Presentation to the
Delegation from the Center of
Education Technology
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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%
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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
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MDCPS Foundation
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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
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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
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Implementation/Timeline
2009 - 2010
Business Partners
Food Service
Live@Edu
Links to Learning
Teacher Assessment
Volunteer
SAP SOS
Employee Self-Service
2008 - 2009
SharePoint 2010
Attendance
Intervention
SPOT
Portal Lite
May 1, 2006
2007 - 2008
District and
Community
Enterprise Portal Deployment; Global
2006 - 2007
Registration System
Infrastructure and
Employee Portal
with Collaboration
SES
Weekly Briefing
Internship
Professional Development
RiverDeep
Unified Communications
(OCS)
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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
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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
Portal
Mash-Up
Data Warehouse
Student Information System
Student Registration
Course Information
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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
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SIS Functions
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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
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LMS Functions
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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?
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The Solution - www.dadeschools.net
Students
Parents
Employees
Community
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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.
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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
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The Learning Village
Create
a Repository For All of The District’s Digital Resources,
Aligned To Standards, And Accessible From One Point Of Entry
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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
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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
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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)
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Principal Portal
• Immediate Access to Human
Resources, SAP, E-mail
• Access to Active Student Reports
including:
• Accountability
• Academic Achievement
• Attendance
• Suspensions
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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
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Office Communicator Server
Office Communicator Server
MDCPS
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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
MDCPS
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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.
MDCPS
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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
MDCPS
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Portal Infrastructure and Build
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Overview
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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
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Initial Infrastructure Build
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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
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Hardware
Load Balancer
Sharepoint Web 1
SQL Server Cluster 1
Sharepoint Web 2
SQL Server Cluster 2
Sharepoint Web 3
Sharepoint Web 4
SQL Server Cluster 3
Tape Library
Fiber attached SAN
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Replication Topology
Bridgehead Site
8 DC’s
School Site
School
1 DC Site
School
1 DC Sites
1 DC
MIIS
343 Remote Sites
Data Warehouse
Mainframe
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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
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Single Sign-On
Single sign-on technology used for transparent access to resources
Student
Gradebook
Food Services
Portal
Single Sign-On
Transportation
HR / Payroll
RiverDeep
E-Mail
An overlaying system
of session tickets
allow uses to login
once and access
disparate applications
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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
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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)
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IT Budget Reductions
School Year
FY2010-11
FY2009-10
FY2008-09
FY2007-08
FY2006-07
IT Operational
Budget
$15,358,077
Reduction in
Operation Budget
$1,056,323
FTE
346,981
Spending
Per Student
$44.26
Reduction in
Spending Per Student
$3.26
$16,414,400
$517,479
345,406
$47.52
$1.54
$16,931,879
$4,585,108
345,150
$49.06
$12.82
$21,516,987
$335,382
347,731
$61.88
$.01
$21,852,369
--
353,216
$61.87
--
$6,494,292
Total Reduction in
Spending Per Student
Total Reduction in Operation Budget
$17.63
Cost to Implement
• Total Cost to Implement Portal - $3.5 million
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