Work Projects

I know I say this frequently so why not again…WOW!!! What an amazing three days, and I didn’t realize how exhausted one person can be. As I am coming off the high of the first STEAM Carnival at ESC Region 11, it still has my head spinning from the electric atmosphere that was created by over 3,700 students, 100+ teachers, and 100+ ESC support staff.

I have a personal rule not to post video or photos on this so the impact of my words will not be near that of the visuals that were present the past three days. From battle robots to students flying across the world (compliments of the green screen) to the 3-time national champion solar car team, the students and teachers minds were blown by the learning. AND THEN…I got the pleasure of meeting them at the corner to proceed to Zone 2 and Zone 3. The kids thought their experience was complete when really they were just getting started. Talk about excitement!

Partnering with some great entities like Two Bit Circus, Trash 4 Teachers, Perot Museum, Frontiers of Flight Museum, Merge VR and so many more that I apologize for not calling out by name, we were able to bring the students their “Best field trip ever!” They built rockets and race cars, experienced a dome planetarium, played on the button wall, traveled through the body by Virtual Reality and never really slowed down for just under 3 hours. 

I don’t know how to thank everyone who took a part of this giant puzzle and put it together for our students. This is why we are in the business of education. When students have the opportunity to learn like this, it will be a day that they will not forget for a long time.

In November of this past year, I introduced the idea of forming a committee to discuss the possibility of creating a VERY large fiber network to join all of the ESC 11 districts into a WAN type environment. The idea was tossed out to the TAC members and within less than two weeks, we were not forming a committee as much as we were pursuing the project for this year!

After several months of RFPs, planning meetings, discussions, board presentations and LOTS of paperwork, we are submitting our forms to USAC to seek funding for a multi-million dollar project that will span 43 of our districts with 51 connections during Phase 1. This is one of the largest projects ever tackled by the ESC and has garnered attention from across the state. Hopefully our hours upon hours of planning will be put into action to create an environment across our region that breaks down any barriers for student and teacher connectivity. 

Oh yeah…AND we will have 200Gb of Internet Access coming into our building to serve our districts. Plenty of bandwidth for all!

More to come I am sure…

Sometimes you have to weather the storm to be able to see the blue skies beyond. That was not a very eloquent statement though it was the best I could come up with on as little sleep as I have gotten recently. Now I am choosing to not go into too much detail with this post though it is going to be something that will shape my future either positively or negatively based on how I/we respond so it has to be part of the journey. 

Recently our ESC data center was attacked by a nasty little thing known as Ransomware. Taking down multiple systems and causing multiple days and nights of work, the incident has exposed several things that have been hiding under the surface and need to be addressed. My team has stepped up to work any and all required time to get us back on track to which I am eternally grateful. 

To make things worse, the entry point for this attack was patched to the required level as directed by the security standards. We happened to be the benefactor of a “Zero Day Hit” which means that we were attacked with the new version before the security gurus knew it was possible. The updated standards came out the next day. Thanks guys! (just kidding)

So…to put a silver lining on the situation. At least I can say, “We were FIRST!”