EETT Needs Your Help!

Posted on behalf of Art Skerker:

On Thursday, November 15th, the House of Representatives fell a few votes short in its attempt to override President Bush's veto of the Education Appropriations bill. The final vote tally was 277-141, with 226 Democrats and 51 Republicans voting to override the president's veto. Fifteen members of Congress did not vote.
Action: Given that the bill did not pass, the Appropriations Committees in both the House and the Senate will now work to fashion a new version of the bill, including funding for EETT. Thus, EETT funding is again in jeopardy. Your voice remains critical as these discussions occur. Please click here to send an email to your congressional representatives as soon as possible to share your experiences in how EETT has played a significant role in improving student achievement in your school, district or state. If your representative voted in favor of the bill last night, (Courtney, Shays, Larson, DeLauro and Murphy all voted in favor!) please thank him or her for supporting this legislation and urge him/her to support EETT in future votes.

News from CECA: Volume Pricing on NetTrekker

Following is an announcement from CECA:

CECA has been collaborating with other New England State organizations. Our mission is to be able to provide regional services to all states. As an outgrowth of our affiliation with New England ISTE there is a limited time offer we are sharing with CECA Advisors and Connecticut Schools. This offer is like other partnerships CECA has provided; it is not an endorsement. CECA is merely the conduit to bring the information to its member.

netTrekker
The collaboration of the New England ISTE organizations has resulted in opening up an interesting and cost effective opportunity for the product netTrekker. Due to high rate of sales of this product in New Hampshire, Connecticut is being given the opportunity of the pricing of $.95 per student. Cyndy Currier of Southeastern Region Service Center in New Hampshire has opened up a trial subscription that is available to all educators in Connecticut that is good until May 30, 2007. Just go to www.nettrekker.com and login with: Username: neistect and Password: trial. Visit the CECA website for further details on how to take advantage of this special pricing. This offer is available to all Connecticut Schools, not just CECA members.

To Place an Order for netTrekker
The POs should be made out and sent to SERESC, ATTN: Cyndy Currier, 29 Commerce Drive, Bedford, NH 03110 and the fax is 603-206-6598. The address and fax are on the order form which can be found on the CECA website at http://www.ceca-ct.org/Partnerships/partners.html The order form needs to accompany the PO so Cyndy can get your account setup up quickly. The sooner she gets the orders, the better. She will be deluged the end of June and it makes it very difficult to get the order in promptly.

School of the Future: Background

Good afternoon, everyone.

In reviewing some materials today, I found a useful presentation on the School of the Future that may help clarify its planning, purpose, and outcomes. To download the presentation, click the following link or place it in your browser:

http://www.crec.org/technology/documents/SOF_Overview.ppt

From the presentation, it's also clear that more than just technology (educational or infrastructure) specialists would benefit from the trip. Share this invitation with your curriculum, data, and even facilities heads. We welcome everyone from your district who may have an interest in visiting the School of the Future.

School of the Future Trip

At our last meeting we discussed activities for the coming year, including a trip to the School of the Future in Philadelphia (see http://www.microsoft.com/education/schooloffuture.mspx). After some conversations with Microsoft, I was able to get a rough sense of when we could visit, given the school's current load of previously scheduled tours. We have the following dates possible:

• Tuesday, October 16
• Tuesday, October 30
• Tuesday, November 6

Please write back by Friday, June 15, to let me know if you or someone from your district has interest in attending this event. Let me know the preferred dates and likely number of attendees. Based on responses, we will look to rent a bus and share costs for transportation for this one-day event.

District Email for Students

As we move toward using more online learning environments such as blogs, wikis, forums, course management systems (Moodle/Blackboard) the need for student email accounts becomes obvious. Many of these applications require an active email account just to allow a user to register. Others, offer teachers the ability to send email to students, either individually or as a group, enhancing communications functionality. Communicating with teachers generally is another argument in favor.

Do any of you (CREC member districts) provide email accounts for students?

• Beginning in what grade?
• Does your IT dept manage them?
  
• Do you use a second-party service (eg, Gaggle Net, etc), if so, which one?
  
• How do you monitor use?
• What are there legal implications?
• How does your AUP address email?

Do you have any thoughts, in general, on district email for students?
Thanks.

Keeping Track of Requests/Hardware/Software

Windsor Locks Public Schools is looking for automated tools to help us track Help Desk requests, inventory our hardware, as well as document installation of software (version and licensing).

If you are using tools for any or all of the above, please let us know what you are using and give us a brief description, the approximate costs, and the pros/cons of the product(s) you are using. Thanks.

Microsoft Volume License Agreement

The new Microsoft Volume Licensing agreement is available for download from the CREC Web site:

Download Now

The agreement is a subscription licensing program that gives K-12 schools the right to use selected Microsoft products, including all upgrades and downgrades for a 12-month term. For more information about the Microsoft School agreement, visit the Microsoft Web site.

Webinars working wonders

Well, perhaps not wonders, but they're working! We've been very pleased with the interest in the Spring 07 webinar series. A number of our fellow Tech Council members have participated, asking good questions and exploring ways we can use this tools to expand virtual learning opportunities for students and staff.

Yesterday Brian Czapla faciltated a session on Anapod Explorer, a tool he uses to manage audio and video podcast content on his pc. Two intersting observations:
1. we discussed this at our January Tech Council meeting, and actually pulled it off!
2. one of the participants - a TC member - won the dedication award as she had to leave her office half way through the session, and continued listening and asking questions via cell phone in her car. Now if only the students were that comitted to their learning...

We've been surprised at the number of folks, teachers and also some non-educators who have asked the question, What is a webinar? To help answer that question, we will schedule a session simply to discuss the webinar format, avaialble tools, process, technical requirements etc.
Contact me if you have a question.
Scott

Study Buzz: Your Opinions on ED Study

Now that more than a week has passed since the U.S. Department of Education has published its $10M study on the effectiveness (or, rather, lack thereof) of software in improving student learning, I wanted to see if others would like to share their perspective on the study.

After some deeper digging on the specifics of the research, I found the report disappointingly narrow and misleading. I suppose the silver lining in all of this is that there is no evidence to dispel what we all know: Technology can and does support instruction, when integrated intelligently into the curriculum and supported by proper infrastructure and professional development.

For me, today's commentary from eSchoolNews' editor sums it up best.

Your thoughts?

Council Meeting Notes

Good afternoon, everyone. Here's a quick digest of my notes from our last meeting. They are admittedly brief and sorrowfully truncated, but they can serve as a conversation starter on multiple threads, or for direct correspondence with our wonderful presenters.

Craig Holland - Mac Integration Using Dual-Boot MacBooks

• Hardware advantages: Breakaway power, 8-inch hinge, extension cord in power supply, built-in camera
• Intel processor: Boot natively or as VMWare
• Windows runs virtually (VMWare concept)
• Challenges of working within the environment
• Active Directory support for both
• GPO – remote control
  
• Additional costs:
  o Virtual Software
  o OS
  o Applications
  
• Advantages: Graphics labs, iLife suite; ability to purchase one machine to use for different classes; assistive technologies; security
• Challenges: Configuration, control, etc.

Contacts: Craig Holland (Newington), Brian Drummey (Apple), Ann Kittredge (Apple)

Dale Bruckhart and Jennifer Kelleher- Microsoft Volume Licensing

• Open Licensing: Set number of licenses and number of users who can use eLearning; paid over two years if you purchase Assurance
• School Agreement: Site licensing, unlimited eLearning
• Benefits: eLearning, Premium support (otherwise ~$500 per call)
• Agreement draft available mid-April, final available June 1 (valid through June 29), purchase orders due first week in July, September 1 – August 30
• Support: (866) 230-0560, MVLS Support Center; call with enrollment number
• Contact: Dale Bruckhart (Digital Back Office)

Tom Kennedy

• Technology Staff Survey Results: http://www.learnemgood.net/moodle (techcouncil07)

Future Topics - Roundtable

• Document management and retention
• Google Earth applications
• Sketch up (Google)
• Survey to create knowledge base of common users and resources for software and hardware
• Skype
  
  

Recent Legislative News

To follow up on our February Technology Council meeting with Rebecca Rudnick Santiago of Shipman & Goodman, we have posted two reference documents:

Legal Issues Related to Technology Utilization in Schools
New Rules Governing Electronically Stored Information

You should find these useful as general guidelines in managing records and ensuring compliance with recent legislation, as well as ensuring a safe computing environment within your schools.

Plainville Schools Copyright Course

A few months back I mentioned that we had created an online mini-course called Copyright Basics for our staff in Plainville. At that time a number of folks expressed an interest in taking a look at it. You may have noticed it on the learnemgood/moodle site as one of the choices.

Originally, it was rather detailed and took too long to complete. With help from Debbie Mosebach the department head, and Ann Farmer, my colleague, I cut it down substantially. On average it takes about 30 minutes to complete. About 275 staff have taken the course and passed the quiz; multiple choice, 9/12 (75%) is a passing score, three attempts allowed.

Feel free to check it out. You can view the course as a guest and all the content is available with the exception of the quiz. You can see a sample of the quiz but you can't take the quiz unless you are registered and enrolled. Enrollment is limited to Plainville Staff.

Here's the URL once again. Choose the Copyright Basics link:
http://learnemgood.net/moodle

Thanks...

Doug, thanks for setting this up and getting things rolling. I think it will be a valuable resource as time goes on.

If anyone has any questions about accessing the CREC Staffing Survey, feel free to contact me at kennedyt@plainvilleschools.org I am interested in knowing how the data ends up being used. Will you use it to build a case for additional staffing by presenting it to you superintendent or school board? Was it valuable in making your case? What data was missing from it?

Also, as far as I am concerned, its not too early to begin suggesting topics for another survey or for refining the questions used in this one. I am open to hearing from anyone.

Teacher and School Filtering Responsibilities

School technology professionals need to ensure that their districts' filtering subscriptions and software are in place and up to date to ensure the safety of students, faculty, and staff from exposure to pornography and other content inappropriate in an educational setting.

Based on the experiences of Julie Amero in Norwich (see full story in the March 25 Courant), what are some of the other lessons we can take to heart in protecting students, staff, and ourselves?

CECA Educators Awards

CECA Educators Awards

Win $1500 for transforming your curriculum through technology!

Apply for the CECA Educators Awards!

Applications are due March 30th, 2007.

If you would like to share the good things you are doing to integrate technology in the classroom and you would welcome a check for $1000 for yourself plus $500 for your school, read on.

The Connecticut Educators' Computer Association has established an award to recognize excellence in the application of technology to classroom learning. Each year CECA will grant up to three (3) awards of $1,000 each, given to the individual teachers to be used as they wish, and $500 presented to the teachers to use at their schools to help them disseminate information about their project or to defray the costs of integrating technology. In the event of a team application, the monetary award will be divided equally among the individuals, with the $500 going to the school, as indicated above.
Teachers at all levels, K-12, are encouraged to apply.

To obtain more information and the required forms, go to the following site:

http://www.ceca-ct.org/EducatorAwards/awards.html