Thursday, April 24, 2014

World Book Night 2014

I received an email from our high school media person Donna Morgan today with the following information.

In honor of WORLD BOOK NIGHT 2014, which Susan Slagle-Boyd an instructional assistant here at SLCSD made me aware of, students were given the opportunity to sign up to win a free book. Many students took advantage of this opportunity! A drawing was held today during SSR and the following students were lucky winners of a free book:

Winners of the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
  • Jocelyn Ibarra
  • Gelder Pineda
  • Naomi Marroquin
  • Oscar Rosales
  • Michael Mix
  • Manuel Gomez
  • Tina Soumetho
  • Ricky Stauffer
  • Izzi McCammant
  • Angel Xiong
  • Carmen Morales
  • Leslie Lopez
  • Cinthia Balandran
  • Aiyana Davila
  • Nohemi Zavala
Winners of the book “Same Difference”
  • Ivette Tapia
  • Janet Escobar
  • Katherine Lai
  • Bobby Morales
  • Diana Flores
  • Gabriela Garza
  • Jorge Salcido
  • Stephanie Teos



A huge THANK YOU goes out to Susan Slagle-Boyd for her generous donation of 15 copies of the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and to her sister Peggy Slagle for donating 8 copies of the book “Same Difference”.

Thank you to all that participated – and to those that didn’t – be watching next year for another opportunity to win a free book in honor of World Book Night.

I was not aware of this opportunity until today. If you go to: http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/, you will find information about this chance to obtain free books to distribute to students. Please sign up for the newsletter, so you can apply to be a donor next year. What a great project. Thanks so much to Donna Morgan, Susan Slagle-Boyd, and Peggy Slagle. Enjoy the books, student winners!

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Celebrating Diversity while Banding Together

The Storm Lake Community School District is one of the most diverse school districts in the state of Iowa. I love that about us! While it certainly creates educational challenges for us, it also creates wonderful opportunities for learning from one another. In our schools we celebrate our differences and respect, care about, and learn from each other. However, we must also celebrate all the things we have in common. Sesame Street taught us this lesson a very long time ago:



Let us never forget that our school needs each and every one of us in our uniqueness -- students, families, teachers, administrators, staff members, and community stakeholders -- on this learning journey that we are all taking together as Storm Lake Tornadoes.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Equipment Technology Plan 2014-2015

The equipment part of the SLCSD Technology Plan was approved at the School Board meeting last night. As always, I caution up front that the plan is the best educated guess of what technology we will purchase over the next year. Education and technology are both moving targets, and we plan the best we can, knowing changes may crop up along the way. In addition, as we formalize the larger projects and receive bids throughout the next year, they will be brought before the Board again. That being said, we are very excited about the future of student learning in our district! Here are the highlights.

District-wide

This summer: Increase our Internet bandwidth from 120 mbps to 300 mbps to accommodate our huge increase in Internet usage for learning.

East Early Childhood

This summer: Put newer computers for student use in all the classrooms.

Elementary School

This summer:
  1. Replace computers in the standing computer lab.
  2. Replace one of the mobile laptop labs with two mobile Chromebook labs, each with thirty Chromebooks (was in this year's tech plan for May/June).
  3. Put two Chromebooks for student use in each of the third and fourth grade classrooms. This will complete our project of getting at least two mobile devices in every classroom at the elementary.
  4. Replace all wireless in the elementary building with new more robust wireless.
Next summer: Replace another mobile lab of laptops with two mobile Chromebook labs, each with thirty Chromebooks. This will bring us to seven mobile labs and two standing labs at the elementary for student use.

Middle School

This summer:
  1. Provide all teachers with laptops.
  2. Add two mobile Chromebook labs for student use, each with thirty Chromebooks.
  3. Add two mobile Chromebook labs, each with thirty Chromebooks, for use by Social Studies students.
  4. In addition, we will be adding to the wireless at the Middle School to improve both connectivity as well as the density of that connectivity to accommodate the additional mobile devices. These purchases have yet to be finalized.
Next summer:
  1. Replace computers in all standing labs, i.e. media center, typing lab, computer lab, FACS lab, and ELL classroom lab.
  2. Replace one of the mobile laptop labs with two mobile Chromebook labs, each with thirty Chromebooks. This will bring us to eleven mobile labs and five standing labs at the middle school for student use.
High School

This summer:
  1. Replace two of the mobile laptop labs with four mobile Chromebook labs, each with thirty Chromebooks (was in this year's tech plan for May/June). Two of these are centered out of the Media Center and two of them out of the Social Studies department.
  2. Add three mobile Chromebook labs, each with thirty Chromebooks. These added to two of the Chromebook labs listed in #1 above, puts a Chromebook lab in every Social Studies classroom at the high school. This is the next Tech Plan step after putting Chromebook labs in every English classroom at the high school last year.
  3. Add Chromebooks for SpEd English students.
Next summer:
  1. Replace the computers in the Graphics lab.
  2. Replace the computers in the Business lab.
  3. Replace one of the mobile laptop labs with two mobile Chromebook labs, each with thirty Chromebooks. These will be centered out of the Science department. This will bring us to nineteen mobile labs and five standing labs for high school student use.
  4. Replace the student checkout laptops with new ones.
  5. In addition, we will be adding wireless and whatever other technology we need to both the new and renovated portions of the high school building as they are completed. The purchases for this remain to be determined.
When it comes to technology, our focus must always be on learning. The devices are meaningless without great instructional strategies and curriculum. However, the power that connected learning brings to our classrooms can't be underestimated. Collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and communication are all enhanced geometrically with mobile Internet connected devices in the hands of our students and teachers. Every year I focus on this goal when I work with the administrators and teachers who come up with this plan:

A huge Internet pipe, robust wireless, and mobile Internet connected devices in as many students' hands as possible. A teacher who loves to learn, learns new things regularly, and models that love of learning to students. Student-centered classrooms.

We get closer every year!

    Monday, April 7, 2014

    We Must Work Together

    This is for all my fellow IT friends. If you've ever been asked to do something that doesn't make sense, or worse, isn't possible, you will enjoy this.



    Message? We have to work together. We all bring different expertise and strengths to the table, and we must quit letting "control" issues get in the way of reaching our goals. Otherwise, we are hopelessly doomed to poor solutions or worse, the status quo.