EdTech Avenue

This post was requested by Lisa Whitaker.  Please see below and join the conversation!

I heard recently that not all features on Smartboards work with a Mac but I can’t find anything so far that shows me that.

Our librarian passed this onto me: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/14847-any-school-using-interwrite-pads-bluetooth.html

I found this free Promethean viewer at Promethean Planet. You have to register but that is free as well: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/server.php?show=nav.15853&ua_siteLoginRequired=1

Thanks to the TIES conference my questions about eDiscovery have been cleared. If you have any info to add please comment.

What I found out: The eDiscovery laws were passed by the Supreme Court of the US in December 2006. This law states that all school districts need to have an archive of email and instant message (IM) conversations.  They left how long this information needs to be archived to the states. Minnesota requires email (with attachments) and IM conversations be kept for 3 years.To read about relevant information for eDiscovery laws go to: ediscoverylaw.com. To see a full PDF file on Minnesota’s laws go to Click Here.

Private Schools: You may be asking, we’re a private school do we still have to comply? Private schools were specifically addressed in the group discussion. It was stated that since private school teachers are still public officials the private school system would need to comply.

What to do? As a group there were a few ideas on what to do being discussed.
- The first option was to sit and wait. There were a few schools that are going to wait and see what happens to another school in an eDiscovery case. At this time there is little enforcement of the eDiscovery law. On top of that court cases involving the eDiscovery law are not wide spread.  They would then implement a solution based on a court ruling. This may not work for you if you’re the first eDiscovery case in Minnesota.
- The second option was to purchase an in-house message archiver. Message archivers can be purchased from most resellers (CDWG and Cadan Computers carry them). A Barracuda Archiver with 1 year of maintenance and updates will run you about $6,000. There are also software archivers that reside on your mail server. These options include the GFI mail archiver. The GFI mail archiver sells for about $2,000 and has a reoccurring annual maintenance fee.
- The final option was to use an online service to archive messages. Gaggle.net will archive messages off of many email systems (including Exchange server and gmail) for around $7 per email box. This covers the collection of new data and keeping it for 1 year. To keep emails for more than 1 year you will need to pay an extra $2 per box. As you can see Gaggle.net would be $7 for the 1st year, $9 for the 2nd, $11 for the 3rd year per email address. Rumor has it that gmail has an option to archive in it’s apps for education but I am not officially aware of anything.

An added bonus? This burden of having to archive emails may have an added bonus for it. You can look at it as having an added, real-time email backup system. If your email server crashes chances are good that you will have even your most recent emails saved in an archiver (with the exception of GFI’s archiver since it resides on the mail server). You can restore the lost email using your email archiver.

There are many different ways to report problems with technology, as well as many different problems to report. Anything from user issues to software issues (is the application frozen or is your computer frozen?) to hardware issues can eat up hours and hours of a technology coordinator’s time. And when the technology coordinator is all you have in a school, that could mean teachers and students aren’t getting the personal attention of the technology coordinator either.

Many schools have formal reporting processes such as problem “tickets,” forms to fill out on paper or online, or other procedures. I have yet to find something that works. I haven’t worked out a system of my own, even after six years, because quite honestly, as technology changes, so do the problems and possible reporting methods.

I take requests any way someone wants to give them, although I do handle them a bit differently, depending on my current status of busy-ness and projects. Electronic methods are, of course, my favorite. Email is great because I can flag messages and set reminders – but along with those benefits comes the inevitable problem of old messages getting pushed further and further down the Inbox list. Windows Messenger is becoming a little more common for us as well. I trained my teachers in using IM for tech support in preparation for my maternity leave in February. I will not be having a sub for my position and have worked out a leave that allows teachers and administrators to still contact me with questions. I also have LogMeIn installed on my main workstation, which allows me to log in remotely to my machine, connect to the school network, and access any tools I would have when sitting at my desk (Windows Messenger, Remote Assistance, files, Remote Desktop). With Windows Messenger, I can address problems immediately and my users are able to see if I am available at a given time (online, away, offline) rather than waiting to see if I reply to an email.

Very rarely do I get written requests, although they do still pop up occasionally. These frequently get lost in the paper shuffle on my desk, and I have to be reminded later that they exist.

My least favorite method is verbal. Not that I dislike talking with people, but my mind ain’t what it used to be… I forget! So often someone will wait until they see me at lunch to report a problem, and there is little chance I will remember what they said once I return to my office. I ask them to email me instead. I realize how powerful the visual is – they see me and then they think of what it was they were going to ask – but the fact remains that while I may answer the question and file away the issue in my brain, the likelihood of remembering to actually act on it is slim.

What do you use in your school? Do you have suggestions that would work in various situations? Do you have any comments to share on what works and what doesn’t work for you? Please join the conversation!

I was prompted by my reading today of Wesley Fryer’s Needed leadership qualities post. I am still catching up on some archives, and while many articles have been bookmarked for viewing and reflecting later, this one spoke to me immediately, especially after having read Scott Mcleod’s What makes administrators effective technology leaders? post from last week. I am always looking for ideas about how to become a better leader in my field, and these articles were definitely food for thought.

I think the biggest question is where the leadership is coming from.  It’s fairly evident that it must come from more than one person to really implement systemic change.  While I am the main driving force behind integration implementations and strategies at my school, I would not be nearly as effective without the support I get from my principal and veteran teachers.  Meeting resistance from them would make my job miserable.  I think there are probably many different leadership models that work, depending on the personalities of the people in those situations.  We in smaller K-8 schools have a wide range of responsibilities, job descriptions and authority, so what works for me might not work for someone in the next school.

My process is working so far, and as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I was taken off-line slightly last year and we lost some momentum.  Before that I was making great progress with a combination of group training and individual help (that was after I realized I couldn’t start everyone at the same level; a similar situation was described here by Scott Elias).  I tried to find where teachers could first replace an existing task with one that uses technology, and they responded well and took off on their own adding enhancements to the lessons.  I also implemented electronic grading software, making them “have to” use technology for their own organization.  Amazingly, the teachers who were most resistant are the ones who can’t live without it today!  This year we’ve started to make up some ground, and I have a handful of teachers who are eager to plan projects for next year.  Many teachers still use technology because they have to, but slowly and steadily the number is growing of teachers who WANT to use it and see the value in creative assessment and student ownership of a technology-produced project.  Having this new network of ideas and shared situations in the edublogosphere has really helped to re-energize me in regards to being an integration guide for our teachers.

Please share your strategies, what works and what doesn’t, and maybe we can all gain a new perspective as we look to planning for the 2007-08 school year!  Are you a part of the hiring process and/or evaluation process for teachers?  Are you the main decision-maker for technology purchases?  Do your teachers respond to group classes and/or individual training?  How do you handle resistant teachers and/or administrators in your school?

At Blessed Trinity, I’ve given teachers and staff numerous methods for reporting issues, including the recent implementation of Windows Messenger and the Windows XP Remote Assistance application.  It was a huge surprise to me that teachers did not quickly embrace these instant-help options.  Teachers currently use email, phone or in-person methods to report problems with their computers or the labs.  I suppose they are not using their computers as often as I, but the thought that I could immediately see that someone is there and can answer my question without having to send email or make a phone call (or worse yet climb three flights of stairs) would be preferable to me personally.

And with all of these avenues available to them, some problems still don’t get reported to me.  For example:  We are at two campus locations.  I spend most of my time at the campus where the servers and majority of the computers are.  I have asked the teachers at the other campus many times that when something comes up in the computer lab there to record the error in the log I have provided AND email me about it so I know it’s there.  I don’t check that log regularly – it is not a reporting method, simply a log for my reference.  And yet I will hear later, sometimes weeks after the initial problem arose, that something needs to be fixed.  I try to explain that if they don’t email me (whether or not they’ve recorded anything in the log), I won’t know about it.  Unfortunately things have not changed in the four years I’ve been using the logs, so do I need to change something in my methods?  I want to find the best way to service my users.  They become frustrated when I don’t address issues quickly enough but will not follow the methods I’ve given them to get the best response.

What is the best reporting method for your school?  Why does it work for you?