Friday, September 12, 2008

It's A New Year

Since returning from CMK08 it seems all I have done is get ready for the start of the school year. We have installed a new server and now have a total of about 1.6 TB of space to house the volumes we have carved out on the two servers - Anselm & Falcon.

We are preparing 270 iPods for distribution for our incoming 9th graders as well as all our remaining faculty who have yet to receive one. This is our third year of the iPod initiative and we will have a total of 480 iPods in the hands of students.

We are also working with AT&T to up our bandwidth. Our first jump will be from 1.5 mg to 20 mg. Looking forward to that. Along with that we will be replacing switches this year in order to be able to handle the increased bandwidth and to also prep for VOIP.

We have a new 6th grade and we just recently ordered 30 Intel 2Go PC's. We are waiting for them to arrive and will need to get them prepared as well as add a couple of wireless access points.

We finished out our classrooms with SMART boards and projectors. It is amazing to me the amount of equipment we had worked to get over the past few years and now we are giving it away because with the SMART boards and projectors we no longer need them as the desktops play DVD's. We have a couple of TVs and vcr's remaining for the tapes that have not been converted to disk but we are getting there. We have about 35 boards and projectors.

On top of all of this I am teaching 2 classes. Thankfully, I guess, it is the same class but 2 sections. I have juniors and seniors for a Christian Relationship class and we are having fun right now. I just don't have enough time in the day to do all the things I need to do. One thing I am learning is to try and get the most out of those who are working with me even if it is on a limited basis. We have set up a class wiki, Google accounts and have been doing some searches with cell phones in the class. The students have been amazed at what some of the possibilities are and I am glad the administration has allowed me the chance to truly explore these things with my students.

I realize that this is just a lot of info with out a lot of reflection, but I have struggled to get back in the saddle and write. Maybe this will help to kick start a few things. I plan to explain more in depth what we do with some of these things we are rolling out. If you have specific questions about them, send the to me and I will post responses and maybe just make a post about individual items that come my way.

Keep on learning and sharing.

2 comments:

Alan Lutz said...

Paul, I don't know how you can do it all in one day either. Last year they asked me to teach one class a day: 7th grade computer basics. I enjoyed doing that after 27 years of homeroom teching and the last 8 as Technology Coordinator, it's good to flex your teaching skills and try out new things with a class. But alas, I was told, and I realize it too, that my job description doesn't really allow for me to have the luxury of teaching a class. I have to be available for all the tech problems all day while I'm here on campus. I admit that the phone usually rang 2 times each day while I was teaching with someone who thought I was available too.
What with that large list of hardware you have at your school now, and all the obvious training and support that has to go along with it, I'd guess that you have an IT staff of about 3-4 people there at your school.
Next time you can share how everyone is getting along with their Interactive white boards, and all the other fun stuff you have there. Alan aka OCTechguy

Paul R. Wood said...

Alan, I have one person designated as my assistant and he has four classes. One is a COmputer Science class so they are getting a taste of some of the setup and roll out as we let them do some exploring. Other than that we have a young lady that is a technology integration specialist who does a lot of work with the development office, in search of grants, but then does all she can to help out when she is on campus. Usually I see her about 1 time a week. Right now she has been around more as we have started the year. We are a lean, mean fighting group of folks and it is all working at the moment. I appreciate you stopping by and I always enjoy hearing from you. Take care.