Advice for the K12 Tech Guy?

small fish asks: "I am a newly dubbed 'Technology Coordinator' for a K-12 school district. Things here technology-wise are not well. People here are ignorant technology-wise--which is fine, as being tech-savvy is my job. However, they do not seem to trust my judgment on anything except changing printer cartridges. I'm being measured against a former teacher who filled the role for a while and was VERY comfortable with using Microsoft products. Are there any other Slashdot readers out there in similar straits? If so, what advice do you have for me?" "For starters, there is no firewall, all IPs are exposed to the public, they are relying on Windows NT 4 boxes to sustain operations, and they seem to love their Exchange for doing email and address books, although I have only one user who migrates between two different computers. The Exchange server died due to a spam overload and will not restart, so I set up a BSD box for handling mail and DNS. To make things worse, there is no real disaster recovery here and virtually no backup power. As I type my carpets are still wet from last night's rains that poured through the machine room wall - and this happens every time it downpours I'm told.

My coworkers do not want anything to do with Macintosh computers, they have never heard of Firefox, and Unix was a strange foreign word I had to explain to some before I gave up entirely. What tips do you have for surviving (even thriving) in this type of environment?"

Comments

Don't Punish the Students

[dshaw858]

Don't make another Kutztown 13. I'm serious. If there's a hole or flaw in one the system you coordinate, work with students and faculty, but don't try to get students thrown in jail for an error that's been made below you.

Kids are gonna push their technical limits, but don't be a nazi. They'll learn with time.

And get rid of the NT 4 boxes. Well, that's what I'd do, anyway.

- dshaw

Win the crowd first

[Enrico Pulatzo]

If they liked the previous guy, don't try too hard to dissociate yourself from his policies. If they believed in him and considered his advice good, don't oppose his policies publicly. Work on winning people over first, then proceed to force your religious beliefs (Free Software) on them :)

In the end, you'll be just as highly considered as your predecessor was, and more-so with the money you save the district.

Start Slowly.

[QuantumRiff]

Work on making the existing system more reliable first. They are going to be hesitant if you move them to new PC's, OS's, and programs at the same time. First and foremost, to gain the confidence of your "customers" you need to increase the availability and reliability. Add a linux box as a firewall if you need to, or even better, add a snort sniffer, and show them how much nasty-ness goes on without a firewall. Explain little rules like FERPA, and why you need to protect the systems that have student information. Public IP's are not an issue in and of themselves, but subnet stuff at a minumum. Get your servers on one subnet, and your workstation on another. Then ACL the router between the two.

Exchange is very popular with users. What are you wanting to replace it with? Postfix? Good luck. You will quickly find out that only 5% of the users use the shared calendars, and that those 5% make up 95% of the complaining when you take them away...

the key thing is that as you upgrade equipment, add neat new features and reliabilty, they will start to respect you, and feel that you understand what you are doing. I know it sounds silly, but teachers hate to have to learn outside of their area. I have never figured this out, but a teacher gets very, very stuck in their ways. They have something that "works" and will almost never, ever change. So you need to move slowly at first, and make damn sure that they have only positive experiences. Make sure to point out the benefits, and most importantly, the time savings.

Oh, and congratulations.. this is one of those jobs that takes a lot of patience, but becomes very, very rewarding after time.

Re:Run

[TykeClone]

Switching to anything else makes things overly complicated. some teachers don't know how to do anything but push the power button and check outlook, and typing a teacher's name instead of an address helps them a lot

That's just plain sad. Teachers are supposed to impart knowledge to the next generation, and they can't care enough to learn how to use the tools of the trade.