Page 5 - TIME Newsletter - 2019
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and more powerful than it’s ever been. The sophistication response to the needs of the schools and community
of these tools, often powered by neural networks using and the situation becomes even more complex for
deep learning allows for much quicker results, the ability school districts.
to spot weaknesses early on and mid-course corrections The increasing frequency and sophistication of phishing
leading to better outcomes. While the richer the data, the emails, Distributed Denial-of Service (DDOS) attacks,
richer the result, privacy and security concerns also have port scanning and other attempted breaches require
to be vetted and mitigated. constant vigilance and aggressive response. The trend
Full STEAM Ahead towards Cloud-based technologies for application
STEAM (Science, Technology, hosting and SaaS provides an additional complication.
Engineering, Arts+Design and Beyond using best-of-breed tools
Mathematics) initiatives are taking and products to identify, respond
education by storm. These initiatives and stop malicious attempts before
have proven very successful in they become a breach, on-going
helping shrink the gap among US user education is paramount to
students for these critical skills. limiting these potentially devastating
While lauding their effectiveness, attacks. In a district of our size
it’s also important to note that they and diversity, the technology IQ
don’t come for free – the need for varies greatly across our user
more computers and computer labs, base requiring a least-common-
server and disk space, networking denominator approach to training
and internet bandwidth means and education on suspicious or
greater outlays for equipment, malicious activities.
support and staff. Moving to In Closing
virtualize as many servers as All CIOs face some of the same
possible, an in-progress hybrid SAN challenges—cost-cutting pressures,
upgrade and aggressive expansion timing of large-scale deployments,
of high-speed access to all schools rising infrastructure demands,
and facilities allows us to be nimbler security and privacy considerations,
and responsive to the ever-changing etc. The educational space provides
technology landscape. its own unique set of challenges
Organizations like Hour of Code & opportunities for technology
seek to demystify the process of PUBLISHED IN professionals, with the additional
designing and writing code. With mandate of being good stewards
activities starting as early as 2nd “CIO REVIEW” of the taxpayer’s money. Every
grade going through high school and MAGAZINE company or institution has a mission
beyond, students will be exposed to – for K-12 school districts it’s to
the concepts surrounding application February 9, 2019 provide the best possible tools and
design and development. As eager environment to prepare the youth of
participants in the Hour of Code and today for success in the area of their
other STEAM-based initiatives, we’re choosing. It’s a mission we take very
embarking on a long-term strategy to engage students seriously and strive to achieve—the strategic planning
early in these critical skills and keep them engaged and use of technology plays a large role in our ability to
through graduation. fulfill that mission.
Looks Phishy to Me! School districts across the country, like other taxpayer-
As the rate of technology use and ubiquity increases, funded entities have certainly felt the impact of the
so do the challenges of keeping our systems and data current anti-tax sentiment. Here at the School District
secure and private. The importance of understanding of Palm Beach County, we have been fortunate to have
outside threats and being able to respond quickly cannot passed two major referendums in the past two years to
be overstated. The increasingly interconnected nature address long-standing maintenance and technology
of devices and move towards everything being internet- issues. These were successful in large part to our ability
capable, or the Internet of Things (IoT) greatly broadens to convey how students would benefit directly as well
the landscape of potential threats. When everything is as transparency in how the funds would be used. The
a computer, everything is also a potential threat that community’s trust in and support for our mission and
needs to be managed and mitigated. Add to this is an purpose is satisfying and reinforces our belief that we’re
expanding Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy in on the right track.
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