Summer 2009 Tech Expansion

Every two years the district participates in the Monmouth County Improvement Authority capital pooled lease-purchase program in order to finance capital items at the lowest possible rates.

The district purchasing breakdown from this year's MCIA and ARRA funding is as follows:

232 Desktop Computers, 43 Notebook computers, 20 Tablet PCs, 20 or more LCD Projectors, 5 servers, 10 or more WiFi hot-spots, a new core switch and several PoE edge switches, expanded security access control as well as camera surveillance and finally 21 classroom sound field systems.

With increasing access requirements and the expansion of the 4-5 computer classroom to improve differentiated learning and the delivery of technology infused curriculum, our inventory this year approaches 1,300 workstations. This poses a challenge moving forward as we continue to try to reach a goal of replacing computers as they complete their 6th year of service or roughly 430 computers every other year.

This summer we renovated the High School's room 142 computer lab and created an additional computer lab at William R. Satz School in room 207. Both labs have 30 student stations and ceiling mounted LCD projectors.

Many new online resources have been made available over the last couple of years including subscriptions to BrainPop, SkillsTutor, Study Island and Discovery Education's United Streaming. Some teachers have leveraged the power of web-based applications to take their classes virtually paperless and have their student collaborate electronically in real-time.

Learnia is another online resource and a formative assessment tool that was implemented last year as part of a 50-district pilot program. Learnia results can provide early guidance to teachers and administration on areas that deserve added attention and holds the potential for improved NJ ASK results.

Google Sites

Google Sites becomes recommended classroom website development platform for teachers looking to create their first site at Holmdel. See mine at http://sites.google.com/site/holmdeltech

More NJTAP-IN Information

Here is a video the State shared with me on what the 21st Century Learner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8

NJ Tech Literacy (NJTAP-IN)

I recently attended a State sponsored seminar on the New Jersey Technological Assessment for Proficiency and Integration (NJTAP-IN) and it is evident that there are increasing requirements and expectations for levels of teacher and student tech literacy.
For more detail see http://www.state.nj.us/education/techno/techlit/tapin/
What I came away with is that we need to report in October based upon the NJTAP-In General Rubric and for QSAC we have to have documentation to support our claims of assessing student tech literacy. E-portfolios would be one good example of supporting documentation and would be another resource to aid teachers in signing off on student tech proficiency rubrics.

Winter Professional Development Day at Holmdel

Our second professional development day of the year once again included a good amount of technology related sessions. Sessions were well attended on the use of the Tablet PC and OneNote application, developing a website with FrontPage, Internet Scavenger Hunt, Microsft Outlook and School Dude.

What is new in Tech @ Holmdel

Busy summer in 2007 with 270+ new desktop PCs, 27 Tablets PCs and 28 notebooks being deployed. With Staff Development Day coming up October 8th, the tech department is pushing to get the 20 Tablet PCs received 9/17 out to their new users.

We added 8 PCs to the HS InfoCenter (see above)and 4 PCs to the Satz CyberCenter. The HS 142 computer lab has 25 new PCs as does the Village K/1 lab.

Huge year for tech donations from the HFEE, Village PSA, Indian Hill PLG and HCAA. All the Tablet PCs, LCD Projection carts and almost all of the notebooks came from over $ 130, 000 in donations. You know you are in a 21st century learning environment when you walk into a Village classroom and see a 37" LCD display or LCD projector being used by a teacher.

NECC 2007 Atlanta, GA

The National Education Conference on Computing (NECC) is ending for me tomorrow and there is much to share with my district's staff, administration and teachers upon my return.

Buzzwords we should all become familiar with are Web 2.0, Blogs, Wikis, ePortfolios, Moodle, NETS, Second Life, TeacherTube and podcasts.

I am creating a wiki at the moment just to organize my thoughts and notes from the conference. My wiki is set to private at the moment, but for more on my take of the NECC and for more detail on trends in educational technology you can request access to it at http://holmdeltech.wikispaces.com/

I may even try my hand at writing a grant this year after having attended a workshop on Saturday.