EduTech Steering Committee
October 5, 2001
R.I.T. Inn and Conference Center
Members Present:
Anne Willkens Leach, Asst. Superintendent GV BOCES
Tiffany Phillips, Superintendent Bloomfield
Joe Backer, Superintendent Letchworth
Chuck Kortz, Superintendent North Rose-Wolcott
Jack McCabe, Assoc. Superintendent WFL BOCES
Camille Sorenson, Director EduTech
Members Absent:
Bev Ouderkirk, Superintendent GV BOCES
Joe Marinelli, Superintendent WFL BOCES
Bob Leiby, Superintendent Manchester-Shortsville
Thomas Manko, York
Committee – Camille Sorenson
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Camille updated the committee regarding memberships for 2001-02 school year. Bob Leiby from Manchester-Shortsville will be replacing Steve Uebbing from Canandaigua City Schools; Thomas Manko from York will replace Phil D’Angelo from Warsaw; Anne Willkens Leach GV BOCES will replace Gary Hammond from GV BOCES; Tiffany Phillips has accepted a Superintendent position outside of the EduTech area effective 11/1.
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Communications will rely more on email this year, minutes and agendas will still be posted on DocuShare, EduTech Services, EduTech Steering Committee, Ongoing Committee Work collection
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Reviewed the committee’s goals from October 1999 and reconfirmed in August 2000.
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Steering Committee serves as an advisory and communication role.
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Reviewed the history of topics the committee has discussed to update new members and refresh current members.
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Revisited the EduTech Mission
2000-01 EduTech Summary – Camille Sorenson
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Continue to install hardware and software
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Support workstations
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LAKENet
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Series of disaster recovery and redundancies with LAKENet for a higher level of reliability
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Continuing to work on help desk
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RICs approved tech plans to continue e-rate funding
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E-rate applications
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Put information on Web Page for the districts to see how EduTech supported standards and R & D
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Project Accelerate and on-line courses continue to grow
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SED created CoSer for a pilot program at Waterloo purchasing 600 laptops for students and a wireless connection
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Next generation LAKENet in planning
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Converted 34 districts due to vendor dropping support to a new financial package
17 to Win2000
17 to Finance Mgr - issues with software, training, and support (new manager working on plan with districts and vendors to make improvements). Discussion on how products/software is chosen through regional committees.
Online Courses – Jack McCabe
Jack McCabe gave an update on Online Courses and the options and alliances developing in the staff development and student arena.
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Project Accelerate
At the student level we are partnering with class.com and are in the process of trying to build the structure. We have access to 35 courses and content with class.com - this semester there are about 50 students taking the courses. The plan is for the contents to be moved to our own server.
Dundee didn't have a certified teacher for physics, used this approach to offer the course.
Roll this out to the superintendent groups next so that they can make their own decisions and start to plan ahead for contract negotiations.
Cost currently for the business model $295 per student per course - Aid on this. Committee was supposed to meet the end of September. Some of these issues will be internal and will depend on district. Future cost will be cost of course and teacher, which should be less than $295.
Quality control for the teacher in the next phase and then once we start developing content. Involve the superintendents so that they understand the big picture. Tiffany suggested an overview at a CSO meeting and then have interested superintendent and curriculum people meet.
Jack's concern that as we move forward how do we move people with us. General consensus with the committee is to get the information out there to the superintendent. Go to a meeting of only superintendents and make presentation. Bob Smith suggested provide them with a power point presentation that one of the committee members could present to the CSOs. Then develop a follow up process for interested superintendents.
Tiffany suggested Ed Turkowski do a presentation to the WFL CSOs. Present a general overview to everybody and then people who have a high level of interest can attend another meeting with more information on another day. People will need time to digest the information and to develop their questions.
Ed Turkowski will present to Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES and a superintendent steering committee member will present to GV BOCES.
Tiffany suggests that superintendent attend with principals to be able to answer questions that may be a block so that attendees can focus on the issues.
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Professional Development - Project Accelerate - additional partners coming in
Have two consultants developing courses - introduction to portfolios and developing teacher portfolios.
Hopefully this will meet APPR requirement. Another consultant developed professional development for a biology teacher. Courses in Reading (audience of new teachers or inexperienced teachers) Critical thinking is almost finished. Courses are continually being developed.
Data Mentor – Jack McCabe
An update of a new online offering integrating web based instruction and data analysis tools.
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staff has been working with curriculum people to develop this product, software piece that lives within the accelerate website. On the site you log in and have a profile. Once you select data mentor you are taken to an overview of the whole process. Look at your own scores at a district level compared to the region and click performance indicators, standards (whole piece that quickly walks you through a controlled environment)
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The purpose is to be able to give a teacher the ability to look at real data. First piece is a chart with all the performance indicators by each test, ability to link to performance indicator, link to sample question.
LAKENet and the next generation – Camille Sorenson
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have put in place a new line that allows districts to reroute to the internet if one of the major lines is
down. Caching box at each hub that allows for every time you request an internet site it is housed in the cache box and speeds up access and reduces congestion going to internet which increases speed.
Redundancy in not using same vendors, same lines. These pieces are there for disaster recovery and
speeding up the Internet.
Starting to look at capacity for use of
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LAKENet. Working on researching opportunities for a fiber optic network throughout the region. Evaluating partnering with a vendor for a fiber optic network equivalent to 648 T1 lines.
Computer viruses – Camille Sorenson
An update on the state of computer viruses in the industry, in EduTech districts, and planning in progress for
the future.
Over the past year there have been an ever increasing number of viruses.
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As compared with viruses of the past, the makeup of the viruses is more malicious with a deliberate intent to destroy systems.
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Virus protection (practice, policies and procedures) are at the district’s discretion.
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Should mandated virus policies be instituted for all EduTech LAKENet districts, should one enterprise-wide solution be selected
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, should all updates be managed enterprise-wide by EduTech ?
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Have set up a meeting with technicians to brainstorm ideas. Is the next move to make this a region-wide
standard? We need to look at how we can make this operational. Bob Smith suggested that Camille work with staff to see how we can make this work. The committee feels there is real urgency to move in this direction.
Next meeting:
November 2, 2001
8:30 to 12:00 p.m.
R.I.T. Inn and Conference Center (formerly Thruway Marriott)
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