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Reddit’s r_k12sysadmin Credits: @r_channels @reddit2telegram
Advice for high school students at career day
I'm a K12 sys admin in a small town. I was asked to attend career day tomorrow at our high school. I don't know if I'm expected to present or just answer questions at a table, but I thought I'd start brainstorming advice to give the students if the opportunity presents itself. I don't plan to have any pamphlets or tri board posters, but I might just print out a QR to this thread if you guys add some gems to the list. Thanks!
Education and Career Entry
\- Get a degree, but don't spend too much money on it. It gets you in the door and removes most salary ceilings, but a specialty isn't really worth the trouble in IT early on. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology. Most hiring managers I know are way more interested in what you've done and what you can do than what school you went to.
\- Move. It's not impossible to start an IT career in Gallipolis, but why put yourself at such a severe disadvantage? Yes, you can work remotely, but chances are, you aren't going to land a good remote job fresh out of school. My advice: move to a city and cut your teeth for a couple of years. Once you have some experience and a more seasoned perspective, you can decide whether you want to move back.
Career Development
\- Certifications get you in the door and check a few boxes, but any company that insists you have a list of them is probably not worth working for. There are exceptions (for insurance reasons, price breaks in partner programs, etc.), but as a whole, the certification industry is full of hot air. Identify companies you might want to work for, find out what--if any--certifications you need, and get them (and only them). The rest of your time is better spent doing stuff.
\- Don't worry about a specialized focus now unless you already have it. Instead, start with a small project that you're pretty confident you can make an IT solution for...it can be a goofy passion project, or you can make an actual problem in your life easier to deal with. Keep doing this, and your areas of interest will reveal themselves naturally.
Workplace and Personal Growth
\- Your ultimate goal should be to find a place where you like to work. You like the people, the schedule, the challenge, and the workload. I've turned down higher paying jobs, working with sexier technologies because I knew I wouldn't be as happy. They're still there if I want them (I don't).
Communication and Professionalism
\- The most effective IT professionals can communicate effectively (both talking AND listening). IT is a foreign language to almost everyone who doesn't do it for a living. If you can be a good translator, people will want to work with you. If they want to work with you, they also might want to pay you. On a similar note, a lot of people like to tell you what they want because they think they know. Listen to what they're saying, find out what they really need, then offer to give them that.
Project Management and Efficiency
\- If you're bidding a project, and you're not already a seasoned expert (or maybe you are, but you don't have familiarity with the situation), conduct an honest assessment, create an estimate, then triple it. If you think the job will take you 10 hours, quote 30 on the project...you'll be glad you did.
\- Don't let scope creep kill your career. Here's an example of scope creep: you agree to paint someone's house brown. Halfway through, they ask if you can add red stripes, then they want to know if you can add windows, and eventually you're tearing down their house and building them a new one. If you're doing project work, take the time to outline what it is you're agreeing to do before you start, put it in writing, make the customer sign it, and stick to your guns...you have the right to say "no" at any point after doing this. A nice way of saying "no" is, "let's do that in phase two".
Self-Motivation and Learning
\- Don't wait to be trained. If you're "waiting for training" or for someone to show you how, you shouldn't be in IT. Ask for help, but don't wait for it.
Alternatives to MasteryManager?
We currently use MasteryManager for our online testing service. We do not have any major issues with this service. If you aren't familiar with it, this service essentially allows teachers to generate scantron-type forms (paper and online) as well as teacher-created test bank style assessments.
I am writing today to see if your school utilizes another "scantron" alternative and to find out about your experiences with it. We just want to be sure that we are still using the best service for our needs.
I appreciate your time and input!
https://redd.it/1bdvkv1
@r_k12sysadmin
GoGuardian to Blocksi?
Has anyone moved from GoGuardian to Blocksi (primarily focused on classroom management/student safety) willing to share any feedback? I have a Blocksi POC coming up; but GG is pretty in-grained here with the classroom teachers at this point so I am hesitant on transitioning. Any general feedback on Blocksi is also appreciated.
https://redd.it/1bds46t
@r_k12sysadmin
Server network connections
Just curious,
Are you sing a dedicated network switch for your server nics or are they just plugged into one of your normal stacks? I currently plug them into the regular stack and tag the vlans appropriately.
https://redd.it/1bdhf7u
@r_k12sysadmin
APC NetShelter
Anyone else still using ancient network racks from the late 90s?
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https://preview.redd.it/9lvdma5keync1.jpg?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f0b872784bdbf77726eb7c8f9afe251783a583bd
https://redd.it/1bd5yf3
@r_k12sysadmin
Teacher Phone Numbers?
I need to find a solution for allowing Teachers to contact parents by phone, especially if they are working from home for "Virtual Learning Days" aka Snow Days.
I am wondering if anyone has a solution that I haven't thought of.
We do not want to have teachers use personal Google Voice numbers because we would not have ownership of the account, or access to the data/logs for any worst-case scenarios.
Options So Far:
1) Google Voice- This would be my preference if it wasn't so much more expensive than the others, because we are slowly transitioning to Chromebooks. The cheapest I have seen licenses is about $12 per user per month.
2) Teams Voice- This is looking like the best option for now. Licenses would cost me about $3.50 per user per month. We have some Teams voice accounts and desk phones in place already.
3) Remind - I saw on their website that you can place voice calls within remind, however, I cant tell if you can call a number not associated with a remind contact, or what happens if we have multiple numbers for a student and the first number does not work.
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https://redd.it/1bcw5ca
@r_k12sysadmin
Vendor Turnover, E-Rate Advice, and Colonoscopies
https://k12techtalkpodcast.com/e/episode-157-vendor-turnover-e-rate-advice-and-colonoscopies/
We discuss the decline in edtech investments after the pandemic and the impact it may have on the industry. We also touch on the renewal costs for VMware customers and the opportunity it presents for competitor Nutanix. The episode explores the importance of team growth in a school district, highlighting the benefits of knowledge sharing, proactive vs. reactive work, and shared responsibilities. Additionally, listeners inquire about erate efforts in smaller districts and the strategy of swapping out vendors regularly.
https://redd.it/1bcal3a
@r_k12sysadmin
Do any of your schools teach a class covering critical thinking and digital life? How to navigate AI, social media, etc?
I have a teacher interested in offering a class revolving around the world of online critical thinking. She's hoping to review curriculum and syllabi from others who already teach this. Told her I'd try to help her find some since my social net is wider.
If you have a teacher in your district teaching this sort of class and can share any info, that would be much appreciated.
https://redd.it/1bc4yea
@r_k12sysadmin
google issues
Is anyone else experiencing very slow response times with Google suite products and log-in with Google with third party apps?
Our internet connection looks fine and other things besides Google is loading quickly.
https://redd.it/1bc1qc8
@r_k12sysadmin
CTL Chromebooks
Anyone use CTL? Pros/Cons?
How’s the warranty? Accidental damage covered?
We currently use HP 11 G9 and are looking to switch. Our damage rate is too high. We send in about 40/week for repair. We have about 4k of them, and they aren’t as rugged as we hoped.
https://redd.it/1bb230u
@r_k12sysadmin
Chromebook Plus For Staff
Just wondering if any of you have Staff on Chromebooks. We are 1:1 with students. Fully steeped in the Googleverse. Currently teachers have 2019 MacBook Air. None of them use anything else but the Chrome browser. When I told my admin that I'd like to deploy Chromebook Plus to staff, they said teachers would take it as a "slap in the face". I'm so tired of managing MacOS for teachers that are really just using them as Chrome devices anyway. I could get away from JAMF, not have to worry about updates or pushing new certs for our filter every year. I could offer staff convertible devices with larger screens for almost half the price.
https://redd.it/1ba7jlr
@r_k12sysadmin
What does it mean when...
So we are going through the cyber security insurance process.
Director came by and had me sign the cyber security professional box that said I was the person who is in charge of cyber security.
I have a background in the field due to being with the DOD for sometime, but are there any ramifications or things I should be aware of since I was told to sign it.
Does this mean if an incident comes up, that I am the lead on the situation?
https://redd.it/1b9rusm
@r_k12sysadmin
Google Screencast not working for students
We're having issues getting Google Screencast working for our students. It works fine for staff accounts but for student accounts the screen loads for a little bit and then says "Can't load Screencasts. Something went wrong. Close the Screencast app and try again".
I verified that "Allow users to create and view Screencasts" is set correctly in the Student OU.
We use Lightspeed for filtering and I found this thread that indicated it might be a problem with Lightspeed: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/thread/233706258/google-chromebook-screencast-app-blocked-by-web-filter-as-unknown?hl=en
However, with Lightspeed support's help I tried several different custom allow URLs and nothing seemed to work (they though that *//projector/* would work).
I'm no longer sure if it might be an issue with Lightspeed or if it might be a setting in the Google Console. Has anyone had this issue and found a resolution? Thanks for any suggestions.
https://redd.it/1b9sou5
@r_k12sysadmin
Converting VHS tapes to MP4
Hello all,
I feel kind of silly asking because I'm sure I could figure it out but I wanted to see if anyone else has done this since I've never done anything like it. We have a collection of old VHS tapes that we'd like to convert to MP4s and put in a shared Google Drive for archiving and social media purposes. Have any of you had to to do this and if so, how did you go about it? Any advice is appreciated.
https://redd.it/1b9xi9m
@r_k12sysadmin
Looking for a SAN switch
Hello,
I am told by admin that they want to stay in the Cisco sphere.
I am mainly looking for a Cisco switch that is recommended for san to server cluster data throughout so
Jumbo frames
48 port 10gb / 1gb (can be rj45 or sfp+)
Can be stackable as I want 2 for redundancy.
Thanks in advance!
https://redd.it/1b9rm1i
@r_k12sysadmin
Does anyone use Openpath out there?
So far we have migrated two of our 5 buildings to Openpath for ACU. So far, I'm seeing more positives than negatives if anyone was curious. My one challenge So far is with building secretary use. We have two video door intercoms in each building and I'm trying to figure out the best way for the secretaries to toggle between cameras. Our main door camera needs to stay streaming at all times since the occasional 5 year old doesn't ring to get in. So if someone rings our other door, toggling over to that door has been a challenge to answer. Is anyone that has this setup run into issues with this?
https://redd.it/1bdt3zy
@r_k12sysadmin
Email Relay to Gmail Failing unsupported protocol
My relay server stopped sending around 3:30 am today. I originally thought it was a windows update but that's not the case. I'm thinking it's most likely Google. Anyone else? If so anyone find a fix? I'm going to open a ticket with Google and will report back.
https://redd.it/1bdtnit
@r_k12sysadmin
Go Guardian Problems
Just to preface this we are currently running Go Guardian with what was supposed to be a year free of Beacon Core, which was actually Beacon Starter. Back in August I learned of Bark and implemented this as well. Everything has worked mostly fine all year, however I quickly found that Go Guardian is overpriced for what it offers. Last week Bark detected two separate threats of suicide that Beacon failed to detect. Go Guardian didn't even show that the student had searched these specific keywords, despite both Bark and the students personal device confirming. I have since reached out to Go Guardian for them only to tell me that the problem is Bark and not them. Although I was highly skeptical, I setup a test OU removing Bark from the equation and the problem still remains. It's spotty at best and will sometimes generate a beacon alert, however other times simply nothing. If I remove Bark, I may miss this which I will not allow to happen. The most infuriating part about this was when I first reached out to customer support, I was advised that this would be handled by an "engineer" and someone would be in contact soon. I confirmed the importance of this matter and that we need a resolution ASAP. I failed to receive a response for over 24 hours. While I completely understand not everything can be resolved in 24 hours. It is absurd to me with such an important issue that no one even reached out to advise it's being looked into. I called the next day for a frontline agent to advise that it's still sitting in que and has not been reviewed.
At this point we are switching to Senso next year, which will save us roughly $11,200. We have a couple school districts near us using Go Guardian who all completement it, however from my experience it is a Glorified porn filter. What is everyone's thoughts on this?
https://redd.it/1bdpwbg
@r_k12sysadmin
FME
Do any schools out there use FME? I used it for 8 years at a different job, and I'd love to start using it at my school district. I just want to know if PowerSchool allows connections from it. I can integrate it with the rest of the software we use, but PowerSchool is the one that I need the most information from.
https://redd.it/1bdbbwi
@r_k12sysadmin
Raptor
Anyone having issues with Raptor Visitor Management this morning? We have 3 users unable to login.
https://redd.it/1bd08ii
@r_k12sysadmin
Chromebook Login Issue
This started late yesterday but apparently still an issue. Attempting to login we get "OAuth2 token fetched failed." Quick Google search didn't really produce any results. Dashboard doesn't show any issues. Firewall doesn't show anything being blocked from the chromebook.
https://redd.it/1bcvqou
@r_k12sysadmin
Help with Dell Server being used for Camera Footage. High Utilization/Lagging
Good morning, everyone! I am the SysAdmin for a public library and have recently been having issues with our Dell PowerEdge T550 server. I use the server to run an NVR application named Blue Iris. I have noticed that our CPU utilization can get pretty high, and I suspect that the GPU is not being utilized to process the camera footage... When I try to check Task Manager, I can see CPU and Memory utilization, but the GPU doesn't even show up as a graph... almost like it isn't being detected. The same for Resource Monitor. In Nvidia Control Panel, you can also see 0% utilization (although here you can see the card IS being seen by the OS). I downloaded the most recent Data Center Driver from Nvidia hoping that would help, but it didn't make a difference... After contacting Dell Support, they basically told me they can't help me since they verified the hardware is functional, which makes this an issue with the OS.
We just paid close to $10,000 for this server about a year ago and I was really hoping I could run multiple VMs off of this machine, or Docker to handle some of our local applications. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I don't have tons of experience working with Windows Server, so maybe there is a simple fix I'm missing...
Hardware:
CPU: Intel Xeon Gold 5318S 2.1Ghz, 24C/48T
Memory:16 GB DDR4, 3200 MT/s
GPU: Nvidia Ampere A2, 16GB Passive
Operating System: Windows Server 2022 Standard
https://redd.it/1bc4rw0
@r_k12sysadmin
Student Emails and passwords
So I have been at my new school for a little over a month now and I'm still flabbergasted by our email and password setup for students. We just use their student number as their email and their first name with no capitals or anything as their password! This couldn't possibly be any worse in my mind. How do you setup student emails and passwords.
I'm thinking about generating Verb.Noun for their password this summer.
https://redd.it/1bc2hd7
@r_k12sysadmin
Insurance with ADP?
Are you still offering insurance if you have an ADP on your devices? Or has anyone moved from insurance and does a technology usage fee?
https://redd.it/1bbqt6i
@r_k12sysadmin
What is everyone's philosophy on network vs USB printers?
We just finished our e rate network upgrade Thursday. I have a ton of devices that we were waiting to deploy because we are changing the wifi passwords after a decade and getting rid of our generic AD administrator account among other changes. One of then being that we are kicking all network installed printers off the ew network and making policy so all printers are set up using USB. How does everyone else handle printers? Do you even have printers in classrooms or just cannon or xerox copiers in the teachers lounge or something?
https://redd.it/1ba8of4
@r_k12sysadmin
Calendar options that you can edit and customize
Anyone have recommendations/suggestions for calendars that our admin staff can customize and edit ? I found calendar labs but they said that’s what they’re using and looking elsewhere for options that might be easier to use or create. The VP that’s been doing it on calendar labs is leaving this summer so they asked about maybe finding something that might be better, so just fishing for options here at the hive mind.
https://redd.it/1b9xhm9
@r_k12sysadmin
MyLearning Plan Salary Tracker and Certification Sections
Does anyone have info, a guide or tutorial on these two sections of MLP?
https://redd.it/1ba1fza
@r_k12sysadmin
Apple Caching Server Question
I called apple, I searched the interwebs.
I looked at logs on the Caching servers and it looks like I know the answer but I need confirmation.
Will an older non supported OS of macos cache updates for newer versions of apple macos and iOS?
I walked into 6 Mac minis that are running on high sierra that can't update anymore that are supposedly being used for cached updates for macos Sonoma and iOS 17.3
https://redd.it/1b9y7h4
@r_k12sysadmin
Ubiquiti and 802.1x, Microsoft NPS?
Is anyone using Microsoft Network Policy Server to do 802.1x authentication with Ubiquiti?
I don't seem to be able to get a connection between them, and I'm not sure where to look in log files that they are talking with each other.
I am currently using this NPS with Cisco 5520 / 3802i wifi and it works fine. I am trying to add Unifi as another client service, but I never see anything in the logs.
I am running the locally hosted Unifi management in a virtual machine on Ubuntu.
NPS is on a separate VLAN from Unifi, but I have the firewall and routing working so I can ping them from each other's VLAN.
........
It's unclear to me how this actually works, since on Unifi the APs are fairly independent from the Unifi management server, while with Cisco all traffic is passed through the 5520 to the individual APs.
Am I supposed to be directly joining the individual Unifi APs to NPS directly, rather than connecting the management server to NPS?
https://redd.it/1b9szpz
@r_k12sysadmin
Any way to see which Less Secure App a user may be using?
As I'm sure you've read, Google is turning off access to LSA's in the Fall. I ran a report to see who in my domain might still have access and I'm getting 2 service accounts. Is there a way, through the console or GAM or somewhere, that I can see what service is actually using the LSA?
I'm just trying to get ahead of any potential headache with payroll or something using an archaic system that hasn't been touched in 20 years.
https://redd.it/1b9sl83
@r_k12sysadmin
