Wrapping It All Up

Well this has been an eye-opening semester into the world of technology at the county level. Some things I expected to learn, but others were quite unexpected. It is amazing to see how much our technology department does with so few people working within the department. It was very interesting to be a part of the decision-making process for adopting new web-hosting software. Our group has learned a lot about a variety of products, and it is hard to begin to express exactly what we have learned. We learned that sometimes the industry leader is the industry leader because it had a good innovative product 10 years ago, and is still reaping the rewards of contractual agreements with school systems. Sometimes it is just too difficult to change to a new system, whether it be course management software or web-hosting software or some other major product, simply because so many people are already use to it, and it will take a lot of training to get everyone proficient at using the new product. Many systems stick with what they've got simply for that fact, even though they could get a more usable product for less money.

I admire our county for going through this process of evaluating the major options available, and moving forward to improve the technology that will in turn positively impact learning in the county. This internship has helped me to see that the technology department has a tremendous responsibility when choosing a new technology. Some of these technologies have annual contracts that greatly increase in monetary responsiblity each year. Our group did not even consider that as a factor when we first started this project, but now I will always look at the possiblity of drastic rate increases when I evaluate licensing agreements with annual fees.

After looking at all the different products, evaluating some individually, attending sales presentations, and discussing with other members of the group, I realized that stand-alone software is not always the best choice at the district level. When I am shopping for myself, I simply have to choose the best software for my needs and tastes. Then I can buy a bunch of individual pieces of software and use them as needed. Doing this at the district level becomes way too expensive. Even when there is a less expensive stand-alone solution for a particular application, that functionality is often duplicated in another package of products that has to be purchased for the entire county. With that said, it is still unfeasible to purchase products that meet all the needs of the county without duplicating some of the functionality. Our group worked to make recommendations that limit duplication as much as possible.

In the end, after comparing and contrasting the different strengths and weaknesses of these products, we narrowed it down to three main contenders, and gave rationale for favoring one of these products over the others. That information can be seen in our spreadsheet and our Internship Presentation in Teleplace. As of this writing, the county has not made a final decision yet, but is considering our recommendation when they make the final decision. It feels good to be a part of making this decision. In the future I will also recommend that teachers play a larger role in technology adoption decisions.

In addition to making recommendations for technology adoption, our group also got to look into some of the policies in place at the county level. The assignment for our planning class was to revise an existing policy, and this seemed to integrate with what we were looking at during this internship. Therefore, our group made recommendations for revising the student acceptable use of technology policy. We wanted the introduction of the policy to focus on the positives of using technology in education, but after researching other county policies across the state and nation, we also felt like our policy lacked some critical disciplinary action pieces as well as some other key points. The details of our suggested revision can be seen in Teleplace as well.

Overall, I think I learned a lot while participating in this internship, but more than that, I think I will be looking at future decisions through a wider lens than just how it affects me and my fellow science teachers in the classroom. I think that this experience will be invaluable to me when I move outside of the classroom at some point in my career.

Add One More Technology to the Mix

Well, our group attended a sales presentation for yet another product - this time School Wires. School Wires seems to be very similar to School Fusion in that it is a web-hosting product that can integrate with Gaggle and has a variety of functionality including blogs, discussion boards, teacher web pages, etc. The nice thing about this product is that the pages from district level to classroom level have a similar look and feel, and employees can be given various levels of clearance that allow them to view more or less material, and make changes only to certain sites. Our group along with the technology facilitator for the county and the facilitators for other schools will continue to look at these different technologies. In all liklihood, we will invite two or three of the leading vendors back to Davie County for a final presentation, and some more specific price quotes on customized services. One thing that the representative from School Wires said repeatedly, was "we don't have this or that service at this time." This led us to believe that there are some serious upgrades in the works that may involove partnerships with other companies. The fact that things are changing so quickly will make the decision about what technologies our county ultimately chooses, that much more important. The final decision may not be made until the new year, but we will continue offering our input to the process.

Looking at Integration of Technologies

Well, my group has almost finished a comprehensive spreadsheet comparing different course management systems and content filters. We are ready to see how all of these technologies will work together, and which ones we should recommend to our school system. We have looked at Blackboard, Moodle, School Fusion, Gaggle, and Teacher Web. Each of these programs have their own set of strengths and weaknesses, and our county does not need to pay for all of these services, but we will be trying to determine which technologies will work together the best and give the county the best bang for their buck. School Fusion has definitely risen to the top as a resource for building websites, and Blackboard 9.1 is getting new looks because of its use at NCVPS. We want to be able to make an informed, intelligent decision that will benefit our county for years to come. We think we will be able to do that as we continue our discussions over the course of the next two weeks.

Blackboard Version 9.1

I was able to interview Mr. Lee, our Instructional Technology Facilitator, last week about Blackboard, and he answered several questions to help me fill in the spreadsheet that our group has created comparing and contrasting different course management systems and other software. Mr. Lee pointed me to the A lab classroom where Ms. Boswell oversees students taking courses through the North Carolina Virtual Public School. The NCVPS uses Blackboard for their course management system, and I was able to look at class pages in this new version of Blackboard (version 9.1) to see what improvements have been made. Our school system still has a blackboard account, but we are still running version 6.something, and the functionality is much lower on the older version. If we understand things correctly, we should be able to upgrade to version 9.1 without any additional costs. While I can say that I am not thrilled that the county is looking to Blackboard instead of Moodle for the near future, I am pleased at the improvements that Blackboard has made over the years. Learning this new system may take a while, but it appears that Blackboard has many useful tutorials online, and I will continue my talks with Mr. Lee and Ms. Boswell. There are capablilities for wikis, blogs, discussion boards, etc., and I will be reporting back on specifics soon.

A New Direction

Well, right after I posted my last blog, I got an e-mail from our School Instructional Technology Facilitator that the Technology Department had decided NOT to go with Moodle after all, but to focus on Blackboard, at least for the next couple of years. So in one way, I feel like I've wasted a lot of time trying to figure out Moodle, but since I was having such trouble doing that, dropping it seems like a relief at least for now. I am now in the process of researching the ins and outs of Blackboard, and I will soon be sitting down with our high school instructional tehnology facilitator to glean some more information. Our group is trying to decide how all the different technologies that the county is using will best integrate together, and we have created an in-depth spreadsheet detailing the features of major software packages that we either are already using or are strongly considering using in our county. This sets my internship in a new direction, but I think I will be able to run with this topic now. A new week awaits. We'll see what changes it brings.

Spinning Wheels

Sometimes when you start a project you think it is going to be relatively easy and you can move forward quickly. Then you actually start. I feel that I have been spinning wheels for the last two weeks trying to learn about Moodle. I have found the manual, found a weak demo site, and then learned that Moodle was open source, so I could download it and use it... Or could I? I tried downloading Moodle on my home computer since I don't have administrative rights to my school laptop, but since I am not connected to a Moodle server, I could not use the software. There are in-depth instructions on making your personal computer's hard drive a Moodle server, but so far I have been unsuccessful in making that happen. Our group has talked to a fellow grad student about the possibility of utilizing her husband's server that he has access to, to teach online classes to a school in Pennsylvania. We may end up using ASU's Moodle server as well. In addition, we are still trying to plan trips to Watauga and Mooresville school systems if possible. John and Heather were supposed to have a Moodle training session on Friday, but that turned into an internship meeting. I haven't heard from either of them yet. Hopefully, my next blog will have a more optimistic title.

Well I've found a 427-page Adobe document giving detailed instructions on the operation of Moodle. Unfortunately, since I do not have access to Moodle software yet, I can't try most of these operations out. I am still working with a demo version of Moodle that allows me some limited functionality, but I am looking forward to getting some more formal training by the end of the month. I will focus this week on this manual, as well as continuing to learn as much as I can about Sophos technology and the firewall that our school system uses. I am hoping that the things I learn this semester will carry over well beyond graduate school, and I will continue to gain deeper understanding of how the more technical aspects of our school system function.

This week has been a little frustrating as I have tried to move forward on my internship. As I looked to get a handle on the different aspects of a walled garden, I decided to focus first on the course management systems. I did an initial overview of course management systems including Blackboard, Moodle, Teacher Web, and School Fusion. After doing this initial overview, I realized that I should not spend too much time evaluating course management systems since the district has already purchased a Moodle server. So I figured my next task was to learn the ins and outs of using Moodle as an administrator, a teacher, and a student. This is proving harder than I initially thought. I don't have a Moodle account yet to play around on, and most of the training sessions are very expensive and time-consuming. I have found some helpful demo sites that I will spend more time playing on in the following week. In addition, I have contacted our district technologist to see if I can get trained in using this software.

In addition, I have started looking at Sophos security softwares as well. At this point I feel overwhelmed with this project, but I think I will feel better after a meeting with the district technologist and a meeting with my professor at Thursday's class. I'm still excited about the project, but I realize it is going to be even more work than I thought.

Starting an Internship

Well this is it. My last semester in my Master's in Instructional Technology at Appalachian State University. I am excited as I start my Internship as part of a team working on creating a "walled garden" for Davie County's technology. I will be focusing on evaluating antivirus and security software and assisting in creating guidelines for filtering and student use of various Internet sites. This will be a challenge and a lot of work, but I'm sure I will learn a tremendous amount through this experience.