Date: February 18th, 2014To: Michael GreenFrom: Steve RipplSubject: Tech Dept. Executive Summary
The High School Chromebook cart is now all put together and in the hands of the library staff. The cart is specifically designed for the light-weight Samsung Chromebooks and so is about half the size and weight of our regular carts making it much easier to move around and store. Our sit down sessions with the initial round of teachers have been brief but productive. I think having myself, Candice, John, Asha and other teachers present while they discuss their plans for integrating the technology has been positive in terms of a cross fertilization of ideas and also planning for support and resources.
I think the new computers will also play a part when the High School takes the online SBAC for the first time next month. The Middle School will be running it on the Linux thin clients, which will also run the MSP software for them and the Intermediate School. The software has been pushed out to the staff computers now to give folks time to practice with it.
We’ve just launched this years round of community scholarships for the High School seniors on our website. The application checklist and form were one of the first pieces of custom functionality we had put into our previous website and they are one of the last to have been transferred over to the new one! The timing was fortuitous though as the collective knowledge of Char Lindberg and Heidi Morgan (the previous administrators of this process) had left so my getting back involved with transferring this over provided a good opportunity to review the process and bring the new staff member up to speed. We’re now attempting to go completely paperless with as many of the donors that are happy to do so which I think is a positive step.
I have given a short talk at staff meetings on Open Educational Resources (OER) and the copyright licenses that define them. As we (and our State) continue to explore and utilize these resources I thought it was a good idea to increase awareness around this in our staff and it seems to have been well received.