Sunday, October 15, 2006
Planning & Budgeting
Kid Witness News
Panasonic provides grant opportunities for schools to run a KWN (Kid Witness News) program. Please review the web site below and share your thoughts about us getting a grant application under way right now. Currently Maplewood, Brouillet, and Firgrove have active grants with the KWN program in our district. It would be great if we could get this program in place to start off the year, but I'm not sure if they will let us get it together while Carson is under construction.
http://www.panasonic.com/meca/kwn/index.html
Please share your thoughts and interest about pursuing the grant in the comments section.
Working Tech Budget
I have done a little work putting costs together on our tech budget planning Excel chart. Please go to the file download page and download the latest Carson Elem.xls document. Once you open it, there are three views (bottom left corner) that show varied proposed costs for different student workstation combinations. I need to meet with Chris Tillman for ITC to get prices for the yellow areas. Also, the budget does not include tax at this time. Please review carefully and let me know of any errors or omissions. I have not made a budget with proposals for a combination of desktop and laptop machines for classrooms or considered the needs of various grade levels. Definately lots more for us to talk about soon.
http://homepage.mac.com/erdly/FileSharing2.html
I really like the idea of ceiling mounting a bright high lumens video projector in the cafeteria area to project on the large screen on the stage. I am sure the contracters will need to know about this soon for wiring purposes so we will have to think through how and where we want access for hooking up a laptop or DVD player to the system. Sound access should also be located at the same source. We can look over the plans for that area at our next meeting. I will post some proposed dates as soon as I can meet with Chris Tillman and get some more of the costs filled in on the budget proposals.
Panasonic provides grant opportunities for schools to run a KWN (Kid Witness News) program. Please review the web site below and share your thoughts about us getting a grant application under way right now. Currently Maplewood, Brouillet, and Firgrove have active grants with the KWN program in our district. It would be great if we could get this program in place to start off the year, but I'm not sure if they will let us get it together while Carson is under construction.
http://www.panasonic.com/meca/kwn/index.html
Please share your thoughts and interest about pursuing the grant in the comments section.
Working Tech Budget
I have done a little work putting costs together on our tech budget planning Excel chart. Please go to the file download page and download the latest Carson Elem.xls document. Once you open it, there are three views (bottom left corner) that show varied proposed costs for different student workstation combinations. I need to meet with Chris Tillman for ITC to get prices for the yellow areas. Also, the budget does not include tax at this time. Please review carefully and let me know of any errors or omissions. I have not made a budget with proposals for a combination of desktop and laptop machines for classrooms or considered the needs of various grade levels. Definately lots more for us to talk about soon.
http://homepage.mac.com/erdly/FileSharing2.html
I really like the idea of ceiling mounting a bright high lumens video projector in the cafeteria area to project on the large screen on the stage. I am sure the contracters will need to know about this soon for wiring purposes so we will have to think through how and where we want access for hooking up a laptop or DVD player to the system. Sound access should also be located at the same source. We can look over the plans for that area at our next meeting. I will post some proposed dates as soon as I can meet with Chris Tillman and get some more of the costs filled in on the budget proposals.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Tasks 1,2, & 3
Ok, so after meeting last week, $187,000.00 (with all those zeros) doesn't seem so much anymore. But thanks to the great tech subcommittee team consisting of Jo Ann, Cherie, Amber, Lisa, and myself, I think we will build a well planned expense plan that will handle the deployment of our tech needs. I am trying to figure out a way to link our excel file list of technology items to this blog, but worst case, I will send to the committe via email for additional brainstorming for additions, expansions, and possible deletions, although I think we should wait on cutting things until we prioritize the needs.
Right now lets be thinking of a date to get together soon. The teamwork and collaboration group is meeting this Tuesday after school, but I am unable to do so because of a Pope/ERHS meeting conflict. How about this Wednesday or Thursday afternoon? We could always meet at portable city behind ERHS on those days or I could hussle down to the valley, maybe at ESC or Stewart (Sandi, is there a good meeting space there?) by 4:15. Please reply with your thoughts and which location(s) works best for you.
Things to have in mind for the meeting:
- let's think about our essential questions for prioritizing our list so far. ex. maximizes student learning; essential management technology; offers essential support for improving classroom instruction, assessment, and/or differentiation for accommodating all students
- software and infrastructure needs of items on our list
- training and support for items on our list
- phase in plans for some high cost items (how would we fund the later phases?)
I am going to put a web page together for Carson documents that you can access to download. Try the following web address:
http://homepage.mac.com/erdly/FileSharing2.html
Let me know if this works out or not. We'll keep trying! Hopefully we'll be smarter than the fox in the photo above!
