Techforlearning

Alden High School
Technology Meeting
December 4, 2007
Meeting Minutes

Presentation of proposals
Q and A to follow.

• Art presented proposals –
  • Committee discussed the best way to update macs for instruction
    • update current- notlikely since the software will not run on them ven with updated RAM
    • be part of a shared new mac cart
  • Cameras
  • Scanner
  • Laptops
• Foreign Language
  • Rover all in one media cart
  • 2 projectors and carts?
• Library
  • screen and projector
• Mac cart by Rachel Hazen
• Mac cart by Jean and Andy
  • discussed fixed desktop labs vs laptops

• Projectors by Nicole these may be prioritized within.
  • Tech
  • Business
  • Science 2
  • FL 2?
  • Math
  • Art
  • Music 2
• Technology
  • pc lab and updated pltw software
  • scenario for this was to create SMART lab in 231 with pcs and PLTW software.
• Science
  • Tablet pc
  • Venier probe racks (priority #1)
• Math
  • Graphing calculators #1
  • Exam Gen software
  • Green Glob and graphing equations software
  • Geometers sketchpad
  • Math type 6
  • Projector and base station and cart
• Physical Education
  • idea for handhelds

  Yearbook: Color Printer

• Other
  • Studio 8 for building by Nicole
  • Should items be put through departmental budget?
  • CPS laptop and cart? no maybe tc grant
• Prioritize proposals using the Intel Ranking tools
  • Discussion identified need to figure what proposals are district and high school building. Committee questioned how we can prioritize one department over another if the need is the same?
  • Tuesday committee will return for an hour to prioritize proposals according to impact purchase will have on the largest number of students and which purchases are have a greater tie to curriculum of course at the top of the list.
  • Justification to add base stations was discussed.
  • Went through many ideas for cable and streaming from marty and came up with idea for projectors.
    • Project: Streaming our school into the 21st century: Create oneprojector ( per classroom)
    • SVGA adapter/Fiber optic cable to teacher computer
    • How will we hook the mounted projectors to DVD players?

    Depts will decide what should be allocated to tech vs. dept budget then rank remaining for tech budget.

• High School integration specialist
  • ideas for job description and daily utilization
• Staff Development ideas

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Technology Committee
Minutes for November 8, 2007
Distance Learning Media Center
2:30 p.m.

Andy B and Jean W are writing a proposal for a wireless mac cart

Nicole G is writing a proposal for all building projectors. She will contact departments for # needed.

Cable and tvs for all classroom was dicussed

Different tech ideas for how to broadcast video morning announcements were discussed

Technology Integrator proposal was discussed. The position will be written into tech budget. Does not guarantee full or part time person.

Ann S. will write proposal for library for mounted projector and screen in library

Frank spoke on his efforts of  implementing web server space for student made videos.

Frank discussed meeting with vendors for a future wireless campus

Committee discussed teacher workstation replacement schedule. Frank and tech team will look at inventory and plan district workstations replacement schedule as a whole.

• CSLO options are to have an ITP from BOCES. Teacher would work one on one with that person as they help to plan a lesson, unit integrating technology.
• Substitute coordination of coverage for the December meeting was accomplished
• Nicole G will contact Departments regarding information needed for District technology plan
• Tech proposals are due 11/26 to K. Ryan
• Next meeting December 4 8-11.

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Quick post of day one’s agenda for all my Business classes. Content objectives are center. But I do believe students can carry computer and internet skills integrated in our course over to other classes, people, and hobbies. Therefore learning the technology is important. So, day one is the day to orientate students to the tools we will be using for the course. It is amazing how quickly they understand how Firefox helps organize their leariing with the web. No windows open all over the place. Just swift mastery of data. Comment to add to my outline.

1. Course Overview
   1. Content Objectives
   2. Projects overview
      1. Audio Recordings
      2. Videos
      3. Slideshows
      4. Others particular to course
   3. Final Projects and Exam
   4. Supplies- jump drive
2. Wireless Overview
   1. Assign students laptop #s
   2. Discuss various seating arrangements
   3. Laptop daily deployment and return procedures
3. Course Tools
   1. Course Website
   2. Firefox
      1. Toolbars
      2. Integrated Search Engine
      3. Extensions
         1. Quicknote
         2. Text Size toolbar
         3. Colorful Tabs
         4. Highlighter
         5. Dictionary Tooltip
   3. Google Docs
      1. Set up account
   4. Resources
      1. Advertising Age Magazine
      2. USA Today RSS News
      3. Business first
      4. Buffalo News RSS
   5. Ice Breaker Activity
   6. Lesson 1 of course

   Stay tuned to see posted lessons………..:):):):)

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Today a colleague of mine, Ann, and I were discussing how to set up a blog with a familiar blogging software included in our district web site solution to discuss best practices in block scheduling with our school faculty. The blogging software is limited in that the dialogue box where you type your post does not offer a special area to title the post. The software offers only the option to title the the blog itself which can have many topics. The post dialogue box does not allow you to format text or add hyperlinks for posts either.

So, we had to fix the look of the blog so that each post was not just separated by a date of post. We wanted each post to have its own title.

To give the post a title we typed a little bit of html code in the dialogue box where we type our post. We typed <b> then typed the title of our post. We typed a <p> to skip a double space or block then typed our actual thoughts.

This resulted in our post having a bolded title, a space, then our posted thoughts.

After our post we added a few links using html. We added the links using html code < a href=”url”>the name of the link</a>.

Here is the actual code we used to tweak the blogging software.

<b>Block Scheduling and Professional Practices</b>
<p>The goal of this <b>post</b> is to create a dialogue amongst our faculty about quality instruction, and expose everyone to <i>professional practices related to teaching in the block.</i> Professional, scholarly articles have been provided. When commenting, tell us what you think of the attached articles as they relate to your own experiences teaching in the block.<p>
<a href=”http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/asobol/files/analysis%20of%20research%20on%20block%20scheduling.pdf”>Article #1</a>
<p>
<a href=”http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/asobol/files/blockscheduling.pdf”>Article #2</a>

The more html code teachers know the more flexibilty they will have in their design when confronted with the limitations of their web page software.:)

Click here Alden HS Faculty Blog to see the actual blog post.

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