Bach Seat

It’s not a good time for tech in schools. The security woes at school are not limited to the iPad debacle at LAUSD. (rb- You can see my coverage here – Updates since the first article – LAUSD started confiscating the iPads and delayed the district-wide roll out one year until 2015.) GigaOM’s Ki Mae Heussner writes that Guilford County Schools in North Carolina has suspended its tablet program with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp’s Amplify after reports of faulty equipment.

NC school district suspends tablet program

The district reportedly spent $16.4 million ($299 / device + a 2-year subscription at $99 per year) of a $30 million Race to the Top grant to pay for the tablets and content. The device is a 10-inch ASUS (2357) tablet running the Google (GOOG) Jellybean Android operating system. It comes pre-loaded with content and apps curated by Amplify. It enables teachers to distribute content across a class or grade level and control the content on students’ screens.

GigaOM cites the school district’s website, which says they have sent 10% of their 15,000 devices back to Amplify because of broken screens. About 2,000 cases have also been problematic. In one instance, a student returned a defective charger, reporting that overheating caused the plastic to melt. While the district said it expected a few glitches with the rollout, school officials decided to pause the program for safety’s sake. GigaOM claims the pause is a big setback for Amplify, which launched its education-optimized tablet at hipster South by Southwest earlier this year.

Since its launch, skeptics have wondered how schools would respond to the privacy questions and the prospect of doing business with Amplify’s parent company News Corp. (given its phone-hacking scandal). Ms. Heussner speculates that the suspension could give schools more reason for pause when it comes to embracing the new technology.

Asus told GigaOM that out of 500,000 chargers of its kind that they have shipped globally, only the one in Guilford overheated and melted. Justin Hamilton, Amplify’s SVP of corporate communications seems to be blaming the customer. He claimed the broken screen rate in Guilford is higher than in other school districts. “We’re working very closely with the district on this and hope to have things resolved and the program back up and running very soon,” Mr. Hamilton said.

Indiana mobile security fail

In Indiana, Education Week reports that between 300 and 400 students in the Center Grove school district circumvented the security devices on district-issued Apple (AAPL) iPads within hours of receiving the devices according to a report last week in the Daily Journal.

Apparently, students found ways to reprogram the iPads so they could download games and apps for social media sites, according to the report. Center Grove officials attributed the problem to their security program not being able to handle the 2,000+ devices they distributed.

Keith Krueger, the CEO for the Consortium for School Networking, said such problems are increasingly common as districts deploy an increasing number of devices. “Kids and adults find ways to hack through things, and it can spread like wildfire,” he said. “It’s frustrating, and it’s a huge challenge for any district.”

Data center failures

In addition to the tablet troubles, Data Center Knowledge’s Rich Miller reports several school data center failures. According to DCK, two public school systems suffered data center failures that crippled their IT systems.

In Oregon, the Beaverton School District experienced several days of disruption after an errant alarm set off its data center fire suppression system. The fire suppression system damaged hard drives and servers. That left Beaverton schools unable to use email or access class lists, student schedules, and online textbooks. “It knocked all of the systems in the data center off-line,” said Steve Langford, chief technology officer. “All of the systems that staff needs to do their jobs.” District IT staff worked over the Labor Day weekend to replace the damaged systems.

In California, the Davis Unified School District started school without key IT services after the district’s servers overheated. DCK reports an air conditioner unit failed, allowing the temperature in the server room to rise to 120 degrees F. “There’s an incredible impact on everyone in the whole organization,” says the district’s Kim Wallace. “Students can’t access computers. Teachers can’t take attendance. Parents can’t email. We can’t email out.” The DCK article said staff were still troubleshooting damaged equipment and lost data.

rb-

The best strategy, COSN’s Krueger said, is to combine the best possible security filters and other technical measures with a comprehensive responsible or acceptable use policy that students and families must sign and a commitment to enforcement. “It’s not surprising that a school district would have some breaches,” he said. “The question is how do you leverage it into a teachable moment?”

Who needs the teachable moment? Sure the kids need to understand there are real consequences for their actions but, can the politicians administrators be taught to be serious about IT? Seems to me that most of these failures are management failures. It is probable that these failures could have been reduced with proper project management.

It is my experience that many administrators do not recognize project management professionals. It appears they would stick with the good ole boy network and hire their less qualified friends or the professional BSer’s.

Now about project management? Modern backup system? Disaster Recovery plan?  BCP?

Related articles

• EdTech: Chicago’s Slow But Steady Tablet Rollout (scholasticadministrator.typepad.com)

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.