5-3-12

=Tech Council Meeting on 5/3/12= For a copy of these minutes as a Word document, click here--> [|Tech Council notes 5-3-12.doc] Jeff Levin, Business Development Manager for SHI, reported on Microsoft’s Office 365 which is competing with Google Apps for Education. It’s currently only available for districts with Enrollment for Educational Solutions (EES) contracts. They are expecting to hear that it may be expanded. All products will be available as of June 1, 2012. All products will be free to staff and students in those districts. All products will be Web apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook. It will work on all computers including tablets and netbooks. All of the basic functionalities will be there but power users will miss some features. SQL will be the back end database. Each user will have storage space in the cloud and each district will have storage space. Live @Edu is the current version which is free. That isn’t going away but Microsoft is not going to upgrade it.
 * Office 365 Update**

Jeff Levin reported that he has been working with the other RESC Tech Councils and they have been talking about having a vendor fair. Jeff has been organizing one for June 28, 2012 at the Farmington Marriott. It will be open all day from 9 AM to 4 PM. They are expecting approximately 50 computer vendors and manufacturers. It will be free. Some vendors will be doing break-out sessions. Jeff will be sending information about this soon. If you have any questions for Jeff or have ideas for vendors that you’d like to see at the vendor fair, you can contact him via email at jeff_levin@shi.com or via office phone at 860-872-5677 or on his cell phone at 860-682-2954.
 * Vendor Fair**

Apple is negotiating with SBAC and with CSDE to ensure that iPads can be used to take the 2014-15 high stakes SBAC online test. Jane reported that the word on the street is that during the 2015-16 school year, the math portion of the test will require iPads or tablets so that students will be able to hand write their math problems. Check with your Testing Coordinator for more information because they have recently received the specs for the online testing. The group discussed issues related to the high stakes testing and using virtualized machines, supporting BYOD for testing, extended assessment windows means that the technology will be less available for tech integration for teachers and students, etc. All of these are concerns that will need to be addressed in the next two years.
 * Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and Tablets**

We made the following decisions: Topics for 2012-13:
 * Planning for 2012-13**
 * Keep Thursdays but not the last Thursday of the month
 * 5 meetings spread out over the course of the school year
 * 3:30-5:30 PM is still good; a couple of people can’t arrive quite at 3:30 because of their school schedule and distance to travel but said to keep the times the same
 * We’ve already set dates; Jane will check to make sure that none of the dates are the last Thursday of the month and will reschedule if any are
 * Cloud Computing, BYOD, Mobile Device Management – September/October
 * CCSS and Technology – How do they intersect? What are the implications of CCSS and digital literacy? How do we help teachers and students use appropriate tech tools to ensure the rigor that the standards are requiring?
 * PD
 * SBAC – What are the technological implications of online testing?
 * Standing Agenda Items:
 * SBAC
 * BYOD
 * Mobile Device Management
 * Federal and State Updates
 * Burning Questions and Issues


 * Unanswered Questions (maybe unanswerable?)**
 * Now that the State Tech Plan has been adopted, where does NETS stand?
 * Is there a crosswalk between CCSS and NETS? Check out Tennessee – Mike thinks they've been working on this.

Mike talked about his district, Killingly. Killingly High School has 826 kids running around with Macbooks. Mike said that KHS has been involved with the EASTCONN Successful Journeys interdistrict grant that Dan Mullins coordinates for high school freshmen for several years. Mike has partnered with Rosetta in Plainfield. Mike and Rosetta turned the Successful Journeys Writers Workshop into an Edmodo site. Edmodo is a Facebook-like site for schools. Mike showed some of the files stored in the Edmodo site library and some of the student discussions. They sent out assignments to their participating students. The students worked on their assignments electronically and turned them in. Edmodo keeps track of who has turned in their assignments and automatically populates new assignments as they are created. They created a Twitter backchannel. They used HootSuite ([]) to archive the backchannel. This let them do analytics and data analysis on this activity. Through this online project, they are experiencing simultaneous instruction along with simultaneous feedback. Mike showed an example of the old fashioned “hard copy” storyboard that has been done in previous years. He compared it to the electronic storyboard that they created this year. The difference is dramatic. The advantages of using Web 2.0 tools is that there is now an electronic archive of all of the work the students did. They have a learning management system that’s online that can be used into the future. They ran into some bandwidth issues on their wireless network. The kids started using their Smartphones to compensate. Steve has been looking at Edmodo for 4th graders. He wasn’t sure that it would be the best tool for these younger students to use independently at home. Instead he’s going to create a simple Web site with Google Forms. Mike has also used Schoolology, another free Web site for managing lessons and engaging students. For more information, go to: [] Jane shared the **Digital Web Resources Wiki: **that Sydney Gilbey and her UConn Writing Center Intern, John Ehlinger, created for a presentation they did at a conference at UConn. To check out some of the cool Web 2.0 tools they’ve compiled, go to: http://digitalwebresources.wikispaces.com/Digital+Web+Resources+Home.
 * Web 2.0 Cool Tools**


 * Miscellaneous Web 2.0 Tools and Apps**
 * Puffin – This is a Web browser App for the iPad and iPhone that lets you run Flash on Web sites
 * Waze – This is an interactive GPS App for the Smartphone. This is a driver’s app that lets you post traffic updates.
 * Masher – This is a free Web 2.0 tool that lets you create videos by mixing together video clips, music tracks, and photos. Check it out at: []