In this article, four directors discuss the security challenges that keep them worried and what they do about it. Dwayne Alton describes how his school district, IT School District of Lee County, Fort Meyers, Florida, collaborated with Cisco and installed an intrusion detection system which alerts IT staff when someone creates their own access…

Enterprise resource planning software does what school leaders have always wanted their computer systems to do: It sees all. By integrating every IT application an organization has--from purchasing and inventory control to payroll--ERPs create a single unified system. Not only does this give IT managers a holistic view to what is happening in the…

Maintaining secure, convenient administration of the PC system environment can be a significant drain on resources. Deskside visits can greatly increase the cost of supporting a large number of computers. Even simple tasks, such as tracking inventory or updating software, quickly become expensive when they require physically visiting every…

In 2001, Indiana officials at the Department of Education were taking stock. The schools had an excellent network infrastructure and had installed significant numbers of computers for 1 million public school enrollees. Yet students were spending less than an hour a week on the computer. It was then that state officials knew each student needed a…

This article presents an interview with Jim Hirsch, an associate superintendent for technology at Plano Independent School District in Plano, Texas. Hirsch serves as a liaison for the open technologies committee of the Consortium for School Networking. In this interview, he shares his opinion on the significance of open source in K-12.

A podcast is audio or visual content that is automatically delivered over a network via free subscription. The advantage podcasts have over traditional oral reports is that students can edit and revise until what they say and how they say it is perfected. iLife applications are ideal for creating podcasts and other digital projects because of…

In recent years, the widespread availability of networks and the flexibility of Web browsers have shifted the industry from a client-server model to a Web-based one. In the client-server model of computing, clients run applications locally, with the servers managing storage, printing functions, and network traffic. Because every client is…

The concept of data-driven professional development is both straight-forward and sensible. Implementing this approach is another story, which is why many administrators are turning to sophisticated tools to help manage data collection and analysis. These tools allow educators to assess and correlate student outcomes, instructional methods, and…