Technology Director Report

Memorandum

To: Michael Green

From: Steve Rippl

Subject: May Technology Report

Date: May 22, 2017

State testing is underway in all the buildings this week, and things have started very smoothly! The large quantity of laptop carts the buildings now have access to has meant that the testing can be scheduled more individually for teachers and students. So rather than a whole grade moving rooms and testing all at once in labs and the library, we have pockets of testing going on here and there at slightly different times. It seems less disruptive, and it’s certainly less of a strain on all the systems.

Our “technology use in the classroom” surveys went out to staff and we’ve received some very positive feedback. Overall staff are feeling pretty confident in their tech use with students, and use is widespread. We asked some more detailed questions about training and support so we’ll be digging into those shortly to guide our August training, and to work with Principals on how to offer more tech support throughout next year.

We’re also making plans on what else our department will be up to this summer! We’re looking at budget and priorities and seeing where we need to upgrade/replace equipment, and where we can expand. Replacing more thin-clients with Chrome devices and mounting more wall-mounted short-throw projectors are our classroom priorities. We’ll also have folks in to run new wiring for classroom wireless access points, and we’re connecting KWRL to our network via fiber and finally getting them off the (inherently) flaky wireless bridge they’ve been connected with for all these years.

Lastly, the new version of Sips is now live, in combination with the old one. Over the next few months, we’ll get the last of the needed functionality in the new one so by September staff will just have the one place to go for this student data.