Episode 36: Magicians and Problem-Solvers: CSD’s Information Technology Experts are Making ‘IT’ Work for Students, Employees
Sep 20, 2022Episode 36
Canyons School District - Sandy, Utah
Ever wondered how technology is shaping the future of education? Get ready to have your curiosity piqued as we journey into the heart of the Canyon School District's IT department with Scott McCombs, the district's IT director. Scott offers an insider's perspective on the multi-faceted roles his team plays - from troubleshooting classroom tech issues to managing a vast array of applications, ensuring the smooth operation of data centers, and fortifying cybersecurity. A conversation packed with insights, we delve into the art of balancing budgets and the crucial role of data-driven instruction in education.
The conversation takes a deeper turn as we shift focus to the profound impacts of technology in the classrooms. Scott enlightens us on the mission of his IT team - to empower teachers and students with resources that enhance, not distract, the learning process. We unravel the dynamic nature of IT, discussing how the team adapts to emerging issues and challenges. The digital divide is a hot topic, and we confront it head-on, discussing the imperative of internet access for all students and the efforts by Canyon School District to bridge this gap. Join us for this compelling discussion. Don’t just listen, learn. Tune in now!
Ever wondered how technology is shaping the future of education? Get ready to have your curiosity piqued as we journey into the heart of the Canyon School District's IT department with Scott McCombs, the district's IT director. Scott offers an insider's perspective on the multi-faceted roles his team plays - from troubleshooting classroom tech issues to managing a vast array of applications, ensuring the smooth operation of data centers, and fortifying cybersecurity. A conversation packed with insights, we delve into the art of balancing budgets and the crucial role of data-driven instruction in education.
The conversation takes a deeper turn as we shift focus to the profound impacts of technology in the classrooms. Scott enlightens us on the mission of his IT team - to empower teachers and students with resources that enhance, not distract, the learning process. We unravel the dynamic nature of IT, discussing how the team adapts to emerging issues and challenges. The digital divide is a hot topic, and we confront it head-on, discussing the imperative of internet access for all students and the efforts by Canyon School District to bridge this gap. Join us for this compelling discussion. Don’t just listen, learn. Tune in now!
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Connect Canyons, a podcast sponsored by Canyon School District. This is a show about what we teach, how we teach and why We get up close and personal with some of the people who make our schools great Students, teachers, principals, parents and more. We meet national experts too. Learning is about making connections, so connect with us.
Speaker 3:
Technology. It's everywhere. It has become so integral to everyone's lives and work that we often take it for granted. But, as any employer knows, it takes an army of network engineers, coders, security experts and computer support personnel to make sure organizations and computer systems run smoothly. Now, schools are no different. Canyon School District employs 75 information technology professionals whose expertise is needed for just about everything we do. To coincide with National IT Professionals Day on September 20th, the Connect Canyons crew invited Scott McCombs, Canyon's district's IT director, to talk a bit about his team and the heavy responsibilities they shoulder. Welcome to Connect Canyons, Scott.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3:
Okay, when it comes to education and technology, we probably most of us think about distance learning, maybe even augmented reality or virtual reality, But there's a lot more happening behind the scenes, right that just kind of keep the district running. So help me understand a little bit about sort of the breadth of your team's responsibilities.
Speaker 2:
So we've got a really great team and I'll kind of break them up into groups. So first group, i would say, is our break fix out in the classroom. We call those folks field techs. We've got a great team of field techs who are in the schools and they are helping and they are helping the teachers and the students and the staff right there in the schools.
Speaker 2:
They help them with any kind of technology issue that may come up at any given time. It could be things like projectors not working or a teacher not able to get into email or a student not able to log into their device. So we've we've got a great team there helping with that. We also have a great help desk team and they're taking phone calls from both students and staff primarily from staff, but as we rolled out end user devices during the pandemic, the help desk was taking lots of calls from students as well.
Speaker 2:
On top of that, we've got a system, a series of engineers who do things like keep data centers running and all the servers. We have over 350 servers, many of them virtual, that we support. We also have large amounts of storage in our data center and then we have a huge network. so, with about 50 different sites, we maintain both a large area network as well as local area networks within each location, both wired and wireless, so that that environment is challenging and exciting to try to maintain. We also have business engineers who support each side of the house, from our student systems to our finance systems and they support and help roll out new initiatives. We also have an in-house development team and they're developing many different systems to help both students and staff.
Speaker 2:
And then we've got some unique type technology specialists as well. So we have transportation technology, we're doing all of the GPS, we're doing camera systems, we're managing over 200 servers that's above and beyond the 350. But we have a server on every bus that we manage for the safety and the security. We also oversee marquees in the schools and all of the scoreboards, which is interesting to me. I wouldn't have guessed that IT would be over scoreboards. And then we manage all of the phones, from the cell phones that employees use to all of the desk phones that are at each teacher and staff's location. So we have a wide range of functions. We think we support over 120 different applications and that number seems to grow all the time. So it does keep us busy.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, i mean, i think when most families they think, oh, you're supporting you know the software for instruction or Skyward, some, most families are pretty familiar with Skyward, which is where you register for school, it's where you look up your students grades or test scores. Or maybe they're a little familiar with Canvas, which is sort of like the portal that you go to receive or to look at the lesson plans for the week that your teacher has assigned. But that, i mean just even that alone is so much right, but it's even way bigger than that. I mean just like everything from understanding how to pull data from our system so that administrators and teachers can understand how students are doing and performing and how they, where they should intervene and how they should intervene with different types of instruction. Right, i mean, it's just a it's a law.
Speaker 2:
It is. Yeah, we've got a great data warehouse and some really impressive business intelligence that our development team has built to really help us be data driven and make sure that we're providing the right little bit too much than the other, and then we try to find that balance again, and I think our team is doing a really good job. On cybersecurity, it is one thing that keeps me up Our security is really only as strong as our weakest link, and so making sure we're educating both students and staff about keeping themselves safe is important as well, and something that we're really cognizant of and trying to help the district do. What else? What?
Speaker 3:
else keeps you up at night.
Speaker 2:
Budgets Probably keep many in education up. You know technology is expensive and it is consumable, and that lifespan of technology worries me. We want to be making sure that we're purchasing the best technology that will have the best value and the longest lifespan, and so being able to cycle the devices and user devices that every student has access to, making sure that we're keeping the devices that the staff has access to current and relevant.
Speaker 2:
It's a challenge and a commitment on our administration's part. We also are very creative in our department about finding outside sources, whether it's federal or state funding and applying for grants and really trying to leverage every resource that we can to help our taxpayers and all students have access to the appropriate technology and to safe and secure internet access. I'm also really excited about the access to one-to-one devices that our students have. I really believe that those devices give a good foundation for teachers to use current teaching pedagogy and to be able to really take the best parts of their lesson plans and integrate the technology into that. Technology will never replace a good teacher, but it sure can help and magnify what a good teacher can do, and so I'm excited about making sure that all the students and staff have those resources.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so, and one-to-one is something that we've worked on for some time as a district. obviously, during the pandemic, like that became, even the higher priority, right. But you've also worked on connectivity, which you say is a little bit of a bigger challenge, and I know we've been tracking student access or the digital divide right, and how we're bridging that. How far have we come or where are we kind of with that?
Speaker 2:
So initially we believed that about 17% of our students didn't have at a decreasing, but it hasn't been decreasing as quickly as I would hope.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that's expensive expensive getting internet access And I know that we still have those connectivity available for families in need right, and really all families need to do is reach out to their school principal right To find out about how to connect.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yeah, if a family is in need, we can absolutely help them. We'll find the right technology solution, whether it's a hotspot, whether it's Comcast And the first step that a family really should take is reach out to their school administration And that administration will understand that need and help us find a good solution for them.
Speaker 3:
Well, the other thing that we don't probably talk about enough, too, is that Edge-ur-Rum partnership right. So if you are a school, a child enrolled in any public school district in Utah, right, or even in the higher education institutions like the University of Utah, you can access wifi if you're on any of those campuses through Edge-ur-Rum correct, using your credentials.
Speaker 2:
Yes, it's really an exciting project and program that we've partnered with UETN to do And UETN, in their partnership, really is leading out in the nation on this. So this Edge-ur-Rum network user and we're able to provide a safe and a secure environment for those students, whether they're here in canyons or in a district, traveling for sports or visiting a higher education institution. Edge-ur-Rum is available to all students and staff.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that's such a great resource And I like that they prioritize the safety as well. I would just mention that we did do a deep dive kind of on what we do with regard to digital citizenship and safety in another episode, so I'll just tease that. But I wanted to also say I know that you had mentioned as a school district, we're always trying to kind of achieve a balance in terms of what kinds of technology we want our students to have access to, what kinds of tools we feel will help move instruction forward right, will support instruction, and, i would say, though, in preparation for college so my son just graduated they do everything as computerized. There's nothing that he has done at school, whether it's registering, signing up for lunch, enrolling, getting into the dorms, getting his classroom schedules, purchasing his books, which are mostly now online. It is all technology, and thankfully he was prepared for that because he had some exposure to it here. I mean, they use Canvas as well, so Right.
Speaker 2:
Canvas is our learning management system, is adopted by all higher ed institutions. So the fact that we're training our students on Canvas training them on the technology and helping them become digital natives and be able to really incorporate that in any aspect of their life whether it be graduating and being career ready and ready to move into a career with the technology, or if it be moving to college and using the technology there to continue their education we really hope that we're providing the right foundation for our students to be successful and continue that success as they move forward. It is important that the technology tools really reinforce what's taking place in the classroom, not replace it, And so not using the technology for entertainment's sake, but using that technology for education's sake is one of our key focuses.
Speaker 3:
What are a few things, or just one thing even, that you would want folks to understand about what your team shoulders on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2:
It's always new, so we never quite know what we'll be facing on any given day, whether it's a brand new technology that we're being asked to support, or whether it's making sure that we're plugging maybe a security vulnerability or taking care of a network outage, as sometimes happens. It seems like there's always an opportunity for us to dig in and continually improve, and that really is one of our guiding principles as well, is that we, even as great as our team is today, we hope to be better tomorrow And we'll continually try to take that technology and keep moving it forward and provide really those resources to the students and staff.
Speaker 3:
I love that, because we are an education institution after all. so the imperative to be continuously learning, i mean I think that applies to all of us, so I love that. Bye.