We offer several online classes here at Bishop High School in Bishop, CA. We had to carefully pre-screen students, and our experience has shown that while online classes are an excellent opportunity for rural or small schools to offer curriculum they otherwise could not, there are drawbacks.
Specifically, the largest complaint was that there is no immediate feedback. Most online courses require logging in, reading lessons, and taking tests. There is little opportunity to ask the "online teacher" spontaneous questions. Most require submitting questions via email, and we've found that if you don't phrase the question properly, the responses can be tangential, or inapplicable.
Also, students MUST be self-motivated. You will set your child up for failure if they get behind in lessons. It is very tempting to put off online lessons because of the "I can read/download it later" syndrome. Parents MUST enforce the required homework and reading. There is no substitute for this at all.
Finally, the on-site "liasion" (usually a certificated teacher) is a crucial link. If a test needs to be faxed in by midnight, that teacher had better be willing to get calls from desperate students who flaked on their test until 11:59pm! This happens, and special dedication is required.
Hope this helps. Please feel free to email or post if you've got specific questions about our online curriculum, and past experience.
Just bout the new Donnas CD (Spend The Night) from Amazon.com. Pre-ordered it, even! And when it arrived, I found it would not even fire up in my Dell 8100 with a CD-RW drive! I wasted the money! What really sucks is that there was NO WAY for me to tell it was copy-protected BEFORE I ordered it. Otherwise, I simply wouldn't have bought it. The CD played ok on someone else's computer with no CD-RW, but on MY laptop, it simply wouldn't even run. Couldn't get it to play at all.
I'm returning it now for a refund, but I'm out the shipping charge. So, screw Atlantic records for perpetrating this crap on me as a consumer. I'm really tempted to rip the tracks using Audiograbber (which reads the copy-protected CD's audio tracks just fine, thank you very much!) and distribute them just out of spite. I spit on such tactics - pah!
Public school does NOT suck! As a public school employee here in Bishop, I see nothing but motivated teachers, helpful staff, and a majority of kids who are excited about coming to school each day.
If you experience was poor, please don't toss out the baby with the bathwater. We have an excellent district, well run, well administered, and well taught.
Move to Bishop, and we'll welcome you with open arms!
Joe Griego Dir., I.T. BUHS http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us
The library lab computers were funded not out of general funds, but rather through the Digital High School grant. That is a state funded grant program under which we were awarded $225,000.
This has nothing to do with teacher salaries, which come from the general fund.
So, relax. Your property tax dollars weren't wasted. And remember, these computers are only used for gaming on special events, outside of class hours. The rest of the time, they are used for purely academic pursuits.
>Are these licensed copies of games that are
>being played?
Yes, of course.
>If so, who paid for them?
I did, which renders the rest of your concern moot.
>Has the school board and superintendant been
>made aware of the possible repercussions of this
>activity?
Yes, of course they have. It is impossible to sponsor a school sanctioned activity without administration's approval.
>Are these games installed only for the night and
>then uninstalled to prevent their usage during
>non-sanctioned times?
No. The nice thing about NTFS is that you can assign permissions to directories and subdirectories by account. We set the permissions on the game directories so that only the one specified gaming account (we called it "gamer") can even get to them. And since you can't log into the machine without a valid account, there's really no way to play it on those machines unless the gamer account is logged in. And we disable that account except on Game Nights! Neat, huh?
>What kind of supervision is there? Is the ratio
>of certified teachers to students monitored?
It is supervised by myself (the Dir. of IT), and by my Network Manager, Mr. Norcross. Our district requires adult supervision of sanctioned events by staff. I am a confidential classified employee (school district workers will know what that means).
>How many hourly school employees are there
>earning overtime and taking away from the
>school's budget?
Um, none. I volunteer my time for Game Night activities, as does Mr. Norcross. Game Nights happen on a Friday evening, begin at 5pm, and go until we get tired (usually around 1-2am)
>Also, how much of your support team's time is
>spent preparing for and recovering from game
>night, as opposed to actually improving
>productivity?
Support team? Well, I lead the LAN Admin class here at Bishop High, and there are five students in that class. They install, configure, and set up security for Game Night (under my supervision, of course).
As for how much time to recover, well there really isn't any. The LAN Admin students have installed the software during the LAN Admin class, and after school. The Game Night itself doesn't start until 5pm, after my work day is over, so it's unpaid time for me anyway.
But don't think it's a huge sacrifice. I enjoy Game Night, and you should stay tuned for next year's events. We always post Game Night events on the homepage (http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us).
Yep, we're directly on the CalRen2 network, and have a DS-3 circuit terminated on our *elementary* school campus! Our high school will soon have a gigabit connection to that site, so slashdotting won't be an issue.
Joe Griego Bishop Union High School Bishop, CA http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us
I teach a LAN Administration class at my high school (Bishop Union High, in Bishop, California), and every year I have the brightest, most motivated, and technically proficient kids in the school in my class.
The question often comes up about whether they should begin working and earning money right away, or whether to go off to college.
My advice? I see it this way. Kids have the entire rest of their lives to work. It would be foolish to jump into the work force without experiencing the joy of higher learning, if you have the opportunity. A college education is MORE than learning a trade. It is exposure to new ideas you may not have been exposed to otherwise. It is mingling with peers in a purely academic setting - an opportunity you will find quite rare as an adult in the workforce. Take the time to get the degree, and you'll find you not only have more foot-in-the-door clout, but you just may actually learn something OTHER than your passion (in this case, technology). Life is so much more than you can realize at 18.
So don't waste the opportunity for a few bucks now. You can *always* earn money - there is always a market for talented, enthusiastic people. It'll be there when you're done with college. Hell, it'll be there long after you're dead and gone.
If you're in a California school district, I'd recommend the GAMUT software. It's a monthly subscription service with legal policies and sample language for every item the California Education Code. Works great - just pick and choose the policies you like, tweak them for your district, and put them on the next school board agenda for approval.
Once that's done, you introduce the policy to the staff. If you're the Director of IT, you're already in administration and you're all set. If you're not in administration, then present the issues to your superintendent, and get her support. Bring it up at the next staff meeting, if you must.
Once the policy is in place, and teachers understand the issues (bandwidth, copyright, liability, etc.), then see if that gentle method works.
If not, then simply use network security to tighten things up. There are many resources online for free or cheap firewall solutions that can stop most P2P apps cold.
At my district (http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us) we simply block the default servers for most P2P apps at firewall for standard port 80 traffic, and then block the default ports for Kazaa/morpheus/LimeWire/Bearshare/AudioGalaxy and the rest. Simple, effective, no whining involved.
If teachers complain about the lack of P2P availability, refer to the written policy, have them specify the educational benefit of the service, and have your superintendent sign off on it. If she signs off, then you've done what you could, and be on your merry way.
Email me directly if you'd like more specific practical solutions for a K-12 school. It's what I do for a living.
Regards,
Joe Griego
Dir., I.T.
Bishop Union Elementary and Bishop Union High school districts
Bishop, CA
Bishop HighBishop Elementary
So basically, it's ok for the letter writer to actually BE a prick, but not to call him one, based on his own idiotic words?
Hey, whatever. I'll just close by saying that if *I* got a letter like that guy wrote, I would have called him a prick, too, and I'm confident that the school board, once they read the letter, wouldn't have had a problem with that.
Perhaps if your original message was professional, that would have been the case. Something as simple as:
"Hello! Hey, you may not be aware, but your mail server is an open relay, and spammers are using it to forward unwanted email using your resources. If you are aware, and need help fixing the problem, please drop me a line. Thanks."
I assure you that would have been orders of magnitude more effective than the whole you-have-an-open-relay-so-you-suck-and-I-rule vibe I got from the original mail to the poor guy. And accusing him of wasting tax dollars because he didn't know he had an open relay? Come on. He probably wouldn't have responded as a prick if he hadn't been treated as one.
Wow. Read your original letter, and I must admit - you ARE a prick. Your letter was condescending, self-aggrandizing (what was up with your bragging about the number of mail servers you block - does that get you chicks or something?), and rude.
As the IT Director for the Bishop Union Elementary school district, I'd probably send you a similar response if you sent a bitchy message as yours to Spencer, WI.
The bottome line - you were whiny, you didn't actually help (or offer to help) him, and you were rude. Just precisely how did you *expect* him to react? School administrators have enough work to do without having to deal with annoying strangers.
Sheesh.
Joe Griego Dir., I.T. Bishop Union Elementary, and Bishop Joint Union High School Districts Bishop Elementary Bishop High
Oh please. If Micro$oft had presented a similar idea for their Windows Update feature (still free, btw), Slashdotters would have several cows and a few other barnyard animals as well.
As a school administrator (I'm the Director of IT for the Bishop Union Elementary and High School districts), I will voice my contempt for WAVE America in no uncertain terms. I teach a LAN Admin class with students who might easily fit into categories deemed unacceptable. In our districts, we hire trained, professional psychologists who deal with troubled students. Using other students as informants is not just morally wrong, it is horrible professional practice. In all likelihood, this program would unnecessarily expose the district to liability (in those cases of unfair or inaccurate accusations and subsequent investigation by the schools). I can say I would categorically reject such an effort in our school districts, and I'm confident other school administrators would feel the same. Regards, Joe Griego Director, IT Bishop Union Elementary & High School Districts 800 West Elm St. Bishop, CA 93514
Slashdot Mirror
We offer several online classes here at Bishop High School in Bishop, CA. We had to carefully pre-screen students, and our experience has shown that while online classes are an excellent opportunity for rural or small schools to offer curriculum they otherwise could not, there are drawbacks.
Specifically, the largest complaint was that there is no immediate feedback. Most online courses require logging in, reading lessons, and taking tests. There is little opportunity to ask the "online teacher" spontaneous questions. Most require submitting questions via email, and we've found that if you don't phrase the question properly, the responses can be tangential, or inapplicable.
Also, students MUST be self-motivated. You will set your child up for failure if they get behind in lessons. It is very tempting to put off online lessons because of the "I can read/download it later" syndrome. Parents MUST enforce the required homework and reading. There is no substitute for this at all.
Finally, the on-site "liasion" (usually a certificated teacher) is a crucial link. If a test needs to be faxed in by midnight, that teacher had better be willing to get calls from desperate students who flaked on their test until 11:59pm! This happens, and special dedication is required.
Hope this helps. Please feel free to email or post if you've got specific questions about our online curriculum, and past experience.
Just bout the new Donnas CD (Spend The Night) from Amazon.com. Pre-ordered it, even! And when it arrived, I found it would not even fire up in my Dell 8100 with a CD-RW drive! I wasted the money! What really sucks is that there was NO WAY for me to tell it was copy-protected BEFORE I ordered it. Otherwise, I simply wouldn't have bought it. The CD played ok on someone else's computer with no CD-RW, but on MY laptop, it simply wouldn't even run. Couldn't get it to play at all.
I'm returning it now for a refund, but I'm out the shipping charge. So, screw Atlantic records for perpetrating this crap on me as a consumer. I'm really tempted to rip the tracks using Audiograbber (which reads the copy-protected CD's audio tracks just fine, thank you very much!) and distribute them just out of spite. I spit on such tactics - pah!
A disgruntled customer,
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
Public school does NOT suck! As a public school employee here in Bishop, I see nothing but motivated teachers, helpful staff, and a majority of kids who are excited about coming to school each day.
If you experience was poor, please don't toss out the baby with the bathwater. We have an excellent district, well run, well administered, and well taught.
Move to Bishop, and we'll welcome you with open arms!
Joe Griego
Dir., I.T.
BUHS
http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us
The library lab computers were funded not out of general funds, but rather through the Digital High School grant. That is a state funded grant program under which we were awarded $225,000.
This has nothing to do with teacher salaries, which come from the general fund.
So, relax. Your property tax dollars weren't wasted. And remember, these computers are only used for gaming on special events, outside of class hours. The rest of the time, they are used for purely academic pursuits.
Regards,
Joe Griego
BUHS (http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us)
>Are these licensed copies of games that are >being played?
Yes, of course.
>If so, who paid for them?
I did, which renders the rest of your concern moot.
>Has the school board and superintendant been >made aware of the possible repercussions of this >activity?
Yes, of course they have. It is impossible to sponsor a school sanctioned activity without administration's approval.
>Are these games installed only for the night and >then uninstalled to prevent their usage during >non-sanctioned times?
No. The nice thing about NTFS is that you can assign permissions to directories and subdirectories by account. We set the permissions on the game directories so that only the one specified gaming account (we called it "gamer") can even get to them. And since you can't log into the machine without a valid account, there's really no way to play it on those machines unless the gamer account is logged in. And we disable that account except on Game Nights! Neat, huh?
>What kind of supervision is there? Is the ratio >of certified teachers to students monitored?
It is supervised by myself (the Dir. of IT), and by my Network Manager, Mr. Norcross. Our district requires adult supervision of sanctioned events by staff. I am a confidential classified employee (school district workers will know what that means).
>How many hourly school employees are there >earning overtime and taking away from the >school's budget?
Um, none. I volunteer my time for Game Night activities, as does Mr. Norcross. Game Nights happen on a Friday evening, begin at 5pm, and go until we get tired (usually around 1-2am)
>Also, how much of your support team's time is >spent preparing for and recovering from game >night, as opposed to actually improving >productivity?
Support team? Well, I lead the LAN Admin class here at Bishop High, and there are five students in that class. They install, configure, and set up security for Game Night (under my supervision, of course).
As for how much time to recover, well there really isn't any. The LAN Admin students have installed the software during the LAN Admin class, and after school. The Game Night itself doesn't start until 5pm, after my work day is over, so it's unpaid time for me anyway.
But don't think it's a huge sacrifice. I enjoy Game Night, and you should stay tuned for next year's events. We always post Game Night events on the homepage (http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us).
Joe Griego Dir., I.T. Bishop Union High School Bishop, CA http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us
Yep, we're directly on the CalRen2 network, and have a DS-3 circuit terminated on our *elementary* school campus! Our high school will soon have a gigabit connection to that site, so slashdotting won't be an issue.
Joe Griego
Bishop Union High School
Bishop, CA
http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us
Dear Chicks Hate Me,
I teach a LAN Administration class at my high school (Bishop Union High, in Bishop, California), and every year I have the brightest, most motivated, and technically proficient kids in the school in my class.
The question often comes up about whether they should begin working and earning money right away, or whether to go off to college.
My advice? I see it this way. Kids have the entire rest of their lives to work. It would be foolish to jump into the work force without experiencing the joy of higher learning, if you have the opportunity. A college education is MORE than learning a trade. It is exposure to new ideas you may not have been exposed to otherwise. It is mingling with peers in a purely academic setting - an opportunity you will find quite rare as an adult in the workforce. Take the time to get the degree, and you'll find you not only have more foot-in-the-door clout, but you just may actually learn something OTHER than your passion (in this case, technology). Life is so much more than you can realize at 18.
So don't waste the opportunity for a few bucks now. You can *always* earn money - there is always a market for talented, enthusiastic people. It'll be there when you're done with college. Hell, it'll be there long after you're dead and gone.
Carpe diem.
Joe Griego
Dir., I.T.
BUHS
If you're in a California school district, I'd recommend the GAMUT software. It's a monthly subscription service with legal policies and sample language for every item the California Education Code. Works great - just pick and choose the policies you like, tweak them for your district, and put them on the next school board agenda for approval. Once that's done, you introduce the policy to the staff. If you're the Director of IT, you're already in administration and you're all set. If you're not in administration, then present the issues to your superintendent, and get her support. Bring it up at the next staff meeting, if you must. Once the policy is in place, and teachers understand the issues (bandwidth, copyright, liability, etc.), then see if that gentle method works. If not, then simply use network security to tighten things up. There are many resources online for free or cheap firewall solutions that can stop most P2P apps cold. At my district (http://www.buhs.k12.ca.us) we simply block the default servers for most P2P apps at firewall for standard port 80 traffic, and then block the default ports for Kazaa/morpheus/LimeWire/Bearshare/AudioGalaxy and the rest. Simple, effective, no whining involved. If teachers complain about the lack of P2P availability, refer to the written policy, have them specify the educational benefit of the service, and have your superintendent sign off on it. If she signs off, then you've done what you could, and be on your merry way. Email me directly if you'd like more specific practical solutions for a K-12 school. It's what I do for a living. Regards, Joe Griego Dir., I.T. Bishop Union Elementary and Bishop Union High school districts Bishop, CA Bishop High Bishop Elementary
So basically, it's ok for the letter writer to actually BE a prick, but not to call him one, based on his own idiotic words?
Hey, whatever. I'll just close by saying that if *I* got a letter like that guy wrote, I would have called him a prick, too, and I'm confident that the school board, once they read the letter, wouldn't have had a problem with that.
Regards,
Joe Griego
Bishop Union High School
Perhaps if your original message was professional, that would have been the case. Something as simple as:
"Hello! Hey, you may not be aware, but your mail server is an open relay, and spammers are using it to forward unwanted email using your resources. If you are aware, and need help fixing the problem, please drop me a line. Thanks."
I assure you that would have been orders of magnitude more effective than the whole you-have-an-open-relay-so-you-suck-and-I-rule vibe I got from the original mail to the poor guy. And accusing him of wasting tax dollars because he didn't know he had an open relay? Come on. He probably wouldn't have responded as a prick if he hadn't been treated as one.
Joe Griego
Bishop Union Elementary School District
Bishop Elementary
Bishop High School
Wow. Read your original letter, and I must admit - you ARE a prick. Your letter was condescending, self-aggrandizing (what was up with your bragging about the number of mail servers you block - does that get you chicks or something?), and rude.
As the IT Director for the Bishop Union Elementary school district, I'd probably send you a similar response if you sent a bitchy message as yours to Spencer, WI.
The bottome line - you were whiny, you didn't actually help (or offer to help) him, and you were rude. Just precisely how did you *expect* him to react? School administrators have enough work to do without having to deal with annoying strangers.
Sheesh.
Joe Griego
Dir., I.T.
Bishop Union Elementary, and Bishop Joint Union High School Districts
Bishop Elementary
Bishop High
Oh please. If Micro$oft had presented a similar idea for their Windows Update feature (still free, btw), Slashdotters would have several cows and a few other barnyard animals as well.
Joe G.
Bishop, CA
As a school administrator (I'm the Director of IT for the Bishop Union Elementary and High School districts), I will voice my contempt for WAVE America in no uncertain terms. I teach a LAN Admin class with students who might easily fit into categories deemed unacceptable. In our districts, we hire trained, professional psychologists who deal with troubled students. Using other students as informants is not just morally wrong, it is horrible professional practice. In all likelihood, this program would unnecessarily expose the district to liability (in those cases of unfair or inaccurate accusations and subsequent investigation by the schools). I can say I would categorically reject such an effort in our school districts, and I'm confident other school administrators would feel the same. Regards, Joe Griego Director, IT Bishop Union Elementary & High School Districts 800 West Elm St. Bishop, CA 93514