TIES 2008 – Stillwater 1:1 Discussion – my notes

One-to-One Computing: Transforming Education
Mike Dronen- Stillwater Area Public Schools, Matt Howe- Stillwater Area Public Schools, Paul Musegades- Apple Computer
Sunday, Dec 7 from 8:30 – 11:30

This morning I chose to sit in a presentation from the tech folks from Stillwater school district.  They implemented a 1:1 program in one of their middle schools and discussed their successes and areas that needed improvement in their initial plan.  In the group were superintendents, principal, teachers, and technology coordinators.  We used Google docs to collaborate and extend our questions (which I have downloaded and attached to this blog)  It was a great discussion and I learned a tremendous amount!  I truly feel that Byron Public Schools could pull off a 1:1 initiative if we planned and played our cards right!

ISTE – Essential Conditions (pdf)
Necessary conditions to effectively leverage technology for learning

  • Shared Vision
  • Implementation Planning
  • Consistent and Adequate Funding
  • Equitable Access
  • Skilled Personnel
  • Ongoing Professional Learning
  • Technical Support
  • Curriculum Framework
  • Student-Centered Learning
  • Assessment and Evaluation
  • Engaged Communities
  • Support Policies
  • Supportive External Context

Planning

Create Vision

  • Why will we do this?
  • What if we don’t?
  • Who needs to be at the table?
    • Must have an administrator with strong “principal” skills to pull off a 1:1
    • Must have a willing and engaging teacher environment
  • What are our unique reasons to implement a 1:1 plan?
  • Who have been successful – Why?
  • Who has not been successful – Why

How /when will digital content be access /created/shared/collaborative/individualized/quality? (students – teachers)

Return of Investment – Less textbooks, less printing costs, power consumption, asset value,

Professional Development

  • Teacher buy-in and personal vision
  • Methods of PD
  • Classroom management
  • Rethinking curriculum and online resources and tools
  • Teacher 2 Teacher culture – teachers meeting after school to learn and brainstorm new ideas
  • 1 official Tech Day (Jan and teachers present)
  • 1:1 recommended start-up training
    • Level 1 – basic laptop
    • Level 2 – How to use apps
    • Level 3 – how to use with kids (4 days – staggered throughout the year)
      • Would be great to have an online component to this training.
    • 3 year plan?  21st Century Partnership, ISTE

INFRASTRUCTURE and SUPPORT

NETWORK

  • Bandwidth? how much?
    • BANDWIDTH – Gig fiber WAN (20 mb), Proxy
  • Filtering
  • Available
  • Secure
  • Healthy
  • What kind of device(s)
  • What do you need to do with learning?
  • What will you need to do with learning?
  • Online tools: LMS, CMS, CMS, etc.
    • Studywhiz, Googledocs, email, opensource?
  • Net Restore (ASR)

Stillwater SUPPORT and INFRASTRUCTURE

  • 3400 systems – 1200 in the 1:1 school
  • District Level –
    • Director
    • Network Engineer – mostly servers, phones
    • Network Administrator –
    • Database Administrator
    • Server Technician  – 80 Server, 20% workstations
  • Workstation Techs (building)
  • Electronic Communications
  • Oakland Schools (1200 computers) 1 full time coordinator, 1 full time workstation tech, 2 help desk para’s – plus support from district level people.
  • Same SSID, coverage
  • 1GB Fiber to HS data center
  • VLAN staff/student/guest network
  • RADIUS and WEP authentication
  • AFP, HTTP and HTTPS through firewall
  • Suport
    • Web Helpdesk
    • GSX (global service exchange)and SSA (self servicing account)
    • APP (Apple Care)
    • Support people – see above
  • Software
    • Web Helpdesk
    • Apple Remote Desktop (ARD)
    • Screen Sharing
    • Casper (JAMF)
    • Net Restore (ASR)

Google Docs Notes (pdf)

TIES 2008 – Exploring Google for Educators – My notes

Molly Schroeder, Edina Public Schools

Saturday, Dec 6 from 8:30 – 11:30

What a wealth of Google knowledge this Minnesota Google CERTIFIED teacher has!  I thought I had a pretty good knowledge of Google, but she took me a step further!  We played with:

My favorite resources was something called Google Lit Trips.  Basically the site teaches great literature by using Google Earth mapping out road trip stories from literary works.  Grades k-12!

Her agenda can be found here

TIES 2008 – Online Simulations and Video Games

Glenn Wiebe, ESSDACK

Saturday, Dec 6 from 12:30 – 3:30
MY Notes!

Research:
“Video games help to rewire brains”

How do we make our job essential for the survival of the student?

  • Brains search for patterns (games provide structured patterns)
  • Brains make connections best when emotional chemicals are increased. Endorphins…Non-threatening (good games make emotional connections)
  • Brains want to work with others (good games collaborative learning)

AP History – Metal of Honor (gave more emotional connection)

What are some things that make learning effective?

  • hands on
  • control the action/make choices
  • problem solving
  • active learning
  • real world application
  • student centered
  • immediate feedback
  • creativity

Glenn’s Resources

Challenges

  • Takes Time – What are you willing to give up?
  • Standards Alignment – what do you want them to learn?
  • Money – hardware, software, computer upgrades
  • Technology issues -Not enough stations, age appropriate games, apple vs. pc
  • Assessment issues – PBL rubric, participation, self eval, presentations and written work

SMART Board – Two minute tutorials

I stumbled upon this SMART Board training resource today and thought it might be helpful to new SMART Board users!  Click the link to view the 2 minute Flash videos and learn how to use the tools and different aspects of the Notebook software.  After having a small discussion about the need for our substitute teachers to have “SMART Board skills” I am thinking this might be a good start and a good site to direct them to.  Thoughts?

Smartboard

New Federal Law Requires Schools to Teach Web Safety

Schools that apply fore erate funding will now be required to teach Internet safety to their students. I would hope that most schools are educating students about being safe on the web.  What I don’t know is how good of a job we are doing, nor do I know what the government will do to ensure we are tracking this properly.  But for administrators and teachers – it will be helpful for you to think ahead of how this could be incorporated in your schools/classrooms.  Here is the link to the article!

Signed into law October 10 by President Bush, the Broadband Data Improvement Act (Public Law 110-385) requires schools receiving federal e-rate discounts on telecommunications services and internet access to educate their students “about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking sites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response.”

The time for change is now.

Scott McLeod had an excellent presentation he developed on for the K12 Online Conference.  Dr. McLeod reflects upon key concepts from Dr. Clayton Christensen’s work regarding disruptive innovation. The presentation draws primarily from two of Dr. Christensen’s books, The Innovator’s Dilemma and Disrupting Class, and focuses on the different ways of thinking that are now mandatory if school leaders are to successfully navigate their organizations in transition to the 21st century. Key points from other leadership models also make their way into the presentation.

The time for change is now.  Our future is inevitable.  Would it not be better to be proactive and start adapting to our future, instead of scurrying to try to catch up?  We are a very talented organization – it is time to tap into our stakeholders talents and prepare our district for the next generation of learners.  Please watch the video.  It is 20 minutes long.  Scott does an excellent job relating the reading material to education.  What are your thoughts?  What are our districts next steps?

Six Important Trends to Watch

As directed by our district technology committee, I have been doing research on what it would take to implement a 1:1 computing initiative in our school.  I stumbled on America’s Digital School report and the following are the top six trends in technology and education.

  • Large-Scale 1:1 Implementations Are Alive and Well
  • Learning Management Systems Go Mainstream
  • Online Assessment Is Replacing the No. 2 Pencil
  • The Student Computing “Race to Mobility” Accelerates
  • Interactive Whiteboards Come Into Their Own
  • Awareness of the Internet Bandwidth Crisis Reveals New Concerns

I would say that currently in Byron, all of the above areas have been discussed or started to implement over the last several years.  I have begun to collect my 1:1 resources – http://delicious.com/jenhegna/1to1 and would appreciate any feedback OR useful research you have found.  I am also looking for 1:1 research regarding the infrastructure, training, and support needed to have a successful 1:1 program.

Thanks MUCH!

Midomi – find song titles by humming?

Are you looking for a song but only know some of the notes to it and the title simply escapes you?  Then you might want to check out Midomi.com Just sing, hum, or whistle into your computer’s microphone Midomi will find your music for you.  It’s not perfect, but is a cool way to find that song you don’t know the title of. You will have to give permission for the site to use your microphones!  It is the coolest Web 2.0 tool I have seen in a while!

Technology Visioning – 2012

I feel our district is in a pretty good place when it comes to educational technology.  We are completely wireless in our schools and all of our teachers and administrators have mobile laptops.  We are near the end of a 3 year high tech multimedia classroom integration plan that includes installing SMART Boards, projectors, classroom amplification systems, DVD/VCR, etc.  Our high school is currently investigating online learning and we have integrated our first high def video conference classroom so that we could offer our students mandarin Chinese.  We also recently adopted the Project Lead the Way curriculum so that we could begin offering pre-engineering courses for our students.

Four years in the technology world is a very long time and somewhat unpredictable.  However, I think it is important to imagine where we should be moving as a district in technology.  I have posted some key questions that we will be discussing with our District Technology Committee in October.   Your feedback is also appreciated!

  • What is the next hot ticket technology/web innovations our district should be addressing?
  • What does the learning environment of the future look like?
  • What technologies can help our district become more efficient and effective in our work/learning processes?
  • What technologies will prepare our students be successful in a global economy? (higher education and/or workforce)
  • What other questions should I be asking?

e-Learning from NASA

The Space Agency is making available a free Web-based educational product to learners of all ages across the country. NASA eClips consists of more than 55 short, 5-10 minute video segments, which are available on-demand via the Internet.  NASA eClips features many of the agency’s missions and engages learners in the excitement of science and engineering. Check it out at: http://www.nasa.gov/education/nasaeclips