EdTech Magazine: K-12

12 Ways the Web Might Change Education This Year

Corey Murray — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:32:41 +0000

If you’re an educator, or someone whose job it is to make technology work in the classroom, you’re no stranger to change. As the Internet and new software and hardware, from smartphones to netbooks to tablets, become ubiquitous in our schools — in many cases supplanting such back-to-school staples as lined notebook paper and No. 2 pencils — the art of education has also evolved.

Lesson plans, once replicated year after year in classrooms, now contain increasingly interactive components that change and grow alongside the technologies on which they are delivered.

At the crux of this seemingly perpetual arc of motion is the Internet — that constantly evolving omnipresent resource so adept at creating both opportunities and potential headaches for educators and IT staff.

As we reach the halfway mark of 2012 and another summer break approaches, Jeff Dunn, executive editor of Edudemic, offers this Slideshare presentation from branding firm Millward Brown, which proposes 12 Ways the Web Will Change This Year. (The list below is excerpted from Millward Brown’s presentation.)

1. Gamification. Games will become an even bigger part of how people and businesses interact online.

2. Mobile Payments. People will start to use their smartphones like their wallets. An increasing number of mobile payment applications mean more people will pay for goods and services with their phones.

3. Social Media. A growing appetite for social media and online video foreshadows an explosion in online platforms and tools for interaction and research.

4. Online Video. Video used to be something students and other users streamed in little buffering boxes to their desktops. Now, experts say, online video will be streamed more on television screens in living rooms and classrooms for widespread viewing.

5. Mobile Marketing. With the rise of mobile devices, companies will use the Web to target consumers locally and on a more individual basis than ever before.

6. Platform-agnostic apps. Analysts contend the growing app market will develop across platforms, allowing users to take advantage of products from different manufacturers, regardless of service or hardware provider.

7. E-commerce growth. As online marketing and ordering options grow, so does the market for consumer packaged goods.

8. Metrics. Social media brands and other companies will use analytics and user data to further target their services.

9. Personal information management. Companies will begin to use personal data to establish consumer profiles, and more attention will be paid to how personal data is managed, stored and used across the broader Internet.

10. Seamless sharing. More attention will be given to how users share information across social applications. Web traffic will be content-driven, as opposed to platform-driven.

11. One-stop shop. Web users, particularly in growing or developing nations such as China, will look for resources that provide a single point of entry or convergence for blogging, messaging, e-commerce and other needs.

12. Real-time data. Advertisers and others will rely more on real-time data collected online to make decisions and immediately reach out to and interact with potential users and customers.

From gamification to the growing presence of mobile devices to the impact of television, video and multimedia, the Internet — and how students and teachers use it — stands to change in myriad ways by the time school opens again next fall.

The question is: Will you be ready?

For the full post, go here.

How Would You Rate Your IT Security Awareness?

Mike Chapple — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:21:35 +0000

Are your users aware of their responsibilities for preserving the security of your school district? Do they know how to recognize and react to a phishing scheme? What about the proper response when a strange security-related error message appears on their screen?

One of the most important components of an effective information security program is a strong user-awareness effort designed to provide end users with the answers to these questions. Many of the most dangerous security threats depend upon the failure of users to recognize phishing, social engineering and other attacks that target this weak link in the security chain.

Crafting a Compelling Message

Think about the tools used for security awareness programs and the environments in which they compete for attention. A reminder e-mail might be one of hundreds of unread messages in employees’ inboxes. Posters hanging in hallways and break rooms are cluttered with many other messages. Awareness programs might be attended by people who are checking their e-mail and making notes for their next meeting at the same time. For these reasons, it’s imperative to create a message that stands out from the crowd and has an impact on the audience.

Brothers Chip and Dan Heath wrote a book called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die that highlights these issues and offers six characteristics you should try to incorporate into your messaging. The six items covered by their SUCCESs model are:

Simple: Remember, you have their attention for only a few seconds. Capture their active interest and impart a message that is memorable. Consider a phishing attack. What’s easier to remember:

“Only use your password on sites that end in ourschool.com.”

or

“The password that you use for your school account should be different from all other passwords that you use. When a website prompts you for your password, check that it is either an official school website or it is on the list of external sites approved by the IT department. If you have questions, please contact your IT support representative.”

The answer might seem obvious, but you’d be amazed how many people opt for the “more correct” but more complex second message. Keep it simple!
Unexpected: Grab people’s attention by standing out from all of the other clutter. Consider using images and words that are strikingly different from their surroundings.
Concrete: Put the message into concrete, everyday terms. Instead of talking about vague “risks to school security,” give concrete examples. Use something along the lines of “Four of your colleagues had their accounts compromised last year. This resulted in 12 hours of website downtime.”
Credible: Why should your audience believe you? A story of school loss sourced to an administrator known to your teachers and staff is much more credible than a similar story told in a general, abstract sense without attribution.
Emotional: Make your audience care about your message. Your specific emotion will vary depending upon your school and culture.
Stories: Consider using first-person storytelling to explain to people the behaviors you want them to exhibit. For example, a victim of a phishing attack explaining how he forgot to check the website address before providing his password will help people put themselves in the victim’s shoes.

Successful security awareness campaigns incorporate as many of these characteristics as possible. It’s not practical, of course, to cram them all into a single message, but you should take the time to evaluate any planned communication campaign against this checklist to fine-tune the message.

Fleshing Out the Program

In addition to creating a compelling message, come up with a good mixture of awareness efforts that complement each other. Effective campaigns include a combination of elements designed to provide information, increase awareness and remind people of their information security responsibilities on a regular basis.

One of the most important elements of an information security campaign is the initial training that employees receive when they begin working at an organization. This is an opportunity to impress school standards upon them before they’ve learned potentially bad habits from their coworkers or adopted work patterns that may pose security risks. Whether training is incorporated into a larger human resources orientation effort or offered as stand-alone training, consider covering the following topics:

Handling of sensitive information
Passwords and other authentication mechanisms
Social engineering and phishing
Compliance responsibilities
VPN use
Other topics important to your organization

While initial training is important, it’s also essential that the messages are repeated on a regular basis. One way to do that is with refresher training offered to all employees on an annual basis. As with initial training, you may be able to piggyback on other annual training provided by the HR group. Refresher training should cover the same messages as your initial training, but you might consider reducing the length of the training program to accommodate the work schedules of active employees.

Also, supplement the annual training program with periodic reminders on important topics. This is where e-mail, posters and other marketing materials come into play. Use them to highlight time-sensitive issues and remind people of very specific actions that they can take to improve the organization’s security posture. Remember, you’ll have only a few seconds to grab staff attention, so be sure to follow the SUCCESs model.

7 Steps to Safer Social Media in the Classroom

Corey Murray — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:30:00 +0000

The growth and popularity of social media, from Facebook to Twitter, has created a host of opportunities and challenges for today’s educators. Even the most tech-savvy among us have yet to harness the vast educational potential of these resources without opening schools up to the lingering uncertainties — and potential pitfalls — of integrating a medium that extends beyond the walls of the classroom.

News spreads fast over the Internet. And the minute a student or teacher says something online or posts something from a school computer that could be construed as hurtful or defamatory, you can bet someone somewhere will see it. And consequences will ensue.

To protect their students — and themselves, for that matter — schools need appropriate social media guidelines. In a recent article for Edutopia, produced in collaboration with Facebook, Steven Anderson, a district instructional technologist and independent educational consultant with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools in Winston-Salem, N.C., offers seven considerations for drafting a clear social media policy.

While no single approach is right for any one school or district, Anderson says, through an examination of culture, teamwork and existing policies, it is possible to develop a set of rules that work for your community. Here’s a truncated version of his list (some verbatim, some edited for space):

1. Examine your school culture. Gain an understanding of how your community feels about social media.

2. Organize a team. Include both educators who use social media in the classroom and those who do not.

3. Research. Evaluate policies already in place at your school. Look around at other schools. See what they’ve done. Get a sense for what works and what doesn’t.

4. Write a draft and solicit feedback. This is the hard part, says Anderson. Gather the information you’ve collected and ask others to weigh in. Schedule meetings and talk to stakeholders face to face.

5. Have the draft vetted by the school attorney and school board. Make sure your policy does not violate any current laws, policies or ordinances.

6. Introduce the policy to the community. Every team member should be tasked with reaching out to different stakeholder groups, says Anderson. It’s important to be open and transparent.

7. Conduct periodic reviews. Your new social media policy should be “a living document that is revisited often.”

Do you agree with Anderson’s seven steps? Read his full post, including a list of resources for each step and potential questions to ask, here.

Improving the Virtual Desktop Experience with Zero Clients

Jennifer Zaino — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:49:50 +0000

The popularity of virtual desktops has been slowly rising over the past few years. IT departments are interested in centralized desktop management, but they are leery of issues such as application performance degradation or incompatibilities and less-than-rich computing experiences.

Technology company Teradici started one major innovation when it created its PC-over-IP protocol. PCoIP’s broadcasting of only encrypted pixels (not data) across any standard IP network lets IT departments deploy zero clients free of standard CPUs, RAM, disks, fans and application operating systems. No client computing has to occur on the device; it just receives and decodes host-rendered pixels. The zero client approach offers many benefits to the IT department, including reduced desktop maintenance, better security and power savings.

Some of the more recent zero client products consolidate the display and PCoIP chip into one device, such as Samsung’s 23.6-inch NC240 and 19-inch NC190-1 PCoIP monitors, as well as LG’s 19-inch and 22-inch Zero Client monitors. Several months ago, Samsung added the NS190 and NS220 Thin Client monitors and the NS240 Cloud Display monitor to its zero client lineup.
One issue for PCoIP has been bandwidth utilization. “The user experience was good, but it was a bandwidth hog,” says Laura Hansen-Kohls, a senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group.

70% The percentage of enterprises that have adopted client virtualization and seen measurable cost reduction

SOURCE: Enterprise Management Associates

VMware View 5.0, the software maker’s most recent version of its client virtualization product, features new PCoIP optimization controls. Kevin Schroll, a senior product marketing manager at Samsung Electronics, says these controls decrease bandwidth usage by up to 75 percent. Schroll adds that Samsung’s monitors support the new optimization controls, which let IT departments maximize bandwidth savings with a simple-to-use, all-in-one zero client device.

How to Manage Your Windows Servers More Efficiently

Russell Smith — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:11:28 +0000

As virtualization technologies continue to be adopted at rapid speed, an ever-increasing number of servers must be managed. This requires that different techniques be used to automate common administrative tasks, reduce total cost of ownership and manage servers remotely. The following are five tips to help manage Microsoft Windows servers more efficiently.

Tip 1: Implement a change control process.

One of the best ways to guarantee good service to users is to set up a change control process for proper governance over changes made to mission-critical servers. If IT support staff has unrestricted access to important servers, such as domain controllers and line-of-business applications like Exchange, it won’t be long before somebody makes a change that causes a serious outage. Not only that, but without change control, it will be hard to determine what changed and when, which will make reverting to the previous configuration a very time-consuming process.

The five steps outlined below define a complete change control process. Taking even some of these steps and creating a process that suits your business will benefit your organization’s bottom line:

Record what needs to be changed, and determine the importance and likely impact on services.
Assess the impact in more detail by carrying out a full risk assessment, and ensure there’s a business or technical reason to take the change forward.
Create a detailed plan on how to perform the change, including a full back-out strategy in case a problem is identified.
Test the plan in a lab or preproduction environment.
Implement the plan in your production environment, and if successful, the change request can be closed.

Tip 2: Separate business-critical objects, and delegate control in Active Directory.

If you have properly thought-out security in place on your servers and Active Directory, systems will be easier to manage because changes can’t easily occur without IT staff going through the necessary channels. When designing security for Active Directory (see Figure 1), start by following basic advice.

Microsoft recommends that the default Administrator account in Active Directory should be disabled and renamed to make it harder for hackers to find. There should be a maximum of two accounts assigned Domain Admin rights. And the following groups, which are included in Windows for the purposes of backward compatibility, shouldn’t be populated because members of these groups are able to elevate to administrator privileges: Account Operators, Server Operators, Print Operators and Backup Operators.

Design Active Directory so that mission-critical objects, such as user accounts used to run system services, are separated into Organizational Units (OUs) that help desk staff can’t access without obtaining permission through an appropriate process. Other objects, such as employee user accounts, can be located in OUs where permissions are assigned to IT staff for the purposes of everyday management using the Delegation Wizard in the Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) management console.

Figure 1 – Active Directory Delegation of Control Wizard

Tip 3: Use Group Policy to manage configuration and security.

Because of the power of Group Policy and its potential to make changes across many servers at once, system administrators often shy away from using it. Therefore, it’s sometimes the case that server configurations are managed manually or using security templates, but these can be labor-intensive solutions.

Group Policy is part of Active Directory and can be used to create Group Policy Objects (GPOs) that define configuration and security settings for servers (see Figure 2). GPOs are applied to OUs and can be further filtered by AD groups. Because of its power, make sure to delegate control to modify GPOs only to qualified members of the IT team.

Figure 2 – Managing Group Policy settings in the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC)

Tip 4: Learn PowerShell.

The PowerShell scripting environment is your friend, especially if you need to automate repetitive tasks. One of my favorite uses of PowerShell is to install OS features or roles in place of the Server Manager GUI. For example, here’s an easy way to quickly add the Windows Server File Resource Manager from a PowerShell console window:

Import-Module servermanager
Add-WindowsFeature FS-Resource-Manager

Here’s a more complex set of actions, including a long list of prerequisites for installing an application such as Exchange (with Hub Transport and Mailbox server roles):

Import-Module servermanager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server –Restart

Windows Server 2008 R2 introduced the AD PowerShell module, enabling system administrators to manage Active Directory using PowerShell natively for the first time. Install the module as follows:

import-module servermanager
Add-WindowsFeature -Name "RSAT-AD-PowerShell" –IncludeAllSubFeature

To get a list of the available commandlets, type:

get-help *-AD*

Tip 5: Use remote management tools.

Windows Server Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) can be downloaded for Vista and Windows 7, and appear as an option for installation at Turn Windows features on or off in the Programs Control Panel applet. You can choose to install specific tools or the complete set.

With the tools installed, you can perform common administrative tasks, such as creating and modifying Active Directory user accounts with the Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC) management console. Provided you’re either logged on to a workstation with a domain account or start the tool with alternate credentials, it’s possible to work with the tools while no longer needing to log on interactively to a domain controller.

PowerShell V.2.0, which is included in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 out of the box, allows administrators to run commands against servers across a network and is supported on Windows Vista (Service Pack 1) or later, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. PowerShell requires that the WinRM 2.0 service is running and set to start automatically on the computers that should be connected to remotely. Run the command below in a PowerShell window to enable remoting:

Enable-PSRemoting –force

Assuming all the computers you want to connect to — and from — are part of an Active Directory domain, no further configuration is required. Here’s an example of using PowerShell against a remote computer (“computername”) to query Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) for information about local disks, and then format the information to show only the device IDs and free disk space:

Invoke-Command computername {Get-WMIObject win32_logicaldisk | select deviceid,freespace}

Invoke-Command can be shorted to icm and similarly, Get-WMIObject shortened to gwmi.

Protecting the Data Center Using WAN Optimization

Alan Joch — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:02:15 +0000

For the large school district, a typical infrastructure scenario will include several centralized data centers that may even be located on different continents to serve global operations. Over time, these hubs generally will expand the data they handle, as well as the applications they push out to far-flung users.

In addition, as the enterprise consolidates to take advantage of data center capacity, many are migrating to virtualized environments. Keep in mind, while this reduces the footprint, it also adds to network traffic.

In such a scenario, it can prove expensive to maintain effective replication of the data and provide adequate failover for applications. The result can leave the organization exposed without a viable disaster recovery approach, notes Nik Rouda, director of marketing, solutions and verticals at Riverbed Technology.

“We have seen an increased use of networks for disaster recovery in the past,” he adds. “But it has been very expensive to perform backup and replication across the WAN.”

The cost associated with disaster recovery is dramatically decreased on an optimized network. This is because moving data is simpler and cheaper to do, which means DR strategies are more affordable.

But beyond cost factors, WAN optimization also alleviates the technical constraint of moving massive amounts of information over long distances. “The challenge is to keep the data centers in sync with one another,” according to Mark Urban, senior director of product marketing at Blue Coat Systems. “Firms also want to be able to constantly move vast amounts of data between them.”

Center-to-center backup and replication thus becomes practical and feasible for organizations, and freeing bandwidth creates the opportunity to generate a high-availability network and resources. “More data can be protected,” Rouda says. “What’s more, backups can be more frequent and data recovered much faster, which makes recovering from a disaster easier and cheaper.”

WAN optimization offers a big step toward that protection.

Safety First

One concern many districts have about WAN optimization is security. Won’t increasing the amount of data going across the network spawn increased security needs? By bumping up the speed and volume of data, the ability of existing security solutions to handle the increased load should certainly be assessed.

“Security people are seeing the effect of the ‘tyranny of the numbers,’” says Mark Kadrich, an independent consultant and former head of The Security Consortium. “More traffic means there is more to inspect in order to find that golden nugget telling us there is a breach.”

With the focus on network infrastructure moving from the LAN to the WAN, with large optimized connections and different features being applied such as load balancing, it gets tricky for security tools to perform well.

“Many [districts] are operating at near capacity,” Kadrich says, “In addition, there is a trade-off between increasing network loads by several orders of magnitude and the need to inspect traffic.”

What this means is that districts must include both the network providers and security enforcers on their IT teams in the optimization process. “It comes down to how well we distribute resources,” Kadrich says.

Despite the concerns, there is a major advantage for the district infrastructure in optimizing WAN traffic and creating a matching information assurance strategy, Kadrich acknowledges. Specifically, it strengthens a district’s disaster recovery capabilities.

How to Develop Online Courses

EdTech Staff — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:16:49 +0000

School districts should follow a step-by-step process for exploiting the potential of digital technologies as learning tools.

Determine objectives. As in traditional curriculum planning, the first step in developing a course for virtual learning is to determine the ultimate educational objectives and the skills students must master. Those skills will likely include critical thinking and learning to use technology to achieve educational goals.

Conceptualize the course. Once the overall course objectives have been determined, conceptualize the course in painstaking detail, keeping in mind the technologies available. The instructor or team developing the virtual-learning course defines specific objectives for each unit or session of the course and then matches those goals with an appropriate technology to help students achieve the objective.

Create the course. Executing the concept means working through the course or learning management system to create (or gather), assemble and schedule all the elements of the virtual-learning experience. In addition to the academic subject matter, the course has to deliver logistical and housekeeping information, such as the syllabus, grading policies, and information about how the software works and how the student can get technical support.

Test the course. Ideally, testing the course should be a two-part process. The teacher or the designer, working with the IT staff, should go through the course and all related materials to make sure the technology works and that it presents the course as it was conceptualized. If possible, they should follow the testing with a pilot, in which a limited group of students and the teacher test the course as a real-life learning experience.

Go live and get feedback. A good virtual-learning course isn’t finished even after it goes live. Gathering feedback from students and teachers will help resolve problems and identify areas for improvement as the course evolves. Virtual courses should be tweaked once a year, and a major revision should take place every three years to keep the content and delivery fresh.

For more information, read CDW•G’s Virtual Learning in K–12 Education white paper.

5 Tips for Improving Collaboration with SharePoint

Keith Galumbeck — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:52:51 +0000

Many districts use Microsoft SharePoint 2010 as an “out of the box” solution to promote information sharing and collaboration, but even the savviest IT pros can fail to maximize the utility of this popular software. However, the tools and the opportunity are right at users’ fingertips — and making the most of them requires good governance.

The definition of governance varies depending on who is asking the question and what they are trying to accomplish. According to Peter Weill and Jeanne W. Ross of the Center for Information Systems Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management, IT governance means “specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT.”

By looking at governance as a way to encourage people to utilize the framework designed for the efficiency of the organization, it becomes easier to foster quick adoption and improved methods. Effective governance is built around a district’s needs for a specific technological application or platform. Designing governance to encompass end-user input, guidelines and specific business needs, and to incorporate the strength of a specific technology such as SharePoint 2010, will make deployments more effective and manageable.

When starting a SharePoint 2010 migration or adoption, consider the following:

1. Begin Your Governance Plan Before Anything Else

The governance discussion will walk a district and its IT department through phases, including the granular steps within each phase, and deliver a viable framework. Start with a high-level framework and break each area down into smaller, granular pieces. The goal is to have management and governance aligned. This is also an important way to build relationships between staff and management and will help ensure that the project stays on track.

2. Start Small, but Think Big

Instead of looking to migrate to or adopt SharePoint 2010 across the entire school district, begin with a pilot. By starting with one department, there is a chance for a quick win and an opportunity to increase staff learning and refine IT processes. After experiencing some success, determine what data within the organization is mission-critical and used on a regular basis. Then migrate the business unit onto the SharePoint 2010 platform while updating that critical data.

More than125 million licenses of SharePoint have been sold worldwide.

SOURCE: Microsoft

3. Be Brutal with Old Data

Not everything is valuable and needs to be kept. Whether migrating from a previous version of SharePoint or adopting SharePoint for the first time, do not automatically bring over all the old data, processes, workflows and configurations. Think “fresh start,” and look at everything through a clean lens. You can pull mission-critical data into SharePoint through the use of Web Parts or directly into SharePoint libraries, directories and folders.

4. Understand the Importance of Metadata

Design governance around the use of metadata instead of entirely around folders. SharePoint 2010 incorporates a strong use of descriptive and managed metadata for a more robust enterprise content management environment and search. Talk to end users and administrators about the key words and terms they search for on a regular basis. Discuss the value of tagging new and imported documents with certain metadata and how that will drive business efficiencies.

5. Don’t Overlook Training

SharePoint 2010 has too many features and capabilities for any one person to know, let alone use on a daily basis. During your governance planning, meet with representatives from all areas of the district who will be using SharePoint — not only management, but also everyday end users. Take note of how they do their daily work and what is important to them. Incorporate Microsoft’s Productivity Hub into your SharePoint 2010 design. Productivity Hub offers training materials that can be geared toward various levels of users.

What You Should Know About Microsoft Licensing

Russell Smith — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:09:46 +0000

Microsoft licensing is a bit of a mystery to those who are not directly involved in procurement. But it’s worth understanding the basics when exploring how virtualization and cloud technologies could benefit a school district. Depending on the kind of license agreement an organization currently has in place, desktop virtualization and the promise of anytime, anywhere productivity for teachers, administrators and staff could prove to be expensive if it’s not planned for carefully.

Location, Location, Location

Windows Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) licenses allow users to connect to virtual desktops so they can securely access line-of-business applications from any device with an Internet connection. VDA can be acquired as a benefit of Software Assurance, Microsoft’s subscription-based licensing program, or it can be purchased separately for $100 per device, per year. A VDA license not only permits access to a virtual desktop, but it grants the right to install Windows 7, Vista or XP in a virtual machine (VM) and run up to four virtual desktops concurrently.

Also included are Extended Roaming Rights, which allow the primary user of a VDA-licensed PC to access a virtual desktop from any device not covered by Software Assurance or VDA, provided the device is located offsite. If a user wants to access a virtual desktop in one of the district’s conference rooms from a portable device, it must be covered with a VDA license. Who owns the device and where it’s located are important. Extended Roaming Rights are only valid if the device is used offsite and doesn’t belong to the district. In all other cases, a VDA license must be purchased.

Server Licensing Basics

Even if there’s no plan to run a full virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), consider providing remote access to VMs hosted on Windows Server or virtualizing a physical server to cut hardware costs.

A license for Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard allows for an additional copy of Server in a VM; however, the OS running on the physical machine can only be used to manage the server OS in the VM. Enterprise Edition allows up to four VMs to run. But there’s a caveat: The physical OS can be used to host applications and not just manage the VMs, provided that no more than three VMs are running. Once a fourth VM is added, that right is lost, and the host server OS can only be used to manage the guest VMs. These restrictions are removed completely for Datacenter Edition, which licenses an unlimited number of guest VMs.

If you’re using Windows Server 2008 R2 as part of a VDI, there’s no need to purchase Client Access Licenses (CALs) for each user who accesses a virtual desktop. CALs are required to access Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter editions of Windows Server for all other purposes unless access is limited to an anonymous connection from the Internet — such as no-user account authorization. For users connecting to Windows Server via Remote Desktop Services (RDS), an RDS CAL is required.

VDI Licensing Suites

Microsoft offers two suites to simplify licensing for its customers: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Standard Suite and the VDI Premium Suite, but neither includes VDA licenses.

VDI Standard Suite includes RDS CALs, but they can only be used to access virtual desktops, not applications running on a host server. The suite also includes licenses for the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), Virtual Machine Manager Client Management License, Systems Center Configuration Manager Standard Server Management License, and Operations Manager Standard Server Management License. With the exception of MDOP, usage is restricted to enabling a VDI environment.

VDI Premium Suite is the same, except RDS CAL rights are equivalent to those outside the suite, including Microsoft Application Virtualization for RDS.

Windows Thin PC

As part of Software Assurance, Microsoft allows customers to repurpose PC hardware and install Windows Thin PC, a locked-down version of Windows 7 with a small footprint specifically designed for accessing a virtual desktop. Under this scheme, repurposed PCs that were covered by Software Assurance don’t need an additional VDA license to access a virtual desktop. Thin PC includes support for System Center Configuration Manager out of the box; Embedded Device Manager can also be used to manage Windows updates.

In the Cloud

In July 2011, Microsoft introduced a new program, License Mobility Through Software Assurance, which allows users to transfer licenses for certain application servers from on-premises hardware to Authorized Mobility Partners in the cloud. The list of eligible application servers includes: SQL Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint, LyncTM, System Center servers and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Office is licensed in much the same way as Windows 7 under Software Assurance. The primary user of a licensed device has Extended Roaming Rights and can access Office on a virtual desktop from an offsite location. Microsoft’s productivity suite is also available as part of Office 365, which combines hosted services for Exchange and SharePoint, plus the option to install the desktop suite applications locally or use cloud-based versions of the main Office programs.

The Cheapest Way to License Multiple Devices

Make no mistake that Microsoft is maximizing its profit through licensing VDI; and while the technology promises to cut costs and increase flexibility, allowing employees to work from any device, anywhere, could prove costly if you don’t understand the licensing implications.

If Windows desktops are licensed via a subscription-based Software Assurance agreement, devices automatically gain a VDA license, which allows up to four VMs to be accessed concurrently and includes Extended Roaming Rights. All district-owned devices not covered by Software Assurance or a separate VDA license, and employee-owned PCs brought onsite, must be licensed appropriately before they can be used to access virtual desktops.

Key Takeaways from the “Best of BYOD” Webinar

Jimmy Daly — Tue, 08 May 2012 18:57:50 +0000

“Bring your own device” (BYOD) is more than a hot topic in education technology; it’s a revolution. Many of today’s students already have a mobile device, such as a smartphone, tablet or notebook computer, and some have more than one. Although some district IT leaders view this reality warily, others see it as opportunity to allow students to empower themselves — both in the classroom and at home.

As mobile devices become even more affordable and widespread, schools will find they have no choice but to include student- and teacher-owned technology in their long-range IT plans.

Because many schools, colleges and universities around the country are following the BYOD movement with deep interest, EdTech: Focus on K–12 hosted a webinar on the subject on May 3, 2012. “The Best of BYOD: How to Prepare Your Network and Your Stakeholders” convened a panel of BYOD innovators in both K–12 and higher education to share their best practices and answer audience questions about some of the most pressing issues institutions face when they roll out a program.

Alex Inman, director of information services for the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., moderated the hour-long event, which also featured remarks from Bailey Mitchell, chief technology and information office for Forsyth County Schools in Cumming, Ga.; David Jakes, coordinator of instructional technology at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview, Ill.; Raechelle Clemmons, chief information officer for Menlo College in Atherton, Calif.; and Marla Clark, managing editor of EdTech. (Read more about the presenters here.)

According to Mitchell, elementary schools are leading the BYOD charge. Younger students aren’t transitioning to mobile devices; they have grown up with them. As they approach middle and high school, they will depend even more on these devices.

This is where the schools come in.

All of the presenters acknowledged that BYOD presents certain challenges. For instance, bandwidth has to increase dramatically to fully support the demands an influx of student- and teacher-owned devices place on a network.

Bandwith is big hurdle.The more you provide, the more students use! - @rclemmons

— EdTech K–12 Magazine (@EdTech_K12) May 3, 2012

Content filtering is another concern, given the requirements of the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Devices enabled with 3G and 4G capabilities can bypass filters, giving students access to potentially inappropriate content at school. The panel agreed that teachers, parents and students must work together to manage this challenge responsibly.

The fact that not every student has his or her own device is equally problematic — and a cultural challenge that must be tackled in the classroom. Schools can provide a pool of “loaner” devices, but the panelists agreed that for those who cannot afford to do so, group projects offer an excellent work-around. Not only do group projects promote collaboration, students can use devices to which they might not otherwise have access.

The panelists also emphasized that successful BYOD programs are driven by pedagogy, not by the devices. Mobile devices can empower student learning, but only if they are leveraged properly.

Learn more by watching the archived webinar and downloading its corresponding presentation.