STC Technology Planning Committee Meeting Minutes

Monday 3/13/2006, 4:00 PM STC Library

Workshops/Trainings/Meetings/Conferences

  • Blackboard - Tracy Adrian has been trained in the use of this online courseware, has been using it for her Computer III classes, and has been attending Blackboard workdays monthly.
    Marie Butler requested a formal training by Tracy for anyone at STC who is interested in learning BlackBoard. Tracy will discuss this with Sr. Mary in Lincoln.
  • NETA - We need to identify 3 or 4 teachers to attend this year's NETA conference, reserve 2 hotel rooms, and reserve subs.
    **Tracy Adrian requested that we keep the NETA student contests in mind for next year's lesson planning.
  • Problem Based Learning -- Tracy Adrian attended a Problem Based Case Based workshop through her Tech Prep contacts at CCC, funded by MCIT and AIM.
    The Computer III class will be partnering with CCC's Marketing class and CCC's Electronics class to solve a problem for a real-life business called Zox.
  • Tech Prep -- Most of our classes are articulated until 2008. New Business teacher Dirk Coon fully articulated all of his classes this year.
  • ESU9/ESU10 -- There are a few technology workshops left this year that Tracy Adrian will publicize via email and in the workroom.
  • ROBOlympics -- The Computer III students were enrolled, but did not participate this as Tracy Adrian was admitted to the hospital when they were scheduled to go.
  • Tech Expo -- The Computer III students attended this event at CCC-Grand Island in October 2005. They learned about technology careers, participated in a role-play denial of service attack, listed to Congressman Tom Osborne's aide, and acquired many freebies.
  • Build a Computer in a Day -- The Computer III students attended this event in February at CCC-Hastings. Students assembled a computer and installed the operating system.
  • CSE Day -- Three Computer III students (boys) and two Computer II students (girls) will be attending Computer Science and Engineering Day at UNL on March 31st. Tracy Adrian will be accompanying them. The boys' team won 3rd place in the Design Contest.
  • Tech Day - Vicki Buss will take her AutoCAD students and other design students to Tech Day at CCC to compete in Drafting and other design contests.
  • FBLA (BIE - subcommittee of the Chamber of Commerce) -- Business Teacher Dirk Coon and Tracy Adrian applied for and were awarded a Business, Industry & Education (BIE) Grant to charter a Hastings St. Cecilia FBLA chapter, and take the newly elected officers to the State Spring Leadership Conference (SLC). The grant check is to be presented Tuesday, April 25th during the regular monthly BIE meeting.

AutoLibrarian - **Working on the Library Automation software has been on the back burner this year due to Chancery SMS issues. We need to move this up on the priority list.

Exchange Server - We will push to get our Exchange server configured when the Diocese Ed Tech Office can guarantee that the email will be web-based.

Reading and Math software - The English and Math departments are investigating using the software from the makers of Accelerated Reader for Writing and Math. They will keep us posted.

Chancery SMS

  • Upgrades - Vicki Buss and Tracy Adrian reported that the repeated upgrades from Chancery SMS are very time-consuming.
  • Formal Request for training and more control - **Carol Broulliette, Tracy Adrian, and Marie Bulter are going to make a request for some formal training on Chancery SMS to include scheduling, reports, and managing students. Marie has already discussed some preliminaries with Fr. Schweiger. Marie and Tracy went to a scheduling training day on Thursday, March 30.
  • New tracking software from Chancery - Marie Butler made a formal request to Joe LeDuc at the Diocese Ed Tech Office for this software.
  • K12 Planet - as soon as things are going smoothly with Chancery SMS, we wish to push forware on **implementing the K12 Planet parent portal. We wish to start with a pilot test group of parents the first year/semester, and then during parent/teacher conferences or an open house, have parents demonstrating it's use.

Web Site

  • Redesigning - Tracy Adrian will be redesigning the STC website and uploading it to www.stchastings.org this Spring. The HCS website will remain on the www.esu9.org server, but point to STC and STC.
  • Release Forms– include alumni in the Signing Permission Process? **We will contact the Attorney Sullivan about our publicity release form and include them in the alumni in our release signing process.
  • Additional Forms - We will include the new PLC Team Feedback Sheet as both a submittable and printable form on the website.

New Equipment:

Diocesan Education Technology Initiative:

  • 24 student + 1 teacher Windows machines for the High School Lab
  • 5 more Windows machines for the Library Lab
  • Moved the 25 +5 to teachers’ classrooms, displaced the Macs
    what to do w/ them? - donate these to Catholic Social Services
  • Replaced 2 Servers
  • 2 Switches

    Business, Industry & Education (BIE) Grant

  • Large format printer - Vicki Buss applied for and received a large format printer from the subcommittee of the Hastings Chamber of Commerce. The Drafting students will redesign buildings in downtown Hastings and print them on the new printer.

Report of Diocese Ed Tech Office

  • Incentive pay changes - all data compilation takes place at the Diocese Ed Tech Office now.
  • Job changes - there has been a lot of employee turnover in the Diocese Ed Tech Office, which has slowed request and response time.
  • MS Lab work - still needs finished. We need to follow up on this.
  • Wireless Bridge Status? - Diocese Ed Tech Office was to send someone the Monday before Christmas Break but didn't. We need to follow up on this.

Top 10 Needs

  • More SmartBoards
  • More Projectors
    - discussed creating a formal checkout process for multimedia equipment, such as projectors, laptops, VCR/DVD players and remotes
    - discussed a built in projector for the library
  • Teacher Computers/Laptop?
  • Fr. Meysenburg /Marie Butler - Laptop or Desktop
  • Lab Management Software
  • Centurion Lock Software
  • Music Department would like more robust computers (2) with DVD burners for their midi hardware.
  • Video Production would like a more robust computer for use in the Video Production room w/ a DVD burner.

Next Meeting:
TBA as needed

Email Tracy Adrian with questions, additions, or concerns at tadrian@esu9.org

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