Thursday, May 24, 2012

Tech Facilitator Meeting May 2012

 

  • Betty Weycker:  Next year focus by Bullying Committee will be on cyber bullying 
  • Ali Tomberlin will be here to share legal updates. 
    • New texting policy
Personnel Updates
  • Victoria from downtown school had a baby. 
  • Ruth Wilcox is transferring to Paisley Middle School 
  • No one new or leaving?

End of year wrap up on Connect your Community (CYC) --Computer distribution Program Cathy Davidson
  • Biggest computer distribution last Friday-- 112 
  • 1000 children now have computers at home, and many more parents are computer literate 
  • 1535 computer graduates 
  • Let parents and teachers know that there will continue to be free computer classes through Winstonnet  http://forsythcomputertraining.org/
  • Trainers have all been unemployed or under-employed

Carla Miller—technical updates
  • Printers:  auditing software is NOT in place now—so we can’t tell which computers printed to what printer at this point. 
  • End of year—try and leave printers up and plugged into the same port as they are currently plugged into now because of VLAN issues, and the printer management
  • Computers put up over the summer—up to schools at how to handle
Race to the top update:
  • Some trailers do not have access points—all trailers will have an access point in them—all parts have now arrived. 
  • E-rate schools—changing out switch gear—waiting until after staff leaves—she will be in contact with the school affected

Kevin: Printing issues:   
  • last year SSO,  this year windows active directory server 2008 
  • Now through print utility through print management console—it’s about 50%-75% successful 
  • Issues with printing and student printing? 
  • Found that there is basically no reason to use print servers 
  • The alternative is: "TCPIP" printing:  Each machine is set up on a  TCPIP printer port-- Nothing profile related. (Downs:  I already add printers this way when I could not get a machine to work right with print server:  http://tjmstechtips.blogspot.com/2010/04/printing-troubleshootingadding-local-ip.html )
  • Chris feels like it can be done through a script—It is the most basic, simple way to print 
  • It would be a one time script that runs on machines
  • The print management console will still be used to add printers this way. 
  • Will we be able to audit print jobs if we switch to this management method?  YES 
    • Print auditing: requires a third party piece of software that costs money 
    • Should DOT give you the tool?  But is there enough support for this—needs more discussion.  Maybe a principal meeting discussion if there is a high need
  •  Printing should not be this hard!  Maybe over-managed it? 
  • When we switch over, DOT will send out a team to schools

True guest wireless
  • How to get a guest on the wireless network 
  • We have controller based managed wireless network 
  • For guest access, each school will receive a guest access user name such as "516guest" 
  • They will issue temporary passwords—for 24 hours generally 
  • You can put in a ticket or call the help desk and they will email you the information for the guest log-in 
  • Users will have student filtering applied. 
  • No access to printers. 
  • Best policy is still probably for guests to have presentations on a thumb drive 
  • The guest will have to connect to WSFCS_GUEST not WSFCS_Managed 
  • This is for vendors, parents, presenters, etc. who come into your school for temporary circumstances—This will be live in August

Accelerated Reader/Renaissance Product:   
  • Are going to web-based only product.  The support of server client environments will continue for one more year, but after that, DOT and vendor will no longer support that AR product (server) 
  • Glenda Graham retired and Sherry Reich has been promoted to that position, so Sherry will not be working much with AR much anymore 
  • Marlo made the point that this might be a natural time to move away from this since the research shows it is NOT proven to be effective for student learning
  •  Kevin/Betty/Marlo have to discuss with instructional the best product that could be offered as an alternative
  • AR not going away, it’s just going to the web version, and you will need to buy the support for it. 
  • Server version of AR should still work, but don’t ask DOT if it stops working after next year.
AMTR:
Joan Proffitt: AMTR FAQ questions have been updated and will be uploaded to web-portal:

  • If you have password problems, put in a KACE ticket or Joan.  
  • Don’t forget to count cafeteria computers 
  • 101/102 Pentium questions:  Most with R are a four and higher 
  • Galaxy tabs go under 109—net-book or a mini 
  • 114:  PALM for dibbles 
  • New smart phones go under 124 DROID
  • CPS each clicker gets counted 
  • Number of teachers—certified classroom teachers 
  • 50% at one school verses another—you can count .5 
  • Guidance counselor and CC can be counted as a teacher if they go into classrooms and teach 
  • 409—Video streaming--Learn 360 and YouTube for education 
  • 604—WAN connection—MS/HS,  up to a 1000mb is 1GB 
  • 618 average RAM--kinda of a crazy question, but most schools probably average 512 MB of RAM though some schools with many newer computers may average 1 GB

Re-image machines—Help ?
  • If you are willing to do this with your principal's approval—volunteer?  Carla will have a team to help you—images will be the latest
  • Will not do classroom solution machines nor office machines 
  • T400—issue with monitor driver for CPS (Mike getting to Evan) 
  • Profile sweeps usually the third week of May 
 Lenovo coming out with a new version of mini
  • 4GB of memory with windows 7 
  • Pricing these out (just bought 60 of them) 
  • Ready to put on the price list 
  • About $40 more expensive 
  • A set of 24 with the managed cart is about $100 cheaper 
  • Cart for these holds 32
Thin Client machines—still testing the idea of turning old net vista into those machines—still viable—can’t go hog wild because of band width issues.

IE8:  Is available on AICP
  • You can also try a handful of machines using KACE—send Chris or Kevin an email if you would like to try that on a handful of machines at one time 
  • New images will have IE8

Debbie Harmon:  End of Year updates 
  • K2 assessment moved into SAS (link on teacher web portal—under links)   
  • brings them to SAS log-on screen—tied to their network user name and password 
  • What they learned, when more than 15 students on the main screen in order to refresh it was timing out in IE7,  but worked great in IE8 
  • Now, all students are on one page 
  • Problems really seem to happen when there are more than 16 students in on-screen view and IE8 should help
  • There is no requirement to print.  But they’re may be issues 
  • Harmon can provide all the data to CC’s
NCWISE, other
  • Tam document—departments/ncwise/tam user guides:  http://wsfcs.k12.nc.us/Page/45268 
  • There is an elementary end of year marks calculation 
  • Comments should be added to the final marks not 4th 9 weeks 
  • MS/HS document will be up next week
Policy change on the EOG counting as 25% (now is 20%) Ncwise can not change that percent--Principals said they had it "worked out"

Marlo:
  • Summer stuff—Promethian--July 17 and 18 Promethean Conference at Morgan 
  • SMARTcon12 July 19 and 20 at Speas 
  • June sweep on June 14th and 15th:  http://wsfcs.k12.nc.us/Page/56986

BYLD—"Bring your learning device"
  • Cherokee County, Georgia piloted this in the spring—was all voluntary 
  • Kevin—the instructional part is an important issue to address. What would you do with the devices? 
  • To put training in perspective, In Cherokee County, when teachers get a classroom solution, they have to attend 100 hours of training (our teacher balk at 3 hours) 
  • In terms of devices there, anything that can access the web is what this district allowed 
  • Parents would have to think about how they would help student get connected to the network at school 
  • Late this summer, Betty will share with principals, but will start with a pilot (not a whole lot to tell yet about how the pilot would look) 
  • Will look at how to teach, how to manage them, and then hopefully a district wide model later next school year 
  • Cherokee is very willing to share all their information including suggested ideas for teachers
Betty:
  • Marlo’s last instructional meeting—Thank you! 
  • New director of instructional technology—Steven Anderson 
  • Keep in touch with Marlo:  mgaddis@chccs.k12.nc.us
  • on twitter:  @
"Setting the Tone:  A Connected School Approach to Creating Bully-Free Classrooms"
  • Cyber-bullying has recently come on as a big issue— 
  • Glenn Smith is here today..works with inmates, instructor of applied control theory. 
  • President of:  www.be-print.net 
  • Wrote this book to continue to publicize bullying—it goes on not just in schools but at home and in the workplace 
  • Another reason other than awareness, is to offer ideas of what to do about it. 
  • Intimidating the intimidator or rescuing the victim is not always the way 
  • Hurting people that hurt people is not the way to change behavior 
  • Internal change comes from building relationships/setting the tone/ building a community /moving beyond tolerance to acceptance to honoring differences/ learning to respect differences 
  • Articles/documents on cyber-bullying will be made available by DOT: 
  • ¼ teens are bullied with 40% of it is happening on-line 
  • Disconnect between what parents grasp as a problem and what students face is large 
  • "RIP"—repeated, intentional, Power-based 
    • Bullying is repeated usually by the same person 
    • Intentional:  causes distress “a tone” –that transmits blame or shame 
    • It doesn’t matter how you hear yourself it’s how others hear that tone 
    • Power based -- to gain control in a negative way
  • What better way when the person can do it anonymously (on the internet) 
  • #1 abusers on the internet (60-65%) were conducted by women 
  • One way to give up anger is to give up caring
How are we helping people who make mistakes?
  • We can’t really “protect” the victims:  We can’t always be there for them—it’s to help them be who they want to be. 
  • Become a facilitator not a rescuer. 
  • Not going to catch all the cyber bullies—have to get students involved in policing themselves 
  • The schools that are more into punitive and reward systems have more incidences of violence and  bullying 
    • "What do I get if I do, what happens to me if I don’t" 
    • Punishment and Reward systems do not work too well?  Who can we can control?  Only ourselves.   
    • Its about agreements and accountability.
What is your school and what is your focus at your school? 
  • Punishment and reward vs Agreements and Accountability 
  • You want people to do the right thing when people are not looking. 
  • Setting the tone with agreements—facilitating self evaluation.
Rachel’s challenge is a good resource:  http://www.rachelschallenge.org/LearnMore/WhatIsRC.php

  • Continue to communicate and stay connected to students 
  • Taking pictures and distorting them is one of the most common things now. 
  • Create and discuss family agreements 
  • Educate that posting is permanent, sexting is a felony if under 16:

  • Hold teens accountable to the agreements 
  • questions to Glenn Smith, his email address is reactnot@aol.com.  Be-Print's web link is http://be-print.net 
Read the book over the summer:  Setting the Tone:  http://www.amazon.com/Setting-Tone-Bully-free-Classrooms-ebook/dp/B006WWGWK2


Ali Tomberlin, General Counsel to School Board:
 
Legal duties of teachers/acceptable use policies:  (Here is the Power Point she showed):
  • Legal duties: fall under NC general statue—applies to anyone in the classroom, period.
  • There is a duty to report
Laws:

  • “Make required reports” is the one that is a misdemeanor and can  constitutes the loss of a teacher license 
  • Take care of school building—watching kids abuse computers etc when teachers are frivolous about signing out computers
State Board of education Policy Administrative Code

  • If teacher is charged with a crime, you are required to report to a supervisor within 5 days—only exception is minor motor vehicle violation. 
  • WSFCS expands rules to all employees: 
  • Showed a past personnel discipline decisions

Intellectual Property
  • NC state law:  132-1
  • Admin regulation 6161.1
On personal advertising distribution of sales information on teacher websites is prohibited

Acceptable Use Policies 6161.1

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