WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.299 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we're going 00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:04.740 to take everything we know about managing IT 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:07.459 for a big company, you know, network security, 00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:10.000 device management, all that, and drop it right 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:12.300 into a public school. Right into the chaos. Exactly. 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:17.620 Our topic is the really specific and often misunderstood 00:00:17.620 --> 00:00:20.660 world of information technology in K -12 schools. 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:23.280 It's one of those fields where if you don't get 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:26.070 the user, Well, you're pretty much guaranteed 00:00:26.070 --> 00:00:28.690 to run into huge problems. On the surface, it 00:00:28.690 --> 00:00:30.769 looks the same as business IT. It does. You see 00:00:30.769 --> 00:00:34.189 the same stuff, complex devices, huge bandwidth 00:00:34.189 --> 00:00:36.630 needs, everyone's using the cloud, and they have 00:00:36.630 --> 00:00:38.850 these big what they call enterprise systems. 00:00:38.929 --> 00:00:40.990 Yeah, and those are critical. And for anyone 00:00:40.990 --> 00:00:42.609 listening who comes from the corporate world, 00:00:43.090 --> 00:00:45.549 enterprise systems are the things that keep the 00:00:45.549 --> 00:00:47.530 lights on. In business, it's your accounting 00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:51.109 software, your CRM, in a school district. It's 00:00:51.109 --> 00:00:55.149 everything. Student data. grading, HR, even the 00:00:55.149 --> 00:00:56.950 lunch payment system. That's right. So you could 00:00:56.950 --> 00:00:59.729 have an IT pro with tons of corporate experience 00:00:59.729 --> 00:01:02.710 walk in ready to just apply all the best practices 00:01:02.710 --> 00:01:04.930 they know. Thinking, I'll just scale this down. 00:01:05.230 --> 00:01:07.390 Exactly. But then they try and the whole system 00:01:07.390 --> 00:01:09.569 just grinds to a halt. It's a completely different 00:01:09.569 --> 00:01:12.530 engine. And that's really the core of our deep 00:01:12.530 --> 00:01:15.189 dive today. So our mission is to break down why 00:01:15.189 --> 00:01:17.530 those IT strategies that work perfectly in a 00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:19.549 business setting just fall apart in a school. 00:01:19.750 --> 00:01:22.390 And we found it all comes down to one. single 00:01:22.390 --> 00:01:26.189 thing, the users. It's all about the unique nature 00:01:26.189 --> 00:01:28.329 of the students and, of course, the teachers. 00:01:28.769 --> 00:01:30.290 And the fundamental conflict here, the thing 00:01:30.290 --> 00:01:32.750 we're going to unpack, is this clash between 00:01:32.750 --> 00:01:36.489 predictable business functions and the, well, 00:01:36.790 --> 00:01:38.969 the massive variability you find in a school. 00:01:39.329 --> 00:01:42.890 You've hit it. Business IT loves standardization. 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:46.219 It saves money. It reduces complexity. But education, 00:01:46.500 --> 00:01:49.400 just by its nature, fights against being standardized. 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:52.079 It's like managing a factory assembly line versus 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.340 managing a rain forest. What a great way to put 00:01:54.340 --> 00:01:56.659 it. Yeah. So we should probably look at the four 00:01:56.659 --> 00:01:58.700 key areas where these worlds really collide. 00:01:58.819 --> 00:02:00.620 OK, let's do it. Let's start with user skill. 00:02:01.019 --> 00:02:03.239 The source material calls it the gap between 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:06.459 established skills and emerging literacy. Right. 00:02:06.780 --> 00:02:10.020 So when a business builds an IT system, it makes 00:02:10.020 --> 00:02:14.340 a huge assumption. that its users are adults 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:16.840 with what we call established digital literacy. 00:02:16.979 --> 00:02:18.840 They know how to use a mouse. They can read an 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:20.860 error message. They can follow directions on 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:23.199 the screen. It's just a baseline requirement 00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:26.099 for the job. But in a school, especially with 00:02:26.099 --> 00:02:28.960 the younger kids, you're dealing with users who 00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:32.229 are defined by emerging competence. They're learning 00:02:32.229 --> 00:02:34.310 to read at the same time they're trying to use 00:02:34.310 --> 00:02:36.490 the technology. That's it. A six -year -old is 00:02:36.490 --> 00:02:39.310 still figuring out how to write their name. Asking 00:02:39.310 --> 00:02:41.930 them to use a full -size keyboard is, well, it's 00:02:41.930 --> 00:02:44.090 a real challenge. Their fine motor skills just 00:02:44.090 --> 00:02:46.270 aren't there yet. So you see them doing the two 00:02:46.270 --> 00:02:48.569 -finger peck. It's not that the system is bad, 00:02:48.669 --> 00:02:50.789 it's that the user is still developing. And this 00:02:50.789 --> 00:02:53.090 creates a massive, immediate problem in one of 00:02:53.090 --> 00:02:56.590 the most important areas of IT. Security versus 00:02:56.590 --> 00:02:59.400 accessibility. Oh, yeah. In a corporation, you 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:01.919 demand complex passwords, right? Eight characters, 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:04.439 a capital letter, a number, a special symbol. 00:03:04.819 --> 00:03:07.400 And that very standard, very sensible security 00:03:07.400 --> 00:03:10.240 measure can effectively lock out your youngest 00:03:10.240 --> 00:03:13.439 users. Can you imagine a second grader trying 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:17.199 to remember L at brary 0 .7? No, it's impossible. 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:19.919 It's not a memory issue. It's a cognitive capacity 00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:22.259 issue. And all that time they spend just trying 00:03:22.259 --> 00:03:25.900 to log in, that's class time. It's a hidden cost, 00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:29.509 a huge one. If you have a class of 25 kids, and 00:03:29.509 --> 00:03:31.770 it takes each of them five extra minutes to log 00:03:31.770 --> 00:03:34.030 in because of a corporate -style password. That's, 00:03:34.030 --> 00:03:36.270 wow, that's over two hours of lost instruction 00:03:36.270 --> 00:03:39.150 time. Right there. Just in logging in for one 00:03:39.150 --> 00:03:42.629 classroom. And suddenly, the tiny risk of a second 00:03:42.629 --> 00:03:44.949 grader breaching the network seems a lot less 00:03:44.949 --> 00:03:47.009 important than that guaranteed loss of learning 00:03:47.009 --> 00:03:49.719 time. So IT pros are stuck. Their job is to keep 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:52.599 the system safe, but the school's job is to maximize 00:03:52.599 --> 00:03:54.939 learning. And you see them trying to find workarounds. 00:03:55.099 --> 00:03:57.419 Things like QR code badges the kids can scan, 00:03:57.719 --> 00:03:59.960 or even looking at biometrics. You have to find 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:02.180 a custom solution because the standard one just 00:04:02.180 --> 00:04:05.180 completely fails. OK, so user skill is one huge 00:04:05.180 --> 00:04:07.659 variable. But what about what the users actually 00:04:07.659 --> 00:04:10.280 need to do, their needs? That seems to be the 00:04:10.280 --> 00:04:13.219 next big hurdle. It is. We're moving from predictable 00:04:13.710 --> 00:04:17.350 task -based needs in business to these highly 00:04:17.350 --> 00:04:20.410 variable interest -based demands in school. In 00:04:20.410 --> 00:04:22.310 business, it's pretty clear, right? An accountant 00:04:22.310 --> 00:04:24.410 needs accounting software. You can plan for that. 00:04:24.730 --> 00:04:27.050 You buy a machine that does that job well, and 00:04:27.050 --> 00:04:29.329 you're set for five years. Exactly. You don't 00:04:29.329 --> 00:04:31.110 need to buy them a high -end graphics card for 00:04:31.110 --> 00:04:33.589 video editing. It's predictable. But in a school, 00:04:33.870 --> 00:04:37.689 that predictability is just gone. A single computer 00:04:37.689 --> 00:04:39.910 has to be a general purpose device. Think about 00:04:39.910 --> 00:04:42.769 a computer in a school lab. At 8 in the morning, 00:04:42.949 --> 00:04:45.649 it's running a very simple, lightweight standardized 00:04:45.649 --> 00:04:49.069 test. Then at 10, a business class comes in and 00:04:49.069 --> 00:04:52.689 needs to run complex spreadsheets. After lunch, 00:04:53.149 --> 00:04:55.310 the digital arts class needs to edit video on 00:04:55.310 --> 00:04:57.970 that same machine. It's a huge swing in demand. 00:04:58.230 --> 00:05:00.370 So the system has to be built for that unpredictable 00:05:00.370 --> 00:05:03.149 peak capacity, which is way more expensive and 00:05:03.149 --> 00:05:05.610 complex. And the driver for all this unpredictability 00:05:05.610 --> 00:05:08.529 is the teaching itself, the pedagogy. Student 00:05:08.529 --> 00:05:12.449 needs are often driven by curiosity by what the 00:05:12.449 --> 00:05:14.329 teacher decides to do in that moment. This gets 00:05:14.329 --> 00:05:16.930 into what the sources call authentic learning 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:20.029 environments. Yes, exactly. Like project -based 00:05:20.029 --> 00:05:23.050 learning. Students might need to pull information 00:05:23.050 --> 00:05:26.110 from all over the place and the final product, 00:05:26.269 --> 00:05:28.370 what they're actually making, isn't known at 00:05:28.370 --> 00:05:31.389 the start. It emerges as they work. You can't 00:05:31.389 --> 00:05:33.329 just put a neat little firewall or a limited 00:05:33.329 --> 00:05:35.730 software package around that kind of creativity. 00:05:35.990 --> 00:05:37.829 You can't. And that's where you see the friction 00:05:37.829 --> 00:05:40.410 with teachers. A teacher will, quite rightly, 00:05:40.750 --> 00:05:43.629 ask for flexibility. But the IT professional 00:05:43.629 --> 00:05:47.430 knows every bit of flexibility you add can weaken 00:05:47.430 --> 00:05:50.189 the system's reliability and security. So they're 00:05:50.189 --> 00:05:53.089 in an impossible spot again. Support the learning 00:05:53.089 --> 00:05:55.629 or support the network. And this often blows 00:05:55.629 --> 00:05:58.420 up after a system is installed. A teacher might 00:05:58.420 --> 00:06:00.459 not realize what they really need until they 00:06:00.459 --> 00:06:03.560 see it at scale. You mean until 30 middle schoolers 00:06:03.560 --> 00:06:06.079 are all trying to stream HD video for a history 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:08.240 project at the same time? That's the moment. 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:10.660 That's the stress test that reveals all the weaknesses 00:06:10.660 --> 00:06:13.339 and sends IT scrambling to reconfigure everything. 00:06:13.480 --> 00:06:15.620 So the school's core mission learning and growth 00:06:15.620 --> 00:06:18.319 is a constant threat to the system's stability? 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:21.420 It is. The goal of education is variability. 00:06:22.060 --> 00:06:25.350 The goal of corporate IT is stability. They are 00:06:25.350 --> 00:06:28.850 fundamentally at war in a school. Wow. Okay, 00:06:28.850 --> 00:06:31.870 let's talk about another constraint. The users 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:35.089 themselves. Specifically, how they're selected. 00:06:35.269 --> 00:06:38.209 In business, your users are voluntary, they applied 00:06:38.209 --> 00:06:40.649 for the job, they were hired. Which means there's 00:06:40.649 --> 00:06:43.990 a baseline of skill or at least motivation. If 00:06:43.990 --> 00:06:46.009 an employee can't use the tech, you can train 00:06:46.009 --> 00:06:48.949 them or, you know, eventually let them go. Right. 00:06:49.069 --> 00:06:52.029 But in public K -12 education, attendance is 00:06:52.029 --> 00:06:55.069 compulsory. That is a massive difference. It 00:06:55.069 --> 00:06:58.110 changes everything. The school is legally obligated 00:06:58.110 --> 00:07:00.209 to serve every single student. It doesn't matter 00:07:00.209 --> 00:07:01.689 what their background is, their skill level, 00:07:01.730 --> 00:07:05.129 their motivation. IT has to support this incredibly 00:07:05.129 --> 00:07:07.649 wide range of users. You can't just deny a kid 00:07:07.649 --> 00:07:09.230 access to their education because they don't 00:07:09.230 --> 00:07:11.550 know how to type yet. You can't. So the IT department 00:07:11.550 --> 00:07:13.810 has absolutely zero control over the quality 00:07:13.810 --> 00:07:16.730 of its user base. But it's 100 % responsible 00:07:16.730 --> 00:07:18.970 for serving them. That's a huge constraint. And 00:07:18.970 --> 00:07:22.139 it's made worse by user stability or... I guess, 00:07:22.180 --> 00:07:25.439 the lack of it. Well, in a business, your user 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:28.060 base is pretty stable. People's skills get better 00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:30.759 over time, and the whole company's digital literacy 00:07:30.759 --> 00:07:34.040 slowly goes up. But in a school, you have this 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:36.899 massive, predictable turnover every single year. 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:40.579 Yes. Think about a third grader. In September, 00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:44.319 they're struggling. By May, they finally mastered 00:07:44.319 --> 00:07:46.860 the system. They're a pro. And then summer comes. 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:49.829 And that whole cohort moves on. All that experience 00:07:49.829 --> 00:07:52.449 is gone. They get replaced by a brand new group 00:07:52.449 --> 00:07:54.629 of second graders who are starting from scratch. 00:07:54.870 --> 00:07:58.170 It's a perpetual training treadmill. It is. IT 00:07:58.170 --> 00:08:00.930 has to manage this constant instability. Just 00:08:00.930 --> 00:08:03.089 when you get a group of users to a good place, 00:08:03.629 --> 00:08:06.110 a fresh wave of beginners comes in and you have 00:08:06.110 --> 00:08:07.829 to do all that basic training all over again. 00:08:07.970 --> 00:08:10.430 Which is a huge cost that corporate IT almost 00:08:10.430 --> 00:08:12.470 never has to think about, at least not at that 00:08:12.470 --> 00:08:14.629 scale. It really is. It changes how you even 00:08:14.629 --> 00:08:16.899 think about investing in training. This all leads 00:08:16.899 --> 00:08:19.060 to a really interesting point about what happens 00:08:19.060 --> 00:08:21.939 when things go wrong. Let's talk about the consequences 00:08:21.939 --> 00:08:24.379 of failure. The urgency in a business when IT 00:08:24.379 --> 00:08:28.240 fails is immediate. It's intense. Yeah. Because 00:08:28.240 --> 00:08:30.740 it hits the financial bottom line. If the network 00:08:30.740 --> 00:08:33.179 is down, you're not making sales. You're losing 00:08:33.179 --> 00:08:36.480 money every minute. Every second in some cases. 00:08:36.580 --> 00:08:39.659 So there is immense pressure to fix it now. But 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:43.299 in a school, that clear financial metric just 00:08:43.299 --> 00:08:46.220 isn't there. If the grading system goes down, 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:49.039 it's a huge problem, but no one is immediately 00:08:49.039 --> 00:08:52.019 losing money. The consequence is instructional 00:08:52.019 --> 00:08:55.100 disruption. And that is so much harder to measure, 00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:57.879 which changes the whole feeling of urgency. That's 00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:00.440 a great point. If the power goes out, teachers 00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:02.440 are masters of improvising. They'll pull out 00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:04.779 books, start a discussion. They'll find another 00:09:04.779 --> 00:09:06.779 way to teach. And often, those are still really 00:09:06.779 --> 00:09:09.509 valuable lessons. It's not a total loss. So while 00:09:09.509 --> 00:09:11.769 the IT failure is a big deal, it doesn't create 00:09:11.769 --> 00:09:14.889 the same level of like existential panic you'd 00:09:14.889 --> 00:09:17.309 see at a bank if its servers crash. No, it doesn't. 00:09:17.409 --> 00:09:19.289 The urgency is more about the long term impact 00:09:19.289 --> 00:09:21.470 on learning, which is harder to see in the moment. 00:09:21.549 --> 00:09:23.789 You don't know the full effect until years later. 00:09:24.210 --> 00:09:26.289 And that sometimes allows school IT departments 00:09:26.289 --> 00:09:29.110 to delay fixes that a corporate IT team would 00:09:29.110 --> 00:09:31.350 be forced to make immediately. It's a totally 00:09:31.350 --> 00:09:33.539 different kind of pressure. So if we pull all 00:09:33.539 --> 00:09:35.440 these threads together, it really sounds like 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:38.159 school IT is just designed to be this perpetually 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:40.480 unstable, high effort environment. That's really 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:42.720 the core conclusion. The one word that defines 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:46.700 school IT... is variability. Variability in skills, 00:09:47.059 --> 00:09:49.980 in needs, in the user population itself. And 00:09:49.980 --> 00:09:52.120 that's why an IT professional from the business 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.600 world can struggle so much. Their whole playbook 00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:57.179 is based on standardization, and it just doesn't 00:09:57.179 --> 00:09:59.080 work here. They're missing the human element, 00:09:59.340 --> 00:10:02.299 the unpredictable nature of teaching and learning 00:10:02.299 --> 00:10:04.340 that actually drives all the technology use. 00:10:04.559 --> 00:10:06.720 This isn't just about configuring a server differently. 00:10:06.860 --> 00:10:09.580 It's a clash of philosophies. It is. And to bridge 00:10:09.580 --> 00:10:12.220 that gap, you need more than just technical skill. 00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:15.519 It takes empathy and adaptability. You have to 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:18.279 stop just implementing a system and start trying 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:20.340 to understand the educational goal behind it. 00:10:20.679 --> 00:10:22.879 Why is that student editing a video right now? 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.110 What are we trying to help them learn? The analogy 00:10:25.110 --> 00:10:27.629 in the source material about the tailor is perfect 00:10:27.629 --> 00:10:29.889 for this. I have that one. Just like a tailor 00:10:29.889 --> 00:10:32.169 has to adjust a pattern for every single person, 00:10:32.250 --> 00:10:34.690 you know, understanding their unique shape and 00:10:34.690 --> 00:10:37.850 needs. A school IT professional has to constantly 00:10:37.850 --> 00:10:41.149 adjust these big standardized enterprise solutions 00:10:41.149 --> 00:10:44.970 to fit the incredibly diverse, rapidly changing 00:10:44.970 --> 00:10:48.210 student population. It's custom work every day. 00:10:48.529 --> 00:10:51.409 What a fantastic summary. This has been a really 00:10:51.409 --> 00:10:54.029 insightful deep dive. We've covered the clash 00:10:54.029 --> 00:10:56.830 between established competence and that emerging 00:10:56.830 --> 00:10:59.049 literacy in students. We talked about how that 00:10:59.049 --> 00:11:01.210 creates real friction with things as simple as 00:11:01.210 --> 00:11:03.269 a password. Then we looked at the shift from 00:11:03.269 --> 00:11:07.059 predictable task -based needs to the wild variability 00:11:07.059 --> 00:11:09.679 driven by teachers and students, which forces 00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:12.159 schools into using these more complex general 00:11:12.159 --> 00:11:14.600 purpose devices. And we can't forget the systemic 00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:17.299 constraints, managing a compulsory population 00:11:17.299 --> 00:11:19.960 that turns over every single year, meaning you're 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:22.519 always in training mode. Right. And finally, 00:11:22.539 --> 00:11:24.740 we look at how the consequences of failure are 00:11:24.740 --> 00:11:27.299 different, trading that immediate financial pressure 00:11:27.299 --> 00:11:30.200 for the more subtle long -term impact on instruction. 00:11:30.460 --> 00:11:32.919 It all comes back to that one word. variability. 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:35.960 Any IT strategy that doesn't put the unique developing 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:38.779 student user at its center is just, well, it's 00:11:38.779 --> 00:11:40.679 doomed to fail. So we'll leave you with the final 00:11:40.679 --> 00:11:43.279 thought to take with you. Given that school IT 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:46.500 has to be unstable and unpredictable, because 00:11:46.500 --> 00:11:49.059 its users are children who are literally in the 00:11:49.059 --> 00:11:51.559 process of learning, how should that change the 00:11:51.559 --> 00:11:54.080 way we design our tools? Not just manage them, 00:11:54.259 --> 00:11:56.559 but design them from the ground up. Should we 00:11:56.559 --> 00:11:58.799 be building operating systems specifically for 00:11:58.799 --> 00:12:01.820 kids with emerging literacy? Or authentication 00:12:01.820 --> 00:12:04.539 methods that don't rely on complex typing? Something 00:12:04.539 --> 00:12:06.419 to think about as you dive into this topic further.