When people think about the impact technology has had on industry, it isn't hard to pick out a few obvious examples where tech has made a huge impact. I think one area that a lot of people tend to overlook is education. The fact is, the changes technology has made in the past couple of decades has been quite staggering.
I'm not even talking about devices in students hands, I'm talking about infrastructure and all kinds of other things that happen behind the scenes that most people never even consider.
I'm a bit sad I got into ed-tech when I did. That isn't to say I am sad I went into IT, but there was a time shortly before I started working in the schools where it was kind of the wild west as far as tech was concerned. There was lot more money back then (whether that is good or bad), and people were kind of learning as they went. Any crazy idea was fair game and like I said, I wasn't there, but I feel like the climate was just a lot more relaxed. All those unreasonable expectations and government oversight weren't mucking up the works.
For example, when I started working at my current position, two of our schools were connected to the main campus by T1 lines. Pretty fast for the time, but painfully slow by today's standards. Think about it, the average home Internet speed right now is 214 to 305 Mbps according to a quick Google search. A T1 line maxed out at somewhere just over 1.5 Mbps.
These were the times when a couple of guys would decide "hey, lets buy a big spool of fiber and run it between our IDF's (data closets). There wasn't a concern about standards or regulations or codes, they just got together on a radom Saturday and made it happen. Oddly enough, that fiber was still working fifteen years after I took the job here. The only reason we upgraded was so we could move up to a 10Gb backbone for our network.
I actually had a vendor come in to check the old fiber to make sure it was still good and while they said it was fine, they couldn't even identify the type of fiber it was because it was so old.
More importantly, I remember a time when I could make a decision (a tech decision) and I didn't have to justify why I made that decision for the district. I'm still on the fence about whether it was more a lack of knowledge or an inherent trust that made people just take me at my word, but sadly that seems to be going out the window. If you read my post on Monday, I think it's pretty clear that people aren't getting smarter.
I think there is a big difference between understanding technology and being familiar with technology. Just because you can use it doesn't mean you understand it. In the same vein, these days people seem to be making decisions based on what is easy, not on what is prudent.
If you have been keeping track, the number of cyber attacks against public school districts has skyrocket over the past decade. Between 2016 and 2022 there were over 1600 publicly disclosed incidents. Education has become one of the top five targeted sectors. In fact, the number of incidents between 2022 and 2023 increased two fold.
As you can imagine, for that reason security is pretty important to me. I've made clear my concerns time and again, yet it seems I am constantly having to defend my decisions when it comes to assigning specific privileges on the network.
Sadly, I have kind of become used to being considered "difficult" because I won't just make things happen. It's super frustrating to have a teacher come to me and ask for something and when I tell them no they say "well the principal said it was okay". Of course the principal said that, because they aren't the ones that have to make it happen, and they didn't consider all of the things their decision could potentially break or all the security concerns it creates.
Tech isn't alone in this, even my wife who has been successfully providing social work services to students for over 20 years has found herself having to justify her decisions or actions as of late.
I think this speaks to a bigger issue of not just overall distrust of pretty much anything, but also the lack of awareness of the world around you and just general laziness. It's funny because @coinjoe wrote a post yesterday about how much confrontation there is in the world, but as I think about it, it's not that there is so much confrontation, it's more that it is misplaced.
It blows my mind how much people get away with in the workplace because someone is afraid to have that hard conversation with them. So they just let the behavior continue. What's even more scary, is that I am probably guilty of this as well. It seems to have become the culture, question and distrust, but never reach a resolution.
I wonder if the previous generation felt the same way about us as they were getting ready to leave the workforce?
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I was always one who was not afraid to have a hard conversation at work. Because of this I would be considered an abrasive person by some. But avoiding the hard conversations will only lead to more conflict later. Usually it is after something blows up too.
I feel like I could have written this comment myself! I totally understand where you are coming from.
Why do you think education is one of the top 5 targeted tech areas?
Tons of PID (personally identifiable information). Plus student records are involved, so from a ransomware standpoint, it's a gold mine. Similar to healthcare.
Now it feels like decisions are optimized for convenience and optics, while the real risk gets outsourced to the people who actually understand the systems. Calling security “being difficult” is wild, especially when schools are one of the most targeted sectors.
I know right! It's just crazy! I will be able to retire in a short amount of time and I have actually started to wonder if I really want to continue in the IT realm.
I didn’t realize cyberattacks against schools had increased so much. That’s crazy. Good luck dealing with that!
It’s a familiar pattern, though, isn't it? Safeguards often look unnecessary, until they’re removed and a disaster strikes. Then people complain that there was no preparation, even though the preparation once existed and was cut.
We have two high level versions of this just in recent memory. The Obama admin created infrastructure aimed at preparing for pandemics. Then Trump is elected and cuts it all as wasteful, and boom COVID hits. Suddenly the consequences of scaling back preparedness became part of the national conversation. Well.... all the conservative commentators just blamed Obama for not preparing, ignoring the reality that he had prepared.
Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about a similar experience as governor. During a major wildfire, he was surprised by how little preparation the state had, not even having adequate emergency supplies. Afterward, he pushed for stronger planning and crisis readiness. Yet his successor reportedly viewed those measures as unnecessary and rolled them back, leaving the state scrambling again when the next wildfire came.
It’s frustrating how often lessons seem to be forgotten...
It is frustrating, but it continues to happen over and over again through the centuries. Pretty funny given how many sayings there are about the dangers of doing so. We just don't learn!
Now everything is connected and one bad decision can ripple across an entire district.
Very true!
I'm a teacher and I understand what you're talking about. At my institution, we have a pretty deficient technological system, and fixing it is quite a process.
Ours is pretty decent for the area we live in. In fact, our teachers probably don't realize how good they have it!
The previous generation dealt with issues, and didn't let things just simmer and build. Maybe that's why so many people go psycho these days, no one addresses the issue before it becomes huge...
As the IT guy you're job is to keep things secure, not to be a yes man. I think what you guys did to install the fiber all the years ago was brilliant. Back then no one really cared either, now days it never could have been done. Someone (or multiple people) would have objected. I agree the world is becoming more confrontational yet everyone is afraid to argue a valid, well thought out argument. Avoidance and mistrust is easier...
I'm not sure the world is heading in a better direction, to me it seems that social media has made people more hostile. It's really sad when you think about it...
Very good points all around. It's kind of scary the way the world is heading, but again, I wonder if the previous generations felt the same way about us.
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The tech guys are often under appreciated in education, and the first to be criticised when things go wrong. Teachers can be a demanding lot! Yet if data is breached, they'd be the first to complain. People like blaming systems, authorities - they aren't too forgiving when mistakes are made. REcently we had flash floods here that swept a lot of caravans and cars into the sea when rain came down the river inland. No lives lost, thankgood. The BOM (bureau of meterology) did put out a flash flood warning, but as it was some distance away, no one thought it could happen. Now 'flash flood' is a warning nearly every time it rains - because they were criticised so hard for not warning harder. There's always someone to blame, right?
Sometimes an analogy helps. Ask them: "So if the principle tells me I can bake a cake with a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar, that's okay? You would eat it?" Then sometimes they begin to understand. 😉