Technology Services

News and Notes from Room 166

November 2008 - Posts

Minutes for November Meeting

Minutes for Technology Steering Committee

November 11, 2008

In Attendance: Peterson (Hillside), Gebauer (Swanson), Lentz (BEHS), Paese (BCHS), Weisz (PPMS), Gryzwa (BCHS), Andersen (FVS), Ziolkowski (PPMS/BEHS), Konitzer (Ton), Russell (Brk El), Siegenthaler (Dix), Allgaier (Board), Thompson (CAO)

Minute notes in Italics 

Review of Key Data (7:15-7:20)

  • Data
  • Response Time to bigWeb Tickets
    • o Goal: 1 Day (10.5 hour) Response - 96%
    • o October Actual: 80.1% (-14.9%)
    • o September Actual: 78.6% (-17.4%)
    • o October '08: 617 tickets
    • o September ‘08: 1190 Tickets
  • § Ticket Closure - Issue Resolution
    • o Goal: 3 day resolution - 95%
    • o October Actual: 85% (-10)
    • o September Actual: 82.6% (-12.4%)
    • o October '08: 617 tickets
    • o September ‘08: 1190 Tickets

Data may be skewed because of a bug in Bigweb, particularly concerning response time - company is fixing this issue this week.

Moodle v. Blackboard (7:20 - 7:25)

  • Moodle will ultimately be our District's course management system for two reasons:
  • a. More features, options, and flexibility
  • b. Cost - $0 annual fee compared to $12,000 for Blackboard annually
  • New users wanting a course management system are being directed to Moodle
  • District will not switch from Blackboard until course content can be converted to Moodle automatically and existing Blackboard users can be adequately trained
  • Estimated timeline for conversion would be summer, 2010 - only a severe budget crunch would accelerate this conversion
  • Next Steps
  • a. Chris is identifying existing users and courses in Blackboard to determine scope of conversion
  • b. Chris will continue to search for a conversion tool (possibly a company) to perform one-time conversions of existing courses

We will not convert until we have a tool to convert courses from Blackboard to Moodle - (biggest challenge is tests/quizzes) and have ample time to train existing Blackboard users. Summer 2010 is projected unless budget cuts dictate earlier consideration.

Shared Storage - coming December 1 (7:25 - 7:30)

  • Product is installed and will be tested and configured over next three weeks
  • Documents can be uploaded in mass
  • Documents are web-searchable (name, type, tag words) and can be tagged (i.e. 4th grade math, or 8 grade social studies) to make searching more meaningful
  • Security is also included using network login information

Storage will be for staff only (not for shared student projects) across the district. Sample uses include sharing SMARTNotebook lessons, EveryDayMath Lessons, curriculum, and supplemental course files.

21st Century Classroom (7:30-7:40)

Discuss components of 21st century classroom:

  • SMARTBoard
  • SMARTBoard computer with DVD and TV Tuner
  • Projector, speakers, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse
  • Teacher computer - could be laptop or desktop as 2nd computer in room
  • Optional Accessories (supported but not installed in every classroom - teacher or curriculum dependent for their success): Document Camera (Elmo TTs - $550 per), Student Response System (Clickers) ($1674 for set of 32), Airliner ($349)

Need: Chris is looking for suggestions on how the high school room is configured with the SMARTBoard computer in the front of the room. Is it on a small shelf, swivel arm, flat panel against the wall, small desk. Concerns raised are space restrictions (smaller footprint the better), teacher having his/her back to the class, functional use when SMARTBoard is not on (does happen quite frequently at Elementary), and possibly room for other equipment like a document camera or VCR. All high school classrooms will have the same setup with the core classroom components described above.

SMARTBoard Integration Strategy (7:40-7:45)

  • Post-installation - 8 hours of training for teachers with SMARTBoards
  • SMART certification for seven staff members, 6-8 more certified in June, 2009 (secondary focus)
  • CEU sessions to provide quick tips, skill development and sharing of lessons as needed by building
  • Training and certification of substitute teachers, documentation created to support basic use
  • Sally Ride, 1 credit courses offered throughout the year to provide opportunity to collaborate and delve deeper into subject-specific courses, Sally Ride dictates enrollment be split between Elmbrook (10) and Sally Ride registration (10) - outside district registrants pay $100 more than Elmbrook staff, Stritch credit offered for $155
  • Sally Ride Academy - week-long academy (3 credits) offered to Elmbrook and non-Elmbrook teachers in summer (early August), variety of content-specific courses

Approaches towards staff development for key initiatives differ by scale and use of the application. SMARTBoard staff development will be a continued focus for many years to come. Office 2007 can be more of a short-term focus, but is necessary because of the drastic change in interface, file type, and new features such as bibliography and citation options now built-into word. Consistent themes throughout all key initiatives should be reason for change, communicating far in advance both changes and staff development needs, appropriate documentation to support initiative and basic use, guaranteed training for all staff to insure consistent expectations of use can be maintained, and, ideally, a pre-test option for either differentiation or opt-out options for staff already knowledgeable.

Tablet Integration (7:45-7:55)

  • Year 1: Small pilot to determine value of software and hardware
  • Year 2: Expanded phase 1 users (50) to:
    • Determine how to scale rollout to broad range of teachers
    • Determine training requirements
    • Develop training materials
    • Develop standard configuration (OneNote) and templates
    • Develop and explore collaboration opportunities (shared Notebooks)
    • Training Options
      • Optional setup/use training in summer
      • Small group training for resource staff (by position or by building)
      • 2.5 days of substitute time during year
      • 1-1 training with integrator
  • Year 3: Expand rollout to all elementary teachers with common expectations of use
    • Clear outcomes drive core training
    • Collaboration needs drive access for all
    • Training Options:
      • Summer Academy
      • Weekly summer-help sessions
      • Mandatory day for setup and basic use training
      • Integrated use during most early release days
      • CEU Sessions to provide quick tips, skill development and solution sharing
      • Sally Ride course(s) to develop skills and provide more, in-depth instruction?
      • Small group training for resource personnel or building leadership teams

Concerns have been raised about the amount/pace of change at elementary (Standards-based grading, EveryDayMath, SMARTBoards, Tablets) and overall teacher capacity for change. Chris would prefer to reduce expectations but continue to implement technology solutions for two reasons:

The sooner we get on a laptop replacement cycle the sooner we can consider laptops at middle and high school

It will get really complicated if we can only have core expectations of use (say all teachers will share their reading assessments notebook with the reading resource teacher) for a percentage of staff and not everyone. The shared notebook component is only now being explored/implemented and will help realize efficiency gains and communication gains that consume many hours of time right now (or fail to happen because of time restrictions).  Chris will have the capacity conversation with the elementary principals and we will discuss these concerns at the next tablet users meeting (12/2) to try to reach consensus on a plan of implementation and core expectations.

Office 2007 Rollout Proposal  (7:55-8:15)

  • January - March: Begin CAO and office staff training sessions for Word, Excel, Publisher
  • Jan - March: Send 2007 version home for office staff interested in home use
  • Upgrade CAO and Office staff in the Spring of 2009
  • Send 2007 version home for Elementary/MS teaching staff in late Spring
  • Targeted installation rollout in summer for:
    • Elementary teachers and staff (not students until 2010) on laptop and SMARTBoard computer
    • MS Students and Staff - most, if not all computers (changes Computer Class curriculum)
  • Summer Academy (June) - training for teachers on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher (some combined)
  • Summer training sessions for office/support staff
  • Provide access to virtual test environment for practice and training
  • Portion of staff inservice day(s) in August would cover the highlights of the new version and support resources

Training and support resources

  • Create virtual environment for use of software from home or work without upgrading local machine (with file access to Home/shared directories)
  • Create quick tips sheet for each Office application (above + PowerPoint) for desk reference guides
  • Consider subscribing to online, just-in-time professional development site such as Atomic Learning (provide short, how-to clips for tasks/features)

High School - Not sure yet of timeline for implementation

  • No real good strategy with remodeling
  • Rollout must follow hardware upgrades in each room
  • In advance, send home 2007 software for home installation (2-3 months) and provide access to virtual test environment for practice and training
  • Concerned about having a mix of users
  • If we knew laptops for teachers we could roll these out during 2009 school year with Office 2007 and simultaneously upgrade most computers

Key to this strategy is advance release of Office 2007 for home use, opportunity to test out of any staff development should they already have knowledge/skills of the software, and some plan to meet the high school needs even though a complete rollout is dependent on new equipment in the remodeled classrooms. More information to come as this plan continues to take shape.

Posted: Nov 12 2008, 08:20 PM by thompsoc
Filed under: , ,
Technology Committee November Agenda

Agenda for Technology Steering Committee

November 11, 2008

Agenda also posted at:

http://community.elmbrookschools.org/technologyservices/default.aspx

Review of Key Data (7:15-7:20)

  • Data
  • § Response Time to bigWeb Tickets
  • o Goal: 1 Day (10.5 hour) Response - 96%
  • o October Actual: 80.1% (-14.9%)
  • o September Actual: 78.6% (-17.4%)
  • o October '08: 617 tickets
  • o September ‘08: 1190 Tickets
  • § Ticket Closure - Issue Resolution
  • o Goal: 3 day resolution - 95%
  • o October Actual: 85% (-10)
  • o September Actual: 82.6% (-12.4%)
  • o October '08: 617 tickets
  • o September ‘08: 1190 Tickets

Moodle v. Blackboard (7:20 - 7:25)

  • Moodle will ultimately be our District's course management system for two reasons:
  • a. More features, options, and flexibility
  • b. Cost - $0 annual fee compared to $12,000 for Blackboard annually
  • New users wanting a course management system are being directed to Moodle
  • District will not switch from Blackboard until course content can be converted to Moodle automatically and existing Blackboard users can be adequately trained
  • Estimated timeline for conversion would be summer, 2010 - only a severe budget crunch would accelerate this conversion
  • Next Steps
  • a. Chris is identifying existing users and courses in Blackboard to determine scope of conversion
  • b. Chris will continue to search for a conversion tool (possibly a company) to perform one-time conversions of existing courses

Shared Storage - coming December 1 (7:25 - 7:30)

  • Product is installed and will be tested and configured over next three weeks
  • Documents can be uploaded in mass
  • Documents are web-searchable (name, type, tag words) and can be tagged (i.e. 4th grade math, or 8 grade social studies) to make searching more meaningful
  • Security is also included using network login information

21st Century Classroom (7:30-7:40)

Discuss components of 21st century classroom:

  • SMARTBoard
  • SMARTBoard computer with DVD and TV Tuner
  • Projector, speakers, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse
  • Teacher computer - could be laptop or desktop as 2nd computer in room
  • Optional Accessories (supported but not installed in every classroom - teacher or curriculum dependent for their success): Document Camera (Elmo TTs - $550 per), Student Response System (Clickers) ($1674 for set of 32), Airliner ($349)

SMARTBoard Integration Strategy (7:40-7:45)

  • Post-installation - 8 hours of training for teachers with SMARTBoards
  • SMART certification for seven staff members, 6-8 more certified in June, 2009 (secondary focus)
  • CEU sessions to provide quick tips, skill development and sharing of lessons as needed by building
  • Training and certification of substitute teachers, documentation created to support basic use
  • Sally Ride, 1 credit courses offered throughout the year to provide opportunity to collaborate and delve deeper into subject-specific courses, Sally Ride dictates enrollment be split between Elmbrook (10) and Sally Ride registration (10) - outside district registrants pay $100 more than Elmbrook staff, Stritch credit offered for $155
  • Sally Ride Academy - week-long academy (3 credits) offered to Elmbrook and non-Elmbrook teachers in summer (early August), variety of content-specific courses

Tablet Integration (7:45-7:55)

  • Year 1: Small pilot to determine value of software and hardware
  • Year 2: Expanded phase 1 users (50) to:
    • Determine how to scale rollout to broad range of teachers
    • Determine training requirements
    • Develop training materials
    • Develop standard configuration (OneNote) and templates
    • Develop and explore collaboration opportunities (shared Notebooks)
    • Training Options
      • Optional setup/use training in summer
      • Small group training for resource staff (by position or by building)
      • 2.5 days of substitute time during year
      • 1-1 training with integrator
  • Year 3: Expand rollout to all elementary teachers with common expectations of use
    • Clear outcomes drive core training
    • Collaboration needs drive access for all
    • Training Options:
      • Summer Academy
      • Weekly summer-help sessions
      • Mandatory day for setup and basic use training
      • Integrated use during most early release days
      • CEU Sessions to provide quick tips, skill development and solution sharing
      • Sally Ride course(s) to develop skills and provide more, in-depth instruction?
      • Small group training for resource personnel or building leadership teams

Office 2007 Rollout Proposal  (7:55-8:15)

  • January - March: Begin CAO and office staff training sessions for Word, Excel, Publisher
  • Jan - March: Send 2007 version home for office staff interested in home use
  • Upgrade CAO and Office staff in the Spring of 2009
  • Send 2007 version home for Elementary/MS teaching staff in late Spring
  • Targeted installation rollout in summer for:
    • Elementary teachers and staff (not students until 2010) on laptop and SMARTBoard computer
    • MS Students and Staff - most, if not all computers (changes Computer Class curriculum)
  • Summer Academy (June) - training for teachers on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher (some combined)
  • Summer training sessions for office/support staff
  • Provide access to virtual test environment for practice and training
  • Portion of staff inservice day(s) in August would cover the highlights of the new version and support resources

Training and support resources

  • Create virtual environment for use of software from home or work without upgrading local machine (with file access to Home/shared directories)
  • Create quick tips sheet for each Office application (above + PowerPoint) for desk reference guides
  • Consider subscribing to online, just-in-time professional development site such as Atomic Learning (provide short, how-to clips for tasks/features)

High School - Not sure yet of timeline for implementation

  • No real good strategy with remodeling
  • Rollout must follow hardware upgrades in each room
  • In advance, send home 2007 software for home installation (2-3 months) and provide access to virtual test environment for practice and training
  • Concerned about having a mix of users
  • If we knew laptops for teachers we could roll these out during 2009 school year with Office 2007 and simultaneously upgrade most computers
Posted: Nov 11 2008, 05:01 AM by thompsoc
Filed under: , ,