What I Did Today: 12/10/2004

Sometimes, after hearing that I'm a school technology director, people ask me what I do.

Sometimes, at the end of the day, I ask myself a similar question: What did I do today?

The following may answer this question, both for myself and others. The times listed are approximate.

6:45--Breakfast at the local greasy spoon. Read the paper and saw an article about a report to be delivered at the board meeting next week. Made a note to call the principal about AV needs.
7:30--Arrived at our grades 11-12 campus and checked in with one of our deans about a meeting planned later with a student about a suspected hacking incident.
7:40--Began processing email. Deleted about 20 SPAMS.
8:00--Network admin stopped in my office. We discussed questions I should ask the suspected hacker; I asked lots of questions about what the server printouts meant to determine what approach to take with the student. Given that our indicators were inconclusive, we decided to take a gentle approach.
8:30--Back to email.
8:50--Waited in the dean's office for the student. Joined the dean for the interview. The student cooperated and sounded credible
9:15--Updated network admin, technicians, and librarian on status of hacking research. Technician played a voice mail from a parent who couldn't get an email through to a teacher. Gave info' to network admin to check.
9:30--Sent email to parent asking her to try sending message again. Got an email from a parent who said that when she was viewing her daughter's grades online in one class, an image of a person mooning came up instead of the assignment. She was bringing in a printout for us to view.
9:45--Got on the Student Information System (SIS) server and searched for files altered in past two days, image files, and any evidence of tampering. None found. Discussed with network admin. Our hunch is spyware or adware on the parent's computer.
10:00--Drove to grade 9-10 campus
10:15--Visited the clerk who had received the printout. Helped her clean and complete an Excel file containing download of next year's 9th graders from our sender districts. Used filters, functions, flat file saves to complete the file. Imported this file into our SIS and verified a successful import. Helped her create an email with directions for other staff.
11:00--Booted up my laptop in my other office. Got an email asking if faculty could see their class rosters for next semester in their electronic gradebook program.
11:10--Sent out directions for viewing next semester's rosters. Got 3 messages back that some teachers couldn't see the rosters. Sent a message to our Teacher Tech's (faculty who are adept and willing to help) and got confirmation that some could and others couldn't see.
11:25--Went to three teachers' location to see what they were seeing.
11:40--Back in the office, I sent out a message to stop the email responses from continuing. Call our SIS tech support. Learned there was a way to see the rosters but that it was a known problem.
Noon--Emailed all staff with the status of the issue and directions for a workaround.
12:15--Went to lunch. Saw our English as a 2nd Language coordinator. Discussed with him the data we need for the data file we'll have to create for our spring state tests.
12:30--A couple of Teacher Techs laughed about the number of messages that flew around during the search for the missing rosters.
1:10--Back in the office. I began researching the mysterious "moon" image that the parent had seen while viewing her daughter's grades. Armed with the printout, I now had a web address, which I used to look at the specific folder on our SIS server. The correct file was in the correct place.
1:20--Called our SIS Tech Support for 2nd time today. Shared my hunch that the problem was spyware on the parent's machine, but asked the person to look at our server. He verified that I had looked in the correct places and concurred with my hunch. Also gave me a couple of questions to ask the parent.
1:45--Called the parent, talked to her about the issue while she booted up her computer. The URL on her computer was correct, but she was still seeing the "moon" image instead of the grades. She accepted my suggestion that they might have adware or spyware on their machine.
2:15--Took a call from a vendor responding to a request for pricing for recycling of some of our aging equipment.
2:45--Received responses to an email on a list serve about accounting software. Found the software on the web and emailed links to business office staff who wanted the info'.
3:30--Called our long distance vendor about a phone line that was being billed by AT&T. Got a fax to change it back. Filled out the fax and faxed it back.

I know there were a couple more transactions in there, but these were the basics. I'm still not sure how to answer the question of what I do.

Maybe I should be asking myself how I did today, instead of what.

How did I handle the hacking research? Did I keep the students' interests in mind as I was protecting the school's network? Did I communicate the right priorities to my staff? Did I communicate to the parent with the "moon" image that we cared about the issue?

So, how did I do today?