Technology Improvements for 2010 School Year

As a result of the successful passage of the adjusted revenue purpose statement for the SAVE funds (was Local Option Sales Tax), the school board and superintendent have allocated $75000 to use towards technology advancements in the building. The technology team met on Sunday night to discuss items that could help the district as we look to become a technology rich school. Over the course of the past 2 years this committee has discussed several things that we think would have the greatest impact and have settled on 4 main areas.

1. Infrastructure - as the district looks to expand the number of computers operating on the network we have to consider, is our network capable of handling the numbers we are talking about? Do we need more bandwidth? Are our switches able to handle the load? Are our switches as fast as they need to be? Does our wireless network blanket the district as well as we would like? We have some infrastructure needs, but they really are not to major. Before next year I would like to have a wireless campus. This would mean adding from 8 - 10 wireless access points around the building, mostly in elementary areas. We will be increasing our bandwidth next year again as we went from 2MBS to 10MBS this year, next year we are planning to move to 15MBS.
2. Audio Enhancement - research shows that all students are impacted by a hearing loss at some time during their time at school. Audio enhancement provides an even distribution of sound throughout the classroom, helping all students in the classroom, not just those with a hearing deficit. I've found articles from Promethean, Institute for Enhanced Classroom Hearing, SMART Technologies, Michelle Wilson; P.H.D - and all agree that the impact of this technology is positive in the classroom environment. The tech committee would like to see these installed in classrooms K - 4 at least, by the time we have completed the project.
3. Increase student access - Our current lab situation puts our student computer ratio in the High School, roughly 3 students per 1 computer. The committee is committed to 1 to 1 as an end goal, but the reality of the constraints of the budget do not allow that initiative under our current funding streams. The committee would like to see additional computers available to students through the lease of mobile labs. Best case scenario is 3 - 20 station labs to be leased for the 10-11, 11-12, 12-13, & 13-14 school year. These would be used in conjunction with the current 20 station lab and will add access for classroom projects as we work toward a technology rich curriculum.
4. Get the technology in the teachers hands. With the learners in our classrooms and the emphasis of interactivity in the Iowa Core, LCD projectors and interactive technologies will become more and more common in classrooms. Each of the next 3 years we would like to spend about $7000 installing permanently affixed LCD projectors in classrooms for teacher and student use. Interactive whiteboards are also an option, but we want to make sure the teacher is ready for that, so rather than just telling a teacher they will be installed in their classroom, the teachers will go through an application process to qualify for a board in their classrooms. High School and Middle School teachers will also be provided a MacBook for their use (the same machines that the students will have in the mobile labs).
5. Professional Development - PD is a must for our teachers as we can't just put the technology in the teacher's hands and say, "Go forth and create!"

Be looking for more info on these and other changes as they come up here!

iPad Thoughts

There was a lot of speculation leading up to the Easter weekend release of the iPad, and I think the response from folks with new iPads has been positive. When the opportunity for orders came in early March I ordered one for my wife, as she is the only person in the house without a personal computing device. My two son's and I all have an iPod touch, but Angie held off stating, "With my eyes, I can't see anything on that screen!" So, I decided to see if an iPad would fit her needs better.

I originally thought that the iPad would arrive on Monday, rather than Saturday, because Apple sent a message to me regarding my order, and that there wasn't Saturday delivery in our area. Qudos to the folks at UPS for making the on time delivery happen! Rather than standing in line on Saturday morning at a mall Apple store, I signed for it at my front door! Unboxing was pretty simple, as there really isn't anything in the box besides the iPad itself, a charging cord, and some Apple decals. My wife kept asking for a how to use it manual, but got her past that by encouraging her to "Play" with it before getting too caught up in the details. After plugging in to our iMac, an iTunes update, a registration, we were off and running.

Angie had used our iPods a little bit, but for the most part she was completely new to using this type of a device. We tackled how to get apps first. Walked her through the Apps store on her iPad and showed her how to get apps in iTunes as well. From there we started using the different preloaded apps that are on the iPad - Maps, Mail, Safari, etc. Each time she ran in to a spot where she wasn't sure what to do and ended up asking me, "what should I do?", I would answer with, "what do you think?" More times than not she would poke around and find what she needed next. The only thing that really stumped us was locking the screen orientation, but found that on a handy Apple training video.

Some observations both good and bad. As many of you have experienced an iPod Touch, this is very much the same, just bigger. Touching and moving things around on the screen is very intuitive and easy. The on screen keyboard will take some getting used to as there isn't any feedback if you have gotten the key "depressed" other than the letter showing up. Spacing of the keyboard in landscape mode was pretty good, but it lacks a tab key. My hands are pretty good sized and I was able to use it with relative ease. In portrait mode you can still do the two thumb method as the screen isn't too big.

Graphics are dynamite! Videos, pictures, and books show up in great quality and clarity. The screen is a greasy fingerprint grabber, even with a protective film over it, but I think there are screen protectors on the market that will take care of this. My oldest son has one on his touch that is textured, and it doesn't pick up near the fingerprints as mine does. A polishing cloth will take the fingerprints away, as they are very obvious when the display is powered down. The calendar is a feature that Angie picked up right away. You can sync it with your computer, like with your iPod, so our next two busy months are in and we know where we are headed!

iBook and Kindle both are nice versions of readers for the iPad. iBook is connected to the iTunes site, so you don't have to set up another internet account. The nice thing about Kindle for the iPad is, you can share your books within the devices you want to have registered on your account. So a book I buy to read on my iPod Touch, Angie can read on her iPad and Cole can read on his iPod Touch.

We have found that the Wi-Fi tends to "lose" it's connection and has to be manually rejoined - I'll keep an eye on this as it may be a glitch to our iPad, or Apple may have an update to fix this soon - but after showing Angie a time or two she picked up and was able to make the necessary adjustments.

To summarize - I was lucky to have a few $$ salted away for this as I knew it was on the way, and I bought the 16G version $499 plus Apple Care for 1 year at $104 brought my total to just over $600. I usually don't buy warranties for items like this, but with the new technology decided it would be worth it. I won't say you HAVE to have this, but I will say if you can afford it, or might be able to pick it up after a month or so, do it!