SurveyMonkey!

Oops! We left off SurveyMonkey from our list of 9 things! That will be remedied...

Implementation Plans

Go to divisional meetings--email principals (intro to the training page)
- Intro to the website
- schedule of trainings
- 30m
- Explain comment system
- If enough demand, actual training session during meeting time?
- available for training

Talk to Keith about integrating with Support page on parkschool staff page

Email direct link to all faculty

In-person training sessions for the 9 things
- get on calendar
- sign-up (RSVP for interest)
- available for grade-level/department meetings
- available for one-on-one help

Create list of people who've passed the training
- page on wiki
- email merit badges for sites

Recruit other power users as other helpers
- Dorrie, Anand, Matt, Josh Wolf (?), Peter Warren (?), Doug, ML people, Rob Piper, (ask Matt about LS teachers), Bruce Bryant
- invite to be a writer on techtraining wiki
- mid-year reminder/invitation for people to add their names to the resource list

Create Park Diigo list--add to tutorial how to join group

Solicit cool things people are doing for "model projects" page

Tech newsletter--tips
- w/the 9
- interesting links
- run a blog?

Updates to Training Wiki

Whew...I mostly finished the sections on setting up a Ning network and using Google Reader to subscribe to RSS feeds.

Meeting with Susan, Keith and Kim

To discuss w/ Keith, Susan, Kim:
- hosting Moodle for a few teachers next year
- access to installing software, browser updates, etc.--power users?
- student email aliases
- better publicize what's available--some teachers don't know what they can ask for
- Better distribution/accountability of the tablets to substitute for smartboards (are people sitting on them?)
- pass on faculty responses to survey--want projectors, tablet-type things
- possibility of hosting wikis? Coordinators supporting pbwiki?
- Show the wii
- Discuss tech training website--integration with park staff page.
- Money (for subscriptions, etc.)--not next year--future budgets
- Their questions, comments

Note: let's not do feel the need to give them a full demo of everything we've been doing--let's focus on questions, and they can learn about the things themselves later

PBwiki tutorial done

Comments and tips would be much appreciated.
Wiki Help

Tutorials are a pain

They take lots of time. Screenshots are labor-intensive. We'll see how far I get on my three, but I'll definitely finish the pbwiki one.

Meeting with Louise

Important things to take away:
- Pay attention to the initial rollout, in terms of cost, time, and faculty burden. Maybe consider recruiting groups of people who would definitely get on board.
- Tailor rollout/pitch to divisions.
- Meet with Matt and Kim to show what we've been working on, discuss different needs of different divisions, talk about ways to train, and invite to add ideas to wiki or whatever method of rollout.
- Talked about privacy, school image, comments on webpages.
- Money will be available for various implementation issues through Program Implementation fund.
- Talk to Keith and Susan about building money into tech budget in the future.

Making Implementation Fun!!!

I am actually not kidding about doing this; I think (most) people would enjoy the humor and it might make this seem like a friendlier undertaking. In our "9 Tech Tools You Should Try in 08-09" (or whatever we are going to call it), we should include some kind of incentives, like merit badges (which could be like the badges people put on their social networking pages or blogs...maybe Carolyn's class could design some for us?!) which they could earn if they completed certain tasks at any point in the year. An example of a task: "Set up a blog on Blogger and invite Samira, Elliot and Carolyn to join." Once we get the invitation, we email the badge or send a password to a page where they can get the badge, etc. I am willing to put some time into this if you think it's worth it!

For Implementation

For each of the "tech essentials" we are planning to encourage folks to try at least once during the 08-09 year, we should make a quick list of what it's good for. This would then be followed with more detailed information about the tool, specific links, tutorials, examples, and so on. Example:

PBWiki is good for

• collaborative projects and discussions
• posting photos, videos, links, and other items for students to access
• posting files

Ning is good for

• allowing each student to have his/her own blog and photo album accessible by everyone in the class

etc.

(There are better things to include for PBWiki and Ning, I'm just typing off the top of my head.)

Implementation/Training Note

We should put together a listing of favorite little tech tools, like Slideshare or Survey Monkey with notes about how they could be used.

UPDATE: We should also make a list of things everyone should try at least once; it would be optional, but we should make it clear that we think these things are so great that you wouldn't want to miss out! Examples: SurveyMonkey, using an RSS feed reader, listening to a podcast, etc. Provide tutorials on our wiki and hold monthly gatherings to show people how to do this.