Presentation to the Delegation from the Center of Education Technology

1. Presentation to the Delegation from the Center of Education Technology

2. MDCPS Background • Fourth largest school district • Over 340 public schools; over 100 Charter schools • Serving 2,400 square miles • Over 345,000 students • Over 45,000 employees; over 5,000 Charter employees • Services 180 different home languages • Mobility rate – 27%

3. The Big Picture • The Vision • Have all users connected to all information at anytime • The Challenges • Schools under state sanction • Need to increase parental involvement • Giving our users access to their systems in one area • Providing our parents an easy and consistent way to monitor their child’s progress • Connect silo systems • Reduce paper-based systems • Provide easy and consistent access to information

4. MDCPS Foundation • Active Directory Account and Auto Update – MIIS and ILM • Password Synchronization – P-Synch • District Email – Outlook Exchange • District wide Gradebook – Global Scholar / Excelsior • Metro Ethernet to each remote site • Patch Management and Virus Protection – Big Fix and Sophos • Data Warehouse – Microsoft SQL • OLAP (On-line Analytical Processing tool) - Cognos • Self Service for Technology Support - HEAT

5. MDCPS Foundation • District-wide federated library catalog -Destiny • District-wide assessment tool – Edusoft • District-wide instructional applications, including Riverdeep Destination Series Voyager Solo and Ticket to Read Jamestown Navigator Plato Learning Library Reference Databases-Groliers, SIRS, Gale, Facts on File, etc • District-wide test generator - ExamView

6. Implementation/Timeline 2009 - 2010 Business Partners Food Service Live@Edu Links to Learning Teacher Assessment Volunteer SAP SOS Employee Self-Service SharePoint 2010 Portal LiteMay 1, 2006 • 2008 - 2009 • Attendance • Intervention • SPOT • SES • Weekly Briefing • Internship • Professional Development • RiverDeep • Unified Communications (OCS) 2007 - 2008 District and Community Deployment; Global Registration System Enterprise Portal 2006 - 2007 Infrastructure and Employee Portal with Collaboration

7. Decision Making Process • Key Criteria • Existing infrastructure and skill sets • Scalability • Technology partners and third party services • Flexibility • Rapid Development • Why SharePoint? • Experience with Microsoft Products • Mature Microsoft Exchange Environment (ADS) • Successful Portal “Lite” • Established Personnel and Student Data Warehouse • Microsoft Platform throughout District • Good Partner Relationship with Microsoft

8. Mainframe and Third Party to Data Warehouse to Portal = Mash-Up Electronic Gradebook Daily Student Attendance Student Scheduling Changes Learning Village Testing Data from Vendors ESE Monitoring Data Mash-Up Data Warehouse Portal Student Information System Student Registration Course Information

9. Mash-Up With Technology • Systems or Applications Used: • Legacy Mainframe Systems • Student Information System • Third Party Web-enabled Systems • Electronic Gradebook • Student Class Scheduler • Portals Using SharePoint • Data Warehouse • All Student Data • All Staff Data

10. SIS Functions • Handling Inquiries From Prospective Students • Enrolling New Students and Creating Classes • Creating Class & Teacher Schedules • Handling Records of Examinations, Assessments, Grades and Academic Progression • Maintaining Attendance Records • Recording Communications With Students • Maintaining Discipline Records • Providing Statistical Reports • Communicating Student Details To Parents • Special Education Services • Student Health Records

11. LMS Functions • Centralize and Automate Administration • Use Self-service and Self-guided services • Assemble and Deliver Learning Content Rapidly • Consolidate Training Initiatives On a Scalable Web-based Platform • Support Portability and Standards • Personalize Content and Enable Knowledge Reuse • What Does It Mean To You?

12. Students Parents Employees Community The Solution - www.dadeschools.net

13. Student Portal • Links to Learning – Based on student performance, will provide links to educational software partners and specific Learning Path • Single Sign-On to Reading Plus, Explore Learning Gizmos, and to Voyager Ticket To Read • Electronic Textbooks – Access to e-Textbooks • District Provided Student Email – Allow students to send emails to teachers and teachers to students– INBOX@LIVE.EDU • Alert Box System – Can receive alerts specifically tailored for them.  Also serves as an Emergency Alert System for all users.  

14. Teacher Portal • Full Outlook Web Access functionality to Dadeschools.net email • Alert Box System – Can receive alerts specifically tailored for them.  Also serves as an Emergency Alert System for all users • Access to Electronic textbooks – e-Textbooks • Teachers can send emails to student’s new District email account • Teacher Class Roster will provide additional student assessment information

15. The Learning Village Create a Repository For All of The District’s Digital Resources, Aligned To Standards, And Accessible From One Point Of Entry

16. The Learning Village Current Status • Approximately 10,000 Lesson Plans • Organized by nine-week periods, grade levels, and subject areas • About 150 Digital Textbooks (student and teacher texts) • Linked and displayed by course codes • Roughly 25,000 Assessment Items • Organized by grade and subject area, and subject area and standard

17. The Learning Village Lesson Plans Goals • Standardize Instructional Focus and Pacing Across Subject Areas And Schools • Provide Support To New and New To Subject Area Or Grade Level Teachers • Link Activities Within Plans To Other District Instructional Resources Including • RiverdeepLMS • Gizmos • Online Databases

18. The Learning Village Assessment Items • Both Publisher Produced and Customized Items Produced By ETS • Accessible Via Examview Test Generator • Automated Creation Of Edusoft Answer Sheet For Scanning and Scoring (Publish To Edusoft)

19. Principal Portal • Immediate Access to Human Resources, SAP, E-mail • Access to Active Student Reports including: • Accountability • Academic Achievement • Attendance • Suspensions

20. Lessons Learned • Portal Lite • Over Estimating Services, Under Estimating Staff • Over Estimating Community,Parents Technical Awareness • Mapping & Establishing Environments Beforehand • Change Control in Place • Getting all Parts to Work Together • Limited best practice for MOSS as it as a new product • Deployment issues (test -> staging -> production) • No build process

21. MDCPS Office Communicator Server Office Communicator Server

22. MDCPS Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 • Reduce out of office travel time associated with meetings • Solution had to be cost effective, scalable and easy to use • 2007 began using a commercial software product. Usage showed administrative staff and schools that this delivery method would work • Very expensive - $12,000 to $15,000 per web cast. Due to budgetary concerns, funding for the web cast tool was eliminated • Microsoft recommends LiveMeeting; a windows-based meeting. Based on existing licensing already purchased, the use of LiveMeeting would mean no cost to the District • Have successfully used the tool for many meetings chaired by Administration. Most recently, their desktop was shared with over 300 principals

23. MDCPS Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 • Travel less. Communicating and collaborating online saves time and money by meeting online and avoid all the hassles of business travel • Increase productivity. Avoid downtime associated with getting to and from meetings • Reduce costs. By conducting online meetings, online training, and online events • Conduct trainings and large events. Large-scale training and events with hundreds or even thousands of participants.

24. MDCPS Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 • Collaborate in real time. Share, collaborate, and discuss projects in real time. Make critical decisions quickly, with all the stakeholders, regardless of geography. • Simplify administration and deployment. Can easily enable everyone to conduct effective online meetings

25. Portal Infrastructure and Build

26. Overview • Active Directory Environment • Historically decentralized AD environment • Portal project coincided with AD migration project • DMZ forest was created for student and parent accounts • Initially intended for web applications only

27. Initial Infrastructure Build • Environment architecture and design • Security architecture and certificates • Hardware sizing and implementation • Active Directory Schema modifications • Database architecture and build • Data Warehouse interface and data positioning • Development and Integration environments • Active Directory provisioning and replication

28. Hardware

29. Replication Topology

30. Account Creation and Management • Dynamic Provisioning into AD • Guardians identified with a PIN and questions about the student • Guardians linked to student as an attribute • of the AD user object • Password self-reset • M-Tech’s P-Synch software used • Users register challenge Q&A for self reset

31. Single Sign-On • Single sign-on technology used for transparent access to resources An overlaying system of session tickets allow uses to login once and access disparate applications

32. Storage and Backup Backup Strategy 20 TB fiber channel SAN space allocated 20 TB lower cost FATA drives allocated as a staging area Staging area is backed up nightly to a tape library Selected collaboration sites are kept on different retention schedules

33. Resources to Maintain • 2 System Administrators – handle all updating to environments • 2 Exchange Specialists (Part time) • 1 Database Administrator (Part time) • 3 .Net Developers • 1 Network Analyst (Part time)

34. IT Budget Reductions

35. Cost to Implement • Total Cost to Implement Portal - $3.5 million