--- TIC-TECH message:
Here are the long awaited Tech Forum notes! Sorry for the delay.
Hope to see you at the next Forum November 30th 4:00 at A&S Auditorium.
Tech Forum
Meeting Minutes October 26, 2000
Announcements:
Lynn Steinberg, Communications: lsteinberg@seattleschools.org 252.0203
Reminder: schools, teachers and kids are invited to put projects on the
Internet Through the KOMO TV For Kids Sake program.
For Kids Sake - Sam Orchard contact at: stano@komotv.com
Karen Meyer, Instructional Technology, kmeyer@seattleschools.org
Introduced: Karen Manual Karenm@alliance4ed.com who is now working
for The Alliance for Education in the area of science and technology. She
has worked with a variety of schools in the District and the Central Area
Youth Association.
Eric Faulkner, Instructional Technology Efaulkner@seattleschools.org
Publish with Pride
Schools should have brochures at their school detailing the Publish With
Pride contest. (If not, please contact Eric at the above e-mail address)
For this contest students can enter any piece of writing, but they must use
technology in some way. This could be using a word processor,
Powerpoint presentation, web site, etc.
Schools judge all entries, and can submit one entry to the Sonics. 180
students, two from each school will get to attend a Sonics practice. They
will then attend a press conference, write about the press conference and
submit their story.
The final winners will get a laptop and awards at a future Sonics game.
Copernicus - Handouts were made available for the usage of Copernicus
by teachers. The site is quite large and can be overwhelming for first time
users.
Technology plans for schools - if you are in the process. There is a review
team that looks at those plans that meets at the end of each month. Plans
will be reviewed even over the summer months.
Examples of school Technology plans will be made available on the
Instructional Technology web site.
http://www.seattleschools.org
Click on - Services and Departments
Click on - Instructional Technology.
There are examples of different levels of plans. There are 15 school plans
that could be made available.
Question: It was recommended at the last meeting that we tie the
Technology Plan into the Academic Achievement Plan. Do you
recommend we rush to complete it in order to tie it to academic
achievement plan?
Answer: Depends on school. If you are ready for technology planning
move ahead, if not, you may want to wait.
Question: How do we know which Master Teacher from Instructional
Technology is assigned to our school?
Answer: The list will be on the web site very soon.
NT Network admin books, they have copies and if you would like to have
this course, contact Eric Faulkner Efaulkner@seattleschools.org
Question: The Acceptable Use Agreement that is on the Instructional
Technology site right now, is that the current policy?
Answer: Yes, you are welcome to use the form(s) on the Instructional
Technology site. There is one for parents and another for students. They
are available in a variety of languages.
Juli Swinnerton, Instructional Technology jaswinnerton@seattleschools.org :
There is an opportunity for students to interact with Russian pen pals via
email called 'Epals'.
This will be teacher e-mail to teacher e-mail.
There was a sign-in sheet collecting names of those interested.
If interested, contact: Juli at jaswinnerton@seattleschools.org
Eric Faulkner, School Kit
(Contact Eric Caldwell ecaldwell@seattleschools.org 366-2614 if you
have any questions.)
District has been given the rights to use 'School Kit' a database of lesson
plans and templates designed to use with Microsoft products on pc's.
There will be training available at the Northend Annex :
Times have yet to be determined, but there will be a morning session and
an afternoon session on the following dates:
December 5
December 9
December 12
December 13
Allowing up to two from each school to be trained. Monitor Tic Tech for
more info.
Charlie Walker
Anti virus cd's have been burned and were made available.
Levy update: John Rowlands
Facilities and wiring -
John shared the fact that he had been getting some positive feed back about
folks in the schools for instance: Neil Rockwell of Mercer, Rob Silver of
Cooper,
Laura Nichols of Graham Hill, Judy Badenhoop of Blaine, Gail Lloyd of Maple
and others who he has heard very good things about.
An updated schedule was passed out and made available that will be on
the http://inside.seattleschools.org site
Please note: the date on the schedule is date when construction is
expected to be complete. It will take another month for the network
connections to be made and the desktop computers to be installed.
Email: outlook to everyone? Schools do not have the computer hardware
to make this available to everyone.
OWA (Outlook Web Access) will be used instead which will run on smaller
machines. This will mean that you simply need to have Internet access in
order to access your mail.
We are testing this product in 3 schools at this time: Ballard, Whittier
and
Latona.
Once any bugs are worked out, a schedule will be created to hook up
forty-three schools in order to sync up with the above schedule.
LAN schools, (classroom) all teachers will have e-mail.
WAN front office will have mail
Question: Can schools still get CKS accounts or VAX mail until OWA is
ready?
Answer: The CKS system is a very old system that we are going to phase
out so we are looking into alternatives.
Question: If a school has a lab that can reach OWA already, can we have
accounts created for them?
Answer: If we work around the schedule, we will never be able to get back
on schedule. We are doing our best to move ahead as planned with OWA
and our revised schedule.
Voice mail:
1000 folks now have voice mail.
We are finding that often voicemail is not always activated at schools that
have it. Please, if you have any questions, contact Telecom
Donations
The utilization of donation computers is necessary in order to get to a 1/5
ratio (1 computer per 5 students).
In the planning process of our Technology Master Plan, when we did the
math, we could buy 60% of the computers brand new and 40% had to
come from other sources. We must use donations to get to the 1/5
donation ratio.
Since starting the Donation Program we have now raised the bar to
Pentium 133 with CD Rom when available.
We are looking at our Donation Program to see if it is indeed cost effective
to utilize donated machines rather than purchasing new machines.
We have had some donations of machines from the Department of
Corrections where we found after delivery did not meet our new minimum
standards.
Please note: Dept of corrections, inmates cannot load software for obvious
security reasons.
Question: If machines are below standards, are they counted towards
inventory?
Answer: Not if they don't meet our minimum standards.
We may see about upgrading such machines to meet minimum.
Question: Is anyone working with the UW? They have machines that they
haven't decided what to do with. Might be available for loan.
Answer: We do meet with them frequently, but we are not familiar with that
program. More information would be appreciated.
Question: What if a machine has no operating system?
Answer: If it is a student computer we will provide the operating system if
it
is a teacher computer the school is responsible.
Consider the following:
In a server based LAN situation you must have:
1. Operating system on a workstation
2. Server NT operating system
3. Client access license (CAL)
4. Any other application you might have on this machine
CAL must be purchased for a LAN environment for about $5 per unit.
Microsoft Select Program and the Microsoft School Agreement are the
only way you should purchase Microsoft Software. See the
"inside.seattleschools.org" site.
Question: Have you considered using Linux?
Yes, we have considered this. We went through a lot of discussions with
6000 users the total cost of 'alternatives' the cost gets higher when
everyone is doing their own thing. We developed a standard, it is cheaper
in the long run to standardize even with a higher priced product.
Compatibility is an issue as well. There is always the possibility in the
future of using a different system.
If you have been involved in the donation program we would like your
input. If you have had a negative experience and would be willing to
donate a few hours to spend talking to us, we could use your help. We
want to study how it has been going. We might have to revisit portions of
the program that are not working.
We invite you to volunteer. Please contact: jrowlands@seattleschools.org
if you are willing to be a part of this discussion.
Barcoding - We are looking at the practicality of barcoding donation
machines.
It was brought up that a school received 400 boxes delivered w/o warning.
The problem is storage and getting rid of old computers. Right now they
are forced to use a lab for storage. It was asked that schools be notified
as
to when deliveries are to be made so they can plan. Also needed, a date
when old machines and surplus materials can be picked up.
We will definitely notify and work with schools before delivery. No
delivery should have occurred without your notice.
We will contact Mary Jo De Beck about recycling issues as well.
Software Licensing, Charlie Walker
We are advising that Windows 2000 if used, must be set up by a Network
Analyst. We have been told that it opens up some issues within the
network and can compromise your other systems. We are advising not
setting it up at this time.
We are aware that some schools are purchasing Servers with Win2000.
Please do not start up Windows 2000 server, it is good, but can cause
major problems if it is started up incorrectly.
If you are buying servers, please make sure your Network Analyst is
aware of our plans. We don't have anyone Win2000 trained yet. Training
will be completed by January.
If you buy Windows 2000 you can run everything below. You can
download to Windows 98 system and at some future date you can reload
Windows 2000 and still have a valid license.
Concern: Cleveland High School has business partners would like to do
some creative things with networks. Due to the usage of NT and the
administrative rights, Cleveland is unable to accommodate these network
changes. How can they accomplish this?
Response: SVI purchased NT for the business labs. We have technical
folks in the field who will work with you to accomplish your goals. Some of
the issues have to do with the WAN and not just you local network. You
need to be careful when working with your servers because you actions
can impact the school as well as the entire Wide Area Network. This must
building wiring rooms must be kept secure.
Question: Back to software licensing: If I have a certain number of
machines and a certain number of licenses and I am let's say, short three
licenses, how can the district help me?
Answer: First of all, we will help you to get those licenses. We are hiring
a
person very soon to work specifically on this issue. A person to develop a
plan so we can help schools in making sure they can document the
licenses that they have as well as helping to get any licenses needed.
Anti virus was made available. The District has a site license for all
schools.
Question: We just ordered a site license for Grade Machine for Garfield.
We got it for $900. You can call and negotiate for this product. Are there
plans within the School District to implement a universal grading system in
the future?
John: We have just hired a consulting firm and will be creating a
committee to develop a plan. We would like to create a web system to
make it available to everyone. The state is also is writing their own
system. We will update you on this project as more information becomes
available.
Instructional Technology: We do have a District license for School Kit. It
is
a company that has put together some lessons that work with Microsoft
Office in Language Arts and Math K-12. The Gates Foundation is paying
for the District license.
Other District Licenses:
Fool Proof (some schools purchased a site license for their
schools)
Command Anti Virus
Schoolkit
E-Rate: John Rowlands:
This is an incredibly complex federal program. If two places put in a
request for the same site, (Information Services and a school for example)
both proposals are thrown out.
We have hired folks to work specifically with these issues and we are
asking that you not turn in your own proposals, but instead work with us to
do this. Also, please note that if you come up with a proposed purchase
and are requesting a discounted rate, you have to have the money now to
buy in July of next year. So advanced planning is necessary.
Technical Support in the schools:
There was a Tic Tech discussion of whether or not the District would
invest enough money so that schools could have technical people on site.
If you have any input on these issues, will you please send these issues to
John jrowlands@seattleschools.org He needs the input and he will take
these issues to the top. We see a need in the schools for such funding.
Question: What is the replacement cycle on equipment in schools once we
get to the 5/1 ratio. What kind of replacement cycle are we going to put
them in place? Levy's lined up.
Answer: All new levy's are for replacement. With the first levy that didn't
happen. It was looked at but not recognized. There was no official plan for
it, and now we are now looking into plans for replacement machines. We
are also looking at possibly leasing machines. This depended on the
levy's passing.
It should be part of ongoing operations, but it isn't. It is being
discussed,
but solutions will not happen overnight.
Concern: Vice Principals are still using computers with Windows 3.11 at
Cleveland. Peggy got some donated Pentium II's for the main office but
asked if Information Services shouldn't be providing such machines.
Charlie: Great job on getting donated equipment. We are having to be
very creative when it comes to finding machines for staff. Understand that
the Levy machines must go to students and not teachers or administrative
staff. We are replacing machines as available. This is an issue that needs
further discussion.
Question: Is there a way to auction off equipment on E-bay.
Answer: No, we can't auction off District property on E-bay, however, we
have had a suggestion of perhaps having a place on the
inside.seattleschools.org site where people could post computers that they
no longer need, but someone else might be able to use. We will let you
know when something like this is available.
Question: A parent brought up the fact that perhaps it isn't necessary for
kids to work on the latest greatest computers in order to learn in school.
When teaching, why does it have to be a Pentium III. There is research
that children can learn technology at age 11 and still progress very well.
Do children have to learn this so early for student achievement?
Answer: Often the need of having a more current computer is more for the
hardware and software compatibility issue rather than simply having our
children on the fastest and most current computers. Out dated hardware is
often not easily kept running, parts are hard to come by and having folks
with the knowledge to fix such machines becomes harder as well. These
are good points to ponder.
Training, Charlie Walker
This fall we have offered 92 classes and there are 120 scheduled for
Winter which includes two dozen evening classes! Please visit:
http://inside.seattleschools.org and click on Training to view what is
available.
There is a Windows series available which includes File Management and
Networking Basics.
New classes:
How to set up my PC/Mac on a network.
I have a networked PC/Mac in my classroom what can I do when it works
or when it doesn't.
(Please note: The last two classes will be renamed in the future!)
Door Prizes!
A PC, was given on your behalf to the school of the winner's choice.
(West Woodland)
A keyboard
A trackball
Candy, courtesy of Apple representative, Sari Rattner
Charlie Walker
CHWALKER@seattleschools.org
Seattle Schools
Support Manager
206-252-0303
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