Internship Summary

12/09/2016
CSC L295 Coop / Work Experience
Brian Ghilliotti
Professor Christopher Parden
Quinnebaug Valley Community College
Sponsoring Organization: Plainfield Public
School District

This internship made me aware of the growing influence of technology in public

education. It was a little shocking to me, as I remember going to school at a time when
computers were nothing more than a few terminals with green and black screens placed
in a small room that made up the computer lab. Many schools in my district did not
even have computer labs. Now, computers were being issued to students. There were
several computer labs in each of the schools,and chalk boards have been replaced by
large, digitally based touch screens called SMART Boards.
In the initiall stages of my internship, I was shown the various mainframe
systems throughout the school districts facilities, and was provided a good example of
the various specializations of servers. By relying on specialized servers, a schools
network traffic can be kept internal, rather than using network recourses to get data
from other sources on the external network.
This sustains the 80%-20% rule, which holds that 80% of a networks data should
be kept within the network, and only 20% of the data should be going in and out. This is
greatly supported by content servers, which are specialized servers that provide most of
the specialized data needed by the network, instead of accessing resources outside of
the LAN (Local Area Network).
An example of this is the Acellus Server, which handles the Plainfield School
Districts testing and tutoring services for students. Also, a Discover Access video
content server acts as means of storing and relaying video content to students. The
Plainfield Public School Districts internet security is partially managed by a Barracuda
firewall server, which filters out spam and archives e-mails.

Wireless security is handled by a Fortinet Server. However, the major of the

schools districts wireless security is managed by the State of Connecticut. The last line
of defense for schools network security is its website monitoring and blocking
management system, which was shown to me by my internship sponsor.
I played a role in setting up the numerous laptops used by the school district.
They were using a type of lap top called a Google Chrome Book, and they were
provided with a cabinet like power recharging station called a Computer On Wheels, or
COW, as the school district information technology supervisor explained. These COWs
needed to be wired so that the power recharging cords were plugged into the correct
recharging circuit within the recharging station. Next, the power recharging cords had to
be organized so they were ready to be plugged back into the various laptops as they
were being brought back into the COW.
My previous coursework learning was reiterated through conversations with the
school districts IT staff. We discussed included RAID configurations, processor chips,
trouble shooting approaches, Domain Name Server architecture, remote access, active
directory management utility, and network management approaches.
This was also an opportunity to observe the social issues that computer technical
support workers deal with on a daily basis while supporting a school environment. My
internship sponsor expressed much frustration over faculty not submitting help desk
tickets and then complaining about issues not being addressed. He also had issues with
faculty asking for support without submitting help desk tickets, but he had less tolerance
for the previously described situation. Also, he described frustrations with faculty who
attempted to fix things on their own, which usually resulted in further technical

problems. For the most part, however, I observed a very positive relationship between
the internship sponsor and the school faculty.
I got to observe my sponsor supporting the faculty and their students while
dealing with Google Chrome Book account issues. In many cases, these issues
involved account establishment or log in issues. In one case, I observed a faculty
member providing written instructions for the students to create school Google
accounts, which they were to read on their own and implement. In many cases,
however, the students did not want really want to read them, and preferred to ask the
faculty member for help instead.
When a faculty member responded to the individual student, they could no longer
pay attention to the rest of the class, who in turn started to get a little hyper (as kids
are). If my internship sponsor was not there to help the school faculty member, it is quite
possible that the faculty member could have felt much more frustrated.
I often wonder if a better approach could have involved a faculty member
showing the students what to do for account creation in a step by step manner on the
digital SMART board in front. Any students who fell behind with the verbal instructions or
had specific technical issues could then raise their hands and get support from one of
the IT support technicians standing behind in observation.
I had an opportunity to witness first hand the ethical implications of the large
scale introduction of technology in a school setting. Without going into details, there was
a case where a students Google Chrome Book had evidence of inappropriate use by
their parents. The consequences for the parents were serious, leading to a situation
involving the States Social Services Department.

It made me consider numerous questions. Should kids be separated from their

families, even if they do not want to be, if their parents are misusing school issued
computer equipment? Also, in less (or perhaps more) serious cases, to what extent
should students be held liable for misuse of school issued computer equipment by their
peers or siblings? To a certain extent, the answer could be partially based on the fact
that any school issued computer equipment is the students responsibility, and they
must take all reasonable actions to safeguard it. However, nothing can be secured
100% of the time.
The growing use of technology has also helped handicapped learners. I
observed a system that seems to wirelessly power these electronic devices that I had
observed some faculty members wearing around their neck. When faculty members
speak, their voice waves are caught by the device hanging from their necks, which
helps amplify their voice for students who are hearing impaired. I presumed these neck
worn amplifiers presumably get their power from wireless access point technology, but I
was shown a server in the main IT support office that powered this building wide
hearing impairment support system.
I also go to witness the use of technology toward supporting school security. At
one point during my internship, there was a disturbance in the hallway between
students in the Middle School. The principal wanted to get video footage of the event so
he could properly and fairly administer discipline. However, he did not know how to
control the historical feed data of the schools security camera system, so he relied on
my internship sponsor to retrieve the video data of the disturbance.

Technology in schools is also changing the nature school libraries. When I was in
school, the school library was rather large. When I participated in this internship, I
noticed that the libraries in this school system were smaller. I recall many conversations
between my internship sponsor and the Plainfield Middle School librarian about
purchasing digital devices, which she would issue to students who wanted to take
materials from the library.
I also noted another conversation involving a librarian who said that she keeps
her encyclopedia sets locks up in the closet, as most students do not even use them
anymore, and instead rely on the internet for their research projects. My intern sponsor
noted that technology is too expensive and too fragile at the current time to see a
complete end of using books in a school library.
I think this interesting experience could have been bolstered if I was given more
opportunities to perform some of the IT support functions. The Plainfield School District
Technology Supervisor stated that school based internships were not usually offered
during the Fall semesters, and instead offered during the Spring and Summer
semesters.
This is because the volume of work is not as much during the Fall semester as it
is during the other two periods. The notable exception is in the very beginning of the
Fall, but it starts to slow after a couple weeks. The Plainfield School District Technology
Supervisor did go over the steps on how to initially configure a server rack, however. In
any case, I will continue to work on getting hands on experience by enrollment in
Quinnebaug Valley Community Colleges Network Design class for Spring Term.