LHS Laptops delivered

LHS - Got Laptops?  You Betcha!  And how 'bout that Andies figure adorning them?!  Now what?......Well, that's for us to decide and the gamut extends from enhancing to transforming teaching and learning.  Your skills are sharp and you are loaded with teaching skills and pedagogy and now have to figure out how best to use these tools - and they are tools, like any other tool in your bag...but your bag just became limitless.  But don't overload yourself.  

Some recommendations:

Become familiar with the suite of Macbook teaching tools, especially omni graffle (concept mapper) and omni outliner.  The following are links to a website summary but to learn what you have on your Macbooks open the Acorn in your dock and locate Omni graffle... and play...

 Omnigraffle

Omni Outliner

Reference the following sites for technology integration that assists teaching and learning

TPACK , Bloom's Digital Taxonomy or this one

Finally, perhaps you are ready to have students create how-to's in Pages or put music or other media in their Keynote presentations

Enjoy them and begin to consider how you might use 'em!

LES/LMS/LHS Technology Weekly Summary

An update and review:

Scott and I trained for the new website and began soliciting ideas for layout information.  It is an intuitive website skin that will give us freedom to update and edit at will.

NWEA's ensued at LMS and it was realized that the lab computers may have a motherboard defect. Staff and students should be applauded for their patience and diligence. Scott and I are working feverishly with the vendor to solve this unfortunate and distracting situation.

Infrastructure work continued at LES and despite a day without internet connectivity progress was made (growing pains are inevitable). Joe, from Phoenix, uploaded student and staff names to a directory on a server creating a login/username profile.  Also, the LES server was restored to full functioning (YEAH!) - not to mention firewalls, routers and switches are now optimal. I know these things are not visible but they are critical to end-user functionality, efficiency, and growth.  Next week, Scott and I should be able to create username/logins for all staff at LES giving them 'profiles' or file shares.  That is, staff will have to log-in with a username and password to access files and personal data - staff will actually have space to store stuff without the need for a memory stick. It will be recommended that you no longer store stuff on your local computer. Also, LES should be able to log in at other computers and retrieve their same files as well.  And if all goes well, they should be able to access Terminal Servers to access GRDQK/AdminPlus easier from work and home - and they will be able to print from home if necessary......and more.....like setting up a wireless cart for the Mac G3's.  From here, we move to the LMS and LHS and create the same login/usrnm situation.

LHS seems ready for the Macbooks and hopefully we can get them imaged asap and give them a test run before Xmas break.  They look cool and are quite functional:  Balanced with a PC lab accessibility platform exposure should assist preparing our students for their 21st century learning needs.  This is just the beginning......

We thank you for your patience as well- and as we head towards a new year, let's learn from the past and grow with the now -  and the future.