Wednesday

Saw the digial copier tech working on one of our copiers at the end of the day on Tuesday. I asked if there was something I could help him do. He said the copier had quit sending page counts. We talked about subnets, firewalls, etc and I told him i would work on it Wednesday.

On Wednesday, I brought up the web interface for the copier and started going through the settings. Everything looked okay to me on the surface. I decided to do a line-by-line analysis of the configuration. Sure enough: smtp had been disabled, thus preventing the copier from sending email to anyone.

I changed that, and everything seems to be working fine (I scanned-to-email a document to myself).

On another note: the auditor returned the findings of our disaster recovery plan, and we scored 93%! That is excellent. There were three dinged areas, each of which is easily rectified: job descriptions need to be in the plan, cross-training for critical areas of management, and a written server recovery procedure.

Monthly Area Tech Meeting

We held our monthly area tech meeting today, covering the following topics:

• ArkansasIDEAS, specifically the new commoncore site: http://www.arkansasideas.org/commoncore/


• Arkansas iTunesU


• NetQos offering from the state dept


• Various iPad/iPod apps (listed below)


• Apple TV demonstration (wifi features and AirPlay demo while showing apps listed below)


• Tech plans, erate


• Dirty Santa gift exchange (4 participants, made for a quick game)

Apps demonstrated (and some I remembered after the meeting)

• Presidents vs Aliens - Learn about Presidents, knock out aliens. What's not to love?


• Moxie 2 - Use randomly offered letters to build on/change existing words.


• StoryCubes - Shake your iPad/iPod, roll the dice, and build a story!


• Word Ball - Touch letters to build words. Forget to use certain letters long enough and they disappear!


• 7 Little Words - Use clues to build words with letter tiles


• Chicktionary - Make words using, well, chickens and eggs


• SparkleFish - Use the microphone to record verbs, nouns, etc and create funny adventures


• ToonTastic - Create cartoons, while learning the keys to good storytelling!


• Find My Friends - Pretty much what it says.


• ABC News - Again, pretty much what it says


• FluentNews - A news aggregation app


• Google - Yes, there is an app for Google. Give it a whirl!


• iCard Sort - Create word decks, sort into categories and more. Take snapshot of a worksheet then make it interactive as an iCard sort!


• ACE Multiply - Learn about matricies and find ways to solve them


• Calc Made easy - Very handy and advanced calculator with note-taking capability!


• http://www.techchef4u.com/ - Recourse for all kinds of apps, reviews, etc


• http://www.iear.org - Reviews education apps

Enjoy!!

The Week Ahead

Monday - Office today. I will be working on Apple Volume Licensing (continuing to work on it, anyway). I also am hoping to get one of the iPad 2's configged the way we need it, then restore that one's setup to the other dozen or so we have to roll out before the Christmas break.

Tuesday - Local area tech meeting

Wednesday - Office. The board meeting is on Wednesday, but I'm not sure what my level of participation is as of yet. We'll see!

Thursday - SWAEC Christmas party

Friday - General office-related work, prepping for end-of-year routines: yearly backup, server storage cleanup, migrate user home folders to new server. Once that is done, I hope to install ISA on the old home folder server to provide a more stable firewall environment. That will also free up the current ISA server for decommisioning. Should be a fun Friday-before-the holiday.

Updates for the week of December 9, 2011

Monday - Went to Blevins to install a new print server since DIS no longer provides those. The software that HP uses is VERY finicky and we eventually got into the JetDirect through Chrome or Firefox or something non-IE. In the meantime, the Epson 4000EX/FX/whatever has a problem in that the main power connector loses contact as the wide-carriage return jostles the printer all over the place. We think we got it stabilized, but I believe there is a serious manufacturing defect there.

Tuesday - Went to Arch Ford for mini sessions and state tech meeting. I will post those notes from my iPad this weekend.

Wednesday - Spent the day troubleshooting various issues and getting the ball rolling for Apple volume purchasing. What a nightmare THAT is, especially when you are the one person running it all - Apple doesn't like you to be the only one. Evidently, bureaucratic red tape is their comfort zone.

Thursday - Ran between CWT and CCSS for a while there. Helped folks get set up and going in each session then checked with CWT every once i a while since I was attending the common core institute. For the record, the CIV was awful as far as video quality. As for program content, the presenters are so well-versed in CCSS they forget the rest of us are still trying to figure out how to tread in the waters. It moved way too fast and was a bit scattered for some of the participants at our site. Phoebe put together a summary sheet that she mailed to the participants and we are building a 'clearinghouse' page to house the various and sundry sites.

Friday - I drove to Bradley to help with some technical issues. This included:

• Helping the tech re-establish printer connectivity with several machines. After I had done the first two, I showed her how to do it - teach her to fish, as it were.


• Helping the tech get her firewall rebooted according to an email from the tech support folks she deals with. It is Linux based, so some of the commands were a bit foreign to the tech. We got it going, though.


• Working with the tech and a vendor to purchase SQL Server Standard for a new program the district wants to implement. To say the least, that was the hardest part of the day, only because the vendor could not wrap his brain around what we wanted. Also, it appears the vendor never processed the PO for SQL Server. Yoy.


• Examining the distance learning lab. They have a touch panel that has gone out. I re-routed several cables and connections to get them up and going, but we will need a few more parts to completely disengage the touch panel and the control unit attached to it. As it is, though, the faciliatator can use almost every function.


• Attempting to install Smart Notebook on a computer but it needed XP SP3, so the tech was going to take care of that


• We also talked about 470's, P1, P2, and other E-Rate related items.

Notes from AESA in Colorado Springs

Here are my notes (raw and not really cleaned up) from the 2011 AESA Conference:

Twubs - twitter with auto hashtag and easy follow that same hashtag

You have a friend request - social networking session

@jenwoodley24

@iamDublin - PuppyTweets - tweets what your pet is doing or when s/he barks.

Socialnomics.com

93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media. - cone, sept 2008

As ESAs, we have to fish where the fish are - where our students, parents, grandparents are! We have to give them what THEY want.

FB and Twitter (IOWA), number of blogs that feed into the FB and Twitter pages (Twitterfeed, etc).

Raise awareness, build relationships, increase website traffic, interact with those we server, network, and share.

goal - build a better base of supporters and 'tribes' - for us, a potential launching pad for entrepreneurial endeavors.

Facebook - Average user is connected to 80 community pages and groups.

Users will NOT go to the website. Bring the info to them and drive them to the website.

Post daily to social media - it is a commitment. Need a plan. News, Workshop delays/closings,, crisis management, event ads/coverage, program service, ask questions, resources/tips, changes, insights/expertise

Follow the districts in your area and comment on their posts. Building relationships.

Have a policy, have a plan.

Twitter - follow and be followed - choose educational leaders, tech folks, teachers, etc.

facebook.com/gpeea

Put your logo, info about esa, easy to find and access

extend the functionality to your web site. Embed the twitter feed to the webpage.

Policy - Posting Guidelines - post these to the FB page (See Iowa's for example). Each month, post a reminder about guidelines. HyperAlerts will email a screenshot and comments. also use Google Alerts, etc. Twilert will notify you of hashtags you regularly use. #gpaea, example (swaec, #swaec)

tweetdeck - keep an eye on your social media activities in one place.

Can be done with a 15-minute commitment.

ian jukes - end of the office

Plan - Make a topic list, identify resources, dont stress, schedule posts in advance, be spontaneous

HIPPA, COPPA, FERPA, etc - Media releases? No names, etc. Cannot say "get well soon, so-and-so"

==== NEW SESSION ====

National Education Tech Plan

Creating a network to work on/with national tech plan.

collaborative.org

Implementation plans should be created for the implementer.

1. Context - Change of priorities, Technology integration, New paradigm, Need for new strategies and partnerships

NETp - Productivity, Infrastructure (human resources, not tech infrastructure), Teaching, Assessment, Learning

--What we have already and what we can do collectively to improve productivity at district and school levels

2. Challenges - Need for research-based models, prompt implementations, Lack of effective communication, need for shared resources

3. Opportunities - common vision, collaborations, collective expertise, existing resources ready for garnering

4 - Commitment - Availability to participate, help with design, serve as pilot site, ability to contribute ideas and resources, ability to invite existing partners

Mutually beneficial and cooperative among participants. Regular and pervasive communication - overboard at first. Impact on ESAs.

CIV, conference, repository of resources and tools - wiki etc,

shared services

==== NEW SESSION ====

Visionary Leadership - Kevin Honeycutt's Preso

iear.com - iPad/iPod apps for education, reviewed

toys to tools - tools turned into toys to teach children

digital legacy - everything i can google about you.

tame the tool - find a tool, password protect the channel, etc

ask 'how will we' not say 'we cant do this' - who signs the check?

the coming jobs war -

a whole new mind, dan pink

the game crafter, tastebook, spoonflower, pikistore, shapeways

kids passed paper notes - we didnt ban paper! Get up! Walk around!

dont post unless you cite a valid source

Have older students teach younger students (read, etc)

==== NEW SESSION ====

Friday, Dec 2 notes

Dr. David Sousa
Educational Neuroscience (Mind, Brain, and Education)

Teaching is the only profession whose job it is to change the human brain every single day.

Teachers are brain-changers!

Memory Systems - working memory, long term memory; 5-7 chunks; 3-4 chunks today (technology at fault?); Kids learning where to find info, not the info itself. Keep info within working memory limits - less is more

Emotions - Learning takes place in the emotional part of the brain. Make emotion connections between students and content; Students/parents/etc want teachers to be caring. Emotional needs not being met at home anymore;

Language acquisition - 3-10 yr olds; more boys get visual, spatial, temporal skills faster and easier than young girls; young girls get spoken language skills faster and easier; of course boys will be below bar for language; same vice versa for spatial testing

Learning to read - No reading areas of the brain; other parts of brain must be brought in. 'reading problem' is misnomer and no way to fix it. visual processing (see the word), Auditory, cognitive processing; "what do i see; what do i hear; what does it mean?" phonemic awareness (ear buds - damage to ears); Phonics (code/sounds-letters); vocabulary (comprehension); fluency (practice); pick the best parts of various programs to build a cohesive program

Attention - Attention span has not changed but demands on attention have. Brain does not multitask. Alternate tasking or sequential tasking; always a loss when you 'multitask.' Get distractions out if there is something you must do. always a loss when try to focus on multiple things.

Learning math - number sense is innate capability; symbol processing, visual processing, language processing; vocabulary may actually be the reason for limited math skills; show how math applies to society and other disciplines;

Power of the arts - every culture has had music, art and dance! STEM should be STEAM! enhance spatial skills; arts helps us to keep with it; go back, try again.

creativity can be taught!

==== NEW SESSION ====

NAMTC Preso

AlleghenyCONNECT - Consortium of edu orgs/ edu content development system.

Tanzanian students want to be taught how to work for themselves. That is what we should be doing! We should not be teaching our students how to go to work for someone else, but rather how to use their passions and skills to start their OWN businesses1

TWICE - interactive conference repository

Work out a collaboration between school in Ark and PA. Talk about Wal-Mart, Bill Clinton, Diamond Mine.

Search cilc for programs offered by Adora Svitak - 13 yr old!

This week...

Monday - help install new print server at blevins. Then go to office to write up operations guides for conference areas.

Tuesday - arch ford for monthly state tech meeting.

Wednesday - office. Install additional a/v wiring in conference areas.

Thursday - classroom walkthrough

Friday - bradley