Hello everyone!
For some reason things have become rather busy these last
few weeks. I hope this finds you coping well!
Many of you have met Ken White, my maternity leave sub for
Quint 5. If not, please pop by and introduce yourself or say hello in the
halls. In the next week Ken and I will be working closely together, so
he’ll be up to speed on what’s been happening here at the school.
Exciting times!
Read on for more updates about what colleagues are doing
with (and dreaming about) technology in their teaching practice…
What’s working:
·
At Renee’s request I put together a mobile
media cart – it has a laptop, projector and speakers, you just plug in the
cart and you’re set (it lives in the AV closet, behind the library circulation
desk). You can check it out from the library to use in rooms that don’t
have a projector (like the Chem Lab, Skylight, Drawing Studio or
Standifier). Renee has used it in conjunction with the Library Laptop
cart (our lightest, most mobile laptop cart) when students needed to do online
research in her class.
·
There has been a real increase in experimenting
with online tools and resources; I’d love to see this growth
continue. To support this idea I hope we can implement a peer-mentoring
model around teaching and technology - more to come next year. In the
meantime I have tried to partner up faculty who have similar educational
goals and are experimenting with similar tools (blogs, creating videos,
considering alternates to your SWIFT teacher page, etc). You have so much to
share with each other!
·
There is now a streamlined way to report a
problem with technology in the school. Email nwsit@northwestschool.org.
The more detail you can provide, the better. Feel free to
continue calling the HELP line: extension 4357 when you want to speak directly
to a person!
What you wish for:
·
The Athletics Faculty would love to see:
o wireless
access for faculty to use their own mobile devices,
o a
stipend for their data plans since a cell phone/mobile device is a job
requirement for all coaches,
o an
organized way to share crucial forms (attendance forms, emergency and medical
release forms, school directory, transportation/field/game schedules) in
digital format – currently all coaches have a lot of binders to carry
around.
o an
Athletics blog that would display the current schedule (right now students
daily check a printout in the office and due to frequent changes these pages
are reprinted multiple times a day)
o a
pilot program to see if iPads/tablets could be useful tools here at NWS,
specifically given the number of apps available to motivate students in
increasing and managing their physical activity.
·
The Visual Arts Faculty would love to
have:
o an
updated Mac Lab
o an
easier way to connect a Mac laptop to the Smartboard in Sprinkler
o a
way to connect the Mac laptops to the school printers,
o a
plan to enable internet access for the Mac Desktops in Sprinkler
o an
updated version of our Adobe Creative Suite license.
·
We need clear steps on how to use social
media in your classrooms – currently it’s wise to let your
supervisor know if you’re having students create online accounts, or interact
on external websites – we need a more specific set of guidelines so teachers
can be as prepared as possible.
What’s wonky:
·
Searching in Outlook for messages takes a LONG
time – currently a work around is to log into the remote Outlook Web App (how
you check email from home) and use the search feature. We’ll keep you
posted on long term solutions.
·
More and more of you are booking the laptop
carts and Computer Lab using Outlook – which makes me very happy - but I know
that these steps are not clear to everyone. In the coming weeks we hope
to have a brief online video about how to do this, for now you can follow the
steps in the attached document (found in
Common>Faculty>Technology>Training docs) or please ask Ken or myself
for a quick introduction to the basics.
What lies ahead:
·
The Wired Wednesday/Week emails will continue.
Working in collaboration the Educational Technology Coordinator (Ken during
Quint 5) and the IT team will be collecting and sharing common themes happening
with technology. Stay tuned for emails from Peter Woodburn with more
information about technology use and tips!
Have a fabulous weekend!
All the best,
Catherine
