0709080921a.jpg, originally uploaded by pgobriant.
Students at Central Elementary are using the SmartBoard to program Lego robots they create. Ms. Leousis led the activities. Later, she will conduct staff development so other teachers can learn how to use the Lego robots with students.
0709080918b.jpg, originally uploaded by pgobriant.
Ms. Leousis works with students at Central Elementary in Currituck County. The students are attending a summer technology camp. They are building and programming Lego robots.
I had the pleasure of attending the National Educational Computing Conference, NECC 2008, in San Antonio, Texas this week. This is the premier educational technology conference in United States. Frankly, it was a little overwhelming. I attended several very informative sessions.
There was a panel discussion on online safety featuring several prominent experts. They discussed the research I mentioned on this blog in an earlier post. I encourage you to go to eSchool News and watch the video of their presentation.
This evening was the opening session of NECC 2008. The speaker was James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds. It was a very interesting speech that made we want to read the book. The subtitle of the book summarizes the premise, “Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economies, societies, and nations.”
On my way to the opening session, I rode the elevator down from the 4th floor on The Menger Hotel with 3 other people going to the conference. One of the ladies jokingly called her friend a geek. I suggested that was a compliment and the others agreed. (One of the ladies remarked it was only cool to be a geek AFTER high school.) It was impressive to see the number of attendees at the conference. All of the attendees may not claim geekhood, but I’m sure they all have a little geek blood in their veins!
We have just finished up our second maintenance weekend. Our wide area network circuits that connect our schools together have been upgraded to 100 meg at each school. Our Internet connection has been transferred to MCNC. They provide a more direct connection to DPI resources, including NCWISE. Hopefully, this will improve performance for all users.
Next on the agenda for his summer to is to upgrade memory in many classroom computers, replace some of the oldest classroom computers (Dell 150), and prepare for opening two new schools.
Busy, Busy, Busy.
I’m sitting in an NCWISE scheduling workshop with elementary principals and data managers. We are learning how to schedule students in NCWISE. Take a look at the pics to see how hard they are working!
This week we are also working on the following: Supporting summer school at CCHS, Installing new computers in the drafting lab at CCHS, preparing to inventory and image the new computers at Jarvisburg, addressing workorders.
We are happy to have Donna McCloud join us today to help with the summer work.
Want to help write the county technology plan? Does that sound like fun to you? It may not be the most fun thing to do but it is very important.
Every few years we are required to write a technology plan and submit it to DPI for approval. DPI has very specific criteria for the content of the plan.
We have begun work on a new plan that will be submitted to the state school board this fall for approval. You can follow the progress online. I would love to hear your comments and suggestions. If you really want to be involved I’ll give you an account to edit the plan online.
See the announcement below from Atomic Learning. This site just keeps getting better and better!
Free PC Maintenance and Security - Share it with a Friend
Atomic Learning recently announced a complimentary workshop on PC Maintenance and Security.
It’s a well-known fact that PC’s are wonderful tools. They can be fun, educational, a way to communicate, and much more. But in order to keep them running properly and to protect the valuable data we store on them, we need to follow some simple precautions. This workshop takes an in-depth look at some cost-effective ways to keep your internet-connected PC running smoothly!
The FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center recently released a report entitled 2007 IC3 Annual Report that $240 million dollars were lost by United States citizens in 2007. IC3 is Internet Crime Complaint Center.
The most common crime was auction fraud. Second was non-delivery of purchased goods or services. Approximately 1/3 of the crimes reported resulted in losses of between $1000 and $5000.
This statement was particularly disturbing to me. “The report also shows the amounts lost increased with age. Victims in their 20s lost $385 on average, while people over 60 reported they lost an average $760 per scam.”
We often associate Internet safety issues only with children and youth, but this demonstrates a need to educate adults and older adults on Internet safety issues also.
The Technology Department has been very busy with several projects lately.
Andy Broome, the newest member of our staff, worked this week to get the CCMS weather station live on the web. You can view it here or follow the link from the CCMS home page.
We have been making preparations for our library software transition. We are moving to Destiny, which is a centralized database of all our library books. This new system will be easier to maintain and will have improved functionality. The media specialists will be in training all day 4/7 and 4/8 and the new system will be live later that week. Your media specialist may need a hug because change is always stressful.
We have also been working with a consultant to improve the security of our network. You might think no one would ever want to hack into a school but stranger things have happened!
