Technology Services

October 2008 Technology Committee Minutes

Minutes for Technology Steering Committee

October 14, 2008

Minutes are in italics. They can also be found at:

http://community.elmbrookschools.org/technologyservices/default.aspx

Welcome & Introductions (7:30-7:35)

In Attendance: Missy Petersdorf (Bur), Maxine Weisz (PPMS), Jeff Gryzwa (BCHS), Monica Lentz (BEHS), Rachelle Russell (Brk), Angela O'Reagan (WHMS), Kristin Konitzer (Ton), Dan Paese (BCHS), Amy Andersen (FVS), Glen Allgaier (Board), Rick Ziolkowski (BEHS/PPMS), Jeanne Siegenthaler (Dix), Chris Thompson (CAO)

Role of the Committee Member (7:35-7:40)

Participant - Represent your level, department, and/or position during technology conversations to the best of your abilities. Ask questions when you do not know and remember that all feedback is welcome and critical to help meet the district's technology goals.

Communicator - The technology committee representative will be responsible for digesting the minutes of our monthly meetings and communicating relative and pertinent information to the staff at the building. This will help build the recognition and understanding of your role on the committee. Minutes will be distributed within 24 hours to allow for quick turnaround and better memories of events and explanations.

Advocate for Technology - There are many great technology initiatives underway at all levels. As best you can, present these changes positively to your colleagues and peers as we transition to a new, more powerful (and complex) technology environment.

Chris reviewed the three roles, highlighting the communications aspect of committee membership. Ideally, committee members would keep their ears low to the ground in their building to identify any common concerns, issues, needs and raise them directly (and immediately) to Chris. If these are needs identified by multiple buildings or that pertain to others, Chris would add to an agenda.

Review of Key Data (7:40-7:45)

• Data

§ Response Time to bigWeb Tickets

• o Goal: 1 Day (10.5 hour) Response - 96%
• o Actual: 78.6% (-17.4%)
• o September ‘08: 1190 Tickets
• o September '07: 1113 tickets, 93% response

§ Ticket Closure - Issue Resolution

• o Goal: 3 day resolution - 95%
• o Actual: 82.6% (-12.4%)
• o September ‘08: 1190 Tickets
• o September '07: 1113 tickets, 96% completion

§ Key Factors in 2008

• o HS Conversion to Microsoft
• o 92 Projector/SMARTBoard installations

Chris gave an overview of the data. While the # of tickets this year in September were similar to last year's totals, the complexity of the Microsoft Conversion at the high schools and the SMARTBoard installations caused technology staff resources to dedicate large amounts of time, taking away from responding quickly to "smaller" concerns and needs.

Users were frustrated because some technology was not working on day which altered lesson plans, which sets people back at the start of the year. Options were discussed such as managing expectations (i.e. next year all technology may not be operational at the High Schools because of the renovation) in advance, or doing more mid-year conversions when we have the capacity to plan and respond immediately to issues/challenges. Despite the number of changes on the horizon, Chris believes Tech Services will be able to plan better based on this summer's experience and manage the change more effectively.

Chris also believes that October data will be better, and November data will be back at the targeted level of service people have come to expect.

2008-2009 Initiatives Review  - budget context (7:45 - 8:00)

Key Talking Points for Summer Implementation

• Installed 92 Projectors and 80+ SMARTBoards
• Deployed over 300 desktop and laptop computers, most at the high schools
• Converted both high school networks from Novell to Microsoft - decreasing login time (now 10-30 seconds to login)

Last year's initiatives were distributed, presented as a district and by level. Most projects were completed this summer and a large percentage (over 85%) of the technology budget has been spent for the 2008-2009 school year.

Managing Technology Change (8:00-8:20)

• SMARTBoards in every classroom (4 years)
• Tablet laptops at Elementary (3 years)
• Wireless throughout all buildings (3 years)
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Web Site Redesign (2 times in 4 years)
• Groupwise conversion to Microsoft Outlook/Exchange (Summer 2009)
• Novell networks to Microsoft (15 months)
• Software: Parentlink, PDExpress, Infinite Campus, Blogs, Shared Files, SMARTNotebook, FitnessGram

Key Changes in next 10 Months:

Tablets, Groupwise to Outlook, Office 2007, Novell to Microsoft Network, Web Site

Possible Strategies to Promote successful transition to new technologies:

• Communicate specific changes early and often
• Documentation
• Provide access to online training resources
• Provide variety of required and optional staff development opportunities
• Offer access to new technologies in advance of change (take Office 2007 home)

Good conversation and idea sharing was had surrounding technology change. While some users are very flexible and adapt easily, many others require more training, specific targets, and gentle prodding to move forward. This presents a challenge for any change, and requires a multi-faceted approach towards implementations.

Ideas shared include:

• Manage expectations - explain why we need to manage this
• Have a detailed, documented implementation track with dates and targets
• Concerning MS Office 2007, train support staff first since they are often asked Office/operational questions - this would also help standardize any training initiative we would have by working out the bugs
• Create a virtual environment, where teachers could access Office 2007 "virtually" from home or school to "work" in a test environment during initial training and for exploration/experimentation. Working virtually does not require a local computer installation and protects the computer in its existing environment.
• Utilize the Business Ed labs at the high school for training which already have Office 2007
• Standardize an approach to how we train on key technology initiatives
• Explore the usefulness of support sites like Atomic Learning, which offers just-in-time, step-by-step flash videos on how to do tasks such as sorts/mail merges/create and send mail , etc.

Chris will create a suggested plan of implementation and bring it to our committee meeting in November for feedback and discussion.

Student Mail/Communication Tools (8:20 - 8:30)

Question: As we prepare for a new "Web portal" concept and for the transition from Groupwise to Microsoft Outlook, we would like to better understand how/whey staff/faculty communicate with students.

• October - Survey Development, Refinement, and Release (20^th-30^th)
• November - Survey Analysis, Process results with Integrators, TSC, 2 representative secondary classes (1 elementary?)
• Prioritize Requirements of student use based on survey data
• Identify and Prioritize technical requirements
• Research other district solutions for large K-12 implementations
• Dec - Jan Research/evaluate solutions and document how each product addresses requirements
• Jan - Present recommended solution to Integrators, TSC and representative classes for consideration and feedback
• Feb - Determine recommended solution and plan for implementation (training, communication, rollout)

The need driving the above conversation about student mail is that our conversion to Outlook would require the district to pay per student for individual mailboxes. There are free solutions (gmail and Microsoft live.edu) available that would allow our students to use our domain (like students.elmbrookschools.org), provide web access from anywhere, and offer great amounts of storage. This need, will be considered in a greater context, how do we communicate with staff and students. Chris will present in November a mock-up of a web environment that we hope to implement next fall. In the meantime, the survey will be put on hold.

Adjourn (8:30)