I just saw this email come into my inbox asking about using ipads in a school:
We are putting iPads in our elementary schools. I have some ideas on how to utilize them but was wondering how other schools are using theirs. If anyone has a list of apps as well would be great!
I've done some off the wall moves with technology, but I can honestly say that before anything was implemented that would have a direct impact on the classroom, this type of question had already been answered.
Technology can be a wonderful thing in schools, but success still comes down to that classroom teacher. Putting iPads in the classroom with out training for the staff, a plan in place for App purchases, a plan for management, etc... is just throwing a lot of money at something with no probability of success.
The last big Tech Innovation I sponsored was moving the district to a Bring Your Own Device system. The training and planning for that, started well over a year before the first student device hit the network. We held numerous classes on Google Apps, did videos on how devices connect to the network. Held multiple talking sessions with teachers to try and address every problem they could encounter. We still had issues.
I admit to knowing nothing about the district this email came from. Maybe they have done all the training necessary. Maybe they have been working with Teachers so they know "how to utilize them". The email above doesn't show that, however.
Technology is not, nor should it be, the first thing a teacher has to worry about. But you can bet, if the district is spending the thousands of dollars necessary to put iPads in a school; technology will be at the very front of the teacher's minds.
There are quite a few leaps I am taking in trying to figure out what this email really means, but if IT doesn't implement technology with more diligence than the email shows it is no wonder many teachers don't want to use technology. They are simply being thrown into the fire.
02 May 2013
When do you purchase software?
I admit it: I hate most software programs. Well, hate may be to strong a term, but there is certainly a great amount of dislike. Basically, there are only a couple programs that I access on a personal basis: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Quicken, Turbo Tax, and a web browser. In fact for two of them, I am sure I could move those to the web as well, but I am having a mental block of putting my financial life outside of my hands. Yeah, Yeah, I know: I use web banking, I submit my taxes online..... No one said you have to be 100% consistent, right?
Even at work, my District is slowly but surely shifting to the cloud. We went Google Apps for Education to wean ourselves off of Microsoft. We are encouraging our teachers to move their instructional materials to the web; so students have easier access. However, there are still some software packages we can't seem to get rid of. One in particular is a product named Accelerated Reader (AR).
This might be the greatest thing in reading education, I don't know, I'm not a teacher. I do know, that annually it takes up a fairly big chunk out of my software budget. Here is my problem. It doesn't get used except by one teacher in our Elementary School. I will give this teacher credit. She believes in it very strongly, and her students are logged into the program at least once a week.
My struggle is in Bang for the Buck. AR is very expensive. Every year it costs around $2,500 in support fees, and new tests. I am torn on paying for a product that is used by only one class a year vs spending that money on something else that will be used by an entire school, or the district.
How do your districts handle software? Does the IT department pay for everything, school budgets, teacher budgets? If it is the IT Department, who makes the call as to continued payment. Now add in web subscriptions, and this really starts to become incredibly complex...
Even at work, my District is slowly but surely shifting to the cloud. We went Google Apps for Education to wean ourselves off of Microsoft. We are encouraging our teachers to move their instructional materials to the web; so students have easier access. However, there are still some software packages we can't seem to get rid of. One in particular is a product named Accelerated Reader (AR).
This might be the greatest thing in reading education, I don't know, I'm not a teacher. I do know, that annually it takes up a fairly big chunk out of my software budget. Here is my problem. It doesn't get used except by one teacher in our Elementary School. I will give this teacher credit. She believes in it very strongly, and her students are logged into the program at least once a week.
My struggle is in Bang for the Buck. AR is very expensive. Every year it costs around $2,500 in support fees, and new tests. I am torn on paying for a product that is used by only one class a year vs spending that money on something else that will be used by an entire school, or the district.
How do your districts handle software? Does the IT department pay for everything, school budgets, teacher budgets? If it is the IT Department, who makes the call as to continued payment. Now add in web subscriptions, and this really starts to become incredibly complex...
23 April 2013
Will MOOCs make a difference?
It seems one of the new buzz acronyms is MOOC (Massively Open Online Course). So far these seem to be used as either individual Professional Development, or as a way to give an extra push to a student that really is trying to further their own knowledge.
I have been hearing of these for a while, but finally decided to sample the Kool-Aid. I enrolled in a MOOC focusing on the Digital Learning Transition. I thought it would be a good idea, as the District Tech Nerd, to try and learn a little more about how teachers are transitioning to a more digital experience.
The study materials (online video, and written case studies) are actually very good. I am learning a lot, and I have had no problems keeping motivated. It has been nice reading and seeing some of these bleeding edge school districts, and realizing I am not that far behind with my own district. It has been more confirming to me, than anything else. However, I am picking up some good tips for working with the teaching staff.
The part I am a little disappointed in are the online forums. As part of this MOOC we are expected to participate in the forums. First off at this point there is a lot more reading than posting, but seeing as I spend a lot of time online, I am used to that. What I have been disappointed with is the over tone of the comments. It seems to all revolve around one theme; maybe it is because I don't agree, but the forums just seem to be a lot moaning and complaining, and very little here are things that work.
Based on my one class, I am not ready to say that MOOCs are not ready for prime time, but at least in this one instance it needs a little more work.
Has anyone else enrolled in a MOOC? What new ways are you trying to seek out your own Professional Development?
I have been hearing of these for a while, but finally decided to sample the Kool-Aid. I enrolled in a MOOC focusing on the Digital Learning Transition. I thought it would be a good idea, as the District Tech Nerd, to try and learn a little more about how teachers are transitioning to a more digital experience.
The study materials (online video, and written case studies) are actually very good. I am learning a lot, and I have had no problems keeping motivated. It has been nice reading and seeing some of these bleeding edge school districts, and realizing I am not that far behind with my own district. It has been more confirming to me, than anything else. However, I am picking up some good tips for working with the teaching staff.
The part I am a little disappointed in are the online forums. As part of this MOOC we are expected to participate in the forums. First off at this point there is a lot more reading than posting, but seeing as I spend a lot of time online, I am used to that. What I have been disappointed with is the over tone of the comments. It seems to all revolve around one theme; maybe it is because I don't agree, but the forums just seem to be a lot moaning and complaining, and very little here are things that work.
Based on my one class, I am not ready to say that MOOCs are not ready for prime time, but at least in this one instance it needs a little more work.
Has anyone else enrolled in a MOOC? What new ways are you trying to seek out your own Professional Development?
05 April 2013
Sometimes having knowledge is a bad thing! :)
Being an IT professional, I wind up talking to Help Desks on a weekly basis, but there is something vastly different about calling a help desk from work than calling from home. When I make a call from work, the person on the other end assumes (sometimes to their detriment!) that I know at least a little about what I am doing. Making a call from home, though is a completely different experience.
This evening I get home from work, and my daughter is climbing the walls. "I've been trying to print a picture off the internet for an hour... this laptop stinks. You need to buy me a new one." Granted her laptop is a few years old, but since all she does is browse the internet. I'm not laying out any more money any time soon, but that is another story. So I put back on my IT hat, and check out her laptop. Everything on the machine checked out OK. Next I moved to our wireless router. Checked it out, and it appeared to be working fine as well, other than the error message that it couldn't make an internet connection.
Next step, the 12 year old Time Warner Cable modem where the router is connected. All I can do with this is reboot it, so doing what has fixed every connection problem we have had in the 12 years we've had Time Warner I figured would work.... Nope something else is going on.
I was sure I had paid the bill, but that was literally the next thing I checked.
Now I am entering my nightmare zone..... Placing the call to their customer service. Of course the first thing I hear is "There are no reported outages for your area." Next thing;"Due to increased call volumes, all our Customer Service Representatives are busy, Please hold." After 15 minutes of getting nowhere fast, I turn on the cell phone hotspot, and see if I can open a chat session. After another 15 minutes, I just start giving the online rep my phone number and address, when the telephone rep answers.
I know these guys are used to working with people that don't know the difference between a modem, router, or a switch, but still.... I tried to make the call go faster, by asking if they were having any DNS issues on their systems. The answer came back quickly, "No." (I had already determined the modem was fine, the router was fine, but whenever I tried to ping something I got the could not resolve error. The dead giveaway for a DNS issue. She then tries connecting to my modem, and says sir, I can see your modem fine, there is nothing wrong, the problem must be in your router. We then go through the trouble shooting of plugging directly into the modem... You guys know how this goes.
The highlight of the call was when her fix it script had me try and ping something. She said to Ping Yahoo.com; so I tried. After it failed, I gave her the error message. The very next step she told me to was to open a browser, and go to Yahoo.com. I actually started laughing. She asked if everything is OK. I then explained I don't think that is going to work, If I can't Ping Yahoo, that means I can't connect; opening up a browser, and trying to go there is not going to work either. I honestly don't think she had a clue what she was asking me to do.
I next asked her again, if they were having any DNS issues, as I could get into a website by using the IP address. This really got her confused; so she put me on hold again. After another 20 minute wait, she comes back on, and confirms they are having DNS issues. (I wonder if they got hacked. :) )
The capper of the call, was when she asked if I was happy with their service. I again chuckled, and said basically, "You have got to be kidding. You have kept me on the phone for an hour doing these tests, when it is your issue? I'm not unhappy with your work. I am unhappy that your company can't notify you of a major problem when the problem has been out there for a couple of hours, already."
Oh well, the reality of it is NO BIG DEAL! All I had to do was turn on my Verizon Hot Spot, and my daughter was very happy. I just find it funny the difference in expected knowledge when I make a service call as the IT Director of a school vs a residential customer.
This evening I get home from work, and my daughter is climbing the walls. "I've been trying to print a picture off the internet for an hour... this laptop stinks. You need to buy me a new one." Granted her laptop is a few years old, but since all she does is browse the internet. I'm not laying out any more money any time soon, but that is another story. So I put back on my IT hat, and check out her laptop. Everything on the machine checked out OK. Next I moved to our wireless router. Checked it out, and it appeared to be working fine as well, other than the error message that it couldn't make an internet connection.
Next step, the 12 year old Time Warner Cable modem where the router is connected. All I can do with this is reboot it, so doing what has fixed every connection problem we have had in the 12 years we've had Time Warner I figured would work.... Nope something else is going on.
I was sure I had paid the bill, but that was literally the next thing I checked.
Now I am entering my nightmare zone..... Placing the call to their customer service. Of course the first thing I hear is "There are no reported outages for your area." Next thing;"Due to increased call volumes, all our Customer Service Representatives are busy, Please hold." After 15 minutes of getting nowhere fast, I turn on the cell phone hotspot, and see if I can open a chat session. After another 15 minutes, I just start giving the online rep my phone number and address, when the telephone rep answers.
I know these guys are used to working with people that don't know the difference between a modem, router, or a switch, but still.... I tried to make the call go faster, by asking if they were having any DNS issues on their systems. The answer came back quickly, "No." (I had already determined the modem was fine, the router was fine, but whenever I tried to ping something I got the could not resolve error. The dead giveaway for a DNS issue. She then tries connecting to my modem, and says sir, I can see your modem fine, there is nothing wrong, the problem must be in your router. We then go through the trouble shooting of plugging directly into the modem... You guys know how this goes.
The highlight of the call was when her fix it script had me try and ping something. She said to Ping Yahoo.com; so I tried. After it failed, I gave her the error message. The very next step she told me to was to open a browser, and go to Yahoo.com. I actually started laughing. She asked if everything is OK. I then explained I don't think that is going to work, If I can't Ping Yahoo, that means I can't connect; opening up a browser, and trying to go there is not going to work either. I honestly don't think she had a clue what she was asking me to do.
I next asked her again, if they were having any DNS issues, as I could get into a website by using the IP address. This really got her confused; so she put me on hold again. After another 20 minute wait, she comes back on, and confirms they are having DNS issues. (I wonder if they got hacked. :) )
The capper of the call, was when she asked if I was happy with their service. I again chuckled, and said basically, "You have got to be kidding. You have kept me on the phone for an hour doing these tests, when it is your issue? I'm not unhappy with your work. I am unhappy that your company can't notify you of a major problem when the problem has been out there for a couple of hours, already."
Oh well, the reality of it is NO BIG DEAL! All I had to do was turn on my Verizon Hot Spot, and my daughter was very happy. I just find it funny the difference in expected knowledge when I make a service call as the IT Director of a school vs a residential customer.
21 March 2013
Where do we draw the line?
I made some social media posts last night after coming to full realization of my nerdiness.
I finally realized how big a nerd I am when: I used my MacBook Pro
to log into a virtual windows 7 PC,
to VPN into my school's network,
to remote control more virtual servers,
all to prevent 2000 + student/teacher owned devices
bringing down our network by streaming the NCAA Tournament!
This post isn't to debate streaming of the tournament per se, but to figure out where we draw the line about what our students have access to.
My view, is that it should not be up to the IT department to determine what is educationally valid. So I have our systems set up to basically allow everything except what is already determined bad by current rules. So by age appropriate guidelines we allow everything except pornography and hate speech. My elementary schools do not have access to facebook, but my high school does. Every building has access to stream audio, and video. Is all of it used educationally? I would say undoubtedly, NO; with a but.....
The education comes in when we find a student using these things in the wrong manner. We are able to see most of what goes on by every device on our network; this to me is the critical part. Because we can see what happens, we can take those students that are using technology in the wrong manner, and teach them proper use. Sure we have the obligatory classes on internet safety, but what is more useful? A teacher telling a class of 30 don't friend someone on facebook that you do not know personally; or having a student one on one, showing the consequences of what they just posted on twitter?
The educators know more about what they need than I do, as the " IT Guy". So as long as my network can handle the load, I let them determine what they need access to.
So why did I block streaming of the tournament? It had nothing to do about a student wasting 30 minutes of their study hall, or classroom time watching a basketball game. Quite frankly for most of my students, they will simply use their data connections on their smart phones, and bypass our network anyway. It was simply to preserve the limited resources of our bandwidth, and connection capacities, for educational purposes. Now if a teacher can figure out a lesson plan involving the tournament, I'll be more than happy to set up a bypass for his/her class!
On a final note: GO INDIANA!! Last time you won it all, I was a Senior at that beloved institution!
01 March 2013
Video on the Cheap
I just got done with a great teacher session, and I wanted to share.
A High School Math teacher is working on flipping some of her classes. She has been using her own camera to record herself as she writes out and explains problems. Editing the video using whatever software she had with her camera, then uploading to her School You Tube Page. Her students have really liked this format, as it gives them a lot more time for individual questions during class. However the teacher was getting frustrated because it would take a long time to prepare one 15 minute video.
Here comes the cool part: Take one Point2View Camera ($60), one USB Microphone ($15), using our Google Apps Account, we downloaded Picasa for free. Took me all of 10 minutes to plug in the equipment and install Picasa on her desktop. She is now able to record, edit, and upload the video all from school. No transporting files, no waiting on her slower internet connection at home, no (in her case) having to re-record the video because of an interruption!
For this teacher this small investment is going to drastically change her work life. She now can record and upload a couple of lessons per day; where it used to take her a couple of days to find enough time to work on one lesson.
This is the kind of thing that makes me LOVE coming to work. The technology is NOT making her a better teacher, nor is it making her students smarter, but the technology is making her life a little easier. It is certainly going to make her a more EFFECTIVE teacher; which in time will make better students.
A High School Math teacher is working on flipping some of her classes. She has been using her own camera to record herself as she writes out and explains problems. Editing the video using whatever software she had with her camera, then uploading to her School You Tube Page. Her students have really liked this format, as it gives them a lot more time for individual questions during class. However the teacher was getting frustrated because it would take a long time to prepare one 15 minute video.
Here comes the cool part: Take one Point2View Camera ($60), one USB Microphone ($15), using our Google Apps Account, we downloaded Picasa for free. Took me all of 10 minutes to plug in the equipment and install Picasa on her desktop. She is now able to record, edit, and upload the video all from school. No transporting files, no waiting on her slower internet connection at home, no (in her case) having to re-record the video because of an interruption!
For this teacher this small investment is going to drastically change her work life. She now can record and upload a couple of lessons per day; where it used to take her a couple of days to find enough time to work on one lesson.
This is the kind of thing that makes me LOVE coming to work. The technology is NOT making her a better teacher, nor is it making her students smarter, but the technology is making her life a little easier. It is certainly going to make her a more EFFECTIVE teacher; which in time will make better students.
20 February 2013
Need to get better!
It has been a while, but to be honest, I keep forgetting the blog is out here! I should probably put in my calendar a weekly reminder to write something.
Good news and bad news in regards to our BYOD program.
The GOOD is that it seems like every day more and more teachers are integrating technology into their classroom. The Bad is that I need to do some upgrades to our wireless network!
I think I have said before that when I put in the network, I did not immediately go for full coverage everywhere. I tried to use my knowledge of how our teachers worked to put access points where they would do the most good. My first round I was right on, I guessed right on the areas, but still underestimated how quickly the teachers would embrace BYOD. Had more access points brought in over the summer, but even then had to put in a couple additional routers. I thought I was going to be covered for the remainder of the school year, but NO....
The last two weeks have seen an explosion of use in areas that had been light before. I just put in an order for 6 more Access Points, and will start cabling soon.
I guess I am a little amazed that with the right training, and encouragement even the most reluctant are integrating technology into their classrooms!
Some of the neater ones: A HS science teacher is now utilizing Google Apps as her Student/Content Management System. She even teaches some off site blended learning courses, and has those students using Apps for Education as well.
On Friday, I am meeting with two HS math teachers because they have been flipping their classrooms, and are looking for better video capabilities! That one made me smile, because flipping a classroom is something I really believe in.
Good news and bad news in regards to our BYOD program.
The GOOD is that it seems like every day more and more teachers are integrating technology into their classroom. The Bad is that I need to do some upgrades to our wireless network!
I think I have said before that when I put in the network, I did not immediately go for full coverage everywhere. I tried to use my knowledge of how our teachers worked to put access points where they would do the most good. My first round I was right on, I guessed right on the areas, but still underestimated how quickly the teachers would embrace BYOD. Had more access points brought in over the summer, but even then had to put in a couple additional routers. I thought I was going to be covered for the remainder of the school year, but NO....
The last two weeks have seen an explosion of use in areas that had been light before. I just put in an order for 6 more Access Points, and will start cabling soon.
I guess I am a little amazed that with the right training, and encouragement even the most reluctant are integrating technology into their classrooms!
Some of the neater ones: A HS science teacher is now utilizing Google Apps as her Student/Content Management System. She even teaches some off site blended learning courses, and has those students using Apps for Education as well.
On Friday, I am meeting with two HS math teachers because they have been flipping their classrooms, and are looking for better video capabilities! That one made me smile, because flipping a classroom is something I really believe in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)