My New Second Home - Brighton, CO - Part 1 was written on November 8th. A lot has happened in the past 42 days - good things! But I bet you thought you were never going to hear Part 2 since it has taken me so long to get back to it. Well here ya go - :)
The District is taking a serious, research-based look at Cloud Computing productivity tools. A Cost Benefit Analysis has been completed by Technology and my report on the State of Instructional Technology in the District is written. We are considering Microsoft Live@EDU and Google Apps for Education. We plan to pilot them both. Two of the instructional technology key requirements are:
- simultaneous editing of shared documents for teachers and student, and
- the ability to create forms that auto populate a spreadsheet.
Last year the District was awarded an $150K E2T2 grant by CDE. We are in the process of modifying the grant details to address completing the remaining tasks by May of 2011. Teachers and students are using formative assessment, EDU20, slates, projectors and document camera's to enhance learning. Things we need more of and perhaps will always need more of is professional development, up-to-date workstations to enable the slates and document cameras to perform, clickers to replace the missing projector clickers so we can black them out when it is necessary to access IC in the middle of a lesson and adhere to FERPA rules, wireless in those classrooms and wireless enabled devices, so that we adhere to Risk Management Safety Guidelines of no cords across the floor, time for the grant participants to get together as needed to collaborate, to plan on-going professional development as the program expands. Well I could continue on this topic forever, so on to the next one.
"If we all share the load and responsibility, we will learn and gain even more than we share." is my personally created quote included in my 27J signature line. Due to state budget issues, every Colorado school district has had to have their staff wear more "hats" this year. No one gets to say "No - that's not our job" anymore. Everyone needs to be doing whatever is necessary (within appropriate district guidelines), to help out where there is a need. I said all of that to prepare you for an opportunity within 27J. In January all staff will be able to participate in an Instructional Technology Expertise survey (and yes, it auto populates to a spreadsheet :)). The purpose of this survey is for folks to let others folks know where they'd like to know more from an instructional technology standpoint as well as what areas of instructional technology you might feel capable of helping someone else. This spreadsheet will include best times to contact each other to help or get help and will be available to everyone via a link that is live and up-datable 24/7! Go Prairie View High School for the idea!
Let me know your thoughts and comments and also "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year". As a new employee to the district, I will not be taking any vacation during the holidays as I won't have enough days to escort my daughter to all of her out-of-town cheer leading competitions if I did that!
1 comment:
Working as a team, with each one doing the task that they are excellent at, brings about better results. When people share responsibility, the task gets lighter and is accomplished at a faster rate. Thanks for sharing.
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