Posted on January 29th, 2011 by
Thomas Kennedy
Educational Technology Council, January 21, 2011 Meeting
“A Geek Gathering”
I had the great honor of being assigned as the school board member representative to the Educational Technology Council (ETC). As a self proclaimed geek and technology nerd, I knew I would be at home with this group of technology educators. I was not disappointed. As I sat down the group treated me not only as part of the team but also promptly asked, “Mac or PC?” Like any good politically correct person might answer I said, “It depends on the application.” I shared that my first computer was a TRS80 color computer that used a television as the monitor and a tape recorded to load programs. We have come so far.
The ETC is chaired by Dr. Mike Geddes, Director of Technology Services, and includes his administrative team from the Technology Resource Center, school technology specialists, technology teachers, district staff and a school board member (myself).
The first part of the day was spent sharing out about general technology issues and problem solving from around the district. Then Dr. Geddes spoke at length about Skyward School Management System. Skyward will be a single login management computer system for student enrollment to payroll processing. It will dramatically improve our efficiencies and communication with all our employees, parents, and students making our day-to-day operations more effective and enjoyable. What this will mean is that Citrus School District will have one grade book program with a parent and student login portal. Parents, guardians and students can login to have live and instant access to their grades, lesson plans and attendance. Many other great features will be available. This program is scheduled to come online for parents and students for the 2012-2013 school year.
The better part of the day was planning for the major computer replacements that will be done district wide in February 2011. At the December 14th, 2010, school board meeting the school board voted to change our traditional approach of purchasing computer systems to leasing them. Our technology plan and capital budget plan has included a computer replacement/refresh cycle where students’ lab computers where replaced every 5 years, teachers’ every 4 years, and Staff and Administrators’ every 3 years. This has been the replacement schedule for a great main years. Unfortunately, due to student enrollment increases and reduced funds, this replacement schedule was often not able to be followed so that meant currentl, 64% of our computers were four years old or older and 42% of our computers are five years or older. This is creating issues when trying to run newer programs with increasing hardware requirements. Many of the district’s computers were now 6 and 7 years old. After researching and bidding out options, the Technology Services department presented the school board with a leasing option from Dell. The lease plan would be to replace all computers that were a year or more old and that were not purchased using alternate funding (i.e., Title 1, grant monies, etc.) The lease would be for 3 years and the computers would be under warranty during that 3 year lease period. After 3 years we could either purchase the computers or turn them in for a new lease. This plan will not only reduce both the cost of repairs and maintenance of the computers, but also reduce the cost of having computers. In addition, this means that all the new computers will have Windows 7 Operating System and Microsoft Office 2010. The current computers often had Windows 98 and Windows XP and were running Office 2000 (yes, a 10 year old software program) or on the student labs, an open source program OpenOffice which is not an industry wide program. This is a major commitment to our students on behalf of the Superintendent and the school board. This will equip our students and staff with the necessary tools to be even more successful. I am proud of this decision and commitment.
The new computers will begin being placed in our schools sometime in February 2011.
I learned so much at the ETC meeting and was pleased with the direction our school district is going with its commitment to technology for our students. I am excited about what great technology we have coming into our schools!
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Like diamonds in the sky, the nominees at the annual Galaxy of Stars event to honor the 2012 Teacher of the Year and 2011 School-Related Employee of the Year shined Tuesday night at Citrus Hills Golf and Country Club.
