Some General Thoughts on Technology Tactical Plan

This is just a quick, off the top of my head, draft but something to get us started.  You can view it here and I have shared it read/write to the committee. Add your thoughts, let's make it a lively discussion. (Please remember to use Suggestion Mode for comments/additions).

Here's the link to the document.

Technology Leadership Conferences of Interest

Tech & Learning Live is back in Boston on Friday, April 29 . This year’s program is all about professional development for tech lead learners—those edtech leaders who bridge the gaps between classroom and administration, curriculum and technology, school and home. This full day of workshops and discussions is specifically designed to “train the trainers” with shared best practices, workshops, and discussions that attendees can take back to their districts and put into action. This is your chance to network with others who care deeply about the future of education. More info ... 

The LearnLaunch Across Boundaries conference taking place on January 21-22, 2016 aims to promote dialogue about digital learning. Our 4th annual conference will examine the following question: “Are we digitizing past practice or moving toward personalized learning?” The conference brings together a diverse set of voices to discuss the most challenging questions facing teachers and the edtech industry today. We expect over 700 attendees who are passionate about transforming learning.

The target audience are entrepreneurs, educators, education administrators, investors, developers, students, and industry experts who are interested in the future and current state of educational technology in early education, K-12 education, higher education or continuing education should attend.

MassCUE spring conference, Leading Future Learning 2016, will be held March 11 & 12 at Holy Cross in Worcester. MassCUE and EdTechTeacher have joined forces for the 4th year to bring together educational technology leaders, administrators, and classroom educators

As technology and globalization transform our civic and economic spheres, educators must confront the challenge of preparing students for an ever more complex and cognitively demanding world. School leaders face both challenges and opportunities in encouraging classroom innovation and instructional progress while upholding academic rigor and student performance.

The photo would lead you to believe the focus of the research is K-5, but in fact it is K-12. The research results are quite interesting - at the very least thought provoking and good reason to thoughtfully examine the real goals of each technology initiative.  From Pearson Schools:

Teaching in a Digital Age

How are your fellow teachers using technology in the classroom? School districts have more access to technology than ever before. Many have made major investments in education technology to engage, motivate, and personalize learning for students. Games and mobile apps have the potential to transform learning in ways unreachable with pencil and paper. But, as teachers know, incorporating technology isn't easy or simple. We asked teachers in some of the most innovative schools how they currently use technology; and what the gaps are in making the most of technology. Teachers in some of the most innovative schools share how they currently use technology and the tricks to making the most of it. https://medium.com/@ashley.petersondeluca/no-magic-pill-missing-pieces-in-education-technology-innovation-8befe759b9#.dsgm9w7qk

Meeting Minutes for 2 December

Minutes of the Technology Committee for 2 December 2015

<submitted 3 December - M Hauck>

Attending: Marc Caouette, Sean Crowley, Karen Newburg, Doris Parker, Tammy Quinn, Jo Smith, Michael Hauck

• Old Business (short items)
• Redeployment of PCs for teachers - Status update (Doris)
  Doris has begun to deploy machines; math office, library, Avery. Will continue this week and next. Exact number of available machines not certain, so we may not end up with 6 in the library. Jo Smith commented on how welcome the change is for the math office to have a desktop PC to replace the tablet.
  
• Faculty Tech Training feedback/results (Michael)
  General roundtable discussion; everyone felt the training went well and was well received. Sean commented on the number of positive remarks he has received, unsolicited, from academic faculty.  Tammy want to know the seminar attendance split between academic and vocational. The un-analyzed perception was about 50-50. Michael shared the results from the feedback survey (16 responses) which was primarily positive.  Among the key negatives were: the skill mix of attendees was a challenge; wanted more time to practice the skill and delve deeper into the details; slow computers hampered work; too much focus on the basics.
  
  This led to a discussion of future training approaches. One possibility is to have a single afternoon session of greater length; Offer the training as an “un-conference”; organize more on-line, self-paced training There was also some discussion about the accessibility by teachers to YouTube. There continues to be problems. Marc will investigate for a solution to provide teachers with unfettered access.
• Plant Sciences app request (Doris)
  The issue here was to investigate DynaScape. Marc will follow up to determine system requirements and cost. Question of what is budgeted for s/w?
  
• SIS Vendor evaluation and selection process - Status update (Michael)
  We hosted a meeting with SchoolBrains on 12/1 (the first of six such initial meetings). Tammy, Sean, and Michael attended. General opinion was highly positive. Sean was impressed with the easy of use and features a classroom teacher would see. Tammy liked the level of support and was particularly impressed with the fact SchoolBrains had people on staff who know iPass and can support the migration. Also, the SchoolBrains rep was our iPass rep years ago and so has a good knowledge of our school and environment. Good training tools as well. Some concerns were the lack of an open API, the inability to directly interface to 3rd party systems such as Google Apps or E-Sped.
  
• Online training tools & options (Michael)
  Looked at a couple of options - Synergyze, Atomic Learning, and Grovo.  Synergize is primarily a Google Apps training tool while Atomic Learning and Grovo cover many additional topics. Synergyze integrates into the Google domain and can offer context specific help on various tasks; Atomic Learning and Grovo are more “traditional” training tools offering short, focused video tutorials in course-like sequence and format. Advantage of Synergyze is cost and its contextual format. Advantage of Atomic Learning is its breadth of topics. We decided to explore Synergyze as a first step to building an online, self-help tech support structure.
  
  Michael will pursue the offer from Synergyze of a free trial account and have feedback for next meeting.
  
• New Business
  We did not have time to adequately discuss new business topics. Next meeting.
• Tactical 3 year plan (Michael's draft)
  Michael will circulate this draft for discussion next meeting. Intention is to take the next step to define a concrete action plan, now that we have re-approved our strategic plan.
  
• Building common Forms library (templates, processes)
  Emphasis here is support the transition/migration for the old world of pencil and paper to the digital world. We felt that if we began by digitizing (with templates, forms, etc) some of the key administrative processes that this will create strong examples and incentives for people to make the change.  Initial projects will be: the field trip request process (including reserving buses, permissions, etc.); Professional Staff leave requests; Professional Development Activity Pre-Approval process.
  
• Digital Civics & Digital Citizenship curriculum
  This is a key step in the migration to a digital environment and a more open, accessible environment (blocking everything). Since prohibition doesn’t work, the strategy must be to teach responsible behavior.  Check out the work the Tech Committee did in 2013; we’ll discuss at next meeting.

Next Technology Committee Meeting is:

Wednesday 16 December @ 2:30 in the Library

Meeting Agenda for 2 December

Agenda

2 December 2015,  2:30pm

Library

• Old Business (short items)
• Redeployment of PCs for teachers - Status update (Doris)
• Faculty Tech Training feedback/results (Michael)
• Plant Sciences app request (Doris)
• SIS Vendor evaluation and selection process - Status update (Michael)
• Online training tools & options (Michael)
• New Business
• Tactical 3 year plan (Michael's draft)
• Building common Forms library (templates, processes)
• Digital Civics & Digital Citizenship curriculum

Meeting Minutes for Monday 23 November

• Google Apps Deployment status updates
• new resources for calendar
  Doris or Laura will look into why 3 of the Mini Bus resources show up under My Calendars and not Other calendars as the other resources do
• new student Dashboard
  Michael reported that all the students have been introduced to the dashboard, unsure how many are using it. Use is voluntary and intended as a convenience. A Group was created to allow students to comment and provide feedback. No one has accessed it.
  

• Re-Deployment of PCs for Teacher Planning rooms
• target list
  Some discussion about the actual number of available machines and that we may need to trim the request back; Sean can provide guidance on priorities. Marc will check out the network drops in the library to ensure adequate service.  Laura said this will all be done in 2 weeks.
  

• Driving Google Apps adoption
• Survey results of teacher needs.
  Michael reported on the summary of findings from the survey. Top requests for training were: Classroom, Sites for a class website, using forms for online assignments, online grading and student feedback.  We’ll focus on these topics for the Dec training. In terms of on-going training, the top vote getter was self-paced online instruction.
  We discussed some of the online tools available as subscription services for teacher training. This may be the best option since people seem to want to do their own training.  It was pointed out that a key element was making the connection of the technical capability of the tool with the pedagogical need in the classroom.Synergyze, Grovo, and Atomic Learning are top candidates. Michael will have a list and brief description of potential options for next meeting.
• December faculty meeting training
  We’re in pretty good shape. We have volunteers for three of the 4 workshops (Kasey Butler for Classroom; Jess McGarry for Forms; Karl Roos for Sites; Michael will do online grading). We’ll use the comp labs in Avery & Animal; laptops in Library and McFarland. Tammy will arrange some refreshments. Michael has set up an attendance tracker.
• additional teacher tech training ideas
  from the survey, most wanted to pursue self-paced online training; some felt X-Block was for students and shouldn’t be use for teacher training; after-school time was mixed.  Looks like our initial thrust will be to identify/create resources for online, on-demand training.
• transitioning from personal spreadsheets and paper to collaborative resources ... how do we create more momentum
  One idea here was to focus on the administrative paperwork and begin to automate and simplify it. Create forms and template libraries. This will help people to start thinking of the digital alternative over the (ancient) paper.

Other Business

• A committee has been formed to select a new vendor for our School Information System. Right now we are defining needs and having preliminary meetings with prospective vendors. It was suggested that selected teachers be part of the evaluation and decision process, perhaps through trial use.
• Where is EarthScape? Plant Sciences was wondering what ever happened to the landscaping program. Laura indicated that this app was “lost” as it is not supported by WIndows 7 (was anyone in Plant Sciences informed about this?).  As an alternative, Plant would like to investigate getting DynaScape.

Next Meeting

• will be Wednesday 12/2 and then 12/16; We'd like to get two meetings in before the holiday break.
• Next meeting will discuss Digital Citizenship curriculum

Meeting Agenda for 23 November

Due to scheduling conflicts, our normal meeting time of Wednesday 11/18 had to be re-scheduled to:

Agenda
23 November 2015, 2:30pm
Library

• Welcoming Marc Caouette
• Google Apps Deployment status updates
• new resources for calendar (Doris)
• new student Dashboard (Michael)

• Re-Deployment of PCs for Teacher Planning rooms
• target list (Sean)

• Driving Google Apps adoption
• Survey results of teacher needs  (Michael)
• December faculty meeting training (Michael, Tammy)
• additional teacher tech training ideas (discussion)
• transitioning from personal spreadsheets and paper to collaborative resources ... how do we create more momentum (discussion)

If time permits

• Driving Digital Citizenship across the curriculum
• what needs to be added/changed from original committee work
• actions steps