Presentation to the

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 childs 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_at_Edu Links to Learning Teacher
Assessment Volunteer SAP SOS Employee
Self-Service SharePoint 2010

• 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

• Portal LiteMay 1, 2006

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
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_at_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 students new
  District email account
• Teacher Class Roster will provide additional
  student assessment information

15
The Learning Village

• Create a Repository For All of The Districts
  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
• Riverdeep LMS
• 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 -gt staging -gt production)
• No build process

21
Office Communicator Server
Office Communicator Server
22
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
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
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-Techs P-Synch software used
• Users register challenge QA 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
School Year IT Operational Budget Reduction in Operation Budget FTE Spending Per Student Reduction in Spending Per Student
FY2010-11 15,358,077 1,056,323 346,981 44.26 3.26
FY2009-10 16,414,400 517,479 345,406 47.52 1.54
FY2008-09 16,931,879 4,585,108 345,150 49.06 12.82
FY2007-08 21,516,987 335,382 347,731 61.88 .01
FY2006-07 21,852,369 -- 353,216 61.87 --
Total Reduction in Operation Budget Total Reduction in Operation Budget 6,494,292 Total Reduction in Spending Per Student Total Reduction in Spending Per Student 17.63
35
Cost to Implement

• Total Cost to Implement Portal - 3.5 million