This year I am going to be offering a monthly parent education series. Here is a copy of the presentation for further review.

I originally had this as the second part of my last post, until I realized it would solidify that I was completely random! So I moved it to its own post.

One of my favorite quotes, I used to have on a poster in my bedroom, on it was a gymnast standing on the balance beam. I am not sure of the significance of the beam. Although, on the bottom of the picture it says: Do not pray for an easy life, pray to be a strong person. I can only think about how that is such a powerful statement.

So I have spent a bit of time reading articles about making students stronger. Reflecting and reorganizing my thoughts as the Director of Technology, but sadly, having little time to write down those thoughts.

Until I wrote an email to a good friend after I hosted several teachers for our Techtober-Fest. As I wrote the email I began to see what my job was suppose to be. Here is a small excerpt:

When I first started teaching, I like most young naive newbie teachers thought my subject area was the most important. Oh how things have changed… As I have progressed through these past three years, I have learned that technology is only a small piece of the puzzle, and each of us contribute to the puzzle… This idea needs to be about giving the WHOLE student a better experience. Building them as an individual who has strengths in many areas but is a good person overall.

So as I stand on this earth (which seems to have kept me quite busy), I reflect each day a little differently now. I am asking myself constantly, how am I making these students a stronger person?

I find myself incredibly busy throughout the month of November. The past two months, I have found them to be a blur, with reflection time but little time to write the reflections into thoughts.

I have been working in my spare time to write my novel for NaNoWriMo, I only have about 2,000 of the challenge 50,000 words, but like any true German/Irish/Spanish/Swiss mutt, I find myself incredibly determined to finish this task. Even if I find myself pulling a college all nighter, okay probably not that dramatic but being the determined me, I want to finish the task at hand. So you might be asking yourself… what are you writing about? What exactly, can you find something that you can talk about in 50,000 words. Well, I decided to write a fiction piece about my time when I studied at Oxford University. Maybe someday I will write a real novel, the topic has yet to be determined.

Oh busy! busy! busy! As I am starting on the various little tasks that this school year has given me, I thought I would give a quick synopsis of our technology plan and some of the little ideas. This post will be short as I have spent most of my day writing down the plan.
This year I am working on the school’s technology plan. It has a promising end result, but the hours devoted to research and development seem to be adding up. As I am looking at the information, I can start to develop a direction in which I would like to take Technology at SRS. I know that I want to add programs, such as parent education, continue with the sharing days with other Technology Coordinators, and begin looking at system to upgrade the labs.

I have introduced Google Apps to the Technology Task Force. I have asked them to use this tool as we begin our document- we are building this tech plan on a collaborative effort of many people.

Last spring we hosted the Spring Fling- we had close to 30 participants from various schools around the archdiocese. This year we decided with the energy that the Spring Fling we could not keep our energy bottled up- so we decided that we would host a day in the fall. We affectionately called the day, “Techtober-Fest”. The morning started off with Dorothy presenting (Dorothy’s Presentation) about how learning is the most important, technology comes second. After a bit of a discussion with our participants, I presented on the Tools We Use (My Presentation). The presentation was to be a starting point to share the resources we use- I learned about several new tools, including backflip- which looks much cleaner and nicer than del.icio.us.

I am hoping that these days will be able to further generate a discussion about the importance of 21st century learning.

Today was the last article in the series- it talked about looking forward. As I read the subtitle it said that the school would move forward with whatever tools they had. Looking at SRS, I find it interesting that we move forward with the tools we have everyday.

When I first started I learned that every teacher was 1 entire operating system behind.  The students had newer tools. I started simply by introducing some of the new laptops to our middle school teachers and then buying each of our other classroom teachers a new computer. The changes were immense. Student computer upgrades followed. However, I am reminded about an interesting incident.

Our first visit to the Stillwater Area Schools was a real eye-opener- they said to all of us, “Before doing a large scale intiative, take about 3 years to plan.” So year 1 would be 2006-2007 and we would be ready for our initiative by 2009-2010. Then one of our teachers said, “3 years… look how far we are!” She was so right, even though we did not have the cutting edge tools- we were moving forward with what we had. Each day we continue to look forward and plan.

I found it interesting that in Part 3: Computing the Cost of this 5 part series in the Stillwater Gazette they began talking about numbers- the “true cost of ownership”. Since costs are the pinnacle of most technology enhancements- usually it is the first thing that is brought up in a discussion, I found it interesting that . As I began to reflect on this article I began to think about the “Total Cost of Ownership” or TOC. During NECC 2007, I went to a session given by Richard Kastner of CoSN- this session talked about his new model that helped schools determine the T.O.C. I have been working on using this model in my own professional practices as we develop the St. Raphael’s School Technology Plan

As I was thinking about this more, I thought about how it is nearly impossible to measure the cost savings in opportunities. Sure it costs roughly $300 a year for a student to use a laptop but thinking of it in more long-term investment. How much money could be saved if a student went to college better prepared? If we gave students the necessary tools and taught them real-world applications, so that when they left high school and middle school these students would know how to present publicly, they knew how to write a paper and collaborate with others, and they were able to effectively evaluate resources. Each of those things, are what professors in college spend hours teaching students how to do. I know with the education that I walked away with after high school, I was able to teach others about PowerPoint and was able to go in my first year of college without having to take a basic research methods class and accelerating me to the upper level research lab class. The cost savings, I have yet to find the exact number.

I got a great email yesterday telling me to check out my hometown’s newspaper. They were going to be having a five-part series about Technology in the Classroom. Today, I will reflect on yesterday’s article: Inside the High-Tech Classroom.

The article talked about Oak-Land Junior High- the first school in Minnesota to ever try 1 laptop per child. Over the past four years these students have been at the cutting edge- these kids use technology in many different ways, and it is a tool in their ever expanding toolbox.

When the program was first introduced to the Stillwater residents many people were against the idea, myself included. I, like a good friend of mine, where so against the idea that I ended up emailing Stillwater Junior High’s Tech. Coordinator telling him that it was a ridiculous idea, that teenagers were no where mature enough to handle a laptop. I was SO wrong! My friend ended up becoming one of the Spanish teachers at Oak-Land, her response now- just like me “I was SO wrong!” This is about expanding their toolbox, giving them skills that will help them now and skills that will also help them in the future. Students will and can rise to the occasion.

So what does this have to do with SRS? Well, over the past two years we have had a wonderful relationship with Stillwater Schools. Our Middle School teachers have spent a day visiting with students and teachers at Stillwater Junior High and Oak-Land Junior High. As I was writing my master’s thesis about developing a technology vision for SRS, I asked Stillwater Junior High’s Tech Coordinator to serve as one of my thesis advisor’s.

So looking at SRS today, what have we learned with our two year relationship with Stillwater Schools? First, integration does not mean creating a spectacular project. It means giving skills that not only will help the students right now, but in the future. One of the best projects in our two years of integration, was that of a teacher who asked the students to create a presentation, but she took it a step further. Each student placed their presentation on the projector screen and then stood in the back of the room to see if even in the back could they see the slides as clearly as they could on the computer screen. A lot student went back to the drawing board to adjust their presentation.

This morning I met with our school’s Technology Task Force. We will be starting a large project this year, writing the school’s official technology plan- which is slated for release February 2008. We are also looking for new members who would be willing to join our Technology Task Force, we meet roughly once a month and collaborate through email at other times. You may email me for further information.

Other things that are going on, well, I am starting a journalism club students in grades 5-8 will be getting invites this week. Students will be introduced to yearbook production and also movie production. We have a lot of ideas/projects this year- so keep your eyes open and ears perked!

Earlier this summer I joined a few Nings- I joined one about Laptop Learning which I have found very beneficial to gather ideas from other educators. I also joined one about global collaboration. One of the neat projects I participated in this past weekend was a video conferencing session with educators in Europe, Asia, Australia, and throughout the United States. As I was partaking in the session, I could only think about the question that I now had, how can we have our students participate in global collaboration.

Today, I had the opportunity to attend a learning session about the new iLife and the new iWork. With my PHT Wishlist money I purchased iWork ‘08 for our students. This year we will be using “Pages” to create our yearbook.

I was asked, what is your plan for this year? Well, there are a few other small projects. I will be starting a journalism club for students in Grades 5-8, there we will work on the yearbook but also we will work on learning some of the many tools that SRS offers.