ASCS Technology Committee Meeting Notes - 11/11/2008
Attendees:
Frank Banul, Chris Ganus, Hank Caruso, Nick Mueth, Kathy Thompson, Mike Moline, Sid Steele, Marie Pishko, Kara Waterman, Dan Lemcke
Nick gave recap of last meeting
- Construction of the computer lab will be the main focus
- Hank reported that he had met with Core Plus to review our current set up and requirements for the lab. They discussed which applications would be required: Word suite, Mavis Beacon, etc. Hank sent an email out to the teachers asking what additional applications they might want.
Waiting for teacher responses.
- Hank is expecting a quote from Core Plus anytime now.
- Hank tried to contact Dell, but no response.
- Nick reports that the bid from Apple is too high for our budget.
- The lab will require the following:
- 24 student workstations
- 1 teacher workstation
- furniture
- overhead projector
- 2 black and white laser printers
- possibly a Smart Board if enough funds available
- Diocese policy requires 3 bids. Need to generate RFP to submit to potential vendors.
- Mike suggested some of the tradeoffs associated with thin client set up that we need to investigate/understand - must have very high speed network, application loading time, workstation mobility, open source application issues (reluctance by service company to support).
- Need to understand network bandwidth requirements per workstation on thin client set up and make sure our existing network infrastructure will support the required bandwidth.
- Also consider the potential abuse the workstations will be subjected to. An all-in-one unit similar to iMac might have benefit of getting all the hardware off the floor, reduce clutter, etc.
Projectors:
- Kara gave some discussion on DLP versus LCD projector technology. DLP is preferred. No burn-in issues, filter free. Kara is hosting a technology meeting for the diocese at TI on Tuesday. Hank will attend and bring room layout. Suggested to include lighting sources locations on layout.
- Kathy brought spec printouts of 4 projectors. Prices range from ~$600-$850.
RFP/Potential vendors:
- Pam has a quote from M&A to use as a starting point. M&A is the preferred vendor for Plano ISD.
- Sid will check with Dell and IBM on their education programs.
- The two Laser printers need to be included in the RFP.
- Hank will look for an RFP template.
- Meeting to be held on 11/18 to generate RFP. Follow up meeting to be held on 11/20 to review.
- Will need separate RFP's for furniture (Marie has catalog), thin client solution (Core Plus, Citrix, Thin, IBM,...), thick client solution (M&A, Dell,...)
- Projector does not have to be on RFP.
- Normally vendors want 30 days to respond. Timeline is very tight, especially given Thanksgiving week coming up.
Dan volunteered to investigate options for Internet Service Providers in the area. Hank suggested the ISP needs to be E-Rate qualified.
Next general meeting 12/9.

Hi all,
Just wanted to let you all know that we will be in the cafetorium due to the SAC meeting in the Library.
See you all tomorrow,
Nick

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to write a quick good luck to those who are attending the conference today. Also wanted to remind you all that about our next meeting on Thursday to finalize the RFPs and identify to whom we will send them. Look forward to seeing you all there.
Nick

Meeting Tommorrow Night

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to remind everyone about the meeting tomorrow night at 6:30. Please try to be as on-time as possible. The Home and School Association (HSA) scheduled an emergency meeting for the same night @ 7:00 so hopefully we can get right down to business, and maybe finish a little bit early. Excited to hear how plans are progressing.
Thanks,
Nick

New Date For November Meeting!!!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the November meeting has been moved up to:

Nov. 11th at 6:30

Hopefully we will be making some firm plans for the Computer Lab design to be presented to SAC Fr. Tom and Mrs. Pishko. Hope to see you there.

ASCS Tech Committee October Meeting

Minutes

Attendees:
Nick Mueth
Kathy Thompson
Marie Pishko
Hank Caruso
Mark Landry
Dan Lemcke
Frank Banul

I. Recap of old business and Last meeting
II. Viewing of first draft of Letter for Bulletin and Saintly notes by Dan Lemcke. It was agreed to review it and also make a shorter, one paragraph version for alternate usage.
III. Marie informed us of the need to act swiftly on the design and bidding of the Computer lab. Nick reported numbers he received from Apple for the computers. A rough outline of 23 stations (computers and furniture), 2 laser printers, and an overhead projector was proposed. In addition the committee will investigate Smart Boards to see if they could be brought in under whatever budget is approved. Mark gave a presentation of his company (Core Plus) and the Thin-Client services it provides. It was decided that Mark, a technical representative from his company, and Hank will meet before the next Tech. Comm. meeting to further investigate a proposal by Core Plus. IV. A movement was made and so passed that the work of the individual Task Forces should be suspended in favor of dedicating all resources to completion of the Computer Lab design and execution.
V. The date of the November meeting was moved up to further expedite this. The new date is Nov 11th at 6:30 pm in the Library.

Thanks to all who attended, and special thanks to Mark Landry for some great new ideas.

October Meeting Agenda

Hi everyone,
Sorry for being late with this... still new to me but I will endeavor to get better. Can't wait to see you all tomorrow 6:30 in the Library.
Thanks,
Nick

ASCS Technology Committee Meeting
October 2008
Agenda

I. Opening orayer
II. Minutes from previous meeting and old business
III. Task force progress reports
IV. New business
V. Closing

Middle School Teacher Visit JPII

Last Thursday Diane, Joann, Michale and I attented the "Cardinal Connection" night at JPII. I wish I couldsay it was as informative as the Bishop Lynch visit but I can not. There were very few teachers from JPII present. In fact there was no one from the Technology Department present. The friendship and fellowship with other teachers in the Diocese was wonderful. The most enjoyable part of the evening was the meal. I could have stayed home and worked on the school web site.

October Meeting Change

Hi all,
Because of various scheduling conflicts, we need to move the Oct. meeting to Tuesday the 21st at 6:30 in the Library. We might need to move the Nov. Meeting too, but we can discuss that on the 21st. Thanks for all you do, and see you there.
Nick

Next 2 Technology Committee meetings

I will not be able to attend the October and November committee meeting. I am taking a series of three (3) classes at Collin College. These classes meet MWF from 6:30 Pm to 9:30 PM for 6 weeks. (The class is Abobe Flash 8.0 - hoping to really excite our Web Site).

Hank

Karen Beacham's Thoughts on TSI-1

I am including the opening paragraph of a document that Karen sent the Primary Department after her return from the first session of her Region 10 TSI training:

"Dear friends,
I attended the first session of the Technology Specialist Institute yesterday. I think it would be easier to share the information and sites via letter than go over everything in the department meeting. I am going to try to be as brief as possible while still giving you all the information. If you need one on one help accessing sites (most are simple to register and maneuver through.) All the sites I am going to give you are free. Let me/Sherrie know if there is something we all want to learn in more depth then we can let Sherrie set up a time for us to work together, possibly at a department meeting.
Overview- We all need to agree that technology is important. It is a focus this year and we as a department need to make it a focus to start preparing our children to be students in the “21 century “.
If you need the point proven or just are interested here are some interesting background sites;
Downloadable video or PowerPoint that emphases why we need to teach “21st Century skills” http://www.toolsfortheclassroom.com/page12.html
Blooms taxonomy rewritten:
http://www.techlearning.com/shared/printableArticle.php?articleID=196605124
A key point I thought was made was – We don’t want to make more work but work smarter- in other words integrate."

Needless to say I think she got a lot out it!

On Wednesday Sep. 29 I attended an meeting at Bishop Lynch (BL) High School along with Mr. Stern, Ms. Wegmann, Ms. Bacic. The purpose of the meeting was for the Middle School (MS) teachers to meet with the different Department Heads at BL.



In the Technology section we discussed what was important for me to be teaching to better prepare our students for High School. The Number 1 thing at BL is KEYBOARDING. We were told that students are really lacking in this extremely important skill.Incoming freshman at BL can test out of a Word and PowerPoint by scoring 75 or better on a test. This is great except for one HUGE factor the test is given using Office 2007.



I know we have been reluctant to change to 2007 but I think that we no longer have a choice. All the High Schools are on 2007 and if I students are going to be prepared we must implement 2007. I do not recommend that we do this during the current school year but we must do this in time for the beginning of School Year 2009-2010.This may be one of the things that we need to change for our next years goals.



If you have any questions of concerns please let me know.

Upcoming events:

Next Tech Tuesday for teachers - October 14, 2008

TCEA Areas 10/11 Technology Conference, Saturday, October 25, 2008 at Liberty High School 15250 Rolater Rd., Frisco, TX 75035 - Emphasis on Web 2.0 Tools

November 18 DLP University at TI - more information to follow

Texas Computer Education Association’s 29th Annual Convention & Exposition Feb. 2-6, 2009, in Austin, Texas -Carol Mayo and I are presenting Lego Robotics

Technology Lab

I am sorry to learn that we did not receive any of the large grants we applied for last school year. I think that it is time for us to seriously look at the "Thin Client" solution. I spoke with Carol Mayo several times this summer and learned that there are at least 3 other schools in the Diocese that are implementing this solution. I also learned that students can use their "thumb drives" with no problems.

Several of the schools are implementing with existing equipment for the "master" computers and just purchasing keyboards and monitors.

I really think we need to take a serious look at this solution.

meeting

Dear team,
The meeting has been rescheduled to Tuesday, May 20th, at 6 pm in the school library. Agenda will be to finalize the written strategic plan and to review the letter to the parishoners to solicit technology assistance/mentors, etc.
Thanks and see you then!
Kathy

ASCS Technology Committee Meeting Minutes
4/21/2008
Attendees:
Kathy Thompson, Angela Bowman, Chris Ganus, Dam Lemcke, Pam Fox, Marie Pishko, Hank Caruso, Carol Mayo, Frank Banul, Steve Diller
I. Carol and Hank reported on Maypearl school visit to look at Thin Client solution in use.
- Appears to be a good, cost-effective set up.
- Set up has master computers with 3 slaves card attached and 2 cards per master.
- Students file servers should be independent from teachers'.
- Product literature from NComputing was distributed.
- Literature shows no USB connection on the clients. This is a problem for ASCS application. Carol to verify on 2nd visit to Maypearl.
II. Technology Plan Review
A. Goals/Objectives must be simply stated and measurable.
1. Goal 1: Professional Development - notes/comments
- SBEC is used by Region 10. We could also used ISTE.
- There is no diocesan standard set for teacher development.
- The diocesan standard for student skills was written in 2004. For now we must focus on getting teachers to the point at which they can teach to this standard.
- STaR Chart -
- Teacher self assessments completed.
- Focused on Educator Prep, Learning, and Leadership/Administration sections. Less focus on Infrastructure section.
- Hank and Marie are analyzing the STaR results.
- Looking into grouping teachers according to assessment and making corresponding plans for trainings to be held by an outside trainer.
- Need to define what a technologically competent teacher is and then set training plan.
- Suggested to use STaR as a baseline and measurement tool.
- Enterprise Licensing - Need to find out if this comes with educational credits? Pam to work with Angela to sort out.
- Mentor program should include substitutes for teachers to enable teachers to go out for training.
- Technology/curriculum integration, cross-curriculum pilot programs in process. Need write up of results including 3 positives, 3 negatives, and student feedback.
- Dan to generate letter for parish to solicit technology resources/talent from parishioners.
- Teachers to generate technology wish-lists to tie to parish resources.
- Need to include Safe Environment Cleared statement in letter.
2. Goal 2: Acquiring and Using Technology in ASCS
- Need to implement and enforce a Service Request Form policy to track service requests in order to justify support personnel.
- Inventory list -
- April 27, 3:00 - Dan, Angela, Chris, Mike, Frank, Pam to meet at school and review current inventory.
III. Next meeting: May 19.
- Please review Technology Plan draft and email goals/measurable objectives to Kathy.

thin comment

Well, for all you techies, I actually did read the article and the subsequent comments. They don't seem to support the claims of cost savings or relatively few problems. So, definitely something to consider. Celine has also been looking into leasing PC's as an option. More on this later.
Thanks to everyone who attended last night!
Kathy

NComputing Info

I was doing some searching on the internet and the nComputing website. Following is some info that is encouraging:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Infrastructure/NComputing-Spreads-IO-Wealth/

http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/archives/2008/02/ncomputing_gree.html

In the above article/blog, they reference how the L230 has USB memory device support. This looks like a good solution that is used by many schools. I think the only important thing to understand with this is the Microsoft licensing requirements we would be held to.

Chris

All Saints Technology Committee
3/10/2008 Meeting

Attendees:
Kara Waterman
Hank Caruso
Kathy Thompson
Pam Fox
Steve Diller
St. Monica School visit
Kara, Hank, and Kathy visited St. Monica School and reported the
following:
- St. Monica uses Interwrite Learning tablets, a wireless tablet used by teachers in the classroom to allow them mobility around the classroom.
Reported cost of these is $480, but the lowest price Hank has found is $520.
- St. Monica does not use Smartboards.
- They have a lab with 56 PC's, and have 6 mobile labs with 15 laptops per.
- All teachers have desktop PCs.
- They have a research room with 8 PC's, which are video editing stations (faster, bigger hard drives, etc.)
- All PC's are from Dell. They pay ~$37K for a 3 year lease for all ~100 machines. As machines are upgraded, they trickle down the older machines from labs to teachers to classrooms.
- Kindergarten through 2nd grade use 42" flat screens instead of projection.
- They have 3 computer teachers, 1 full time and 2 part time.
- They also use a mobile cart/package of writers (keyboarding, etc.).
The cost of these is ~$6K for the cart and #? of writers.
- They are testing an iPod program using the iPod Shuffle - Spanish lessons, audio books.
- They are moving their videos to ISO files and putting them on a master server.
Pam attended a technology conference at Fort Worth Christian School.
The conference leader is available to attend one of our meetings.
Alternatives to Smartboard were discussed.
- Mimio - uses sensor array on each end of a regular white board.
- Polyvision - generic version of Smartboard. Less expensive.
It was suggested that we look at www.futurekids.org to investigate grants.
Kathy passed out an example of a Technology Assessment from Jesuit.
Kathy requested a list of inventory and licenses that we currently have from Pam.
The Diocese has a revised curriculum available on their website:
http://cso-dallas.org/instruction.htm.
Other good websites:
SBEC - http://www.sbec.state.tx.us/SBECOnline/default.asp
TEKS - http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/
ISTE - http://www.iste.org/
Pam agreed to supply curriculum guidelines at next meeting.

Please check the ASCS Technology Committee Blog for latest meeting notes and info. Hank can set up access if you don't already have it.
Address: http://ascstechcom.blogspot.com/.

Next meetings April 21 and May 19, 6:00PM.

Please do not forget that there is a Technology Committee Meeting Monday, March 10, 2008 at 6:00 PM in the library.

See you there!!!

Technology Committee Meeting Munutes - 25 Feb 2008

Minutes from Meeting: 2/25/08

I. Opening prayer and introductions of neww members: Angela Bowman QZBowman@tx.rr.com
Celine Fynes Celine.Fynes@ps.net

II.Mike Moline explained Star Chart results

III. Dan gave details of his tour of Jesuit: Steve forwarded his results from the visit.
Jesuit expectations for incoming freshman-
navigation of Web, use of MS word, excel(secondary),.
Utilize "moodle" as communications suite
Utilize "Razor's Edge" for school admin.(similar to Renweb)
2 dedicated computer labs with 50 computers each
Library with multiple computer stations and a total of 12 computers for student use(first come first served)
2 full-time technology people:
1 non-teacher(support and service calls)
1 teacher who teaches only 1 math class
1 part-time tech. support as well

*Committee to obatin resumes on tech. positions- ???Needs immediate attention

IV. Rough draft of initial objectives presented and copies disseminated. This will be ongoing.
Multiple discussions about curriculum and professional development needs. Continual ssessment.
Recommend steering Committee as separate entity for curiiculum needs.

V. St Monica visit : Hank, Kara, Kathy scheduled 2/29/08 9:30 am

Ursuline visit: Steve, Angela,Kathy: before 3/10/08 TBD
Closing:
Past agendas and minutes to be forwarded to new members to bring them up to speed.
Thankyou to all who attended.
If I missed anything, please forward it on to all memebers.
Please update your contacts list with the new members.
Kathy

Hi all,
Below are the notes I took at last Monday's meeting. Please feel free to respond with any additions or corrections.
Thanks,
Steve


Attendees:
Kathy Thompson, Dan Lemcke, Sid Steele, Mike Moline, Carol Mayo, Pam Fox, Steve Diller
Statewide public school STAR chart results summary for '06'-07 were distributed by Carol.
School visit plan:
- Ursuline - Kathy and Steve. Kathy to set up with Ursuline for week of 1/28.
- St. Monica - Kathy and Hank.
- Jesuit - Dan and Steve. Steve to set up time for week of 1/28.
- JP II - Dan and Jean Powers (? - SAC member)
- UTD - Decision was made not to visit.
- Irving schools - Steve and Carol
- All visits to be done by 2/19.
IT support personnel
- Will need to have a support person on staff. This is part of the objective/plan.
- St. Rita, St. Monica, St. Mark, St. Thomas Aquinas, PoP all have full time support personnel.
- St. Pius X - teacher is assigned to support.
Inventory list
- All purchased systems are accounted for.
- Current infrastructure:
- CAT5/6 wiring, no fiber
- 24-port, 10/100 Mbps stackable switches
- 124 of 144 ports are in use (10 unused ports in each room)
- IBM server with SonicWALL (standalone)
- Dan, Sid, Mike can generate an immediate "to buy" list for February grant money
Teacher Assessment
- Scheduled for Feb. 12
- 1 week to compile results
- Review results at Feb. 25 meeting
Schedule for Plan completion
- Need to have completed by June
- First goals are computer lab and getting teachers up and running on the currently owned technology tools
- Mike advised the following:
- Region 10 looks for the plan to call for ~10% of budget to go to teacher professional development
- Plan should also include a plan for proper evaluation of progress toward goals
- Self-evaluation is okay for year 1, but year 2 and beyond should include administrative level evaluation of teacher skills
- Plan should include documentation of tech integration
- Teacher instruction/training:
- Free instruction is available (from Region 10, diocese, other)
- Training cost is mainly associated with substitute teachers needed to free up training time
- Incentives or perks are a good idea to encourage teacher training/skill advancement (laptop, digital camera, etc.)