Date: October 19th, 2010 To: Michael Green From: Steve Rippl Subject: Tech Dept. Executive Summary Well I'm pleased to be able to report that the pressure has already eased off from the beginning of school and we're settling into our stride. The department has worked through most of the backlog of helpdesk requests and we're back to the more usual pace of support. I think teachers got their technology needs met for the most part in a timely manner for this time of year. Our tactics for Staff training are changing a little. The previous model of specific, long sessions going into some topic in detail doesn't seem to be reaching everyone it could. There will still be a place for this, especially for specialist things like Moodle, but in an attempt to increase the comfort level of all Staff with tech integration we'll be trying to bring it to the teachers in smaller doses. To that end we started the year with a little "Tech tips" session for each of the schools based mainly on email and the tech departments online helpdesk system, just to try and ensure people were comfortable with our electronic communication. We'll be trying to run these on a semi-regular basis in Staff meetings on various basic topics of technology use. Our two media specialist for the HS/MS and WIS (Candice Shepherd and Jeff Flanagan) are also attending some ESD training around peer coaching on Tech integration, I think specifically on the topic of online resources. I'm pleased that the work of Travis Borders is being recognised in the form of his reclassification to the Programmer position. That position and it's longer term, project based approach is such a valuable asset to our Department and our ability to provide the value added services that can make such a difference to our Staff and Students use of technology. Next week Malinda Huddleston will be introducing Primary and Intermediate School Staff to the new feature in Sips where the grade and building level interventions teams (GIT/BIT) will track their work. It's essentially a series of online forms combined with specific test data that is already in Sips, that allows the teams to easily bring together the information they need and archive it in an accessible manner. We'll be present at that meeting just to ensure that the tech side of things goes smoothly for everyone!