There is no such thing as a free ride!

There is no such thing as a free ride. Nothing in life is free. Many of us have heard these sayings  before. Well then, what about Free Speech? This week in the blogosphere we have watched a conversation take place that demonstrates the human cost of free speech, the lasting impression of a few irresponsible words and images.
As 21st Century Citizens we have a responsibility to model responsible, respectful and ethical behavior while using the Internet.
Today and often,  be sure that you talk with your staff, students, parents and community about cost of Free Speech. Our words are powerful. We have a responsibility to use our words to promote our ideas and we have a responsibility to share this knowledge and model good behavior while using the Internet.

All of this conversation should center around how to stopcyberbullying. Today March 30, 2007 is Stop Cyberbullying Day. I expect  this really is the beginning of  stopcyberbullying,  a way of life. Free Speech?  Responsible, respectful and ethical speech.

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Web 2.0, The Machine is Us/ing Us

When you view this, you will get a taste of how the web is changing. Think: how the learners are changing.
Think: how teachers should be changing.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Great links of this week!

If you are looking for ideas to promote learning about the Civil Rights Movement, please check out this site. http://www.visionaryproject.org/teacher

Have you been looking for a collaborative calendar? Here is a free online calendar for organizations that will streamline the scheduling and communications process for your members!

http://www.famundo.com

Marco Polo, a standards based curriulum web site for teachers has merged with Verizon Literacy Network. With those two powerhouses, you can't go wrong. Check it out if you are looking for  lessons plans, interactive student activities across seven disciplines.

http://www.thinkfinity.org/home.aspx

The US Department of Education has unveiled their newly remodeled versions of Federal Resources for Education.   http://www.free.ed.gov

Last but not least! Check out the ALA podcasts, listen to library related news at  http://blogs.ala.org/districtdispatch.php

Read my latest blog at TechLearning.com it is all about Daylight Savings Time and the web.

Over and OUT,Cheryl

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SMARTboards and differentiation

Joe Scrivens presented about how he used Notebook to differentiate lessons for multi levels of ability in the classroom.Notebook also allows for different learning styles, the cloner for example lets you build words from parts. All the learning styles can be built into the lesson. By using colors to jazz up the bullets, it may make it easier for some students to read and remember. Now we have time to build our own lessons in Notebook.

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A great time at SMARTboard Training, Wocester 2/2007

Thanks to Pamela for sharing these great photos!

This album is powered by BubbleShare - Add to my blog

Day 2 of SMARTboard training in Worcester MA

John Blaser from Eastchester, NY, presented his rollout and training of staff in his school system. Critical Factors for Integrating SMARTboards into Classrooms, Schools and Districts. His district has 2800 students and has integrated SMARTboards , 125, into their classrooms for the past 2.5 years.There are still more SMARTboards to add to the district. As part of John's presentation he interviewed many teachers(40), administrators(8), and many email anecdotes. He asked 2 questions:

What was necessary or what contributed to the successful integration of SMARTboards into your classroom, school or district?

What are the benefits of integrating SMARTboards into your classroom, school or district?

Critical factors from the interviews:school committee support, support of administrators,training during the school day, must have substitutes, train right in the classrooms PROFESSIONAL development is KEY, will make or break how it is used in the classroom, trained by teachers and technology integration specialists

Implementation: Deployment and Configuration-

Integration Plan, Professional Development Model- teacher training in the building and knowing the people in the building to go to for support. Classes for inservice credit. Informal training in small groups at a grade level. Start with small goals and small implementation plans. Provide options for training, one size does not fit all.

Administrative Support-need to understand the enormity of the SMARTboards

Professional Development-key

Time Interest and Dedication-Allow teachers time during day, course work, afterschool all good options.It will take about a year to get the SMARTboard integrated into the teachers day.

Go to JohnBlaser.com for some of John's resources. 2/27/07 -823

Stephanie Carson, a product developer for SMART presented the newitems that are coming out. The Notebook is the mainstay of the productdevelopment.

Bridgit enables multiple users to connect easily and share real-timevoice, video and data with out making reservations, installing softwareon the desktop or uploading preesntation materials in advance. It alsouses VoIP. Allows the user to hand over the desktop and you canannnotate over the screen.*

SynchronEyes is a classroom management software.

SmartIdeas the concept mapping software. It is complimentary with the board.

The SMARTboard 600 series needs a seperate projector and has theability to move up and down. USB audio, wireless bluetooth, gowire.

The 600i series has an arm that projects 3.5 feet, which is theprojector. Purchase all through SMART. You can also run without acomputer. You can use a USB key to run your program. People can do theinstall on their own.

The Airliner wireless slate allows the teacher to teach from aroundthe room as well as having students participate using the board.

The Senteo Interactive response system.You can use for quizzes on the fly and immediate graphs are ready to use.

Sypodium is a product that allows inteactivity on a huge screen, not an interactive white board.

SMART is committed to education by providing professional development and unlimited support.

Many training opportunities are available at the SMARTTECH site.

SychronEyes- is a classroom management system great for labs, orgroups of laptop classrooms. You can push out files, so you can get theurl page all on the student computers.Windows compatible.

SmartIdeas concept mapping software. It is very intuitive and agreat resource. It is great for visual learners. It has great levelsand links well with Notebook. There are lesson plans already made onthe website.

Part 2 of the SMARTboard workshop

Robert shared this great source for all subject areas for high school teachers and students. Merlot.org
Gillyon, science teacher in NB, demonstrated how to use the virtual cell URL http://www.ibiblio.org/virtualcell on the SMARTboard. Spyguys http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mesg/html/math6web/math6shell.html for math, geared for 6th graders, james bond theme and also had good review for gr. 7 and gr. 8
Optic microscope primer http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/

Merlot.org is a peer reviewed multimedia site good for high school, all subject areas.

Jen , Northbridge High School, uses the SMARTboard, links the video clip from United Streaming right in her presentation for her Geometry lesson.She downloads the attachment of the video file and links right into the notebook and it plays really quickly.
Jen,from Cavendish School, Grade 4, VT. She created a game using the duplicator function, students come up to the board and create words, there are clues available for students. She has 12 students in her class and after presenting to her school board, they are purchasing more for their schools. She shared a lesson on drawing a plant and labeling the plant. The URL for the main page is from the Birmingham Schools, there are plenty of other great resources too.

Len Euart, from Plymouth, MA. He is a technology coordinator at the K-8 schools. He uses BrainPop, BrainPop Jr. and EnchantedLearning.com with his SMARTboards. The lesson he used was about using Capital Letters. Len, adds the standards to the lesson. He copied the buttons as links for his teachers to use. Brainpop Jr. has the ability to read the text to students. Then there is a built in game with practice/assessment of the skill.
Gary, from Hebron CT, teaches 7th and 8th grade science. He has created notetaking worksheets for his students, students add the information. He has a way to check the answer. Then students write their assignments in their agendas. He uses the SMARTboard for labeling the parts of the heart.
Pam, middle school language arts, New Brunswick, CA. She has a SMARTboard in her room, the computer lab and one portable one. The district has just purchased 80 more. 70-80% of SMARTboard use is with Interactive software or websites. Once teachers have seen the benefits of the SMARTboards they are engaged and motivated. Pam uses the links to online movies for the lesson introduction. Then students come to the board and put objects in correct categories. Her students love the Mission to Mars interactive site from the NASA website. Students have 10 minutes as a team to make decisions about their trip to Mars. Now that her teachers have seen the motivation of the SMARTboard software they are excited to do more. Her 7th grade students all have laptops, housed at school.

Wendy,gets to share resources with all of us. She demonstrated the Jeopardy game with the interactive graph and all the notebook resources.We used the Inkaware insert text into Excel! or insert text as Graphic for signature.

Rachel, a SMARTboard educator, from NYC shared how to get scanned images into notebook.If you already have images on your computer, to move things into the notebook software, then look for insert, find your already saved images and it moves it to the software. She showed how to use the view option and split the screen.

SMARTboard Workshop, Worcester, MA

I was invited to attend this New England workshop with area SMARTboard educators. This is a sharing opportunity for area educators and by blogging about what I am learning, I am able to bring you along on this workshop.

Check out this site first. http://education.smarttech.com/ste/en-us/

There are more than 450,000 whiteboards in classrooms. 15 million students using the technology.

There is a great contingent from New Brunswick, CA presenting their best practices. Allan, teaches at Blackville High School, Blackville, NB, Grade 10 and 12 English, history and media studies.

He demonstrated his Jeopardy Ancient Rome game prior to testing to help with recall. He used the powerpoint jeopardy template and then linked the blocks to the different pages. The linking capability was critical.There is also a timer included on each page.

Shaun, from Blackstone Valley Tech School in Upton, MA presented his website. He has included all his worksheets on his site which he is able to use also as an interactive worksheet on the SMART board, file print, one option is smartnotebook print capture, (the smart notebook has to be open). This option is available with anything you have on the screen, it captures it to the notebook and creates a great print option.(This is a by-pass of the scanning process.) It actually prints into the notebook in better fashion then a scanner, YOU can not manipulate the items in the document, it is a graphic object. The camera feature allows you to take a picture of a piece of the page and put it in your SMART notebook.

Shaun talked about how his class notes are available for students who need assistance, he makes this available for all students as part of his website.

Cheryl spoke of how Wells Junior High School has deployed 30 SMARTboards as part of a renovation project.

Derrick, from Fredericton, New Brunswick, CA , District Office 18, is a math mentor and works with teachers in his district. Using the notebook for his lesson, he demonstrated that the URL's are interactive, he inserted the graphs that students worked on in class.He showed how a lesson for making a cube demonstration, for visually impaired it is easy to zoom in and enlarge the page.

Eithne, from Blackstone Valley Tech School in Upton, MA, where her school has 1100 students a 13 town district, as part of their renovation they have 84 SMARTboards in their school and are working with a range of expertise with staff.She is demonstrating the new version of Notebook 9.5 and is relaunching her training. She used the notebook software to create the training materials. How to take their materials and print and add to their notebook. Eithne took her materials and integrated them into a SMART notebook file, with page numbers a customized training manual. She included the URL link to Atomic Learning so it is a comprehensive package for teachers to go back to. It has a whole section of 3 min. movie clips on how to use Notebook
9.5.

Elizabeth, from Burnt Church School. New Brunswick, they started with one portable SMARTboard and now all classes have one. Her students are using Notebook for their presentations. The students created their project about how to market something using digital photos and the notebook and how to use notebook as a presentation.

Gail, from Bathurst New Brunswick, she models lessons for teachers in math. She created her training lessons with Notebook. There are over 100 SMARTboards in her schools. So, she has organized her her lessons by grade level and topics.It takes about one hour to prepare a lesson.the WOW was the URL http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activities.aspx?grade=all&standard=all

Gail also shared a site where you can get free clipart. Animated objects http://dgl.microsoft.com

Once there search for a particular topic and you with then just copy the image, and then go to the notebook and paste onto the page.

Robert share a place for public domain source for images. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources

All this happened during our first session for the morning.

Blizzard of 2007!

We are in the midst of the Blizzard of 2007! While the snow is falling, the winds are blowing and temperatures are in the teens, with below zero wind chills, we can all be quite comfortable in our homes while reaching out on the Internet. I can check the weather in Tampa where my mother is at 46 degrees F, the weather in Montreal at 9 degrees F and snowing, and keep tabs on what is happening in Maine. You can imagine that I am also checking the snow amounts at Sugarloaf where at 4 PM they measured 17 inches. All this to say, that although we had a "snow day" today, many of us were still able to work and research thanks to the Internet we have in our homes.

I am working on compiling data from the NetDay 2006 survey. Thanks to all who took time to fill out the survey. You will be pleasantly surprised with the results. I know I am very pleased. The survey gives us a direction for our technology vision.
Cheryl Oakes, Valentine's Day in a blizzard!

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January News in WOCSD

Filters in WOCSD

To comply with Federal NCLB law the district uses the state issued filter called Bess. This filter is updated weekly so you may find things you normally accessed not available. The State of Maine controls the filter and I apply exceptions for our schools. Please email coakes@wocsd.org if you need access to a website for you or your students. I can usually open the site within 10 minutes. However a day’s notice by email is best. I’ve closed Internet Radio in order to free up bandwidth. After 2--3 PM the sites open up.

Ways to Learn more about Technology, when you want!

If you are looking for new ways to learn more about technology please check out these 2 online workshop offerings.
Http://k12onlineconference.org
http://dafnegonzlex.com/evo-07/index1.htm
Both of these conferences are FREE. It might work for yo u if you have some kind of technology goal in your professional plan.
University of Berkley makes 50 courses available for your iPOD. Free courses, college level. Good for you or your students.

Research Time
You can check out the Portaportal page I created  http://www.portaportal.com and the guest login is  internetresearch
You will find some great links about using the Internet to Research.
Another great spot to begin research is with the State of Maine MARVEL, virtual library and databases. There is a FREE workshop at the public library Jan. 22, 2007.

Looking to get a question answered about a particular piece of software? Check out Atomic Learning.com They have free online movies. It may be a movie you need to answer that question! If you really like this site let me know and it may be time for our district to get some accounts!

Web2School in WOCSD
This school year has seen many challenges for the district and the partnership with Web2school.
In each building 1 secretary is in charge of adding new teacher and assigning new permissions. Each staff member needs to update the web client when prompted. Parent information( user names and passwords) will be handled by the building secretary. The computer technicians will be responsible for ensuring the daily connections are working for all staff.
Web2School has volunteered to work with a committee on revising the mid-trimester progress report so that it prints out in a more professional way. See your building principal if you are interested in working on this committee. The committee should only need 3 meetings. FMI email coakes@wocsd.org

Web2School for Parents
If you hear from a parent that they are having
trouble logging into their Web2School please
let me know. I’ve worked with several people to get them in their accounts.

There are  83 staff members with Homeworknow accounts.
There are 6 parents signed up for emergency alerts from the schools.
Did you know you can check your pages to see how many people have visited  your site since you began?The District Technology Committee
made up of school and community members recommends using  Homeworknow.com K-12!

Thanks for using this site How many visitors have you had?

Thanks for visiting and reading this newsletter. Leave a comment!

technorati tags:technology, wocsd, web2school, homeworknow.com

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New 5th/6th Grade blogging activity group at WJHS

On Tuesday (January 9, 2007) I'll be starting a blogging group with 5th and 6th graders at Wells Junior High School. The purpose is to share Internet Online safety and netiquette rules. Our first charge will be to review online safety and create a collaborative wikispace on Internet Safety. You can watch as this site grows. Students must have parent permission before they create their own blog. However, they will be able to add to the collaborative wikisspace we are using for our webpage.

In order to watch this site grow you can subscribe to the RSS feed. You must have a blog aggregator. This is a way of collecting the blogs or news you want to keep track of. A popular blog aggregator is Bloglines. The RSS feed for this new site is (feeds:http%3A%2F%2Fwjhsinternetsafety.wikispaces.com%2Fpage%2Fxml%2Fhome%3Fv%3Drss_2_0). By adding this feed to your aggregator you can see each new upgrade. Watch this student site grow.

Another place to watch this grow is by clicking on the link from the Wells Junior High district page.

Wells Junior High Internet Safety

Any comments or questions please email coakesATwocsddotorg

technorati tags:internet, safety, wjhs

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Tagged and I am It! 2007

Apparently, a game of tag is currently going on in the blogosphere - and I have been caught! In a better attempt for you to get to know me better I'm to "reveal" five things about myself that you otherwise wouldn't know from reading this blog.  Here goes:

Sharon Peters, a Women of WEB 2.0 tagged me while I was still at the mountain house. She even had to give me a hint I'd been tagged!

According to the rules, I am now supposed to share 5 things you may not know about me. And then, I am supposed to tag 5 other bloggers.

1. I am a downhill winter skier. Last year I was able to ski 80 days during our winter. My goal someday is to ski the winter season around the planet! During the winters in Maine I ski Sugarloaf Mountain in Carrabassett Valley.

2. I am going to present at NECC for the first time in June 2007 in Atlanta, GA. If you are there I hope to meet up with you! Look for our session as Women of Web 2.0. Okay, many of you did not know I belong to the Women of Web 2.0 well, the secret life of Cheryl Oakes. As part of Women of Web 2.0 and Webcast Academy, I co-host a weekly Internet Radio show , called a webcast, at Worldbridges.net Tuesdays at 9 PM EST also known as Wednesdays 2 AM GMT.

3. I love to spend time outside in the summer either in my kayak along the coast of Maine or in the community garden.  Part of my outside summer activities include raising 3 pigs for our dinner table.

4. When I began my career in education in 1974 I was a kindergarten long term substitute, then I worked in the field of Special Education, got my Masters in Special Education from the University of Maine in 1977 a field I stayed with until 1992. Then I migrated to the field of technology integration at  Wells Elementary School.

5. When I was working summer jobs I landed a great job as a cook at The Teashop at Squirrel Island Maine.

Tag you are it! Maria Knee, Leah Tondreau, Bob Sprankle, Ryan Palmer and Sharon Betts!

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Ch-ch-changes

I want to review the protocol for smart passwords. Be ready in the first week of January to change your password. This will get you all through grading and report cards. Think of it as a New Year's Resolution you can't avoid.

I found the following rules for smart passwords at the Portland State University User Support Services. A smart password...

• must have at least six characters
  
• must not appear in any dictionary
  
• must contain both lowercase and uppercase alphabetic characters
  
• must contain a number
  
• should contain non-alphanumeric characters such as !, #, $, %, ^, &, *, (, ), etc

If you have a question about creating a password you can email me. coakes

Many of you have asked about the amount of SPAM some of us are getting in our mailboxes. One way to work around this is to get rid of the email PDF form on our district page and make it unreadable by SPAMbots.

The next PDF may look like this   

  school address     wocsd.org

Staff user names:

coakes 

Then our community will  have to put the two things, user names and school address together on their own. This prevents SPAMbots from having it all laid out for them.

Over and out

Cheryl

Collaborative Content Coach for Technology

WOCSD

technorati tags:security, passwords, protocol, cheryloakes

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Wocsd Tech Talk November 28, 2006

A reminder to please take the NetDay Survey! This will give our district some great information about technology in our community, plus it will keep a record over time.  http://www.netdayspeakup.org/        The password is *****       Thanks.

I just spent 2 days at the Christa McAulliffe Conference in Nashua, NH. Bob Sprankle and I presented a workshop called Hands On Podcasting, Podcasting with Purpose (Bob), http://www.nhcmtc.org/2006/Spotlight.html  and Math Links for Elementary (Cheryl)Math Links are here at  http://del.icio.us/elementarymath .  We attended many great sessions. Alan November was the keynote speaker on Tuesday, David Weinberger on Wednesday. If you are interested there are links for their online keynotes hosted at the ISTE-Christa McAulliffe site.      http://www.nhcmtc.org/2006/Keynote.html
 
There is also a live podcast with folks from the conference. If you are interested in learning how to apply podcasting to your classroom please contact Bob Sprankle or Cheryl Oakes.
To listen to the podcast you can go to  Women of the Web 2.0, and click  the link  http://womenofweb2.podomatic.com/ and select Week 5.

Highlights from Alan November:

Our journey using web tools must include making our classrooms the hub of communication. The communication needs to be worldwide. If we are not teaching our students how to communicate globally we are doing them a disservice. Our classroom tools must include blogs, wikis, podcasts and SKYPE.

See my post at TechLearning.com/blog  Go Global with GlobalSpeak!

David Weinberger talked about social learning and how our students see things differently. Our students don't see lists and taxonomies, rather, they are the product of the Internet and they see the interconnectedness of items. We digital immigrants are a product of the Dewey Decimal System and our students are a product of Amazon.com where they can find a iPod under many links: electronics, music, digital recorders, toys, mp3 players....... the list can go on. We digital immigrants need to learn more so we can teach them how to do more productive, reliable and precise searches on the Internet.

Try these 2 ways to search and  compare the process. If you want more information on how to provide you and your students with more productive web searches stay tuned!

Try a google search for Joshua Chamberlain

it provided me with 745,000 hits in .05 seconds.

However, if you go to AltaVista, type Joshua Chamberlain  + edu     in the search

this will provide you with 35 hits    and all will have something associated with a school.

If you want more information on how to provide you and your students with more productive web searches stay tuned! Is this helpful? More soon!

Over and Out

Cheryl Oakes

technorati tags:ChristaMcAulliffe, wocsd, Cheryl, Oakes

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NETDAY SPEAK UP 2006

NetDaySpeakUp is a national non-profit organization which WOCSD has partnered with to collect data from our district students, parents and teachers about technology. The survey is very comprehensive and takes about 20 minutes to complete. We will have access to this data and will be able to look at trends and patterns in our community and across the USA. At our District Technology meeting it was decided to participate in the survey. We'd like to strongly encourage the High School students, teachers and parents to participate since we are also involved in high school accreditation and this information will become part of that comprehensive plan.
Thanks in advance for participating! Tell your friends, community members and other staff members. The password is the first word in WOCSD, only because that is short!
Thanks,
Cheryl Oakes, Content Collaborative Coach for Technology and the District Technology Committee.

Promote Participation

Below is a sample email you can send to participating schools in your district. Please forward along with your personal encouragement:

Please Participate in the 2006 NetDay Speak Up Survey

NetDay Speak Up is a national initiative of Project Tomorrow, the new nonprofit organization formed with the merger of NetDay and Project Tomorrow in September 2005. The Speak Up survey invites students, parents, and teachers to take part in our fourth annual online survey. This is an opportunity for students to share their voices with their local school-decision makers and for teachers and parents to join the national dialog about science, technology, and 21st century skills.

Our district has committed to having at least 15% of our students take the online survey. Because we will have access to our school and district data, this is an opportunity for students to share their opinions and ideas about technology use. For teachers and parents, this is an opportunity to join the national dialog about technology and 21st century skills.

* Your school's secret word is: the first word in WOCSD

* The Speak Up dates are Wednesday, November 1 - Friday, December 15, 2006.

* Students, teachers, and parents will use the secret word to access the surveys at www.NetDaySpeakUp.org.

* The NetDay Speak Up website (http://www.NetDay.org/SPEAKUP) offers a How-to Guide for participants including lesson plans, helpful suggestions, and other resources for making the survey experience a success.

* Visit the NetDay Speak Up website (http://www.NetDay.org/SPEAKUP) for ideas on how to promote the Speak Up event at your school. You can print out a flier to post at your school or use our email text to send reminders to your teachers.

Thank you and we look forward to your participation.

technorati tags:netday, survey, technology, wocsd

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Latest Web 2.0 tools.

A short and sweet, or as the kids say    schweeeet blog of the latest.

National Geographic podcasts tell world stories.

New copyright guide answers your frequent questions right here!

Google for Educators just keep bringing on more great stuff. Here is the literacy portal.

You will need to sign up and register, free, for goggle for educators. Coming Sunday Nov. 12, 2006

Nov 12 -18 is Geography Awareness Week. This year, explore Africa in Google Earth and learn about its rich wildlife, culture, landscapes, and history.

Okay, one more

NovaScienceNOW

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DTC October 19, 2006 Minutes

Hello, this is a summary of the District Technology Committee meeting of October 19, 2006.

Submitted by Cheryl Oakes

Minutes from DTC meeting October 19, 2006

Members present: Laura Subilia-Bell(parent/community member), Marty Cryer(parent/community member), Ira Waltz (Asst. Superintendent), Bob Sprankle (Technology Integrator-WES), Cheryl Oakes (Collaborative Content Coach for Technology), Cheryl Mills (Adult Ed Director)
Members not present:
John Osterday (Computer Technician/Network-WHS), Jamie Reynolds (Computer Technician-WES),
Mike Griffin (community member), Megan Sullivan ((parent/community member)),Saul Lindauer (Technology Integrator-WJHS on Sabbatical until 12/1/06)

There are 2 other community members who may be interested in joining the group. They will be invited prior to the next meeting with is set for November 16, 2006 at 3:20 at Central Office.

Cheryl O presented the slide show that was shown to the staff prior to the start of school. The slide show will be added to the district page.

Cheryl O presented a diagram of district technology. A suggestion was made to add the names of the people who represent the targets on the diagram. After looking at the chart and identifying people who represent the job descriptions on the chart it was noted that there is not a tech integrator at WHS. This was/is a concern to the committee. Laura wanted to know how students get direction about working in the field of technology, or where they get direction about taking courses at YCCC. Does the district provide the kinds of education options for technology for the 21st Century?

Marty reported that there are limited offerings for students to use their laptops. Most of the kinds of work done is on the laptops is about word processing. Kids do not understand virus', cookies, pdf? How can this be taught without a tech integrator at WHS?

Netsmartzkids.org curriculum has been used at WES and at WJHS for students enrolled in computer classes. How can we be sure all students get the message about Internet Safety in WJHS and WHS? Cheryl  O mentioned that Nancy Cotty was in charge of a safety presentation. The members offered to help with this endeavor.

There was a discussion about Linux operating system and open source software. Cheryl O will try and arrange a speaker in the future about this new software and operating system. Is this an area the district should be looking at adopting? Linux doesn't have a lot of proprietary code so it is easier to run on  machines that we currently have. What will happen with Microsoft comes out with Vista operating system? Where will that leave the district with functioning equipment?

Laura mentioned that we should look at the community resources for training opportunities on software.


The district should look at how we manage staff development and how we can transform education. Ira Waltz has a 2 year survey of the 9th graders and what and how much they used their laptops in school. The Collaborative Content Coach position was created to help move teachers and students along using technology in more innovative and comprehensive ways K-12+.

Cheryl O reported about HomeworkNow.com has been purchased for each school as a way for teachers to have a quick way to share what is happening in their class, make the email address available and as a way to communicate with parents and the community was a discussion about Web2school as well.  It was decided that we have some good technology options which are being under utilized at the present time. Maybe we need easier ways for parents to connect with these options, more training, more information. We should be aiming for less paper going home with the students, we should be less of a clearing house for all the community agencies and make information available digitally, where we can.

The  main ideas from the meeting:

Better utilize the technology options we have in the district for parents, Web2school, HomeworkNow.com, Internet Safety information, . The comprehensive Wocsd Web site is an example of how this can be accomplished.

Better utilize staff development opportunities in order to transform the kinds of activities we expect teachers and students to be involved with at all buildings and program levels. The Collaborative Content Coach for Technology will be involved in setting this up.

Look at the equipment replacement schedule and determine how best to meet the district needs based on the Technology Plan. Set up a presentation about Linux and open source software.

Look at the personnel need at WHS for a technology integrator for 07-08. How will the gap be filled this year?




Thanks for all who were able to attend.
Meeting adjourned at 4:40 pm.

News Flash!!!
Jamie Cox, a young man who recently graduated from UMO, has been hired at the Computer Technician at WJHS. Jamie will begin work October 24, 2006. You will get to meet Jamie Cox at our next DTC meeting. Jamie C comes with much experience with networks and with ibook and mac computers. We are looking forward to welcoming Jamie C to WOCSD.

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How to get a message to the TechTeam!

If you are a staff member in the Wells Ogunquit Community School District you have a new way to get technology support from the comfort of your classroom, or the closest nearby computer.

Go to the WOCSD District Webpage.

On the far right  menu you will see a heading for District Staff Site, drop down to Technology Work Order and click.

You will come to a page the Customer Support/Help Desk options. Add your user name, that would be the same as your email user name. Mine is coakes.

Then your password, will be emailed to you. Then select Login.

After you log in, You will have a choice of support options Create New Case and the go button.

There are other choices where you can look at frequent questions and answers, or look at all open cases, search the database or log out.

Once you create a new case and click go, you will have a one line description to fill in. Then choose what category you think your job most represents. Then in the next box, describe your problem or question.

Examples, even though I plug my laptop in, I have no battery reserve.

Is there something I can use to create PDFs?

ANY THING! We will answer your question. After your work order is addressed, you will receive a questionnaire survey to fill out. Please fill these out and give us feedback, good, bad, or mediocre. If you need help, ask a peer. This is the only way we will be able to address your technology needs.

Once you have described your problem, then hit the submit button. You will get an automatic response from us. Then we will schedule the work in an email to you.

Thanks for using this new tool.

If you are in the high school, John Osterday will answer your work order.

If you are in the elementary school, Jamie Reynolds will answer your work order.

If you are at the junior high school, Jamie Cox will answer your work order.

Thanks,

Cheryl Oakes

technorati tags:workorder, techteam

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Blogs, how, why, where and when?

This is a great short movie about blogs and why you might use them in schools. The movie takes less than 5 minutes.

Check out the link.

http://weblogg-ed.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/WebLoggingSmall.mov

Can you think of a way to use this in your class?

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k12online conference! You can do it!

Have you thought about going to a conference about technology only to find that you really can't take the time to leave your classroom, you can't travel to Atlanta, Georgia, NYC or can't afford the money for the registration?

Well, the  k12online conference is all about open source software, the Web 2.0 tools, (web 2.0 means that you are using the interactive read/write web). You are not just sitting in an auditorium next to other people all scribbling notes and trying desperately to make the connections with the speaker, instead you are asynchronously joining a conference that has or is happening at the time you join. It is all about you choosing the time to listen, the article to listen to or read, and where you will join in this online conversation! How is this all possible?

By clicking on this link and joining in this online conference! There are many bloggers, podcasters, webcasters and technologists from around the planet who are ready to give back to their peers, who have volunteered to join this conference and who have designed some of the best and most updated and challenging information for YOU!

All you need to do is join and click on a link when you can, work on your own, work in small groups, blog and converse with others, it is about the conversation. If you need some professional hours, add this kind of event to your professional plan. If you need credits go to this link and sign up for some credits from Plymouth State College in NH in partnership with Shanghai University!  I am so totally doing this, I have always wanted credits from Shanghai!

Here is the keynote! 

You will need about 30 minutes to view the keynote, it is totally worth it!

Are you just a little interested? Can you find someone in your school who might do this with you? Can you find someone in  England who might do this with you? You will need SKYPEGizmo to converse with others, or and you will need some chutzpah! Chutzpah is free! This conference is free, find someone to join with you. I promise you will enjoy this, I promise you will be challenged, and I promise you will find the best professional development you have been to in years!

There are many links that will support this online conference. Enjoy! If you want to take part using just a few of these presentations that is fine. Just remember the conversations are the most important part, join a blog, leave a comment, it will be transformational!

http://landmark-project.com/k21online/

http://hitchhikr.com/index.php?conf_id=113

How popular is this topic? Well if you look at the ClustrMaps, only 2761 people visited this site yesterday and over 21, 215 people have visited since September 2006. I know I can find a couple people to relate to in this group, how about you?

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