Ethernotes

Holy Cow! They weren’t kidding about Harvey. Only way in this morning was from the south.

Start time: 10:10 am

Tech Plans

• Most that have been submitted have been approved. There are districts that are awaiting MEGS approval.
• Great efforts.

Updates

• AVG Purchase
  • 15,900 workstation $2.33/unit.
  • Ravenna is getting 100 units.
  • AVG Network Edition
  • Keycodes: Randy will share with group. On honor system.

• MUNIS
  • Rhonda Henry reports
  • Phase 1 districts: Rhonda has been out except Whitehall.
  • She’s been demonstrating on MUNIS self-service. Will be rolled out district by district. Web based for employees
  • Phase 2 begins in August. 8 districts. Must be installed by 1-Aug-09 by tech support.
  • Call Brett with install questions.
  • MUNIS goes down 6 am – 7am on Saturday mornings.
  • Jackson ISD, Concord, Dexter coming online.
  • Stockbridge and West Ottawa coming online in August.
  • Client base continues to grow despite losing northern districts to Lake ISD and Infinite Campus

• SMS
  • Most recent meeting yesterday with core team.
  • Narrowing down to Power School and Pinnacle.
  • Infinite Campus could be back in the game if they lower their price. Lowering the price is unlikely.
  • Power School is leader with Pinnacle a “close” second. Fruitport disputed the term “close” used by Randy L.
  • Power School seems to meet needs across the board.
  • Pinnacle’s support is worrisome. Other people report that Pinnacle was a distant third at their roundtable.
  • Phase 1 group starts Jan 1, 2010.
  • Two year implementation schedule

• IGOR
  • New report to see county wide reports.
  • R-P successfully piloted an upload.
  • Change in next year’s training to dig into reports deeply. Bring in school teams to MAISD. We need to get onboard this.

• e2020
  • Enough interest to move forward.
  • Curriculum directors piloted for about a year.
  • PO going out through OAISD.
  • Media box should arrive next two weeks.
  • Hosted at MAISD.
  • $470.00/concurrent license

Discovery Streaming

• Will bill in fall.
• Ravenna is signed up again.

Learn360

• A competitor to Discovery Streaming
• Presented last fall
• Demo’d for REMC board
• Put out RFP for 2010.
•  Significantly improved, but not approved yet.

8th Grade Tech Literacy Test

• The MAISD is no longer doing test for schools.
• Diane got a request today to come out.

MACUL Space

• Past, present and future members from all over the world.
• Don’t have to be current member of MACUL
• You can use to explore nings.
• For people interested in educational technology. No other limit to joining.
• William T. Waters is a little strange. Don’t befriend him.
• Upload youtube videos at home and play them back at school from MACUL Spaces.
• I exempted MACUL SPACES from filtering.

MOODLE and blogs

• Tim Brown updated on Moodle
• The MAISD will host individual MOODLE and blog servers if you have one.
• All blogs are on new server
• New requests for MOODLE will go through Tech Coordinator in districts.
• new blog server is here
• Each district will be asked if they want to upgrade and district will take over user management. Downside is teaches will have to deal with new site administration.
• Possible training in August for blog users.
• Diane will offer train the trainer sessions on upgrade or if we have 6 or more users, Diane will come to the district.
• All people on blogs.muskegonisd.org (Ravenna) will make the switch this summer.

Bilingual Resources Wiki

• Click on her MABE link to the left to see her presentation.
• Lots of free resources

2009-10 PD Offerings

• Diane is continuing tech integration. Her recently announced second “23 Things” online course filled in 2 hours.
• Too many teacher’s are still looking toward the Internet as read-only and are missing the social and collaboration aspects.
• PD registrations must be done online. The MAISD is going to refer disgruntled users back to their technology helpers in the district for help.

MP3 Project

• Fulfill obligation to get mp3 players
• If we have users that want to get involved, let me know and I will support (funds available) with iPod Shuffle.

Break (10 minutes)

Horizon Report – Technologies to Watch

• Horizon Project
• Horizon Report for 2009
• Horizon Report for K-12 education
• Compiled by educause
• Help you visualize the future through best guess based on studies. It gives examples!
• Randy highly recommends
• Yea! John recommends reading the report for K-12 education. This should be the first thing we talk about for the Tech Plan Committee.

Voicethreads

• Great collaborative tool and free to educators
• Students will love it.
• You can attach voice message to your blog and other stuff

Refreshed METS & NETS

• METS not approved in May. Ron Faulds expects passage in fall 2009
• More general
• More online, collaborative environment, creativity, how to use technology for critical thinking, not the specific skills and technology

Lunch (11:45-12:30)

Netbook Demonstration by CDWG – Jay Smith

• Field Rep for CDWG
• Mini-notebooks
• Why?
  • Cost savings: $5-$600. Goes up with upgraded OS
  • Flexibility
  • Sustainable
• Concerns
  • Size: kids used to texting
  • Durability: Over order for damaged
  • Battery life: Often schools have to upgrade
  • Wireless protocols
  • Grade level
  • Some support upgrade to WinXP
  • Microsoft Office bogs down
    • Jeff agreed this is an issue
    • Get a sample and put your image on it.
• CDWG offers a wide variety of netbooks
  • Specs similar
  • HP announcing new in near future
  • Touch screen coming (like tablets)
  • Enterprise configuration: customized images, etchings, asset tags
• AEPA contract
  • American Education Purchasing Agreement
  • New to Michigan (2 years)
  • Oakland ISD is agent.
  • Purchase without going to bid. Like remcbid
  • CDW’s full inventory under contract.
  • Compare to REMC and other pricing.

2009-10 Meetings

• Dates and Times
  • Third Thursday of every month.
  • Same as Curriculum Directors so we can have combined meetings if necessary

Tech Services Golf Outing

• June 24
• Location & Time: Randy to determine

Filed under: TECHC Notes