Meeting+Minutes+April+6,+2009

Minutes of Technology Council Meeting April 6, 2009

1. Craig shared information regarding the new computer installation in the elementary schools. About 400 have been installed in the last 2-4 weeks, and he reports that it’s “going smoothly”. Prior to the meeting, Greg Finlayson had shared positive comments regarding the installation, also.

2. Craig also related that we will be deploying a Share Point server in the future. It helps leverage the features of Office 2007 and allows for shared workspaces.

3. Craig spoke about SmugMug, a photo sharing website that has a free Pro account for teachers. It’s password protected, can be shared with parents, and allows you to mark up the cost of prints and sell them (as well as create albums to sell). This could net a few dollars (as well as some positive PR) for interested school clubs or PTOs.

4. Rita discussed internet safety. She asked the council to take a look at the Internet Safety program developed by Mike Cox on the Michigan.gov website. There are handouts, links to videos, etc. It will be mandatory that we put a program together for Chippewa Valley students; Rita is suggesting that we look at what’s out there and adopt what seems to fit our needs. This will become a council goal for next year.

5. Rita also directed us to the new draft of the METS standards that was revealed last month. [|http://techplan.edzone.net] ; go to lower right hand corner to click on the link.

6. All members who attended MACUL shared their experiences from the conference. Craig spoke about Google Sketch Up (challenging), while Vicki Myers related her experience taking a team of students as part of a Student Technology Showcase. She reported that the confidence and public speaking skills the kids gained from interacting with adult conference participants while sharing technology were amazing. Other teachers to report included me (Jan Harding), Pat O’Neill (look at PREZI.com), and Cynthia M-Z. Reports from the MACUL conference can be found on the MACUL 2009 page of the Tech Council wiki (wikispaces.mediatech.com). Melissa Hilton and Rose Harrison's UDL presentation at the conference can be seen at: []. Jan's presentation on Making Movies: The Science Myth Busters! can be found at: [|www.jharding.weebly.com] by clicking on the MACUL link.

7. Vicki recommended the books __Presentation Zen__ by Garr Reynolds and __Slide-ology__ by Nancy Duarte.

8. Cynthia M-Z related that she has been teaching internet safety at Dakota through the health classes and offered an internet safety night for Dakota students and parents. Parents are requesting more emphasis on cell phone safety. Vicki Myers also reported having a night at Erie on Cyber bullying that was effective for grades 3-4-5

9. Following this discussion, Cynthia Macoit-Zielinski and Melissa Hilton did a presentation for the council on their experiences as part of an MISD UDL cohort team. They went over principles of UDL and recommended websites ( [|www.cast.org] ; one of the original UDL sites that is widely viewed) and the E3T.org site from MISD. They used Wordle to show visual representation from an article; shared student projects or directions for projects to be created in Windows Movie Maker and PhotoStory3 in handouts and on a movie created in Movie Maker. Here is the link for the movie:

10. Jan passed around a signup sheet for committee members to create a slide using the NETS that can be posted on a technology website, shared at staff meetings, etc. Everyone signed up for work on at least one slide. A sample is already started on the wiki and directions for how to upload the slide to the Power Point on the wiki can be found in a word document on the site.

STANDARD 1: Jeanne Forbes and Pat O’Neill STANDARD 2: Jill Grimm and Cynthia M-Z STANDARD 3: Kirsten Cook and Patrick O’Neill STANDARD 4: Jeanne Forbes STANDARD 5: Melissa Hilton and Kirsten Cook STANDARD 6: Kimberly Lolich

Vicki Myers offered to pitch in and start or add material where needed. Rita and Jan will look over the finished slides and do the same. Slide on Standard 1 was already started by Jan.

11. Meeting was adjourned around 5:45 after the “homework” in #10 was assigned.