Next Meeting Date

The Earlham Technology Committee will meet again June 15 at 6:00 p.m. in the High School Library.

Tech Committee Notes

The first meeting of the 09-10 Tech Committee took place Tuesday Morning, 5/19 at 7:15. It was well attended by staff, administration, board members and community members. The agenda was brief:

Introduction and current purpose for the committee

1. Consistent funding streams are limited - current REAP funds are no longer available due to our increased enrollment
2. Technology is expensive and has a significant impact on the general fund if not supported in some manner
3. Technology is necessary in education to help our students be prepared to enter life after K-12 school and we have to provide accordingly
4. The Instructional support levy is a means of funding that would be consistent over the course of time and allow plans to be drawn up accordingly

Vision - discuss the vision of the Tech Committee and how it relates to the Earlham Schools

1. Current Vision - To utilize and integrate technology as a tool to augment student achievement, growth and preparedness within the classroom and beyond.
2. The group discussed what this meant to them and were in agreement that it basically captured what it is we want to do
3. Group was charged with thinking about the vision and doing some word smithing to share with the group next time.

Plan - begin to formulate (brainstorm) items we would like to include as part of a ten year technology plan

1. Elementary and MS/HS folks separated and discussed their ideas about potential items for the plan.
2. Some of the thoughts were:

• Possibilities for students with smart boards
• LCDs and Elmo's for classrooms (how can students use these instead of them becoming lecture tools for teachers)
• Availability of the computer lab
• Technology of elementary curriculum and what it should look like
• Professional development for teachers once the technology has been put into place
• Tech teacher for the elementary
• Spark devices for science
• Get an IT person in place before purchasing equipment
• Technology planning for a new building in the future
• Electronic Books - server storage upgrade
• 1 to 1 laptop initiative
• Larger drop down screen in the auditorium
• Digitize the Central Office
• Large LCD in commons to broadcast daily announcements, lunch menu, extracurricular results

We finished up the discussion with an emphasis that the tools should have a student focus as well as a staff focus. The next meeting will be held during the week of June 14.

Earlham Technology Committee to Meet

As part of our committment to improving our educational environment in the Earlham Community Schools the Technology Committee will meet Tuesday, May 19 at 7:15 a.m. Place to be determined - check back for more info. We will have a short agenda:

• Technology purpose statement review


• Discuss funding streams and the application of those streams - how will we spend the $$ - a technology expenditure plan)


• Set a next meeting date

Check back on this blog for more info.

Board Report 3-19-09

Scholastic Reading Counts

The Reading Counts system has been loaded with teacher and student information, now I am in the process of asking for some volunteers from the staff to work through some of the implementation steps. I have some volunteers (the 3rd grade team) we are just trying to get coordinated with a time to meet to implement things.

1 to 1 Initiative

Board members and Admin team spent the day in Omaha yesterday at a “Think Ahead” workshop hosted by Apple computers. Board members as well as Jan and Mike spent time working with the technology, while I spent time learning about the capabilities of an Apple system. Some things that are part of the system that would be additional expense in our current setup:

• Podcasting software and podcast production
• Wiki and blog hosting and posting controlled by our environment
• Management system software – “Big Brother”
• Imaging software

and the list goes on from there.

I am currently working on a visit to Newell‐Fonda a week from this Friday. I have not gotten
confirmation back from them that this works, but anticipate we will be able to go up for the day.

Technology
Scholastic Reading Counts
The Reading Counts system has been loaded with teacher and student information, now I am in the process of asking for some volunteers from the staff to work through some of the implementation steps. We should be online shortly.
Mr. Driskell, Ms. LaFrenz and myselfattended a presentation February 9th for MAP, Promethian products (whiteboards and student response items) and CompasLearning. I’ll let them fill you in on what they observed.1 to 1 computer initiative. I will be presenting for you at the meeting about this. Mike and I have talked extensively about the possibility, how we might fund it, and what we are trying to accomplish with a 1 to 1 program.

Board Report 1/21/09

Technology
Scholastic Reading Counts

After our last meeting I spent some time installing and trying to run the program on one of our current servers. I found out it wasn’t up to specs, so we have purchased a “new to us” server at a reasonable price and I am in the process of getting this online. I see this server primarily as the “Reading Counts” server as well as filling other roles in our domain. It will take the place of one of our current servers that is 8 years old.

Building Improvements

During the Christmas Break I added 3 more wireless access points to our complex, enabling the Band and Vocal rooms, as well as the commons area. These APs are not tied in to our management software, but are more of an experiment, to see if wired, how much use that end of the building would receive.

12-15-08 Report to Board

Technology

Scholastic Reading Counts

PIE committed during the 07-08 year to purchase a reading quiz program for the district. Due to administrator turnover and other various issues installation and implementation was pushed back to this year. New information about the program came out this fall, the system was on a per quiz purchase price and they switched to a per pupil cost, which changed the scope of the project and allowed us to be more comprehensive in our coverage of the library, but also cost us more to implement. PIE came through with additional funds and now the program has been installed. There are still some setup steps to take place, as well as identifying some teachers who would like to use the system, but we have made good progress over the past few weeks.
Thanks to the members of PIE for their commitment to this project. It has gone beyond the financial commitment to time spent in the library working with Ms. Burrows on the labeling of books and identification of Lexile levels in our library system.

An overview of the system can be found at: http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/readingcounts/management.htm

A quick synopsis:
1. Students select an appropriate book from our library by connecting them with their interests and Lexile Level
2. After testing students take a computer generated quiz. Congratulatory screen at the end for a passing grade. If a student does not pass they can retake the quiz after reviewing the book – with a new set of questions.
3. Teachers can track the reading reports to help inform and differentiate instruction. They also provide feedback for struggling students needing help.

Look for more information to come.