First Draft of Web Content
Feb 27, 2006 23:37 |
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First
draft.
The one big call to action I would want to include in the beginning is about how technology is shaping our world, how our kids need to be on top of it to be competitive in the ever changing world marketplace and how the committee is shaping and directing our kids exposure to it. Example is the upcoming Internet Publishing Policy.
What is Oak Tech Committee?
… the who, what, why on this volunteer group.
We are a group of volunteer parents, teachers and administrators who plan, purchase and deploy computer, networking and audio/video technologies to the teachers and students at Oak. We fill in where District services leave off which every year increases our challenges due to continual funding cutbacks. Click here for more on the members of the Oak Tech Committee
This year we are working through decisions on equipment and software purchases, beginning a new initiative to integrate computers more broadly into the curriculum and planning for the next generation of Tech committee membership. Click here for specifics on this year’s work.
Over the years, the Oak tech committee has taken on projects that ensure that our children's elementary school computer experiences are on up-to-date equipment and reasonably current versions of software. Click here for a history of what the Tech Committee has done since being formed in 19xx.
There are over 100 Macintosh computers on the Oak campus, ## VCRs, ## DVD players, ## color printers, and lots more; Click here to read about the technology infrastructure on the Oak Campus.
All of these capabilities and history does not come easily; it takes parents with a little bit of time and some knowledge of computers and technology products. Could you help out? Your son or daughter will benefit. Click here to read about how you can help.
Who is on the Oak Tech Committee?
We are a mix of parents and school staff. There are about ___ parents, 4 teachers and the principal. We meet about once a month in the school library …
Name, email
Name, email
Etc.
What Tech Committee is working on in 2006:
Current programs we are working on …
- Operating system rolling upgrade plan …. Of the ___ Macintosh computers on campus, ____ are OS 9 vintage. We intend to have all computers on OS X by _____ . To accomplish this we are doing _____ and ____ …
- Computers turnover plan … we are working on a plan to have a rolling purchased of new equipment such that no computer in the school is ever more than 5 years old.
- Teacher trainng and support … this is an area where we need to bring our plans to the district since they would typically be funding the teacher’s time to take training classes identified by Tech Committee as the best for leveraging the programs being developed by Tech committee.
- Curriculum applications …. Applying computers to the curriculum… this is an area where we would like to have a pool of parents who are capable of supporting short term needs that arise e.g., doing web research, answering teacher questions about how to use Macintosh in a specific way, etc., etc.
- General Technology support – unpacking and setting up new computers and other equipment, break down of equipment at beginning of summer break, set up of equipment on school re-opening in the fall.
Equipment and software purchases this year ...
Our budget for this year will support the following planned purchases:
- kid pix version 4 – site license for …
- Kindergarten sw …
- 8 new computers …
- New DVD players for each classroom
Some things that are Not in the budget, but we would like to get ...
- 2500 lumen projector that we can use in the multi
-
-
Over the next few years we expect to be doing these sorts of things …
- expanding support for teachers in use of computers … we are creating a program through which members of Tech Committee work with one teacher who is using an application that could be useful to other teachers. Together the teacher and the tech committee parent identify….
-
-
History of Oak Tech committee:
Timeline of Committee’s Major Activities:
Organized in 19xx to lead and coordinate the purchase of computers for the school. That year we bought ___ Macintosh computers - paid for by LAEF? PTA ?
- Over the X years since that first computer, the Tech Committee has overseen the aquisition of more than ___ computers here at Oak. Most recently, in _____ 2004 the PTA? funded ____ eMacs for the lab and teachers and a cart of ___ portable computers that upper grade teachers can use for class projects.
(Note that PTA funds for computer come from donations to PTA which are separate from the LAEF ?? LAEF funds typically go to ___ and ____ and ___ whereas PTA funds typically go to ___ and ___ and ____.)
- Tech Committee members brought the first Internet connection to the Oak LAN in 19xx -- back then there was no DSL or cable broadband so we added a router to ‘borrow’ some bandwidth from the high school’s T1 connection ... today Oak gets it internet connectivity by purchasing RF service from Sprint? paid for by the district?
- Oak’s first network services - email and website- were built and put online in 19___ . We purchased the domain oakschool.org and provided each teacher and staff member with email accounts. Back then the website provided only ____ and _____ info ... today you can see that the school website carries a broad range of useful info . After the email and website capabilities were in place, the day to day management of those services is being done by parent volunteers under the guidance of the PTA {and the Los Altos District computer resource staff.??}
- Last year, when the Oak Avenue campus was being renovated, the tech committee reviewed the network wiring and equipment plans with the contractor; provided feedback from teachers on improvements in both the wiring and the equipment. Parents both on and off the tech committee contributed funds and equipment to create a higher capacity and more flexible network infrastructure than those in the district's plan.
Computers at Oak
Here is a summary of the computer infrastructure at Oak. Oak Tech committee oversees all these facilities in terms of equipping them and supporting their expansion.
Network
- Campus-wide LAN reaching into every classroom and administrative office.
- Backbone is gigabit/second ethernet over fiber to the building, 100 MBit/second Ethernet within the buildings.
- Each classroom has multiple drops with 100MB capacity within the room
- Every one of the ## computers in the school is on the network
- Servers – email, file server, and …
Computers and …
- Computer lab – room __ - has 32 eMacs with 17” ? screens
- Classrooms vary – from 1 – 6 computers per classroom. Each classroom has a VCR and soon a DVD player feeding a large screen television monitor.
- Teachers have either desktop or portable computers (their choice)
Staffing
Oak has a full time Computer Educational Specialist {actual title?] , Katie Butler, who is supported by the Los Altos District as part of core Oak school staffing. Katie runs the computer lab - including network servers. She supports the teachers use of their classroom computers which means she is continually fixing broken printers, installing software and generally making whatever breaks - that the teachers can't easily fix - work again.
In addition to Katie, and the Tech Committee, the Los Altos District provides a technology specialist [actual title?] who oversees network infrastructure on all elementary schools campuses and in the district offices.
Why Macintosh?
So why is Oak a Macintosh only campus? The entire Los Altos school district standardized on Macs back in ____ and has maintained that position because Macintosh continues to be the most graphical and easiest to use operating system for personal computers. Macs are easy for our children to learn and serve as a fine jumping off point for learning the Windows GUI that they typically encounter at home. We have found that children have little if any difficulty switching back and forth from Mac to Windows interface.
Interested in helping out ?
Tech committee can use more parent volunteers to help.
We are particularly looking for Parents of children in early grades at Oak who will work with us over several years. How you could help:
- parents who have HTML and webpage creation experiences could help with maintaining the school website*
- parents who have application server adminsitration experience - adminstering the webserver, email server and maillists of parents, teachers, volunteer groups, etc.
- parents who have network hardware experience for oversseing the oak internetworking equipment
If you want to help but don’t want to commit to signing on for couple of years … Parents who are very comfortable with the hardware set up of personal computer, printer, in desktop configurations could help with:
- end of year breakdown and packing away of computers in classrooms
- beginning of year un packing and set up of computers in classrooms
- be on a list of possible helpers when need to fix a printer or install sw or ... (talk to Katie about what help she would love / like to have)
=========================end======================
Not sure how, but, I would like to be able to have the web page…
· Provide a place where oak parents can 'register' to
o offer to volunteer and/or request to fill specific roles
o tell us where they work & explain (link to) their company's employee purchase and NPO donation matching programs
· Provide a means for making or offering contributions of equipment or dollars (do we want to ask for money? Shouldn’t that be directed thru the PTA?)
The one big call to action I would want to include in the beginning is about how technology is shaping our world, how our kids need to be on top of it to be competitive in the ever changing world marketplace and how the committee is shaping and directing our kids exposure to it. Example is the upcoming Internet Publishing Policy.
What is Oak Tech Committee?
… the who, what, why on this volunteer group.
We are a group of volunteer parents, teachers and administrators who plan, purchase and deploy computer, networking and audio/video technologies to the teachers and students at Oak. We fill in where District services leave off which every year increases our challenges due to continual funding cutbacks. Click here for more on the members of the Oak Tech Committee
This year we are working through decisions on equipment and software purchases, beginning a new initiative to integrate computers more broadly into the curriculum and planning for the next generation of Tech committee membership. Click here for specifics on this year’s work.
Over the years, the Oak tech committee has taken on projects that ensure that our children's elementary school computer experiences are on up-to-date equipment and reasonably current versions of software. Click here for a history of what the Tech Committee has done since being formed in 19xx.
There are over 100 Macintosh computers on the Oak campus, ## VCRs, ## DVD players, ## color printers, and lots more; Click here to read about the technology infrastructure on the Oak Campus.
All of these capabilities and history does not come easily; it takes parents with a little bit of time and some knowledge of computers and technology products. Could you help out? Your son or daughter will benefit. Click here to read about how you can help.
Who is on the Oak Tech Committee?
We are a mix of parents and school staff. There are about ___ parents, 4 teachers and the principal. We meet about once a month in the school library …
Name, email
Name, email
Etc.
What Tech Committee is working on in 2006:
Current programs we are working on …
- Operating system rolling upgrade plan …. Of the ___ Macintosh computers on campus, ____ are OS 9 vintage. We intend to have all computers on OS X by _____ . To accomplish this we are doing _____ and ____ …
- Computers turnover plan … we are working on a plan to have a rolling purchased of new equipment such that no computer in the school is ever more than 5 years old.
- Teacher trainng and support … this is an area where we need to bring our plans to the district since they would typically be funding the teacher’s time to take training classes identified by Tech Committee as the best for leveraging the programs being developed by Tech committee.
- Curriculum applications …. Applying computers to the curriculum… this is an area where we would like to have a pool of parents who are capable of supporting short term needs that arise e.g., doing web research, answering teacher questions about how to use Macintosh in a specific way, etc., etc.
- General Technology support – unpacking and setting up new computers and other equipment, break down of equipment at beginning of summer break, set up of equipment on school re-opening in the fall.
Equipment and software purchases this year ...
Our budget for this year will support the following planned purchases:
- kid pix version 4 – site license for …
- Kindergarten sw …
- 8 new computers …
- New DVD players for each classroom
Some things that are Not in the budget, but we would like to get ...
- 2500 lumen projector that we can use in the multi
-
-
Over the next few years we expect to be doing these sorts of things …
- expanding support for teachers in use of computers … we are creating a program through which members of Tech Committee work with one teacher who is using an application that could be useful to other teachers. Together the teacher and the tech committee parent identify….
-
-
History of Oak Tech committee:
Timeline of Committee’s Major Activities:
Organized in 19xx to lead and coordinate the purchase of computers for the school. That year we bought ___ Macintosh computers - paid for by LAEF? PTA ?
- Over the X years since that first computer, the Tech Committee has overseen the aquisition of more than ___ computers here at Oak. Most recently, in _____ 2004 the PTA? funded ____ eMacs for the lab and teachers and a cart of ___ portable computers that upper grade teachers can use for class projects.
(Note that PTA funds for computer come from donations to PTA which are separate from the LAEF ?? LAEF funds typically go to ___ and ____ and ___ whereas PTA funds typically go to ___ and ___ and ____.)
- Tech Committee members brought the first Internet connection to the Oak LAN in 19xx -- back then there was no DSL or cable broadband so we added a router to ‘borrow’ some bandwidth from the high school’s T1 connection ... today Oak gets it internet connectivity by purchasing RF service from Sprint? paid for by the district?
- Oak’s first network services - email and website- were built and put online in 19___ . We purchased the domain oakschool.org and provided each teacher and staff member with email accounts. Back then the website provided only ____ and _____ info ... today you can see that the school website carries a broad range of useful info . After the email and website capabilities were in place, the day to day management of those services is being done by parent volunteers under the guidance of the PTA {and the Los Altos District computer resource staff.??}
- Last year, when the Oak Avenue campus was being renovated, the tech committee reviewed the network wiring and equipment plans with the contractor; provided feedback from teachers on improvements in both the wiring and the equipment. Parents both on and off the tech committee contributed funds and equipment to create a higher capacity and more flexible network infrastructure than those in the district's plan.
Computers at Oak
Here is a summary of the computer infrastructure at Oak. Oak Tech committee oversees all these facilities in terms of equipping them and supporting their expansion.
Network
- Campus-wide LAN reaching into every classroom and administrative office.
- Backbone is gigabit/second ethernet over fiber to the building, 100 MBit/second Ethernet within the buildings.
- Each classroom has multiple drops with 100MB capacity within the room
- Every one of the ## computers in the school is on the network
- Servers – email, file server, and …
Computers and …
- Computer lab – room __ - has 32 eMacs with 17” ? screens
- Classrooms vary – from 1 – 6 computers per classroom. Each classroom has a VCR and soon a DVD player feeding a large screen television monitor.
- Teachers have either desktop or portable computers (their choice)
Staffing
Oak has a full time Computer Educational Specialist {actual title?] , Katie Butler, who is supported by the Los Altos District as part of core Oak school staffing. Katie runs the computer lab - including network servers. She supports the teachers use of their classroom computers which means she is continually fixing broken printers, installing software and generally making whatever breaks - that the teachers can't easily fix - work again.
In addition to Katie, and the Tech Committee, the Los Altos District provides a technology specialist [actual title?] who oversees network infrastructure on all elementary schools campuses and in the district offices.
Why Macintosh?
So why is Oak a Macintosh only campus? The entire Los Altos school district standardized on Macs back in ____ and has maintained that position because Macintosh continues to be the most graphical and easiest to use operating system for personal computers. Macs are easy for our children to learn and serve as a fine jumping off point for learning the Windows GUI that they typically encounter at home. We have found that children have little if any difficulty switching back and forth from Mac to Windows interface.
Interested in helping out ?
Tech committee can use more parent volunteers to help.
We are particularly looking for Parents of children in early grades at Oak who will work with us over several years. How you could help:
- parents who have HTML and webpage creation experiences could help with maintaining the school website*
- parents who have application server adminsitration experience - adminstering the webserver, email server and maillists of parents, teachers, volunteer groups, etc.
- parents who have network hardware experience for oversseing the oak internetworking equipment
If you want to help but don’t want to commit to signing on for couple of years … Parents who are very comfortable with the hardware set up of personal computer, printer, in desktop configurations could help with:
- end of year breakdown and packing away of computers in classrooms
- beginning of year un packing and set up of computers in classrooms
- be on a list of possible helpers when need to fix a printer or install sw or ... (talk to Katie about what help she would love / like to have)
=========================end======================
Not sure how, but, I would like to be able to have the web page…
· Provide a place where oak parents can 'register' to
o offer to volunteer and/or request to fill specific roles
o tell us where they work & explain (link to) their company's employee purchase and NPO donation matching programs
· Provide a means for making or offering contributions of equipment or dollars (do we want to ask for money? Shouldn’t that be directed thru the PTA?)
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