Building a Digital Tool Vetting System: Budget Control, Privacy Compliance, and Teacher Buy-In

You too.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome.

As you get situated and you are joining us today, we're very grateful to have you with us.

We were just talking about still the spring break season, so we'd love for you to open up the chat, say hello, let us know who you are, what you do, where you're from, if you've been on spring break yet, or if it's still something to look forward to.

We'd love for you to say hello and get settled in.

So as you're saying hello, I wanna tell you a little bit about today's session.

This is gonna be such a good one.

It has been a complex issue for people to figure out their digital tool vetting.

It's a big issue, and very complex.

A lot of nuances with it.

And so today we've got two fantastic speakers.

We've got Crystal and Soren, coming to speak to us today, and they are from the Westmark School, and they're going to be talking to us about budgets, about privacy compliance, and of course, getting teacher buy-in.

So very excited to have this session today.

I think it's gonna be the whole package.

Again, we're gonna talk about some of the technical things all the way into change management.

So we're glad to have all of you with us.

Again, feel free to open up the chat if you're just joining and say hello.

But Soren, Crystal, welcome.

Thank you for being here with us today.

Thank you so much for having us.

Um, thank you e- everyone who wants to use the chat.

We have it open, we're looking, we're watching.

Um, if you want this to be interactive, we are happy to interact with you.

Otherwise, we'll just talk at you for this, this time being while you guys eat your lunches or do whatever it is that you're doing.

Yeah.

Welcome, everyone.

Thank you for, listening to us.

Um, this is the first time we're presenting for Atlas, so we're really, really excited.

Um, and, today we're gonna talk about kind of a challenge that a lot of schools face.

We've faced it in previous schools, and we definitely faced it here at Westmark.

But before we dive in, let me see if I can work this.

I can.

Um- Yeah ...

this is us.

My name is Soren.

Um, I have a, I have a T list, and I'm very excited about that.

I'm the director of IT and IS at Westmark School, and, this is Crystal.

And I'm, I'm Crystal.

I'm the educational technology coordinator here.

And for those of you who don't know, Westmark School is located in Encino, California, so it's outside of or inside of Los Angeles County.

We were just talking, it's like o- over 100 degrees here yesterday.

So while some of you are covered in snow, we are trying not to sweat.

It's not working.

But our mission here...

So Westmark School is a, an independent school, and our mission is to focus on students with language-based learning differences.

Um, a lot of our students, we just provide it to everybody, whether their neuro psych or their IEP says it or not, we offer assistive technology with everything we do.

Oh, somebody had flurries this morning.

Thanks, Jason, for chiming in.

That sounds like fun, actually.

But, but it is hot here.

Um, so let's talk about kind of how we got to where we are today.

Uh, Crystal and I both started at Westmark School in October of 2023.

The whole department actually did.

Before this, the school was managed by an external MSP.

They were really, really good at putting out fires, fixing printers, and- Networking ...

devices and networking.

Um, they were not, however, very strategic in their planning.

So when we came in, we inherited a system that had no formal policies, very, very limited documentation, and the on-campus tech- technician was different every day.

So you can imagine kind of the challenges that that brought on.

So we then decided that- And there was also, like, I would add that there was a lack of trust with the staff when it came to the technology department as well.

Uh, and I would echo that.

So when we were like, "Okay, so what technology already is in existence here at Westmark?" And I'm looking at it from the ed tech point of view, and Soren's looking at it from the ITIS point of view.

We couldn't find a single master list anywhere.

So we went on a digital scavenger hunt through shared drives, other people's drives of, like, people who were here before us, and their accounts were shut down, and we found that there were so many, so much data that we had to piecemeal together from random Google Docs and spreadsheets, financial ledgers, and nothing was talking to each other.

So we had to, like, put this puzzle together, and we knew that we, like, had to put it all in one place.

What we discovered was really eye-opening.

We had over 260 digital tools in use in various stages, multiple quiz programs, things that were doing the same thing.

There was no source of truth.

The licenses were renewing without anyone having any idea of this.

And because we had people who were here prior, what we found was the companies were emailing the employees that no longer existed, and we were getting bills and invoices for things.

So we decided, like, wait, this cannot happen.

If we leave, we have to plan for the future.

So we created a centralized email that in perpetuity will- Just me or was there a freeze? That any one person made.

It was 260 small untracked ones.

And we then were faced with, like, well, how do we get the money for, like, the hardware we need and these other pieces in our technology budget? Oh, somebody said they were frozen.

Are we still frozen? You guys were for a second.

It's come back on for me.

Oh.

Yep, it looks like it's good for the chat as well.

Okay, cool.

Awesome.

We'll put in a ticket with tech support and try to find an IT person.

Um, so kind of the low-hanging fruit was, right, the email address, the centralized email address.

But then we took a step back and we said, "Let's...

We, we need a system," right? Obviously, and, you know, as an IT geek, I love systems.

So we said, "Let's put together a one-stop shop," a place where a teacher or a student or even a parent could go see what apps are approved and what digital tools are approved, and provide them with a clear path to request a new digital tool that might not exist or might not have already been vetted.

So we s- kind of s- put together a list of core components and, kind of just base level requirements.

So we knew we needed a central spot to store all this.

We knew we wanted a teacher request workflow to be able to accommodate new requests for new apps.

We knew that we needed a really, really comprehensive security review process, and we knew that we needed to follow that up with active communication that's consistent and can really reinforce the, the, the system just existing.

Now, before I, like, talk about this next part, I'm just curious because I am seeing people a little bit active in the chat, how many of you, like you can give a thumbs up or, like me, knew how many tools that you had, how many pieces of software or programs when you came into this role that you're in now? Or you can say, "Not me," or a thumbs down.

Ooh, yep.

We got some nopes.

All right.

And like anyone...

Were, were any of you handed like a complete list of them? Sort of.

I got a sorta.

No.

Sorta.

Okay, still struggling.

Still struggling.

Uh, made the list.

All right, Sarah, you could probably help do this with us.

Missing apps.

Yep.

Well, thank you for that response.

So we, as Soren mentioned, needed that centrali- central tool database.

We chose Airtable, and the reason for that wasn't anything, like, extravagant.

We just already had it.

So as we were looking through the list of things we had, we were like, "We already have this one.

Let's use it.

We're paying for it anyway." And, at the time, we were really utilizing it, and we still do, for our learning profiles of our students.

Um, as I mentioned, we're a language-based learnings differences school.

So every student has to come in with a neuro psych or an IEP.

So that is one of the places we house the information.

We said, "What else can we use this for?" So we took Airtable and made a collection of every tool that we came across, whether it was on Sheets or Docs or just honestly looking at the MDM that we had or the iPad.

Um, so we put it in there, and one of the reasons we liked it was because you could look at it from different views.

It integrated into our LMS, which is Blackbaud.

Don't cringe.

I know some of you, if you've had experience with Blackbaud, you might be like phew.

It's just what we use.

Um, and when we put everything in there, it allowed us to kind of see, like holy cow, we have a lot of apps here.

What are we gonna do with all of this? And we created some fields that allowed us to look, at privacy policies, terms of service, even before we got to budget.

Like are these tools even still available? And we were finding that some of these tools weren't even supported by Apple anymore, and yet somehow they still existed and were still being pushed out to iPads.

This tool also allows us to kind of audit that li- ongoing life cycle- Mm-hmm ...

where we...

It's a living document that we update.

Every time I get an email that says, "Policies have changed," we add it here.

So to give you kind of a view on that, we have list of teachers.

You're, you're reading that? Well, yeah, I'm, I'm reading that.

I'm keeping an eye on the chat.

Um, I've, I've...

I do have a couple of points about, teachers going rogue, but- Ugh ...

I wanna come back to it.

Both of us together.

We're with you.

Uh, I think everyone here.

So this is, we have a couple screenshots here of our Airtable.

Oh, our internet connection's unstable.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's back.

All right.

So this is, this is...

You'll see on the left column that's not highlighted, those are the names of all of the tools.

We created a column that says whether the app is approved, not approved, or pending approval.

So this allows us, if an app is not approved, that like the teacher, student, who, parent can see.

Like nope, it's not allowed.

And then there...

I'll show you in a little while, but there will be another column that says, like this is what you can use instead.

Um, or there's a reason behind why it's not approved so that hopefully we don't get a bunch of emails on why we can't use this.

We also took the time, which feltA little tedious, but we did have summer interns who downloaded the PNG files for the app icons, and you'll see in a moment where that comes up and makes it really useful for us and added that.

We also added the categories for e- easy search, and then also to help us get more organized and, like, what do we have plenty of and what do we need more of? And then this grade level category.

So because here at Westmark, we're a 2 through 12 school, so we have a lower school, a middle school, and an upper school division.

Um, so that helps us when we're pushing out apps through our MDM to know if this is something for middle school only, middle school and higher, are lower school students allowed? And we really flag those apps that are meant for 13 and up, and a lot of our teachers have said, "Ooh, I see this is 13 and up.

What do I do? I teach seventh graders.

How do I make that work?" Mm-hmm.

So the second slide, it, it continues.

It's a very long document, with this notes and comments section as well.

So this is, when you click on it, it gives that information.

What does the app or website do? It also will give that information, like, if you see here s- row 165, or says, "Not for student use." So even though I've already said that in the, like, grade level area, it says, "Teachers only," I- I've re-highlighted that.

And, it also, it gives more information, like details on, like, what app to use instead, as well as, what we found with this, this process.

If you go ahead, I added training resources.

So one of the things that we also discovered is there were products that we were paying for, and they were a great deal, and they were a great product.

But when I went through the usage reports, we only had, like, 25% of our teachers using them.

So this process gave us the time to go, "Okay, well, we're running professional development.

What tool should we be teaching about?" So we ta- we're training the teachers on products we want them to be using, but also adding training resources on here so they can learn asynchronously.

And then, of course, the privacy policy and terms of condition, because we believe that the onus shouldn't just be on the tech department, that the teachers should understand as well that this is – and students, honestly – that this is important, too.

Yes.

And I wanna go back to Jason's question.

It's, it's a great question.

Um, I'm gonna try to jump back to – I jumped to the wrong slide – to this slide that kind of describes who can use it, right? So in the grade level column, you'll notice kind of the third app down is faculty and staff.

So that app is really, is only approved for faculty and staff.

And we can enforce that because all of these apps are either using Google SSO to sign in, so we can only approve it for that particular org unit, or we use MDM to push them out, and, we have particular units within our MDM for faculty and staff.

So that's kind of how we approve that.

And w- the reason why this is...

And yes, this is a parent-facing document as well.

The reason why- Not this one.

Not this one.

The, the, the integration- The integration ...

is parent-facing We will get there.

Yes.

Yes.

Um, the...

Where was I going with that? Org unit.

Org unit.

Very important.

I forget.

It's okay.

Oh, there is a column that I did not show that says end user, and so that one will also say, like, parent.

Well, it will say faculty or student or so on.

I think those are really- Perfect ...

or both.

Okay.

I'm gonna try to jump back to where we were.

Just give...

Okay.

So this one should play the video.

So this is that parent-facing document, and this is...

So this is the Blackbaud integration.

So here, this is the, where the icons come in.

This shows how you can filter by, conditions.

Uh, clicked the wrong thing.

There you go.

And you can filter by app name.

You can also filter by category.

So if you're specifically looking for a math app, then you...

And this is where those categories come in.

You can see all of the math apps that have been put on the list, whether they're approved, not approved, or pending approval.

And if you find the one you're looking for, by clicking on the app, you're getting the information that we have selected for you to see.

So when the question about whether or not that was a parent-facing document, the one that we just showed you that is in our LMS in that card form, that is parent-facing and teacher-facing.

No one else besides IT sees the Airtable document.

Everyone else sees the card document.

So that we pick, like, the information that is on the Airtable document can be overwhelming.

Yes.

The card document just gives them the information we want them to be able to view.

Um...

The integration pushes to the resource board.

Exactly.

So that's a live link between the two.

Um, and that is an Airtable feature.

And Jason, we do not require, SOC 2 documents.

We are not quite there yet.

We're still-Still making progress, kind of the, um...

And I, I ki- I kinda wanna say that that's a great point.

Uh, it's first of all- Nope, ask away ...

bring it on.

Bring it on.

We th- we love 'em.

Um- Sometimes I honestly will default to, like, "You know what? Let's just not use this, this app, we have so many," because I don't wanna have to sign anything.

And- If it's not worth it- Yes ...

you know? Exactly.

And, a part of this whole thing, the system, the reason why I love it is because it can, it can keep growing, right? So if we wanna start uploading documentation and w- our, our policies change and they evolve, which they should, this can kinda keep up with it.

So kind of to keep with that in mind, we said, "Okay, we, we c- took everything that we know we're already using, and we put it all in Airtable, and we now have a listing and we know what's approved and what's not approved." And we are gonna suggest other things besides Airtable, Susanna- Yes ...

and everyone else.

Perfect.

Um, now we need...

Let's kind of get an idea of what the workflow is like when a teacher needs to submit a, a request for a new app.

That's really where we're going.

So we put together this workflow, to kind...

It's a data flow diagram to kind of understand what we need to do and what parts we haven't yet tackled.

So let's kinda dig into that a little bit.

Yeah.

We're, this document goes to, Atlas, and then you will get a copy of the slide presentation.

Ashley, if I'm wrong, just tell me, because we didn't put a link in here to get it.

Yes.

Yeah.

And there, our email address is at the end, so you just reach out to us, we'll send it to you.

Yep, we'll, we'll submit all this with the slide archives.

It goes out to everyone that's registered.

Perfect.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

I love the, love the chat, by the way.

I'm reading it, I'm like, "You guys have so many great points." All right.

So here's what the request look like, looks like.

Um, for those of you who may not have noticed, it is the very first card that shows up in the resource database that we have on our LMS.

Um, I put an asterisk next to it so it's the first thing that shows up, and this is our request form.

We decided to use JotForm because that is something that we use for everything else.

Airtable has a form that's integrated in it.

You can use Google Forms.

You can use any simple electronic form.

But our goal of creating this request form was, A, part of the workflow, but we wanted to make it easy.

We wanted to keep a form that was simple because we didn't want teachers to just, like, bypass the form and start going rogue.

We wanted them to make requests.

Um, a lot of times what we'll, teachers will find is they have to, because there's certain, websites that are just locked down.

Like, the teacher might be able to get to it, but the students cannot, and so they need to put in this request.

A lot of times, I'm sure you guys are familiar, you will get the hallway requests or just a random email, "Oh, can you do this for me?" Um, I...

I know what...

Okay.

I am constantly telling teachers, they must think I'm the most forgetful person in the world, "Send me an email on that because I'm not gonna forget by the time I get back to the classroom," constantly.

When it comes to the websites or the apps that they want, I'm like h- I will even directly send them the link to the form depending on my audience.

Others, I'll redirect them to the app site so that they can go through the apps.

But even if they don't, the whole point of this form is to have them peruse the apps that we've already put together on the resource board, and check to see if there's already an app or website that is out there that has already been pre-approved.

The other goal is to have them look back and say, "Wait, this is on the not approved list.

I- why bother putting in this request? I see that I'm not allowed to use it." And by allowing teacher to see the status, it, it gives that transparency.

So, like, nothing goes to die.

Like, we're letting them know, "Here's where we are in the process," and we really want them to understand.

Like, we put in here, we ask them to add the tool name and the URL.

Like, what is the learning objective? We wanna know, like, are, how long are you planning on using it for? Because part of that process is if it's a paid service, we wanna know, like, if you're only using this for a month, then this may not be an, an institutional license that needs to be purchased.

Um, it may not even be, need to be unlocked if it's, like, a day thing, and like, let's reconsider this.

We also ask the teachers to check the privacy policy and terms of service, and we know they're not fully reading it, but we want them to just take the step and know, hey, this exists and this is what we're doing on our part, because the data matters.

The privacy matters.

Um, so that is the request form.

Do we have any questions that go...

Better yet, submit a ticket.

Yeah.

We actually make our ticketing system so if the teachers email tech support, and that goes directly to our ticketing system, but maybe that's a different webinar for a different day.

Yeah.

Um, so the teacher fills out that form.

It's maybe a total of 15, 20 questions that we just saw.

So these are, 'cause they're kind of touched on this, but these are the, the points that we consider.

Um, we really try to take a holistic review of the tool, and it has to meet all of this criteria, and maybe more.

Um-A tool might be educationally brilliant and the teacher might be very passionate about it, but there are some very strict requirements.

If the tool does not meet our privacy policy, in terms of service requirements, that's it.

That's the end of the road.

We have to find an alternative for that particular tool.

And, then the follow-up question is who, who makes this decision, right? Because where does the, where does the buck stop? And the answer really is Crystal and I, and our boss, and our whole tech team.

We have a weekly tech meeting, and we go through these requests if we deem that we need to go through the requests, right? Sometimes it's a easy yes, sometimes it's a easy no.

In the gray, in the gray areas we need to go broader to the kind of, to either the whole team or maybe even to the division directors.

And we'll kind of get into the budget approval part of it in a little bit.

Um, but we try to make the decision not only from the IT security perspective, from the educational value perspective, and from the kind of trying to take the whole picture into account.

Yep.

So we look at, obviously COPPA, FERPA, so PPPA because we're in California or whatever, um- Your state ...

you know, local regulations there exist.

Um, so we look at every single one of those requirements.

A lot of times what's really nice is that privacy policies actually call these outright, but not always.

So that's, that can be a bit of a time sink for us to review these apps.

But again, once you have the system in place and you know that you've already reviewed an app, whether it's approved or not, you don't have to do it again.

Um, so really y- we did see an influx at the beginning of requests, and now it's really, really slowed down a, a lot because people know, "Oh, it's approved.

Oh, it's not approved." And then, you know, that really keeps it from, from overflowing and from, taking up too much of our time.

Go ahead.

No, I was gonna say, you know, the, the culture shift, the change that Jason is talking about in the chat, I think it may have been slightly easier for us because we had this MSP that, you know, there was a lack of trust because they're seeing a different person every day, and the communication just isn't there.

And so we come in, and we are a small team.

We're...

It's the two of us, and then we have, Sean, who is our systems- Technician ...

technician.

Thank you.

Um, and our boss does a million things, so she's just not specifically tech.

Um, so it's a small group of us, but we show up every day.

We're the same people, the same team.

The trust in us, I think, was easy because they w- had a revolving door of people here before.

Um, but it is that approach and, you know, where w- as Jason kind of pointed out, that, like we're not here to say no, and we bring this up later in the slides.

But we are a, a...

Like, we're here to empower you with a yes.

Um, and I think by giving that to the teachers, to have them take a look at the tools as well, they're getting a piece of that empowerment too.

Um, I will also, um...

I think, no, I'm, I'm jumping ahead.

I just wanna make sure.

Are we frozen? Are we okay? We're okay.

I can see you guys still.

Okay, perfect.

All right.

If it's frozen- Sorry.

Sorry, Megan.

Yeah.

And if it's frozen, I hope I don't have a weird face right now.

Um, okay, so this, as kind of, like beyond like, u- the I agree button here, you know? Like, nobody is reading the privacy policies except for us probably.

And again, hopefully we're getting the teachers to think more about it.

So that, so PPPA for us in California, we really have to be really extra vigilant about this and the restrictions.

Um, that's really about targeted marketing ads to our students.

So it doesn't just mean, like ads can't be on it, but like if you're putting in a person, an, a student's email address and personal information, and the ads are targeted to them, we have to...

That's an additional PA that we have to read into and research.

So I think somebody had said that, this is a huge undertaking.

100%.

I spent my entire first summer here on the job reading privacy policies and terms of service.

This took me a whole summer just to build that spreadsheet.

Yeah.

Um, and it is, as m- I mentioned before, ongoing.

So emails come through, "Hey, we've updated our privacy policy and terms of service." When I was a classroom teacher, I was like, "Great, delete." Now I take the time, I read it, and if we are doing it as it comes in, that means that I don't have to spend a whole summer checking to make sure everything was updated.

Um, the other piece of culture shift is teaching the teachers and the students, honestly, like I work with the students as well in ed tech, that if a tool is free, then the students are the data.

They're the product.

The...

Thank you.

The students' data is the product.

Yeah.

If we pay for the product, then we're paying for the product, but if it...

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Appreciate it.

There's no such thing as free lunch, basically.

Yes.

And, talking about paid lunch, really this whole, you know, I would love to say that we started this because we just are so passionate about security, but really it was about money.

When we started, we saw this huge budget overrun, and we said, "We have to fix it, and we have to fix it quickly because we are spending so much money on all these apps, and we don't know where it's going.

We can't b- we can't do anything else." So what we realized was happening is that before we had this tracking system-The tech department was absorbing the budget from all different departments around the school.

We were wasting money away by paying for ghost subscriptions, which were subscriptions for platforms that we didn't use anymore, or for licenses for teachers that were no longer here.

Um, and what happened over time is that the, call it, say, the math department had a book, and now they'd shifted to a digital product and they no longer have to buy the book, but we have to pay for the license for the digital product.

Who pays for that license? It's technology.

So the math department, the reading department, they had these huge gaps in budget.

They were flush with cash, and we were not, because the sh- cost had shifted over time to us.

So that was something that we really had to keep in mind as we were building this, this culture shift again.

Yeah.

And so their budget stayed the same the entire time, and so did ours, but everything kept getting piled on ours, and they're like, "Ooh, we can buy more this for our department." The other thing is that when, when the budget, when those kinds of products are being absorbed by the tech department, then the math or reading or humanities department, they lose the skin in the game, so they don't have the pedagogical why behind purchasing the product anymore because it's not coming out of their funds.

So without that vetting system, we were just creating login fatigue for students.

We were giving them too many products.

And especially at a school like ours, you know, with language-based learning differences, there's a high com- comorbidity with ADHD.

So having the students try to toggle between multiple apps rather than find something consistent for them was also adding to compliance anxiety and, and fatigue with the students and the school.

So again, we...

Our goal wasn't to say, "No, you can't have this." We wanted to say, "Yes, let's use this, but let's also make sure it's being used.

Let's make sure it's safe.

Let's make sure we aren't paying for it twice in two different departments." So that was really important for us.

Exactly.

And just like Jason put in the chat right now, that's exactly what we do.

If it's a school-wide tool, we will take it on.

If it's department or teacher-unique, then the department pays for it.

And in our data flow diagram that we showed earlier, we actually have that as part of the workflow.

That's one of the questions we ask, "Do you have to pay for this app?" And if the answer is yes and we approve it, then there's an approval that goes to that division budget manager, and they have to approve the app having all the information, because ultimately it is going to come out of their budget.

We will still help manage it.

We will help push it.

We will answer questions about it.

We will become kind of the, the owners of it, but we will not be paying for it, to your point.

Ex- exactly, Maria.

Yeah.

Correct.

Exactly right.

Correct.

So one of the things that we also found was that our teachers want knowledge about technology.

They wanna know what apps are out there.

Um, Soren, I think, put it really well.

He's like, "So part of this workflow process is that the teacher who requests it knows what the status is." They're like, "Yeah, we have this new product," and then we add it to our, our air table and it goes online, but how do the rest of the teachers and faculty and staff know that we have this new product? So we started a Tech Tips Tuesday, 'cause I love alliteration, newsletter, and we thought, "Let's be transparent." So we don't just put in, like, different articles and things that will help the teacher, but we added this Tool Talk Tuesday, again, alliteration, to the newsletter.

And here we highlight two apps every week that come from our educa- or our ed tech apps list to highlight what they are, what they do, and then also what data it uses, things to be aware of.

Because you can't just build this database, expect people to visit it.

We have to put the information in front of our people and empower them to recognize why data is important.

And hopefully as they see it over and over again, they can be like, "Oh, right, the tech department's on our side, and this is what they're looking out for." And this goes a long way when it comes to that culture shift, I think, just having that, that yes communication coming.

"Oh, this is available.

Oh, look at all this cool stuff that's out there." Um, not only that, but it helps us get the most out of our money.

Yeah.

And I didn't see Jason's comment before.

Not might rethink if they have to pay for it.

I actually had a case like that less than a month ago where they were like, "Oh, let's hold off till next year before we get this." Yeah.

Because it affected their budget.

It absolutely works.

So we've talked about it.

All of this is, is...

Well, maybe we should say what, you know, investment managers say or insurance people.

This is not advice.

If it, if it backfires, don't come after us.

But if you like it, you can come consult with us.

That's fine.

Yeah.

If you like it, we get- we, we'll accept the props.

Um, very important kind of as we started, we realized that we can't work as a silo, IT, ed tech.

Um, what I- I think that's how I got this job.

I said that in the interview.

Yes.

And I, I think an important thing that we didn't mention is that our boss, Crystal and I's boss, her title is the chief academic officer, so she's-She's academic, and I think that's very important because it really ties us to the rest of the school.

And that not only helps us maintain visibility over what's happening, but it, it really empowers us when it comes to the way the rest of the school sees us.

I, I think that's an important piece.

Get teachers involved.

I mean, that's kind of...

That's the culture shift.

That's base level.

You have to have people fill out that form.

You have to have people check the database.

Make it easy, post the, links everywhere, send communication.

And not just that form, but on the ed tech side of things too.

I'm, as I'm vetting apps and checking usage reports and things throughout the year, I'm also sending additional, like, Google Form surveys to be like, "What are you looking for in an app?" Because I wanna make sure, like, is Kahoot still the thing to use, or is Blooket better for them? Like, what really is important for our teachers? Yes.

Um, use the tools that you have.

We used Airtable 'cause we had Airtable.

Could this have been accomplished through a Google Form and a Google Sheet? 100%.

Maybe it doesn't give you the, the tiles, but really ultimately it's all about having the data available, structuring it.

And honestly, once you understand what you're paying for, you're probably going to save so much money that you can afford to go out and buy a tool to manage all of this.

All of a sudden, there, there will be room made available.

Um, it's really- One Airtable account is $144 for the year.

Yeah.

I'm not promoting it, I'm just telling you, like, if the extra money, it- And- That's what it comes out to be ...

and that's all you need because the, the, the tiles that get posted on Blackbaud, all the users don't need a Airtable license- To view it ...

to view it.

You really just need one for your tech team to be able to make the account.

So, but again, we don't get...

We're, we're not advising you to go buy Airtable.

Um, and really consistency is really, really important.

When students need a new...

They ask, "Oh, can you unblock this? Can you make this available?" They follow the same flow.

A teacher will help them most likely, but they can follow the same flow.

They get the same notifications.

Um, usually of course they won't ask for paid apps because that's neither here nor there, but, they can do the same things.

It's consistent for the whole community.

And I think it's worth noting that by being consistent, it takes out the emotional piece if, like, teachers are feeling targeted or like it's a personal thing because you made me fill this out.

If everyone is filling it out, then it is just standard operation.

Same thing with put in a ticket- Mm-hmm ...

because I'll forget.

Um, and you know, going back to that collaboration piece between, like, you and I, like, there are things as a person that Soren thinks about that outside of IT and IS, and, and vice versa.

Just, like, having a thought partner, even if you don't ha- even if you're a one-person IT department, if you can find somebody to just run things by, I think having the partner makes all of the difference, but that, that collaboration, having the teachers give you information, whether it's through a Google Form or just a conversation I think really is helpful.

And then that education piece, letting teachers...

Like, teachers we have found have been really appreciative when we offer them that no by telling them, like, "We don't wanna put the students' data at risk." And the teachers didn't really know that the tool was that risky.

And we also like to offer them a yes, and.

So by putting in the document itself or even verbally that high touchpoint telling them, "You know, we couldn't use this tool.

We already had this one," or, "I went a- above and beyond, and I found you a tool that does the same thing or similar and keeps the privacy safe, the data safe for the students." And that really helps manage that no and giving them that alternative, piece.

And I, and I mentioned it before and I'm gonna mention it again, it's also really important to let the students know about their data being protected, and that it adds to that piece of, as a school, we wanna keep you safe, and that means more than just physically and emotionally.

That means keeping your data safe.

And that also reiterates in part of the classroom culture, and education, like, about them not sharing PII in different, tools and things they're using online.

So I guess in the end, and I would like to say that structure, it doesn't kill the innovation, but it enables it.

And, when people know how to exactly get the tool approved, then they're more likely to seek out those high quality resources rather than just what's at their fingertips.

Yeah.

It's make it easy for them to not go rogue, the best that we can.

Yeah.

You can lead a horse to water.

Exactly.

Um, so with that, we wanna thank you all for your time.

Um, thank you for listening to us talk about our, our cool project.

Um, and if you have any questions, be it now or later down the road, please feel free, feel free to reach out.

I love meeting with other schools and, kind of, you know, bouncing ideas back and forth.

Um, that's why I also love going to Atlas, but ...

Yes.

So and same.

And we're, and we're leaving time for questions now in case you are too bogged down by work and just can't get to that email.

Yeah.

Oh, thirsty horses at the lake.

Mm.

I like that, Jason.

Yeah.

You're very welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you all for attending.

Do you ever reject a tool because of lack of research in its effectiveness? I'll let you take that one.

Yes.

Actually, the- so the answer is a quick yes, especially here at Westmark.

Um, I've worked at other schools where it's not as of a strong, driving force, but we are very research-based, so especially when it comes to things that are related to dyslexia.

Um, I've actually, not requests from teachers, but for myself, looking at curriculum or digital pieces to the curriculum, I'm constantly asking the companies to send me their research behind the tool and its effectiveness.

And if there is a lack of research, then we don't move forward with some of those tools.

Absolutely.

That's a great question.

But that also is one of those high touch points where you would then work with the teacher to understand why, instead of just getting the, "This tool was declined," you know, "It was denied." Um, so it's im- it's important to note that that's kind of part of the conversation.

Mm-hmm.

"Okay, here's an alternative," or- Help ...

"This is why." Or work with the teacher to, for the teacher also to do some of the work on- Yeah ...

finding a different tool.

Yeah.

I just dropped a article in the chat that goes along those same lines.

We're actually featuring it in the upcoming newsletter, but it talks about how...

It, it was public school, so it was looking at districts, but they're actually using outcome-based contracts as well.

So they're working it into their vendor contracts.

If the vendor doesn't deliver on the effectiveness that they promised, then the payment is renegotiated at the end.

It's not all paid up front.

So a fascinating thing.

Thank you for sharing that.

Mm.

That's amazing.

Sure.

Um, Sarah, so we do have overlapping tools.

So one of, like, my big things looking at this, especially the first thing that came to mind was...

Bye, Jason, thank you.

Was, like Kahoot! and Gimkit and Blooket and Quizziz, which is now Wayground, and, you know, I could go on.

Like, all of these quizzing and gaming platforms, that's a lot of overlap.

And what we decided to do is, I really had this, this big idea of our kids can't keep jumping around from platform to platform in classes, so we just need to narrow it down.

Um, what we ended up doing is just we only pay for Kahoot! right now.

Um, that's a tool that I'm currently looking at the usage on, to see if...

and sent out a survey to see, like, if there is something that might be better fit our school's needs, but we only pay for the one.

The other ones, the teachers are allowed to use, but they're using the free plan.

Because what we did find is, as you mentioned, they're not all-encompassing, and because we have multiple grade levels, some, like middle school, does better with the variety, whereas upper school might do better with one tool over and over again, and lower school might do better with one tool over and over again, but our middle schoolers definitely need variety.

So we do allow them, but we don't pay for all of them, and that's something that the teachers understand.

Um, and w- we have also gotten rid of ex- individual licenses, except for when it makes sense.

So for example, if we were looking at something like Kahoot! and we, like, say we're paying for 20 licenses, but we are only having three people use it regularly, then we would be weighing the, the cost-effectiveness of does it make sense to have three teacher licenses only and everyone else on a free account, or keep this school license and educate and push everybody to move to it.

I think, kind of looking at this with a macro lens, it's, Crystal looks at our, the app usage kinda throughout the year, and definitely over the summer, to kind of make decisions on, you know, what are we gonna do moving forward? So Kahoot!, you know, is an example of that.

Every summer Crystal will look at Kahoot! and, "Okay, how have we used it this past year? Um, if we haven't used it, what's the reason for it? Is there a different app that might be better suited for that?" So kind of part of this is also the constant...

You know, there is maintenance that needs to be done with it to stay on top of the, the usage because that's how we get stuck in this kind of app sprawl and these kind of dead subscriptions that just keep renewing and nobody's using.

I'm gonna add to that.

It does vary.

It's not always summer because I have to check before renewals come up.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

So it's, it, if we're looking at budget, it's when does this renew? I have to check at least three months before a renewal so I can do the qualitative research on top of that quantitative usage report.

Um, so as far as the free accounts, you would ask teacher or students.

Um, so yeah, the free account's for teachers.

As far as the student accounts, we actually ran into this with Blooket.

So did not matter how much I told the students, "If you are under 13, you are not allowed to have a Blooket account." You, like, we, we talked about the ethics behind telling your real age and all of this other stuff, and we are still finding students created Blooket accounts under the age of 13.

So we went into, our OUs, our Google Admin, and we blocked anyone who would fall in that category.

The exception was, like, eighth grade, where we could have some who are still 12 starting off the year that way.

Um, but we went in and we blocked them from the ability to create account with Google Single Sign-On, to make sure that they were unable to go in and do that.

Mm-hmm.

So the controls is also a piece of it.

Mm-hmm..