 The
IT Department has been very busy these last few years
implementing the latest technologies into our classrooms
across the district. As our district grows, the projects
get bigger, involving more numerous and complicated technology
infrastructure at more facilities. Our staff has grown
to accommodate these projects, but it seems we're never
done!
Below is a brief list of the projects our department
has completed! We will work to keep this list updated
for you.
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Our IT Department has worked hard
to implement anti-virus protection for every computer in the
district using Sophos AntiVirus software. The antivirus software
is updated automatically each day. We have had very little
impact this fall from any of the popular viruses that have
had such a terrible effect on other schools and businesses
across the nation. |
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The IT Department
technicians have been upgrading and configuring all the wireless
labs at the schools as well as providing training to teachers
and Education Technology Specialists (Ed Tech's) at each school
in their use and maintenance. These labs have proven immensely
useful in meeting students' project needs, as well as helping
during the NWEA Levels testing that occurs twice each year. |
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Our district has implemented NWEA's
Levels testing to provide real-time assessment of student's
skills in reading and math, and provide performance data to
teachers so they can improve instruction in a more timely
fashion. It has been a terrific success, and the technology
that made this testing possible (every student had to complete
a number of tests on a computer) worked flawlessly! |
- Education Technology Specialists go full-time!
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In keeping with
the curricular and NCLB (No Child Left Behind) mandates, our
district supported the effort to provide full-time Education
Technology Specialists at every elementary school and middle
school this year. Their task is to help teachers integrate
technology with the curriculum, provide monthly technology
training to teachers and staff, and assist teachers with handling
the performance data made available from the Levels testing. |
- Online training for teachers
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The district has a full-blown intranet
going that provides (among a great many things) online training
manuals for staff to use in learning most Office applications
as well as their operating systems (Windows XP, etc.), and
even Computer Basics. These training manuals are one of the
most popular sites on our intranet as teachers endeavor to
increase their technology skills. |
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The IT Department
has provided assistance to the Special Services department
Assistive Technology efforts in the way of technical help
with the many devices that the district deploys to help students
with disabilities. |
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This summer Reading Labs were established
and set up at every school in grades Kindergarten through
9th. Three programs have since begun to be used to address
students' reading skills across the district: Academy of Reading,
Success Maker, and Read 180. |
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The IT Department
has implemented an online Help Desk system that has provided
us the means to organize and systematize our efforts to meet
the technological maintenance needs of our district. The Help
Desk system allows for chronological assignment and tracking
of support requests, and is very user-friendly. It has also
been replicated for the Facilities Department and at the High
School as well. |
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We are continually in a state of
upgrading. This last summer saw significant growth in terms
of the servers handling various jobs at each of our schools,
as well as functions at the district office. |
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Electronic gradebook
use across the district has been implemented and supported
by the IT department, and this has significantly aided teachers
in recording and analyzing student performance data. |
- Online Professional Development System
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Utilizing a special application server designed
to serve and track online Flash training modules, an ever-growing
library of online-trainings is being developed to help all
staff improve their skills and address many areas of professional
development. |
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Beginning the fall,
the IT Department will phase in the implementation of a new
service for parents called ParentConnect. This secure service
will allow parents to log into the district to check their
student's grades, attendance, immunization records and to
receive alert notices from the district for such things as
failing grades or tardies. |
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This past summer, the IT Department developed
and implemented a data warehouse application to provide administrators
and teachers with assessment and demographic information concerning
their schools and students. Now administrators and teachers
can easily access standards-based assessment and NWEA testing
results in combination with demographic data to determine
how the curriculum needs to be modified so that all students
can succeed. |
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