and insurance companies. A lot of people who had started their career with IBM big iron or mini-computers found themselves unable to make the transition. They started to show up at independent schools applying to be IT Directors.

This created a huge polarization. Most of these people were quite ignorant of or antagonistic toward Apple products. They preferred IBM and Microsoft. In their jobs, people were given very specific access to very specific things, depending on their job. The IT director’s primary task was to protect the company’s data and the company’s equipment. People were to be given access on a need to know basis only. Basically, you were given what the IT person felt you needed and everything else was forbidden. No loading your own programs, no trying new software, no storing unauthorized information on the network. For example, if you wanted to try learning a spreadsheet you needed to explain sufficiently why that was needed in your job.

So for most of the late 90s, schools were divided into two camps, based on the philosophical belief of the IT director. I called it The Cheerleader and the General. Almost all the schools where the director had come from the classroom had a cheerleader, and schools with a director from industry had a General.

I sold my FileMaker databases into many schools run by Generals, much to their disgust. At that time, often the admission director could go around the IT office and order whatever software they thought most appropriate. Sometimes when the Admission Director left the software would be removed immediately. 

Often the IT person would meet me for the install, begrudgingly pointing to the Macs and the local talk network and saying that they would NOT provide any support or setup. They would NOT give these Macs email access and they would NOT let them store anything on the PC network drives. They would watch in silent fury as I installed the software in 30 minutes and had the office running in an hour. They were silently amazed as their staff learned to Find. After a semester of great productivity and no support, they often would slowly come around to accept the diversity.

I often thought about my IT Proficiency database as I consulted to and visited dozens and dozens of schools around the country. Almost without fail, the schools run by Generals were years behind in terms of integration. When each teacher had to campaign for weeks to try some new software it mostly didn’t happen. Unless the General was actively researching educational software, the school just did not try it. To my mind, having every purchase and every decision go through one person might work for the military, it was not a good model for schools. 

Nowadays with cyber threats and widespread hacking and ransomware, perhaps it needs to be more nuanced. But in the early days the cheerleaders were much more successful than the Generals. 

Is the job of the IT Director primarily to increase productivity or to protect the system?