April 13, 2007

Location:
Davis School District - Educational Technology Center

Welcome and Introductions – Paul Waite

C-Forum Planning for 2007-08 School Year – Lynn Sorensen

New Chairperson: Lynn Sorensen (Duchesne SD)

New organizing committee members: Kim Broadbent* (Provo SD), Bonnie Muir (Jordan SD), Celia Powell (Granite SD)
*UTIPS Representative for C-Forum

Other organizing committee members: Karen Krier (UEN) and Kathy Webb (USOE)
Margo Shirley will continue to be the C-Forum representative for UCET.

Meeting dates for next year:

• October 5, 2007 - Alpine SD (Lynn Sorensen)
• November 2, 2007 - Provo SD (Kim Broadbent)
• December 7, 2007 - Jordan SD (Bonnie Muir)
• January 4, 2008 - UEN (Karen Krier)
• February 1, 2008 - Granite SD (Celia Powell)
• April 11, 2008 - Davis SD (Kathy Webb)

Potential Theme for next year: New ISTE Student Technology standards

Thank you gifts were given to Margo Shirley and Cody Spendlove for their service on the C-Forum Advisory Committee

UTIPS Update – Julie Quinn

The price of the Scantron will be going up to approximately $1000 each. Order them now as it is uncertain when the increase will be effective.

The Scantron sales representative is:

Jeffrey Mascarenas
Sr. Account Executive
Scantron Corporation - A Harland Company
34 Parker Irvine, CA 92618
Phone: 800-722-6876 x7703
Fax: 888-573-0248
jeffery_mascarenas@scantron.com

Scantron Forms: UTIPS customized form is a stocked item - prices should stay the same

Julie still has some boxes of forms and she doesn't know who didn't receive them. Contact Julie (Julie.Quinn@schools.utah.gov) if your district did not receive forms.

The group had a discussion regarding UTIPS issues.

Kathy Webb: A few months ago the UTIPS Steering Committee met and decided to:

contract with Ryan Hartley (the EDesk programmer) for 10 hours a week to deal with bug reports - (Ryan refused the offer.)

hire a full time programmer.

Kathy Webb: The Steering Committee also created a position statement that said, among other things, that at this point they will not put energy into developing the current UTIPS software, but they will continue to use the EDesk UTIPS until August 2008. Between now and the the steering committee will decide if they will develop a solution or find another formative assessment solution.

Kathy Webb: We need to remember that it's not the EDesk UTIPS that we are focused on, it's formative assessment that we are interested in. The EDesk UTIPS helped us jump into formative assessment.

Julie Quinn: The UTIPS Operator's Group (tech people in the districts hosting a UTIPS installation) are meeting regularly and they are discussing the various issues. If your district is having issues and want support they should participate in the Operator's Group.

Julie: The term "UTIPS" is not the software - "UTIPS" - is the Utah Test Item Pool Service. That is the service. The UTIPS Steering Committee will stay with EDesk UTIPS for next year and during that time they will make a decision.

Cody S: There are 3 servers around the state who have all of the patches and they are rock solid. Not all of the operators have installed those patches.

Margo: We need a place to send educators so they can understand the UTIPS issues.

Julie: Clint Stephens from SEDC create a blog that he is using to keep track of cedes 2 UTIPS bugs: http://edublog.sedck12.org/

Julie explained that in addition to UTIPS, she is now over Computer Based Testing as well.

Preview the new my.uen – Karen Krier

• UEN gathered input from Utah educators to find out what they want in a personalized teacher web page: Upload documents (with folders), Access to SIS, Links to Core Curriculum, Links to district / school web site, Bookmarks, Notes / Announcements, and a Calendar.
• UEN tested three jsp open source portal solutions and decided on Liferay.
• Registered users will have both a Personal page (for their eyes only) and a Public page.
• The Public page can have multiple tabs and each tab can be customized with unique content.
• Karen will be contacting C-Forum members to help test the new solution.
• The new my.uen will launch this Summer .... our initial timeline may have to be adjusted because the main software developer is no longer working at UEN and we are in the process of hiring someone.
• You can find an online Sneak Preview at http://my.uen.org/

Video Editing Projects – Joanna Millward

Joanna shared a variety of videos that were created by educators.

There was a discussion about creating video for the web.

These review web sites were recommended:

• Camcorder Review - http://www.camcorderinfo.com/
• Digital Photography Review - http://dpreview.com/

Creating Podcasts for Free – Cathy Larsen and Vanessa Leggett

GCast - http://www.gcast.com/
Free hosting, mix playlists, coordinates with GarageBand.

Gabcast - http://www.gabcast.com/
Similar to GCast - a few more features

PayAttention Video - Darren Draper

http://t4.jordandistrict.org/payattention

A "motivational presentation" that Darren created to motivate educators to more effectively use technology in their teaching.

NetSupport School – Vanessa Leggett and Cathy Larsen
The Classroom Management Solution - http://www.netsupportschool.com/

• Power On or Off all classroom computers from the Teacher PC.
  
• Perform a Remote "Log off" on all PCs.
  
• Send a Remote "Log in" to all Student PCs at the beginning of class.
  
• Blank Student Screens to gain attention.
  
• Lock the Students Mouse and Keyboard when instructing.
  
• Create custom classroom layouts so the Teacher PC represents the layout of the physical classroom.
  
• Create individual Teacher profiles to deliver the specific features needed by each teacher.
• Show the Tutor's screen to selected Students.
• Show a specific desktop to selected Students.
• Show just a selected application to selected Students.
• Show a Replay file (previous screen recording) to selected Students.
• Broadcast a Video file to selected Students.
• Davis has installed this program in most of their school's computer labs.
• Because of the number of license that the district purchased, the cost is about $10.60 per computer station.

ETC Resources – Paul Waite

• Course Documents and Resources
• Computer Training Handouts

Lunch

Internet Safety Project – Rick Cline and Cindy Stonebraker

• Rick and Cindy shared a lot of information about Internet Safety.
• www.netsafeutah.org
• Parent Packet is also online.

Big 6 Theme – #6 Evaluation

Check out the new Big 6 Site created at UEN - http://www.uen.org/k12educator/big6/

USOE Updates – Kathy Webb

• Kathy reviewed the requirements for the new state funding and she reminded district that they need to complete their technology plans.
• Kathy has a new job. She is now the Ed Tech coordinator at USOE. Her primary responsibility is the Electronic High School.
• Google Aps for Education - free mail accounts on your school’s domain and 2 GB of online storage.

UEN Updates

• UEN Planning for Fiscal Year 2008 begins in May.
• Job Openings at UEN: < http://www.hr.utah.edu/careers/ >
  • IVC Operations Administrator
  • Computer Professional (Web Programmer)
  • Computer Professional (Field Engineer)
  • Computer Professional (UEN Trainer)
  • Content Specialist (USOE Specialist)
• MarcoPolo is now Thinkfinity
• New PBS Teachers web site - http://www.pbs.org/teachers/
• Professional Development
  • New summer schedule will be available May 1st
  • Request summer classes for groups of five or more at your site contact Victoria Rasmussen at victoria@uen.org
  • Faculty Lounge Schedule
• Educational Technology Endorsement - info meeting on May 6, 2007
• Educator Resource Guide - Feedback Needed
  • Suggestions for a catchy title
  • Do you have formatting suggestions?
  • Share ideas about for distributing the guide.
  • How is the pull-out inside feature working?
• Education Week article:
  Major Study on Software Stirs Debate - On whole, school products found to yield no net gains.

          

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