Tech Facilitator Meeting April 2012

Ron Clark spoke in the area last night--Betty says he was inspiring as always.

Check out all the comments from today at:
http://todaysmeet.com/tfapr12

Personnel changes:

• Marlo Gaddis leaving for a position in Chapel Hill School 
• Ramika Rhodes—new at service desk 
• Bill Doub retired from Carver

Connect 5 is the replacement for Alert Now

•  If schools don’t come to training next week, they will not be able to use Alert Now the following week. 
• The training information is in the last TBT:  https://webportal.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/sites/DOT/blog/default.aspx
• Monday/Wednesday are face to face meetings--come to lab, get your log-in, and switch you over, show you the new system 
• Tuesday is a webex

More initiatives…Matching Funds Grant Program

• It’s not “buy what-ever you want to"/It’s not just give schools money 
• Specifically designed to give schools who don’t have classroom solutions, 
• 34 schools expressed interest
• Now They must know if schools have the money and can they provide by the time its required
• May 9^th (must complete the application)   
• Monies will be provided by June 1^st so schools can close out by June 30^th

Matching Funds Rules

• If there is enough money to do one to one, then that’s what the matching will be. 
• If not enough money, then they will do "the scales"--a certain percentage. 
• In order to do the solution, there must be a site survey, the price varies depending on the wiring situation 
• Rough Costs:  Middle/High School- $8500.00, Elementary:$10,000 
• Start with a complete classroom, This program is not designed to do “start-ups” 
• Any other questions, put in today’s meet. 
• If you have doubts about what you want/need, request site survey.

Fiber optic Network agreement with Winston-Salem and NC:

• Partnership with city of Winston-Salem/NC Department of transportation
• Betty shared with the school board this week 
• What will it mean? Some schools should see increased performance in connectivity 
• DOT is installing fiber at all stop lights in a circle around Winston-Salem 
• Will allow schools to “connect to those stoplights” and tie in and save costs and monitor and expand our band width 
• US is significantly behind fiber connectivity compared with other countries 
• For schools the goal is to increase speeds 
• WSFCS will be responsible for cost of fiber from traffic signal to the 34 identified school sites 
• There is supposed to be an article in the Winston-Salem Journal coming soon. 
• The school system is in contract with time Warner, and we are a little concerned about the possible changes time Warner might try and make as we transition to the new fiber optic source 
• Davie county has been on the fiber ring for a couple of years 
• Wireless Access points will need to have an adjustment to gain that bandwidth.

AMTR: Annual Media and Technology Report

Joan Proffitt: 

• Annual Media and Technology Report, impacts state report card and funding 
• Should have received an email about NCID account from Joan in the last week 
• Email Joan with password problems with NCID for TECH Facilitator 
• Principals should already have an active NCID account since they have to use it for other things 
• Media Coordinators should also have one,  if they need access, put in a ticket or call the service desk 
• Info on AMTR is on the tech facilitator webportal:  
• On right hand side (old links)—Kevin will update 
• On left: info for tech facilitators then the amtr 2012 folder 
• Registration procedures—for new tech facilitators 
• Joan will email all tech facilitators Friday 
• Everyone has to subscribe to the AMTR even if you have done it before 
• Helpful question and answers have been updated 
• Friendly url’sfor addresses of the school websites 
• Media data will be updated from Jackie Pierson and she will send information
• Up to you at your school whether tech facilitator wants to enter the information or have Media people do it directly 
• More than one tech facilitator can be linked to a school 
• Email Joan directly on questions 
• 2011 AMTR is live, so you should just have to update the data 
• Make sure you save the section, double check the question and answers since some of those have changed 
• Make sure you pay attention to dates 
• School system is requesting it be done by June 10^th
•  principals sign off by June 15^th

• If principal signs off and you still need to make changes, email Joan if that happens with the changes you made afterwards.

Kevin Sherrill

KACE:

• Newly re imaged machines, you might see some KACE management pop ups
• If you cntl-shift-backspace, will cancel that screen
• It’s been coming up more and more recently—they have an open ticket with KACE
• Additional modules for KACE, inventory etc. over the summer will be looking more at those features

E-rate Switch roll out 

• About five years ago, certain schools qualified for new switches under this program
• Now those same schools qualify for e-rate funding again for updates to those switches 
• Over the summer, they will be switching out the switches at those schools 
• There will be a bit of an outage during that time 
• They get these new switches at 10% costs, and can then use those older switches to replace non standard/broken or shortages of equipment at other schools 
• They are also going to be working on the Hill/Philo merger

Yearly re-image for lab machines, and classroom computers?   

• Put comments on today’s meet and when schools should consider doing this (end of this year, start of new year?)
• DOT can provide resource to assist 
• Chris is working hard on updating all of the images. 
• Maybe a sign-up sheet to express interest?
• Several said difficult for Tech Facilitators to undertake this project on short notice due to all the different ways that TF are being utilized in schools (wearing so many different hats)
• But all seem to agree that re-imaging classroom computers and laptops would be a good idea

Carla Miller:

• Surplus window is closed –was due April 13^th.  42 schools submitted spreadsheets 
• Getting ready to schedule the pickups—testing is a concern 
• Expect an email the first of next week to schedule those pick-ups.

Race to the Top:

• Working to get all of the school done, only have about 8 schools left to complete?

Print Management:

• Ways to prevent printers from going “Stale” over the summer 
• Try and minimize the moves where-ever possible 
• Many schools have different V-LANs that have different IP addresses, so you must put in a ticket if moving printers 
• Someone suggested putting a green drop on the port where the printer is plugged in.  
• Try and get printers put back connected to network after rooms are cleaned as quickly as possible because they go “Stale”

 Wireless Project/Kevin:

• The whole project is designed to be able to add more devices.

Marlo Gaddis:

• Upcoming training (teachers have less to get than previously—only 1 CEU (10 hours) now) 
• Total requirement is 7.5 for the state—part of paper work reduction act 
• Here’s the problem—the state changed their definition of reading credit to literacy credit”—so with this ruling there will be two literacy credits that will be required—in the district—one of which will have to be in technology. -

June 14/15^th ad Admin center NCWISE lab

• "Boot camp" of technology credit offerings 
• Promethean users –camp this summer July 17^th and 18^th at Morgan 
• SMART Users at July 19^th/20^th at SPEAS 
• PLEASE let teachers know about this—it’s for anyone interested.  They would rather it not be completely new users, but have some familiarity. 
• Maybe give those people per-training that are completely new to Promethean or SMART

Professional Standards for Tech Facilitators:

• In April, state board approved new professional standards for Tech Facilitators and School Librarians/Media Coordinators 
• Purpose to guide graduate programs 
• The rubrics for the evaluation are being built now to go along with these standards 
• You have to be a full-time tech facilitator to use it according to state, but principal can choose to use TPAI (teacher performance appraisal instrument)
• Fall of next year, there will be a pilot for this new system 
• Fall of 2013, they will start new professional evaluation for principals to get trained on this new system, and may start with the new one for Tech Facilitators in Spring 2014
• More information:  http://it.ncwiseowl.org/standards/pro_standards/

ITES / Information and Technology Essential Standards

• It’s our job to send this information about the new ITES standards back to schools—everything is available on Learning Village now. 
• By July 1, the moodle course will be available to take any of the ITES  
• Tell teachers about the training

TPACK: ( Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge Framework)

• Draft document can be found on instructional technology page (Jan 23^rd ITES sessions) of the wsfcs website and on Learning Village 
• If you or your teachers use certain resources you want to add, send it to DOT 
• It’s not about making kids "dependent on technology" /but dependent on learning

EDCAMP:

• First state wide edcamp like this was in April 
• About 79 people from across the state showed up on a Saturday in Raleigh 
• Was one of the best times Marlo had with educators in a long time. 
• Flipping classrooms, bring your own device, web 2.0 smackdown and other topics were discussed—
• Marlo shared the resources they gathered in a google doc (in her presentation)
• Here's one Marlo liked:
• writing prompt site for middle schools
• http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/ 
• Ifttt:  http://ifttt.com/ (if this than that,site)   It’s a work flow process site--really cool.

The following were discussions we had about BYOD--"bring your own device" to school.  This is coming and there were many comments posted

Table top discussions:

• BYOD—Bring your own device, BYOT bring your own technology 
• Just because the state says all children should be tested in 2014, does not mean we should necessarily buy an online device for each student. 
• You don’t teach to the lowest, have to bring expectations up. 
• Have to look at big picture 
• Based on race to top grant, do we manage a pilot?, What is our goal of BYOD, are we just trying to test kids? 
• We need discussion on all of this  topics to think about:

A recorder…at each table.

Here are some background articles: 

• http://www.convergemag.com/classtech/BYOD-Forsyth-Infrastructure.html

• http://esheninger.blogspot.com/2012/03/moving-schools-forward-with-byod.html

According to Gardner study, four main things you need to look at:

1)      Revamp the curriculum

2)      Resolve the equity issues

3)      Infrastructure to support them?

4)      Acceptable use and other policies

Revamping Curriculum with BYOD:

• How would teachers use it if everyone had devices?

• What are best practices, how do you plan differently

• How do you change classroom management in this model? 
• We talked about classroom management as the first and biggest issue for teachers 
• How about kids without computers at home –issue checkouts:  Students would have to be issued equipment 
• This requires us to "Think outside the walls…" 
• "Flipping the classroom":  brings a whole new way of teaching:We have to prepare teachers for this…with ideas for utilizing this stuff.

Equity Issues with BYOD:   

• How to we ensure fair access for everyone?  
• What hardware and resources will we need? 
  • Consider the population of your kids 
  • EC student needs 
  • ESL students

• Consider the type of hardware you provide already.   
• There are equity issues even if every student has their own device (different levels of knowledge levels for example). 
• In terms of states who are dealing with these issues, CA is leading the pack,  Philadelphia, FL and GA have initiatives too.

Infrastructure:  

• Ways we will let devices on network (via domain now)  Will be based on user based authentication.
• Access will be filtered. NAC is another but expensive option for user control 
• We are now averaging ~ 2500 devices  per day 
• Can support 10,000 concurrent connections with the infrastructure we have now.  May have to grow the infrastructure in the future 
• IP group membership will be given student rights for all BYOD machines. 
• State has a managed filtering that we will probably tie into later 
• What devices will be allowed?  Choose from a group of possible items? 
• Mobile device management app we would have pay for this 
• Have to have a district/consistent policy on what we would do and not do in terms of servicing equipment. 
  Acceptable Use and other policies

Acceptable USE Policies

• What if a student drops a piece of equipment?

• We already have pretty clear policies in place, but may have to revise

• Have to make clear instructions on care:

Overall comments:

• The rules what would we need the personal devices for in the school. 
• Poll everywhere is used quite a bit at EAST as an example of the technologies we could use with BYOD 
• Overall, we have said this will bring more learning and equity to the classroom, so BYOD will be a good thing 
• We like the idea that we have an overall policy that we  don’t support the students equipment problems.  Instead we have an inventory of devices we can hand out like tablets for those with problems on any given day 
• Color code system per classroom for technology use on any given day (test day for example) 
• We definitely need to revamp the curriculum.  
•  This should raise the level of blooms taxonomy—questions won’t be fact based anymore. 
• Charging issues in classes? may have to think outside the box on this 
• Focus on cooperative learning may come into play more. 
• Planning ahead will be necessary for teachers and teacher training. 
• Make curriculum more project based and use devices for research. 
• Social networking like edmodo might be increased by BYOD 
• Has to be a different method of teaching not just “plug and play” 
• Training for teachers?  Will only help if supported by leadership 
• “Genius device location” Where they keep technology for check out. 
• Hacking concerns 
• Signal Strength: not an issue since they need to be on wireless not 3G 
• The Friday Institute is working with the plan NCLTI Master Plan —
  • Friday Institute:http://www.fi.ncsu.edu/project/nc-11-learning-collaborative/nclti/ 
   
    
• Marlo:  "As soon as people get software, teaching stops" 
• Policies in WSFCS are in place, might need to be lumped together better. 
• Expectations have to be high and clear all around 
• Issue:  Technology Facilitators being used in other roles and not just supporting technology 
• Overall, this is a very complex subject 
• There is no for or against this—it’s a tsunami coming at us. 
• Need everyone to help form these policies—Betty agrees every school with BYOD should have a full-time tech facilitator.

Last tid-bits---

CYC:  Connect your community:

• is still going (by end of May will have 1000 families with Internet access)

• All trainers were unemployed or under employed and now are employed. 
• They need some teachers for the summer—contact Katherine Davidson.

Texting Policy:   

• Board Policy committee is currently developing a policy to show which parents allow teachers to be texting between teachers and students 
• NCWISE would track who has permission to text. 
• Enrollment forms that are taken home on paper at the start of the year--, one of the questions would be:  is student allowed to receive text communication? 
• Who will monitor this?

Online Field Testing:

• IE7 issues with field testing.  IE8 most stable browser, shared with Dana Wrights. 
• Looking at Google Chrome and IE8 will be the approved browsers in the fall.