Study Shows Computers Lower Grades, But May Boost cognitive ability

I recently heard on NPR's "Hear and Now" an interesting story about a study on families who received computers verses families who did not in Romania.  The study was researched by a team from Chicago.

Here is a link to the interview on NPR:

Many people assume that a computer in the home will help students in school and help prepare them for the work world.  However, this particular study had mixed results showing that the students who received computers showed big drops in academic achievement.  On the other hand,  the students did show improvement in cognitive ability.  This raises many questions.

One conclusion of the study was that parental involvement really mattered.  Students with parents who set strict rules about computer use, showed less decline in academic achievement compared to the students who basically had free reign on the computer (probably just playing games all the time).  As a teacher, this part of the study is almost common sense -- knowing how parental involvement makes such a difference in the students that I see.  

The positive in this study is the increased cognitive ability, and perhaps another issue one might raise could be what are schools there actually measuring when they assess "academic achievement" ?  Perhaps schools are not measuring "real life skills" i.e. "cognitive ability"  that students really need.  


The author agrees that this study has mixed results. However, it does give educators and especially me as a technology facilitator something to think about in relation to some assumptions about computers in the home. 

Here is a copy of the study:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.hereandnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/0722_computer-study.pdf

Social Networking: Teachers and Students

This question came up on facebook.  "Correct me if i am wrong, but we are not supposed to be facebook friends with any student, whether we teach them or not. i have had a lot of rising 9th graders want to be my friend!"

Here is the link to the WS/FCS Board Policy on preferred mediums of communication that exist for teachers, school administrators and all other employees to communicate with students rather than the use of social networking sites. 

http://policy.microscribepub.com/cgi-bin/om_isapi.dll?clientID=104460929&advquery=social%20networking&depth=2&headingswithhits=on&hitsperheading=on&infobase=forsyth.nfo&record={1160}&softpage=PL_frame

The main point is:  "The Board strongly recommended that teachers, school administrators and all other employees not communicate directly with students or list WS/FCS students as “Friends” on personally administered pages of social networking sites, unless the student is the employee’s child, grandchild, sibling, cousin, niece or nephew. The Board of Education reserves the right to limit the mediums of interaction and communication between a teacher and student in the event the communication between the teacher and student warrant such."

It does say "recommend"...so that means you can not be fired for simply communicating, but the problem is the slippery slope that exists when communication starts on social networks that include your friends who do not necessarily think of your job as a teacher and the things that might say or post pictures of you doing :(

 However, other renowned educators feel quite differently than our school system.  In fact there are principals out there that actually encourage their teachers to friend students on Facebook!  Read more about that here:

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2010/07/innovative-educator-in-new-york-times.html

Finally, here are some articles that have been written on the topic:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/should-teachers-friend-their-students-facebook
(there was a suggestion on here for making a group page that would allow you to communicate with students on a very limited platform--like a fan page)

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Students_Teachers_Social_Networking/

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=11759793021&topic=7244

Wireless Router Issues

Had a question from a teacher today about her wireless router at home, "how they could reset their wireless router back to its default settings since they no longer could remember the password". Ever happen to you? Me too!  I  realized this is a common question that I get.  How to setup a wireless router, how to reset a wireless router.  How to connect to a wireless network, etc. 

One overall suggestion...If after many hours of trouble shooting a wireless router and you still can’t figure out what to do just go to Google and type in your wireless router model and trouble shooting and you will find many more tips.

The following  are some links for managing those specific issues:

Tips for wireless router troubleshooting:
http://www.dvhardware.net/article15009.html

Resetting a router password (also has links for specific models)
http://www.ehow.com/how_5865391_reset-password-router.html

Here's another good site with sugestions for resetting your wireless router:
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/reset-wireless-router-default-settings/

Setting up a wireless network:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2091721_connect-laptop-wireless-router.html
Here's another good one from Microsoft for setting up a wireless network:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/organization/wirelesssetup.aspx

Wireless Projector

A teacher at my school asked me today if he could write a grant for an ipad that would be able to work with a wireless LCD projector or LCD TV...Here are some articles I found about it, but I am looking for some advice on how well they work or how reasonable this is:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/02/08/infocus.adds.mac.os.x.support.for.displaylink/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362658,00.asp

Wireless LCD TV's:

http://www.wirelesslcdtv.net/

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7590_102-0.html?threadID=113140

School Wires Basic steps

School Wires Step By Step:

Go to your school's website
Once at your page, In the upper right hand corner, click on “USER OPTIONS”

Choose the drop down arrow next to user options and select:  SIGN IN

Enter your active directory (windows/computer) login name: For example: jdowns, and use your active directory password (how you log-on to your computer) ...

Click on Sign-in

To edit your page, go back to User Options and choose Site Manager.

Click on the name of the page you want to work on, such as your Welcome Page.

Make any changes you like and be sure to hit the SAVE button in the lower left before navigating away from the page!!

Note the different editing tools: Hovering your mouse over those tools will tell you what they do. Take note of the “abc” button for spell check/grammar/thesaurus.

Also, from the Site manager page, there are many other things you can do:
add new pages (that will appear on your left navigation),
make pages “inactive”
under tools… set up a photo gallery, set up a form/survey, etc.

10) When finished working, always be sure to go back to your main page, and under USER OPTIONS, choose “sign off”.

Resources:

WS/FCS Wiki on School Wires: http://wsfcswebmasters.pbworks.com/Schoolwires

Teacher website "non Negotiables"
http://www.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/cms/module/selectsurvey/TakeSurvey.aspx?PageNumber=1&SurveyID=123http://www.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/cms/module/selectsurvey/TakeSurvey.aspx?PageNumber=1&SurveyID=123

(all new teachers must read and sign)

Basic editing your webpage--Help Card: http://wsfcswebmasters.pbworks.com/f/Section+Editor+helpcard.pdf

Do's and Don't of Teacher webpage: http://wsfcswebmasters.pbworks.com/f/Teacher+Webpages.pdf

Tech Meeting Minutes April 29, 2010

Betty Weycker:

"New worst enemy"--Power Point...

Everything she told Teacher Advisory on 4/21, she will tell us today.

School Wires updates, tech updates, parent assist updates...

Kevin Sherrill:  Tech Updates:

AMTR,  need to get machine names correct.  Please help keep names clean, still disabling based on the 30/60/90 day rules

Older computers, are being stressed...
Drive space on servers are reaching their limits of 125 GB.
Student/Teacher files that have music on them will be purged off of H drives., no questions asked--warn your teachers.
May send out a list of teachers who need to be talked with...

Carla:  surplus pickup:

Profile cleanup will be around May 15th--will be "on" for about three days

ASSIST is the NEW HEAT:  (Jim Mendoza) New work order system that is part of School Wires...Teachers will submit work orders that will be routing to tech facilitators...

We will be trained in August.

Three Queues:
Technology (main one)
Assessment Team
and Maintenance

We are a registered technition, and assigned to our building...

Much simplier, cleaner interface
Types of tickets:
incident (break/fix)
Request (need/want)
Change (for tech dept only)

New ASSIST, has the ability to add attachments
When you log in, you will see tickets waiting to be assigned...
More robost integration with our e-mail system
Ability to do Question and answers
One con--loosing details screen...

Implementation / Rollout:
They need to know the names of the rooms at your school
Excel spreadsheets are already in the request for information folder.
Kevin would like by the end of May
Steps they recommend when opening ones of these request for information documents:
Make sure you close i-notes
click on file school wires assist
click on the file, will launch excel
all cells are protected exccept ones in yellow
Nicknames--follow the examples on the ss
Click on the SAVE button, and exit out of the program excel
No check out or check in, keep only webportal open
Service desk should be ready by June 1st
Will start using in ADMIN buildings on July 1st                                     

HEAT will be kept running as an archive...and will run for us through the summer, and ASSIST should start when we get trained in August.

Back to Betty:  Parent Assist: 

No e-mailing of progress reports anymore...
Teachers should still have a list of parents who need individual progress reports printed.
For extra credit things, parents could submit a form to say they saw it...
Tonight, Betty is sending out an e-mail to all parents informing them that parent assist is the method in which parents will get their information on student progress.

Debbie Harmon: 
Teachers have to check the box to "post to parent assist" to populate the date to post to parent, and if they don't parents will never see the detail in parent assist.

For student absences, if teachers don't mark unexcused then parent will not see the absence in parent assist, so teachers should mark unexcused until student brings in a note.  Marking unexcused also drives automated calls thorugh alert now.  So teachers need to mark unexcused under absence indicator until a note is brought in. 

Jackie Pierson:  Destiny:

Destiny is stand-alone database, and it catalogs everything.  Equipment that comes into the building should be cataloged with a bar code, and it can be checked out to teachers (for that school year)  a dcoument camera for example.

If a teacher leaves the school, the destiny assignment follows them, so that's why you should have equipment put in there.  They can also track equipment purchased by PTA, other funding source, etc. So this is helpful too.

There are workshops on inventory and equipment through Media Services, they have the  digital "dolphins" and the "panthers" to scan equipment.  Title 1 equipment it's critical that it be checked out to a teacher. 

You can also check out a LCD monitor to a room, but there is a "set-up" for patron in those cases...

Federal reports are due June 7th for title 1

It's a HUGE BURDEN to inventory the equipment.

Cl Marshall:

AMTR time.  Affects school funding and school scores, and so it needs to be accurate.  Betty will post answers to some questions on the web portal for helping you get the AMTR done. Complete by June 11th--Principal must sign off on it by then.

The guide for the AMTR will be posted on the webportal...

http://amtr.dpi.state.nc.us/amtr2010/

Three new questions

321
322
323

21st Century classroom set-up, and we need to list in Tier3

You can use computrace to help you answer the questions, reference page 59 in your tech manuel on the Tech facilitator handbook

Go directly to the new URL on the instruction sheet

340-your school number
passord is the same as last year (contact CL Marshall if you no longer have this).

Give media coordinator the information they need to complete AMTR

Betty Again:

Purchasing approvals:  initiated this week  will share with principals.
nagging problem:  tech purchasing issues, and what they will support.
We are a system of 8 technitions who support 25,000 devices.
Purchasing should be appoved through technology--every single purchase order will be stamped by Betty Weycker, and will be approved or unapproved. 

1st reason, vendor not approved, device not approved, Betty will send it to finance, and notify the school it is unapproved.

This applies to all purchasing except for PTA and other outside
Professional development survey on share point, 3 questions, on teacher and admin web portal. Professional development needs assessment survey.

On left hand side under surveys...

Budget updates:

Talk to school board members, but in general technology is getting support. Value and need is being recognized.

Betty is loosing EETT funding next year, pays for Alert Now and atomic learning.

Theme money: is on list of items not recommended to be cut. Why not just hire a technology facilitator for every school? Was the question raised...So maybe the thinking is changing.

Wake laptops verses dell: that is a 500,000 purchase---Wake charged $420 last fall , and $320 for the spring wake refresh.

What schools are up for the current 300 laptops? After the election primary...Betty will distribute to thiose in-line.

School Wires & Marlo:

Go to webmaster wiki:   http://wsfcswebmasters.pbworks.com/
Look at these redesign ideas:  http://wsfcswebmasters.pbworks.com/Website-Redesign
District Standards:  http://wsfcswebmasters.pbworks.com/f/nonnegotiables.docx

There is also a school wires folder on the webportal.
Font change: trebuche is the district font
Looking at a force font down
Don't call school wires tech support.
We have only so many contact hours with school wires.
Do not delete a section unless you know a teacher is gone.
Directory at the district level--gapping holes will be gone. Teacher will just be listed as "teacher". Soon.
Entire E-mail address will be gone...it will show only under a mouse over. Web page column will appear with a link to the teacher web page.
Custodians and child nutrition --they are debating whether to include them or not in the dchool directory.
School wires has an upgrade that will fix some bugs, but Marlo didn't want to take it on during the transition.
Manuel we received is posted on-line.
Departments should be listed as teams
SROs are being told they need a web page too
Colors: spreadsheet on colors
Address and principal, and school hours can now be adjusted.
PB WIKI;

Teacher websites standards--teacher
Teachers should complete online agreement to follow the standards

How to change pictures on the homepage

Login to School Wires
Site manager
Under tools tab
Choose files and folders
Homepage flash
Choose upload

Tips:
640 by 265 minimum size...
Make sure whatever u want and centered
Bigger picture sizes can cut things off
EOG proctors
From Patrice Drone at NW Middle:  This is the free online tool that I used to edit my pictures on the website at Northwest Middle School. http://pixlr.com/
Put in a Heat ticket for text on pictures...
Betty recommend two or three pictures...
Barbara Sasso recommends urcha? For picture editing...
Teachers must get some kind of training before they get user name and password, tho it will go to active directory user name and password...
 
Three options to keep content;

Copy and paste to school wires
Copy and paste to word
Print out old pages
Pictures: no policy to have student pictures on webpage. All public information is just that...
You may want to create ur own form--there is no policy...Betty will post a generic form from Theo Helm's office
In student handbook, parents are directed to notify principal if they want to opt out of having their student picture posted. Can't post students Identified as EC...
Can be a discussion point for your MTAC committee...
School site needs to be up and ready by June 30th. Teacher sites should be up and ready basically by first day of school.
Ideas for redesigning your school website.
Look at redesign page on the webmaster wiki...
Media center needs to be listed as Media Center...and needs to be added as a section and a Quick link
Link Media center from media coordinator's named page..
Employees tab, staff resources under classrooms, and a quick link and under roles...and u could change to just staff.
Widget for a twitter announcements--steven created at clemmons...
PTA pages under parents...
Outline for basic training...Marlo has...on the wiki...
http://wsfcswebmasters.pbworks.com/Basic-Training-Outline


Betty final words:
Schedule of training...will be tough with CO shifting to university...will be an issue at some point things may be down.
Send interest if interested in summer help--they will need it :):

Some Good News:
April 17. Walk for babies--DOT raised over 1000 dollars!!
Also set up computers for over 50 parents... this project will happen again.
Patrick from Flatrock: surgery tomorrow--optimistic believes he will be back in a week...
If you want to donate days to him, contact Betty...
Cable 2 teachers using flip cameras...for National Boards. Better to use traditional cameras if they can't convert to DVD's

School Wires--My Training notes

John's notes:

http://wsfcs.schoolwires.net/wsfcs/site/default.asp

http://wsfcs.schoolwires.net/jms/site/default.asp

Training docs on the webportal:

Non-negotiables:

• School logo only in the welcome section
• new district font standard:  trebuchet
• no more than 1 animated gif per page.
• open in a current window for links to pages with in the district
• Do NOT highlight large amounts of information--maybe a word or two..
• background colors in sections minimal
• Teachers will have the same suggestions to sign off on
• You will be able to add items of your own under each channel bar..
• Spell check it is there
• avoid anchors...and longer pages
• Pages used for business only...no vacation pictures/personal blogs/recipe pages, etc.

School wires training: 

From Pennsylvania:  Vikey Jacobs  & Mike Garner

Applications are very similar to word/pp/excel

Sign in under:  user options on the right

channels broad categories followed by sections

then the pages of the "folders that live in that filing cabinet drawer"

 When there are 15 or more sections it creates a directorye get asked about often

lunch, announcements,

 Welcome area with basic eye catching information with cool stuff you are doing

 Headlines:  a little longer than announcements, teacher of the month, new grant, date driven appear and disappear according to dates

 Events will pull from the calendar...no need to update.

 District will push all the regular dates to school calendar...

 5 times entering your user name and password incorrectly you will be locked out, and you will have to contact an administrator...

 Always logout to protect yourself...

 Access my info, add your zipcode so that maps and things will automatically work, verify e-mail address

 e-alert/content alert:  need to turn on for people to be able to sign up to get alerts

 rss feeds,  all over the place...

 4 levels of editorial

 Binders are on the webportal:

 Site director:  Marlo Gaddis

 Subsite directors:  "Mayors of the town"  can fix anything on the school level

 Section editors,  only have access to individual pages...

 Home page editor:  can access headlines/events/welcome/

 Will see site manager under user options when you are on your school's page and signed in...teachers will need to be in "their section" to get site manager rights.

 Available Page types:  page 13:

 Most popular is a "Flex Page"

 Article library pages:  for lots of information--for FAQ's for meeting minutes, agendas, homework, highlighting sporting events, newsletters

This lets you categorize links...
File Libraries:  Try to keep between 8 and 10 mb, comes down to bandwidth realities...
District has overall a certain amount of space, so no limit for individuals for now...
For example, don't upload pictures from past years
They accept about every file type, keep in mind file types, save it as a PDF

Assignments page is also available: 

Students can upload assignments...

 Maps and directions pages,  good for field trips, choral concerts,

You set up the map page...can put directions about arrival and pickup, directions to the office, etc--under details.  Other sites open in a new window.

 Blog pages: 

can allow comments or not...with approval settings...

 Pod cast pages:  audio, video, u-tube, teacher tube,

 Photo Gallaries:  can go on any page, can choose how wide, how long, what order, captions

Calendar Pages:  Only 1 calendar within section/person...

Google docs will do that for you...with forms send direct event to a calendar...
color will only print if you have a color printer, or check their settings maybe set to gray scale.
Colors are based on a legend

 Categories:  standard colors across the board...

 SHARE with parents:  the ability to RSS feed/e-alerts

You only see titles in the calendar view,  there is a check box in assignments that allows you to automatically add assignment to the calendar.

First four events are shown for any one date and for more than that there is a "more"

For Jeff:  page 37, is "my events"

 Back end is called syntricity:

Channels:  you will not see on the front end until you add at least one section under neath them

orange is channel level

And add sections to those channels and pages within a section.  There is a limit to the number of sections you can add

Teachers already have sections:
Section Levels are Green

Be careful working on same page at same time...

Top school level is Blue

We will add sections...

Marlo:  chart out your page

Under departments we can add employees and site protect it (see manuel for more info)

Add my first section

New Section
for a teacher,  drop down shoule be last name, first name
When you create a section, default includes three things, calendar, something, something
Can move a teachers page if they are changing roles at the school.
can move sections or channels location.
HR should drive the ticket...

Page 39 editor items...

Paste from word will keep your editing

Full screen mode takes away your save button...

Suggest copy and paste to a new word document...if your save goes away...

Tutorial button is in the editor

Don't forget Trebuche font default for the district

Size 2 = 10 point font
size 3 = 12 point font for titles

Images "already uploaded to site" are for the area you are in...

shared library controlled by the district

School wires clip art: over 2000 for school wires....

Alternative text is needed because of requirments for americans with disability act.

When you change height in step 3 or 3 of inserting the image, it changes it proportionally
You have to place cursor in the box to insert image
Look at the Help Cards in the back of your binder

Documents/outside links open in a new window

Verify all links and be sure they are age appropriate.

Shortcut to links:  cntrl-K to set up a link...

We are currently in the incubatuion stage, we can't be googled, etc.

Tables page 42

Copying and pasting notes:
Images:
Save images as:  can not bring school center images:

Make sure you check link properties--how it opens and whether the link works

F-5 is a refresh key to refresh the browser...
Consider a fresh set of eyes to check out all your links.
Make sure links to documents are uploaded to the new link

You can get a shared folder for your school, and Marlo could add pictures etc for everyone at your school to have access

On each page, create Alert to alert people that you have updated your page...

Iin your section, in the tools tab, you can access a report to see who is subscribing to your e-alert or rss feeds.
Question from Jeff:  globally when the last time people updated their webpage,
Go to the Main school lever, go to tools and site reports, last modified report ("spy" report")
Also, section editors by section to see who is responsible by section.

Back to the channel and into the section, tools, and you can assign editor (you will not see your name)

Have to be in IE 7 or better for the good images to show up...IE 6

User options

sign-in:  Your active directory user name
change"who?"

Maybe have one section under each channel and then create more pages

No recovery...so encourage teachers to only Delete as a final resort..
Hold off on Media Center stuff...