1-1 Reality Check paper v1.5

FileWave Whitepaper 1:1 Reality Check

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FileWave Whitepaper

1:1 Reality Check for ITJohn [email protected]

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FileWave Whitepapers are a set of documents describing portions of the FileWave technology and deployment solutions in greater depth than is found in the regular manual. These papers are designed to provide the FileWave administrator with a better understanding of the concepts, workflows and implementation of various components of the FileWave systems management solution.

Table of Contents

Copyright © 1992 - 2015 - FileWave Holding

History Lesson 3

What we wanted versus what happened 4

Recognizing the new reality 5 Infrastructure 5 Electrical grid 5

Networking 6

Systems Management 9

Staff Training 10 Trust them 10

Teach them 10

Encourage them 10

Support them 10

Responsibilities 11 It’s a 1:1; but… 11

Management Strategies 12

“Carrot and Stick” 12

Acceptable Use Policies 13

Avoid the temptation of “over controlling” 14

IT Support 14 The core problem 14

Winning the ‘hearts and minds’ 15

Getting Admin Buy-In 15

You can’t solve it all with tech 16

Without IT, it won’t happen 16

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History LessonPersonal computers and other devices have become a significant part of the educational landscape. What started as a single Apple II (for example) in a classroom has expanded into entire faculties and students carrying laptops, tablets, and smart phones in search of the best tools to further the overall mission of education - to provide the best environment for teaching and learning.

From a support point of view, the picture has grown increasingly complex. A few decades ago, only one person in a school had the responsibility of maintaining the one computer, or the one computer lab, in a building. It was usually someone in Math or Science, and the entire purpose behind having the computers in the first place was to teach the students programming. Interestingly, down the hall, students were taking classes on “typing” (the pre-‘keyboarding’ days) with typewriters and classes on creative writing with pen and paper. Imagine the path personal computers would have taken if the first systems had been given to the Language Arts teacher instead of the Science teacher….

As computers began to be networked and shared, the need for a more complex support structure evolved, along with the need for a trained IT staff. The job of IT was to insure the computers remained functional from class period to class period, day to day, as dozens, or hundreds of students and faculty logged onto those devices. This model, the “Shared Use” deployment, has withstood the test of time, and proved itself a valuable mechanism for insuring the stability of a limited resource set.

As time went by, some users, usually faculty members, were deemed “worthy” of having a computer provided to them as an individual. This process was also the beginning of the “1:1” era. With the introduction of tablets, as well as the decrease in cost of laptops, many schools began thinking of expanding the reach of 1:1 deployments even further. IT began to get nervous.

�A true 1:1 is much more than a giant lab

Then ‘that day’ came - the school superintendent came back from a conference and said “We’re going to do a “1:1” district wide!

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What we wanted versus what happenedWhat the school leadership came back with was a concept of modern education enhanced by technological freedom. Every student, every teacher, armed with the latest and greatest tools, capable of accessing the world’s treasure trove of knowledge instantaneously. Classes that can communicate and share ideas with experts all over the planet, and even from space. No longer would a student sit unknown in the back of the classroom when they could enter into an online chat to discuss the current history assignment. The limits of education would disappear and schools would enter a new era of learning.

Then reality struck - or more accurately - reality struck IT.

What was supposed to be classrooms filled with students and teachers interacting, communicating and creating turned into a parody of a 19th Century classroom. Teachers used technology to lecture students from the front of the room, while the students were restricted to limited use of technology they had no control over. The number of laptops, tablets and other tech that broke down, or just didn’t work was overwhelming. Faculty and students couldn’t access the Internet in many places on campus, and when they could, the result was slow and intermittent. Devices ran out of power before the end of the school day due to a lack of locations for recharging during the day. Access to many educational Internet sites was off limits because someone might possibly gain access to a politically unsuitable area of the Internet while not paying attention to the teacher.

Frustration grew while conflicts between faculty and IT became more prevalent. Teachers wanted more flexibility with their devices and students wanted to use their devices the way they used their personally owned systems at home. All in all, the grand experiment was failing, and school leadership was confused because they were shown many examples of successful 1:1 deployments. So what was going wrong?

�“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren’t.”

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Recognizing the new realityWhat happened wasn’t a case of deliberate sabotage, or even an inability to properly deploy technology. It was a failure to recognize the significant difference between “the way it was” and “the way it needs to be.”

A 1:1 deployment isn’t the same as building a computer lab, or even equipping the administrative staff with new computers. It is a whole new creature. The most common error made when planning a 1:1 deployment is thinking “I deployed a computer lab into every school in this district - so doing a 1:1 is just expanding that model.” Not even close. Being able to configure and manage a dozen computer labs with 20-50 computers each is not even vaguely related to the model of 7500 computers being deployed to every teacher and student in the 5th to 12th grade. Or deploying 35,000 laptops and tablets to every person in a school district. That model requires a radical change in several areas:

• Infrastructure• Training• Responsibilities• Support

Let’s explore each of those areas in detail to see how IT can get ahead of the 1:1 planning cycle (or rescue one in motion).

InfrastructureWhile it may not seem as important as figuring out what applications are going to be needed, the analysis or review of your current infrastructure may be one of the most critical steps you perform in the 1:1 deployment planning cycle. Three areas are directly affected by a 1:1 deployment:

Electrical gridNetworkingSystems Management

Electrical gridA lot of work goes into planning for a computer lab. For some sites anyhow. In one case, new wiring was run to the room to be used exclusively to power the thirty desktop computers. In another case, a half-dozen surge protectors were daisy-chained from the existing outlet. I don’t need to tell you which one worked reliably. The situation for a 1:1 is just as, if not more, critical in terms of the electrical power requirements. You aren’t planning to have all the end users charge their laptops and/or tablets at home, in hopes that they will maintain sufficient power for the entire school day, are you?

�“10 hour battery life… yeah, right!”

A couple of factors to consider. Thirty laptop chargers require about 15amps, and thirty tablet chargers require about 5amps. If you are going to deploy 3000 laptops, and only 1/2 of your users plug in during

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lunch to juice up their devices, your electrical grid will take on a 750amp surge. Secondly, where are your outlets? In a lab, you had a pretty good idea of where to run the circuits and outlets. In a 1:1 deployment, the outlets need to be where the end users are - during their free or open time. Places such as hallway locker areas, study halls, home rooms, libraries and cafeterias are all great locations to put in charging stations. Some schools have gotten quite creative in locating charging stations in common areas.

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NetworkingWhen all you had to worry about were a few labs in each building, plus the administrative areas, the networking was relatively easy. The biggest changes in networking come when wireless gains ground as the primary mechanism for data communication. A 1:1 deployment complicates that environment even more. Once upon a time we worried about the transition from hubs to switches, then from multi-megabit Ethernet to gigabit Ethernet. Wireless throws us back into the realm of hubs (WiFi switches are a brand new concept just making an appearance), and current speeds are pretty lame compared the multi-pair 45GB fiber networks some sites have. Add to that the growth from a few hundred devices on the network at once to several thousand and you have a huge incentive to redo your entire career plan.

Another giant problem facing many institutions is the need to transition from a coverage model to a capacity, or density, model for network planning. When the first WiFi networks were put in place, they looked like this:

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�The WiFi coverage model

The idea was to insure that there was a signal everywhere. With this model, every device will at least “see” the network; but not all of them can access it for one or both of two reasons. First, the transmit signal from the AP (access point) may have been boosted to insure all areas get a signal; but the devices that receive the signal can’t generate enough power from their own radios to respond. This often results in the situation where you get a strong WiFi signal; but can’t get on the Internet or see shared devices.

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Secondly, despite all of the advances in WiFi technology, the device limit on a AP is still around 20-30 devices per radio. Remember - these are still hubs. (I have read about some advances in the tech coming from companies that may have broken this barrier - check with your provider for newer info.)

A best practice fix to this scenario is to plan for capacity (density, saturation, you pick). Maximize the number of APs in the area, allow for all three dimensions in planning. Don’t just look at the signal on one floor of a three or four floor building. And, most importantly, in Education, plan around high concentrations of students and faculty in rooms. The end goal should be to provide high speed network access (not the ‘high speed’ a hotel claims) for everyone - even if they are gathered in the auditorium for a lecture.

Luckily, the advent of 802.11n and 802.11a/c WiFi provides more than enough channels to create a stable, dense coverage pattern, like the one shown below:

AP - Send

Device - Response

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�The WiFi capacity model

The AP transmitters are operating with enough power to reach their assigned area, and to maximize the return signal from all devices present within their reach. Due to the large number of available channels, each AP avoids signal interference both horizontally and vertically. A network plan designed in this manner will help provide excellent network reliability for a large number of devices, even when the largest educational spaces are filled with users. Note that even if your APs can send a signal to all corners of a space, the devices you use may not be able to send a signal back to that AP. Always test the signal strength of both your APs and your deployed devices.

�The auditorium at U of Maine - filled with laptop users - can you design for this type of capacity?

The best way IT can help support the educational mission is to insure that the bits must flow…

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Systems ManagementEducational institutions have had many years to experiment with different solutions for imaging, deploying, managing and maintaining their different devices and technology. Budget constraints and staff shortages often led to the use of any available “free” solution that popped up. With the expansion of your infrastructure into the requirement to manage several thousand devices, it might be time to explore your systems management solution requirements.

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One suggestion is to look into a unified solution that allows you to manage your entire infrastructure through a single admin interface. Another is to look seriously at the support model for any of the current solutions you have. If you are betting your entire deployment on a solution that uses a web blog as its sole source for support, you might be heading into dangerous territory. These are only suggestions; but choosing a commercial sys mgmt toolkit might save you many hours of self-training and recovery from the adoption of a plethora of disparate “free” solutions. (I stress the word “free” only because no-cost solutions that require you to spend weeks of your own time to learn, troubleshoot, and maintain are not really free - unless you place no value on your time.)

A unified solution can also save on staff training - having a single front end to manage iOS, OSX, and Windows devices can mean that you don’t need to break your IT staff into dedicated groups per OS. Staffers can be cross-trained easily, and a solution with multiple levels of admins can help distribute management taskings.

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Staff TrainingA difficult, somewhat undesirable, tasking for the IT staff is training the rest of the institutional staff on technology. While your institution may have a way to incorporate this into Professional Development, the IT staff may get tasked for the “technical stuff.” Some of the best ways to approach this requirement is to recognize that we are in the 21st Century, and many of the ‘reasons’ (e.g. excuses) for faculty and other staff to learn to use modern technology are no longer reasonable. For IT, you should understand a few key principles that will help ensure a successful 1:1 deployment:

• Trust them• Teach them• Encourage them• Support them

Trust themYour faculty is seen by the students as examples in many arenas of behavior and expertise. When a teacher is seen as “just one of us” in the eyes of a student, that faculty member has lost the respect needed to allow them to act as the mentor. A key factor in this regard is how the faculty is treated by the IT staff. You should position the teachers as owners and experts to their students, just as you are. Make the teachers local admins of their devices, and reinforce the role of the faculty as technology leaders.

Teach themFaculty members do not need to become IT any more than IT needs to become faculty. However, a well run 1:1 deployment requires that teachers know how to operate their technology smoothly and comfortably. You don’t need to teach them command line tricks. They do need to learn how to do basic admin tasks, such as software updates and backup. The more you teach the faculty, as well as the rest of the institutional staff, the less time you will spend being the operator of their device for them. You don’t have time to do that in a 1:1 deployment.

Encourage themLearn to reinforce the faculty desire to experiment with new concepts and software. There are classes being taught using software that may be a decade old - yet you know that if you encourage a teacher to explore newly available applications, both their teaching and your support requirements will improve. A good example is the demand for a specific software solution for an open-ended problem (“Everyone must use MS Word for all writing projects”) versus a simple policy of “All writing projects must be submitted in PDF format” which allows for a huge range of options in the creative tools. Does this increase support needs? Not as long as the responsibility for the software being used rests with the end user (more on that soon). Let your faculty experiment with newer, more expressive solutions.

Support them“But aren’t we already doing that?” Not if the attitude in the IT shop is “our teachers are too dumb to

manage their own computers.” It’s 2015 - there is absolutely no excuse for anyone to not know basic computer skills. Yes, you have some who drag their feet and play ignorant. You also have many faculty members who have the desire to really push the barriers. Support them all at their own pace. You might spend more time conducting ‘brown bag’ training sessions for basic tasks (backup, folder organization, software updates); but you can also conduct some very cool advanced classes on creating better presentations, or using Minecraft to teach math. Become their allies - it will help.

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ResponsibilitiesThe most difficult task in planning a 1:1 is determining the correct workflow for device usage. Some of the criteria that can help, or hinder, a successful outcome include budget, support, politics, and training. Almost all of this can be dealt with by understanding the primary criteria for a 1:1, and the reason it is referred to as a “one to one” deployment - responsibility.

“Who is responsible for the device?”

Sounds simple, yet can be the beginning of so many arguments and debates. The real question for IT comes down to “how much work do you want to do?”

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Deployment models (from Apple’s documentation)

The various deployment models were designed for devices that were shared among many users (the institutional shared), Institutional Owned 1:1, and User Owned 1:1 (BYOD) model. When you were running a lab, the responsibility rested with the institution because hundreds of users touched a single device over the course of a week. That device needed to be configured to have the same behavior and outcome from class period to class period. This was where the “Institutional Shared” model came from.

The only difference between the “User Owned” model and the “Institutional Owned 1:1” model should be who paid for the device. The User Owned, or BYOD, model is in heavy use in HiEd, and is growing in acceptance in K-12. When the institution can afford the expenditure, the Institutional Owned 1:1 is adopted. The faculty and administration of most Education institutions are already well into this model.

When some of the first 1:1’s were instituted, the concept of making the end user responsible for their device was laughed off as “impossible.” That attitude drove the creation of a model with an institutional local admin account and the end user as either a network, non-admin account, or a simple local user account. We can refer to that as the “1:1; but…” model.

It’s a 1:1; but…After deploying devices into a lab for years, IT has ingrained the concept of not allowing users to “mess up” the device they have been provided. Policies and practices grew out of this behavior to the extent that many institutions don’t even pause when they brag that they are “doing a 1:1; but…” The ‘but’ being the end users aren’t responsible for device configuration, setup, daily backup, disk space maintenance, and all the other tasks that require the user to be the primary user - the local admin of that device.

Over time, experience has shown that this model is unsustainable for more than a few dozen devices that remain within the confines of the institution. End users, when they are not local admins, cannot perform backups of their own data without special scripts and IT intervention. Software updates must await IT interaction. Installation of new software must await IT interaction. That model proved to be no more than a large lab that demanded significant IT time and effort.

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Fortunately, IT itself has developed and proven the best 1:1 deployment model. Within the IT shop, each device is signed over to the end user and that user sets the device up with themselves as the local admin. Once upon a time, we set up computers in a sandbox. The environment was there to maintain close control over each device and insure that every user had the same experience. The sandbox has been replaced by a beach on the ocean. Controlling every user’s actions is an impossible task - unless you accept a radical degradation of the

educational process.

If you have a few devices that you need to install a piece of software on, you can make sure all of those devices are online and ready for you to send the software. When you scale that to thousands of devices in the hands of end users, is it really a realistic option to have everyone online and waiting for you to send them the software?

Moving away from the concept of ‘a giant lab’ isn’t easy. The desire to jump back to the days of total control often seems much easier than moving forward with a model that we all started talking about way back in the early 1970’s. Look up the story of Alan Kay’s Dynabook from 1972. http://history-computer.com/Library/Kay72.pdf

It is a scary proposition to place device responsibility with the end user, especially students; but it’s also frightening to think that an IT staff can keep several thousand devices up to snuff without putting so many restrictions in place as to negate the whole educational purpose behind a 1:1 in the first place. There are some very sensible things you can do within the open arena of a 1:1 that will meet with many of the current legal and policy requirements; yet will not hinder the flexibility and freedom presented by this workflow for the end users.

Management StrategiesThe key is designing a logical systems management strategy that meets both the administrative requirements and the educational mission needs. There are three parts to that strategy. First, instead of locking the devices down, you can adopt a “Carrot and Stick” approach to management. Second is to create a solid, and enforceable, Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Third, and probably the hardest, is to limit the amount of control you put in place for the devices.

“Carrot and Stick”The idea behind this management approach is providing a compelling suite of services that entices the user into surrendering some of their control to IT in order to partake of content, applications, and access that will enhance their educational experience. For example, you can package up access to the institutional WiFi network, custom applications, and faculty-chosen content that a student would need to successfully navigate the school year with a requirement to maintain an MDM profile on their device(s).

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http://history-computer.com/Library/Kay72.pdf


As long as the user keeps the profile active, you can use such services as Apple’s VPP to provide licenses for institutionally purchased software, as well as custom content provided by faculty. Besides giving them access to the otherwise secure WiFi network, you can monitor their device to check on available disk space, OS version, and other key operating factors. You can also present items in a self-service module, such as the FileWave Kiosk, for the user to install and uninstall as the need arises. This also allows you to present needed software updates in such a way as that the user can install them when convenient, instead of you trying to track all the devices down yourself.

The “Stick” side of this is that the user may decide, unwisely, to remove the MDM profile from their device. When this happens, they will lose access to the network, all of the previously granted software will disappear from their device, and they will find themselves a lone figure in a dreary world. That decision will need to be presented as a really “Bad Idea™” to the end users, especially when it may result in the lose of all of their sandboxed documents that are related to the institutionally owned applications. In certain cases, you will also have the “nuclear” option of remotely wiping the user’s device.

Acceptable Use PoliciesOne of the most contentious issues in any educational institution is the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Many schools have created pages of onerous, unenforceable rules that no one in the institution can realistically track, much less enforce. In some cases, the punishments (user will lose all access to

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technology for the remainder of the school year) are overly harsh; yet in other cases, no penalties exist for such things as vandalism or intentional damage. If there is one area where politics rears its head in educational technology, it is here.

A suggestion, call it a best practice from years of experience, is to develop the simplest, easy to enforce AUP you can. The test is trying it out on both the IT staff and the faculty before rolling it out for the students. This accomplishes a couple goals. First, most restrictions are driven by Federal laws that require all users within an educational environment to comply with the rules, not just students. Second, there is a reason many of the rules and policies handed down are prefaced with “make a best effort to…” instead of “must.”

Step back for a second and perform a reality check on any rules you will put in place. Can this rule be enforced? Will violation of this rule put an undue burden on the educational mission? Are the penalties for violation reasonable? Examples we have all seen are having a student’s laptop or tablet taken away for an AUP violation, only to have to deal with parent’s who blame the student getting a zero for some project on the teacher. If you are going to develop and AUP, then you have to be willing to support it - and enforce it. Even in the face of angry parents. Administration must support both IT and faculty in enforcement.

Avoid the temptation of “over controlling”The modern device management tools today support a wide range of restrictions and controls. Every solution that supports Apple’s OS X and iOS uses the same controls that exist in Profile Manager. Those tools grew from the management solutions such as At Ease for Workgroups and Macintosh Manager. These tools were designed to support managing labs, and when the concepts of 1:1 and BYOD began to surface, they had controls added to help those deployment models. However, many of the old restrictions still remain, and your goal is avoid getting bogged down in the minutiae of checkboxes. A student today does not need you to dictate how their Dock is configured, or what their Desktop picture looks like.

Follow the guideline of “how would this affect me?” rule. Any restrictions you desire for a 1:1 deployment should be tested out on the IT staff first. If the item interferes with your day to day use of your device, it will interfere with the faculty or students’ use. While some controls may be necessary - such as single sign on or WiFi profiles, others may be relegated to the dustbin of old computer labs.

IT SupportWhile we have been looking at infrastructure and responsibilities in a 1:1 deployment, IT support has been mentioned often. In this section, we are going to showcase the importance of IT involvement from top to bottom in the lifecycle. Without IT support, a 1:1 deployment will never succeed.

The core problemYes, there is a serious problem that needs to faced head on, and that is the huge gap in perceptions between the IT staff and the end user community. Over the past several decades, I have seen the rise of an incredible disconnect between those who support technology and those who just use it. Back in the early days with few computers in a school, the attitude was “I’m glad I don’t have to run the lab.” Many faculty members bragged about their lack of computer skills. With the introduction of the Internet, institutions had to bring in people whose only job was to “keep the bits flowing” (ok, bad Dune reference). Those people were seldom involved, or even interested, in curriculum and teaching. Some schools were lucky to have a blended IT group of ex-teachers and technical specialists. What happened though mirrored what I saw back in the days of the mainframe - the “Gold Coat Syndrome.” Those in the

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“technical” staff looked down on the end users as uneducated simpletons. Obviously, if someone didn’t know how to write code, type command line instructions from memory, or troubleshoot a server, then they were just plain dumb.

From the other side of the fence, I have heard many users talk about the arrogance of IT. In one school, the curriculum director was up in arms over the IT staff dictating that “no one needed any software outside of MS Office and Explorer.” A professor told me that he found the IT manager amusing in his opinion of the faculty’s lack of computer skills, “coming from the guy who used to run the projector.” The battle goes on, and despite instances of great cooperation between IT and end users, the unfortunate fact is that there is much more strife than happiness.

How can this issue be dealt with? All I can suggest is a change in tactics from IT since they are drastically outnumbered by the end users. In a business meeting once, I was told that if IT got in the way of the end users, IT always lost to the mission of the company - making money. Is IT getting in the way of the educational mission? Here are some ideas that might smooth the waters.

Winning the ‘hearts and minds’One of the greatest skill sets in IT is the ability to teach technology to end users. If IT makes a concerted effort to teach administrators and faculty to become technology literate, things will improve greatly. Holding ‘brown bag lunch’ sessions, in-service meetings, and other opportunities to teach both basic and advanced tech skills should become the number one priority for IT. You no longer have the luxury of shutting down a lab for a day or two to update the systems. When asked “how are you going to update all 7500 iPads to iOS vX?”, your answer should be “I’m going to teach 7500 users how to do it.” It’s the old “teach a man to fish” analogy.

Know when to say ‘enough’ to people who whine about not being technical, or who expect you to constantly do their basic tasks for them. Every user should learn how to back up their own data, install software, and use the primary applications on their device. The excuse of the 1980’s that “I’m not a computer person” has no relevance in 2015.

Getting Admin Buy-InYou are also going to need the support of the institution’s administration. Funding for professional development and other training will have to become part of the normal IT budget. The IT staff will need training, and the Faculty/students will need to be trained in best practices with technology. If the IT staff isn’t going to do the training; then they must be allowed to have a strong voice in the content. The institutional management will need to recognize the usefulness of these new concepts as fulfilling the actual desires they expressed in getting a 1:1 off the ground. Their commitment to the required funding will show that recognition.

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You can’t solve it all with techRecognize that at the end of the day, almost every task that takes place in an office or classroom has evolved from something done either manually or with simpler tools in a previous generation. You have to be firm and understanding; but when a teacher asks “how do I stop my students from playing <pick your fave new game> in class?”, the answer is “tell them to stop and get back on task.” Teachers have dealt with distracted students for millennia. Point out that the same challenges existed in the days of comic books and pocket games. The best practice is to recognize that there is no technical solution for crappy classroom management.

Without IT, it won’t happenJust as the busses won’t run, the lights won’t come on, and the food won’t be ready without good support teams, the technology infrastructure will fall apart (the bits won’t flow) without a good IT team. A 1:1 deployment cannot happen without IT. Learn 21st Century teaching methods. When you attend an educational conference, skip the session on how to lock down everyone’s application set and go to the session on how to use Minecraft in Math and Science. Become the best allies the faculty ever had.

Then go deliver an awesome 1:1 environment to enhance teaching and learning.

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About the author: John DeTroye has almost three decades of experience helping businesses and educational institutions plan, deploy, manage and maintain technology. He was a senior Consulting Engineer for Apple, working with the desktop management teams on products such as At Ease for Workgroups, Macintosh Manager, Apple Remote Desktop and Workgroup Manager. His Tips and Tricks for Management documents, as well as the OSX Deployment guides and videos, play a key part in Apple’s deployment strategies. In his current position as evangelist and business development manager for FileWave, he continues to promote proper deployment models. Prior to Apple and FileWave, John was an Army artillery officer with command and staff assignments in Europe, Korea, and the 82d Airborne Division. He is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, and lives in Colorado with his wife and two crazy pugs.

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1-1 Reality Check paper v1.5