Mon Apr 24 2017, 5:30pm
District Meeting Room
Regular Meeting

REPORTS TO THE BOARD

Technology Director Report

To: Michael Green

From: Steve Rippl

Date: April 19, 2017

Subject: Tech Dept Executive Summary

 

The new Chromecarts for the Middle and Intermediate schools have been delivered and are already in use. I know it will make a big difference to teachers ability to plan computer time for their classes, and looking at the upcoming testing schedules it seems to mean a lot less disturbance for the schools as students can test in their regular classrooms. It will be a challenge for us to bridge the wireless gap until we have our new cabling and access points this summer, but we’ll put out APs in key points temporarily during testing to support all the extra laptops.

We’ve just put out a technology survey to the buildings, focused on technology in the classrooms and teacher’s successes and challenges with that. The information will inform what summer training we offer, and in the longer term, we’ll use it as we plan to support the ever increasing digital learning that’s happening. We’re also starting to plan a “Digital Citizenship Week” for the middle school next year, more on that as plans evolve!

Finally, the new version of Sips is very close to getting its public debut. We’ve been working away in the background to get the key features of the old system in the new one, and in the meantime requests for new functionality have been going straight into the new one. Not everything is in place just yet, so for a while, we’ll have both running side by side. That way folks can get the new features without having to wait until every last piece is complete. The new system is built using some of the latest technologies, so it should last us another 10 years, as the original did!