2012+Initiatives

Please share your thoughts on the 2012 Initiatives that were shared during the Tech Advisory Meeting on November 2, 2012. Thank you!

==== I, personally, wasn't phased by the meeting last week at all. I just always have the attitude that we have to do whatever it takes to be the most efficient and if this is what it takes then so be it. Most of my teachers won't care either, because a lot of them have everything backed up on an external anyway. I have such a young staff that it just kind of works that way. I do know of at least two teachers this will affect, but I will help them back stuff up. Plus we have a very team focused attitude here and with the staff I will just approach that this is what we need to do to help out the team during this economic crisis. Besides most of this isn't really a change to how we operate here anyway, we will just be putting it into different places. ====

Also, I have a lot of people who use dropbox here anyway and will continue to use it. We just need to make sure we are still able to download that to our computers.
Chanda

 I am just going to type my response here as well. I have to second Chanda and say that I wasn't too phased by the meeting's information and I think that all the ideas that were brought up were good ones. Some teachers might gripe about having their machines re-imaged each year, but the rub of that is that the computers aren't actually THEIR machines, and ultimately they'll have to go along with whatever the school system decides. That might sound a bit harsh, but frankly I'm a little surprised that we aren't already on some kind of similar system. I also think that the first year of this will be the worst in terms of complaints; once they get used to the system, it won't be a big deal. When a teacher "moves out" of his classroom for the summer, he needs to "move out" of his computer as well, taking all important files with him; this makes perfect sense. If a few inattentive people lose files the first year, they'll have no one to blame but themselves, and we won't be able to recover them anyway, so it won't create extra IT work. Besides that, after we get our cloud storage solution implemented, this problem should basically solve itself.

In the Dropbox vs. iFolder debate, I'll side with Dropbox. Bottom line: it's got almost all the same features as iFolder, but it's free, and I get the impression we need to be saving as much money as possible in this county. I'm also of the opinion that all money saved should be rolled into a giant fund and then dispersed as bonuses for teachers, but that's a different issue. ;) 

 Hello! I have talked to several people in my building about the possibility of piloting some of these suggestions and for the most part, they were agreeable. However, I do not think the middle schools are the best place to pilot these changes.

The middle schools have ITRT's that can help the teachers overcome many hurdles the pilot may create but most buildings do not have an ITRT so I do not think piloting these changes at the middle school to gauge the impact these changes will have on ITDirect tickets or response time will be a true representation of the rest of the schools.

My suggestion is to pilot these changes at __the one__ elementary, middle and high school that creates the most ITDirect tickets and see if these changes make a positive impact on IT response time overall. I really believe this piloting strategy will create a clearer picture of the impact these changes will have. Thanks for reading! :-) 

 Initiatives 2012

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">First a comment: “If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten” so I can see the need for change especially since the technology needs of teachers have changed drastically just in the last couple of years. Teachers use technology in many varied ways to accelerate learning whether with peripheral or online web 2.0 tools. The computer is an extension of the teacher. It is important to take the time and effort to “image” the computer to best meet the day to day needs of the teacher but more importantly to facilitate the classroom environment.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">When I was imagining what the “imaged” computer would have, based on what I see our teacher using on a regular basis, this is the short list I came up with for my school and emailed to Doug:

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">I am assuming that the image will include: (These are the ones off the top of my head)


 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Smartboard w/ driver
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Senteo
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Turning Point
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Audacity (and lame_enc.dll is required for audacity)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Photo story
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Aver media document camera software
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">rover pad software
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">slate software
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">flv player
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">latest versions of
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">flash
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">quicktime
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">java
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">flip camera software
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Adobe
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Roxio
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">PowerDVD
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">various browsers
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Mozilla
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">internet explorer
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">what about Google chrome
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">print drivers (at least 2 when one breaks down) ,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">shortcuts on desktop to
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">PowerTeacher,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">word,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">PowerPoint,
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">excel and
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">GroupWise.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Most of our teachers use
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Fling the Teacher from Content Generator
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">Stu's Jeopardy.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">How are we handling **Dropbox**? Since it is a specific to a teacher?
 * <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">web browser favorites and bookmarks are teacher specific and would have to be re-installed at the beginning of each school year, as well.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">That is not mentioning the web sites we use for data collection/administration tasks/ student instructional sites such as Talent Ed, AIMS web, Teacher Access, Quia, Edline, PortaPortals, Blogs, IXL Math, Brain Pop, Discovery Learning, Explore Learning to mention a few. This is not taking into account the peripherals more and more teachers are using on a day to day basis. <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">I get that we need to make changes because of the number of tech requests vs response time to address teacher needs. I think imaging is an option. I started to worry as I typed this list (getting longer and longer) and wondered if this is the most efficient approach. I wonder what other options there might be, for example maybe including a request for a tech person to address the needs of the buildings that have a larger number of requests.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">I also agree with Jen that the pilot in the middle schools may not give us a true representation of impact of this initiative.

<span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';">I also feel that the information gathered from our tech meetings should be a catalyst for the budget to include more IT assistance. <span style="font-family: 'Cambria','serif';"><Coffman>