This month is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. I recently came across a great article that outlines guidelines for creating good passwords. The article provides a good overview so rather than summarize it here, I have included a link here.
New this year… In brief, the focus of the lab is to gather a group of colleagues to share our stories, our experiences of what works, and to continue to grow by sharing our experiments in our classroom. Overlake is filled with great teachers who are already working on being the best they can be. At the same time, our day to day lives are often spent as the only adult in the room. We hope to create a group that can support each other in the process of trying some new things.
Facilitated by Ryan Greg and I, the Teaching and Learning Lab will meet once a month, discuss a short reading as well as the previous month’s successes and failures in the classroom. While I have helped to put this together, TaLL is not focused solely on technology: we will be focusing broadly on how students learn and how all of us can create effective learning environments.
Our first meeting will be on September 15 from 4-6pm.
This week tech directors and educators from the Northwest are meeting near Mt. Hood. This 3-day conference has focused primarily on using technology to facilitate international collaboration and global service.
The conference is unlike traditional conferences in that we don’t allow vendors on site and many of the sessions are loosely arranged around themes. In addition these sessions often don’t have a lead presenter. This format allows us to fully participate and drive the discussions, share best practices and develop stronger professional ties with peers.
I am reviewing my list of great ideas I’ve taken from this conference and it seems overwhelming. My aim is to pull 3-5 of these ideas and fully implement them over the next academic year. In addition to various practical technology tools I have also seen some that are just plain fun. I hope to share a few of those with you here in the coming days.
Recently the National Council of Teachers of English took a stab at revising their curriculum to include various web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis. Here is a link the the eSchool news article. While I agree completely that we should spend more time focusing on various digital literacies, it appears that NCTE may have missed an important aspect of the digital literacy movement. So far I have seen no discussion about educating students to be critical consumers of the new modes of communication. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Two years ago we upgraded our campus to Microsoft Office 2007. As part of this upgrade documents are now saved in a new XML format with the .docx file extension. In order to open and modify these files from home you must either install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack or upgrade your version of Office.
If you choose to install the Office Compatibility Pack the download is free and versions are available for the Mac and PC.
Please take a few moments and update your home computers.
PC Users: Information and the download can be found here.
Mac Users: Information and the download can be found here.
The last several weeks the Technology Team has been especially busy. Project Week included several inspirational on-campus projects, many of which included various technology components. With everything from a virtual planetarium, to several music studios, a documentary film project and student blogging about their adventures in Seattle… this place was hopping.
In addition, we also moved all the servers and network core from the soon to be demolished TLC building to our temporary space in the new Armstrong Humanities Building. A special thanks to Jim our server & network manager for all his planning. Our systems were only down for about 12 hours while we moved the servers to the new racks and rerouted our fiber optic network to a new 48 strand backbone. Anna and Rennie were also busy completing other critically important projects on campus.
They include:
• Setting up all the language teachers in the temporary classrooms east of the gym.
• Overhauling the Math/Science laptop carts.
• Installing a SMARTBoard in one of the 5th grade classrooms (now all 5th and 6th grade classrooms are SMART classrooms).
• Updating ceiling projectors and installing integrated sound systems in all Math classrooms.
Other exciting news…
• We now have a 50/10mbps business class internet connection serving our campus.
• We have dedicated fiber connections to all campus buildings.
• New TLC plans are on target and we should have a contractor selected in the next few weeks!
I often get asked about electronic recycling. Good news! Now Washington now has a FREE, convenient and environmentally responsible recycling program for computers, monitors, laptops and televisions. According to their website the program is open to households, small businesses, schools & school districts and charities. For more information visit E-Cycle Washington’s website.
Thomas Frizelle is Director of Technology at The Overlake School, in Redmond, Washington. He is also a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington in Educational Communication & Technology. His academic interests include: critical theory, ethics, social justice & the unintended consequences of technology in education.
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