{"id":1035,"date":"2016-05-22T01:29:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-22T01:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2025-10-06T15:52:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T15:52:16","slug":"what-every-k-12-windows-district-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/2016\/05\/22\/what-every-k-12-windows-district-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"What every K-12 Windows District Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[Note: This post assumes you are reading this as part of the technology staff of a K-12 Windows based school district.\u00a0 I am not a MAC guy and would not presume to know what a MAC district needs.\u00a0 I won't bore you with my credentials, but I have been in IT a while and in education since 2003.
\nI have recently been helping a new tech director and came to realize that there is little guidance out there on the minimum things a good district needs. \u00a0 Some of the things I have been suggesting are not at his new district and I would have assumed any tech staff would have those things.\u00a0 I realize that some readers may feel some of these are unnecessary and that other items should be added.\u00a0 Feel free to add your ideas in the comments section below.\u00a0 These are NOT in order, I think they are all required so order seems unimportant.
\n1.\u00a0 A VM (Virtual Machine) system.\u00a0 I have almost every server virtualized.\u00a0 Until 2012 I did not believe that\u00a0 a virtual server could run as well as a physical one.\u00a0 I was at a Spiceworks meeting and an acquaintance convinced me to try the free version of VMWare<\/a>. \u00a0 I now use ESXi for all my virtualization.\u00a0 There are alot of reasons to virtualize servers.<\/a>
\n2.\u00a0 A helpdesk system.\u00a0 I just mentioned Spiceworks <\/a>so I might as well list that next.\u00a0 It is great, free, fully customizable, and runs easily on any Windows machine.\u00a0 There are others, but Spiceworks has a huge community and runs great.\u00a0 I LOVE spiceworks!
\n3.\u00a0 A Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)<\/a> machine running and configured in your network.\u00a0 After it is setup (2 hours max) and added to your group policy all your machines will stop downloading updates from Microsoft (a big deal if you have 100s of machines) and just get them from you server instead.\u00a0 Mine is virtualized and on a 500Gb drive due to the size of downloads.\u00a0\u00a0 A properly configured WSUS downloads and accepts your defined approvals automatically.\u00a0 You should not have to touch this again after setup.\u00a0 You configure your AD to point to it and how the clients will process the updates.
\n4.\u00a0 A Key Management Server (KMS)<\/a> to distribute your Microsoft keys to your servers and clients.\u00a0\u00a0 Installing actual keys on every client takes time and puts your key out on every machine a student logs on to.\u00a0\u00a0 Instead, you can put your keys onto a KMS server and never activate anything again. \u00a0 And, if a laptop is stolen, it will deactivate and stop working eventually.\u00a0 KMS was not a must with XP when we had corporate keys that were unlimited…that is no longer the case.\u00a0 Just do it!
\n5.\u00a0 Look into the Microsoft EES agreement<\/a>.\u00a0 I am not a software renter by nature, but the EES agreement covers your operating systems on clients, servers, and CALs for a fraction of the cost.\u00a0 It covers unlimited clients with the price based on the number of employees in the district, not the number of computers.\u00a0 If you have anything close to 1:4 then you are way ahead going this route.\u00a0 We added Office (again way cheaper than buying even every 10 years) and employees can install it at home as well on the base price.\u00a0 It covers all the servers I am mentioning.
\n6.\u00a0\u00a0 An Imaging solution.\u00a0 We use FOG<\/a>.\u00a0 I know there are lots of options and I have tried a couple.\u00a0 I have been using it for several years and am very happy with it.\u00a0 Free, PXE client boots, and works with everything we have tried.\u00a0 In the educational environment we reimage machines all the time, if you don’t you should.\u00a0 Labs are done almost monthly.\u00a0 It refreshes the KMS server count and makes sure that the testing systems are ready to go each cycle.\u00a0 I have all my servers pulled with FOG as well as images for my labs and other machines.
\n7.\u00a0 Fresh images for your machines.\u00a0 It goes without saying that being able image without having good images is worthless.\u00a0 I have a VM that holds the pertinent images.\u00a0 I update them there and repull them before doing anything major.\u00a0 Having a good imaging server and good images makes your life so much easier.\u00a0 These two items alone are worth their weight in gold.\u00a0 Every time we start a testing cycle I reimage (it is just a click on the Web GUI) all my testing machines.\u00a0 I know they are all fresh and ready to go.\u00a0 I also know that if I am spending more that 30 minutes on a software issue that instead I can just image a machine in 10 minutes (6 minutes to image and 2 reboots to rename and rejoin…all automatic.)
\n8.\u00a0\u00a0 2 AD servers.\u00a0 I think it goes without saying that a sole AD is a terrible idea.\u00a0 But I do know at least one tech director that only had one, and then it failed.\u00a0\u00a0 I have one physical and one virtual.\u00a0 I would recommend one at each campus if you are a multi-campus district.\u00a0 The AD should be organized in both the user and computer categories so you can have manage them with good group policies.\u00a0 My AD server does DNS and DHCP as well.
\n9.\u00a0 Group Policies you can easily maintain.\u00a0 If your AD is well organized, then good maintenance of your network is much more efficient with good policies.\u00a0 I install all printers, network drives, software installs, all through policies.\u00a0 That being said, too many policies can slow your network and ruin the user experience.\u00a0 Take care!
\n10. An LMS (Learning Management System.)\u00a0 <\/a>There are a number of good ones.<\/a>\u00a0 We use Moodle.\u00a0 It is the most full featured, very configurable, and the most powerful.\u00a0 It is not the easiest or the most intuitive.\u00a0 It will require PD, especially for your less tech savvy teachers, but is without doubt the best free option.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It doesn’t matter which LMS you choose if you at least have one.\u00a0 No school should be without an LMS is this day and age.
\n11.\u00a0 Become a Google district<\/a>.\u00a0 Even if you use Office 365 (which we could but don’t) then there are enough things to make GAFE a great choice and make it worth your time.\u00a0 It is of course free, with unlimited storage, and a requirement to use Chromebooks in your school.\u00a0 It is worthwhile just to provide your teachers each a YouTube account to save classroom videos.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/a>It is also a great place to keep all PD videos for your district.\u00a0 I record almost every PD session and more to provide a repository for staff to peruse at their convenience.
\nThere are alot of parts that make up a good district.\u00a0 These are just some that seem to be missing in some districts I have helped.]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<![CDATA[Note: This post assumes you are reading this as part of the technology staff of a K-12 Windows based school district.\u00a0 I am not a MAC guy and would not presume to know what a MAC district needs.\u00a0 I won't bore you with my credentials, but I have been in IT a while and in … Continue reading What every K-12 Windows District Needs<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,30,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edtechteach","category-moodle","category-tech-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4928,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions\/4928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.nationaltrail.k12.oh.us\/ittech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}