1-2-3 Action - movies!

Here is how to make a short movie!  Click the arrow to start the movie.  Click the icon on the bottom right to make the movie a larger size to watch.

September Startup

All the students are back at school and the halls are full of activities.  Outdoor Fall sports are starting and technology in our schools is off and running at a fast clip.  The mobile labs are already being signed out for teachers in the classrooms to use for various online activities.

 The 1 to 1 student laptop program has been initiated.  We gave out 110+ HP 2102 netbook computers and sleeves to MMUHS incoming Freshman in the core group with Ms. Heiny, Mr. Turner and Mr. Richardson's classes.  Here is a link to more information on the project if you are interested:
MMUHS 1 to 1 Laptop Project

Many of the schools in our district are redesigning their school's website.  Many of the teachers and staff have been working on getting their team pages up to date with current information.  The new website has some improved calendar features.  The athletics and activities pages are improved as well.  Take a look at one of the school sites to get an idea of what it can do:
Camel's Hump Middle School

Here is an inspiring video that we watched during the Teacher In-service created by the New Brunswick Public schools that shows how technology is changing in Education.
Click here

Hopes for an exciting and enjoyable school year filled with learning opportunities!

School starts soon! Get Ready to Rumble!

Every year at this time I get a  little anxious about all the work that needs to get done at the start of school.  Often during the summer, the CESU Tech Support Team is doing major system upgrades and this year is no exception.


We are rolling out about 110 HP netbook computers to incoming Freshman at Mount Mansfield Union HS.  This is year two of our netbook project at MMU where we hope to one day put a computer in the hands of every student in the school to help them embrace 21st Century skills that they will need when they graduate from high school.  This year we are implementing the Suse Linux desktop on the netbooks for the operating system instead of Windows which we used in the past.  We hope that the adjustment will not be too dramtic for the students and staff.  Our teachers are working hard to plan curriculum with these tools that use plenty of open source software such as Open Office and online resources such as Google Apps, EDU2.0, and many other online resources that are great learning tools.

Many of our schools are implementing netbook mobile labs that will be used in the classroom with wireless technologies.  We are trying to get more computers available to students to use in all of our schools.  We are fortunate to have support for this from our school boards, community members, and administrators of the schools.

Many of our schools are implementing a new webpage system called SchoolFusion.  This is a system that is user friendly for teachers, students and eventually parents who will have login accounts to update and use the website.  Most schools are still working on getting things updated but take a look at Camel's Hump Middle School's page to get an idea of what it will be like. 

We are upgrading our Zenworks software from version 7 to version 10 in almost all the schools in the district.  This is the software that we use to image computers, manage workstations remotely, roll out software applications, implement network printing and lots of other things that go on behind the scenes that most people aren't even aware of.

We have also begun the work of virtualizing our servers.  This is when you have one physical server that is segmented and has several "virtual" servers installed on it.  There are many good reasons to do this.
Here is a good explanation of why.

All of our schools try to have a 5 year cycle out plan of desktop computers so many of the schools have replaced some and we are setting them up to use with our software and systems.  Many of our teachers have school laptops that allow them to be mobile in the building while still using them with our wireless systems so that they can do grades, create lesson plans, and other schoolwork.  Each summer we collect all these machines ad reinstall the operating system on them with our imaging systems to keep them in good working order and keep viruses and spyware at a minumum.

All this,  and endless questions, password changes, new employees and students to setup and other things keep me busy and loving my job.  I hope that you all had a chance to recharge over the summer and are ready to learn and be open to new experiences as we enter the 2010-2011 school year.

If you have questions please stop by the computer lab at MMU and see me or email me.
My hope is blog here weekly so come back soon and see what cool tech stuff we are up to @ CESU Helpdesk.

Peace, Ms. Campbell

Technology and students

I am in the process of  "window shopping" for colleges for my younger son who is a junior in high school.  Over the past month we have attended workshops and done some college visits.  There have been 3 technology things I have learned about that I think are noteworthy.

1. One college we visited gives a new laptop computer to all its incoming freshman. This service is included in the cost of tuition. The laptop has MS Office Suite, various CAD design software packages and the Adobe Suite which includes Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver and other packages.  These laptop also include many free open source software titles too.  The students keep these laptops for 2 years, then turn them in for new laptops at the beginning of their junior year which they then keep for the duration of their next 2 years and are able to keep it after they leave.  Many of the attending students told us how great this is.  Everyone is on the same page as far as using the same technology tools.  Teachers and students can help each other out when troubles arise and there is an on campus Tech Support area where you can take your computer if anything goes wrong!  How cool is that!
2. At another school we attended, we were told about a current student (a part-time senior) who started a laundry service for students.  He has drop off boxes in each dorm and students leave their dirty laundry in the drop boxes in laundry bags and then the next day, clean clothes are delivered back to the dorm.  A text or email lets the student know when  their clean laundry is ready to pick up.  This student has expanded his business to multiple colleges in the Boston area and is now making over $2 million per year.  At the same school, if students choose to do their own laundry, all washers and dryers are programmed to text the student when their load is done to let them know they can come transfer their laundry to the dryer or pick it up. No more wet laundry sitting in the washer for hours!
3. The next thing I learned about is more disturbing.  It is a new trend in colleges and schools.  Students are using a webcam sharing site called chatroullette. This site allows you to be randomly connected to another person anywhere in the world using a webcam.  Apparently inappropriate interactions often happen here and this is the new trend that is replacing the previous popular "Sexting" trend that was being done on cell phones.  Take a look at the explanation on Wikipedia and if you dare, you can go to the site itself.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatroulette    Once again I am reminded how truly unregulated the internet is.   In case you have not heard of "Chatroullette"  you should be aware of its growing use.
   http://www.pittnews.com/article/2010/02/18/layton-chatroulette-much-scarier-its-russian-cousin
   
    http://www.alternet.org/media/146018/chatroulette:_naked_chicks,_boys_seeking_boobs_and_connections_across_the_globe
   

Laptop project continued.....

I found in the last few weeks a growing frustration with the students in our laptop 1:1 pilot program that we are working with this year.  Students were not bringing in their laptops to school when they were needed in class, student damage was on the rise, misuse of the laptops was occurring on a regular basis resulting in viruses and misuse of our school network.  As I expressed my frustration with these issues with our principal, she helped me to have some insight on the situation that I had not thought about.  She asked me if some of the students were finding the project a good thing, and were being responsible and doing what they were asked with the laptops.  The answer was yes, that at least 1/2 the students were having successful experiences with the laptops. 

She pointed out to me that the laptops will not work with all students and that not all kids learn in the same way.  This seems like such an obvious observation now but at the time I wanted all of them to work flawlessly and that is just not going to happen when you have multiple people involved in a project.

Now is the time for me to figure out how to help the group of kids that are not as successful to shift that for themselves and their classmates and use the equipment in a better way or reallocate it to another group that may use it better.

How can technology be assessed?

How can technology be assessed to demonstrate “independent” use by learners and still focus on curricular content?

Some educators in Chittenden County have been addressing this question this school year in the form of scenarios that exhibit age appropriate assignments that truly incorporate technology into the curriculum and also take into consideration the Vermont Technology Grade Expectations TGE's and National Educational Standards for Students NETs standards.  Take a look at them here:
http://transformation-technology.wikispaces.com/

This is also a great example of using a wiki.    

I think these examples are ambitious but they include great ideas that teachers can take part of or the whole thing to use in the classroom.

1:1 laptop initiatives

I am wondering where to find quantitative and qualitative data against the implementation of 1:1 laptop initiatives.  I have found plenty of articles that talk in favor of doing this but I want to know if it really does increase student learning.  Has anyone seen any articles that talks about this?