Bernards Township Technology Update 2011-12 Brian Heineman, Supervisor of Science and Technology James Rollo, Technology Manager

Goal 1: Maintenance of educational technology tools will be sufficient so that educators and students have improved access to all technology tools and platforms Develop and implement comprehensive maintenance and upgrade plans to assure that technological tools are current based upon needs of all students. Plans for maintaining software loads across district computers will become regular and routine. Servers will be maintained in order to reduce non- educational content and remove redundant files. Individuals will be encouraged to practice “digital hygiene” on their own tablets and net-books.

Students will become digitally responsible citizens. Goal 2: Students will have reliable access to the necessary technology to successfully engage in higher-order thinking activities (i.e., analysis, problem-solving, decision-making, evaluation, scientific inquiry) that prepare them to address authentic 21st century issues. Upgrade the current infrastructure to enable consistent and reliable access. Identify a set of digital tools that students will have access to 24/7 regardless of location. Students will become digitally responsible citizens. Model legal and ethical behaviors when using print and non print information. Model appropriate online behaviors related to cyber safety, cyber bullying, cyber security and cyber ethics. Educators will develop curriculum to instruct digital responsibility

Upgrading infrastructure…. 2010-2011 growing pains Internet bandwidth insufficient Insufficient network bandwidth between schools Insufficient wireless capacity at Ridge & Annin Victims of our own success at infusing technology into the delivery of curriculum The 2010-2011 school year was a year of enduring significant growing pains on the part of the students, staff, administration

How bad was it? Internet capacity had been increased by 35-40% every year since 2005 District internet traffic operated at maximum capacity nearly the entire year of 2010-2011 At peak periods: poor web video, poor general website performance, … “Still Downloading.” The 2010-2011 school year was a year of enduring significant growing pains on the part of the students, staff, administration

How bad was it? Not just the internet connection bandwidth, internal network bandwidth as well Mount prospect 20mbps 1.5mbps Liberty corner Cedar Hill 3mbps Oak st Ridge high William Annin

Verboten! How bad was it? New technology initiatives? Limited access to existing technology investments (United Streaming, Media Center subscriptions, teacher created content, etc.) Verboten! The 2010-2011 school year was a year of enduring significant growing pains on the part of the students, staff, administration

The Solution: Voice & Data RFP Considered nearly every possible solution to increase network and Internet bandwidth No idea discounted as “too crazy”, no matter how crazy Needed to achieve increases in capacity without increasing costs Packaging the district’s voice & data expenditure together and going out to bid invited some exciting possibilities.

The Solution: 100mbps 1000mbps Mount prospect Liberty corner Ink percentage increase in bandwidth over links Cedar Hill Oak st Ridge high William Annin

Impact of Voice & Data RFP Universal accessibility of technology investments restored Increased school to school network bandwidth by >30,000-60,000% Increase internet bandwidth 500% New voice & data costs slightly lower than previous spending voice & data spending Enables the possibility of a consolidated data center Facilitates better disaster recovery options

Data Center Consolidation Prior to this year, each school had, at a minimum, 1 file & print server, 1 tape backup solution, 1 router Total server room hardware cost per building: approximately $9,000-10,000 Hardware needs upgrading every 5-6 years Does not include maintenance costs The new private fiber network permits all building servers to be replaced with one large blade server

Acquisition Cost Comparison Non-consolidated Data Center Consolidated Data Center 6 Servers: $30,000 Blade Server: $25,000 6 Routers: $9,000-$12,000 1 Gateway Router: $1800 6 Tape Autoloaders: $18,000-$24,000 1 Higher Capacity Autoloader: $5000 6 Maintenance contracts: $4-$5000 2 Maintenance contracts: $2000 Total: $61,000-$71,000 Total: $33,800 Energy efficiency savings (4%-8%) are not included in the above comparison New equipment runs at 208v instead of the less efficient 120v

Two down, one to go… Of the major infrastructure challenges endured in 2010-2011: Internet bandwidth insufficient Insufficient network bandwidth between schools Insufficient wireless capacity at Ridge & William Annin Approximately 50% of Ridge has been upgraded Wireless upgrades at William Annin will start this summer

Goal 2, Part 2 Identify a set of digital tools that students will have access to 24/7 regardless of location

1 to 1 Issues and Alternatives Issues with student technology (1 to 1) Costs for devices still approximately $500 per student No other savings are triggered (e.g. textbooks) Insufficient wireless bandwidth for 1 to 1 student use IT staff already spread thin across district Cost and time to change curriculum District Technology Committee recommended an alternate BYOT (BYOD) policy

Majority of grade 6-12 students possess some type of mobile technology

BYOT Benefits Movement towards cloud based computing requires no software Students already familiar with their own technology devices Very little individual hardware or software costs to district Teacher leaders can move ahead with implementation and begin to integrate 21st Century Skills

BYOT Issues Equity – Addressing the haves and have-nots (Pairing, Collaborative Groups, School Hardware) Security – Protecting the local network (Guest Access) Filtering – Cellular access cannot be filtered (Addressed in AUP) Victims of Success - Potential to be too successful and overload network

BYOT Research & Current Status Policy recommendation has been developed by district technology committee Other schools adopting BYOT: Chatham, Morris Hills, Parsippany AUP dissemination and signoff using new web based model Teacher training for AUP and some easy to use mobile apps Poll Everywhere QR codes Leaf Snap Sketchpad Explorer

http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/LTE4NDE2NjE2Mjc If you like, you can use this slide as a template for your own voting slides. You might use a slide like this if you feel your audience would benefit from the picture showing a text message on a phone.

Goal 3: To ensure that the technology integrated into the curriculum assists in meeting the district goals in all content areas. Review and update curriculum during the five year district cycle to include specific technology implementations. Benchmark -50% of the core academic content curricula explicitly integrate 21st century skills utilizing technology and meet the 8.1 NJCCCS

Including the Standards All courses revised the past 2 years include the 8.1 NJCCCS Technology and media also include the ISTE standards Percentage of courses that include the tech standards: Benchmark in Tech plan: 50% by end of 2011- 12 Approximate number of courses that currently cover the 8.1 CCCS: 20%

Goal 4: Foster a continuous learning environment that encourages the seamless integration of state-of-the-art technology-based tools in the classroom. Design and implement a professional learning community focused on ongoing, collaborative, and interactive teaching methods to develop new knowledge and skills. Create opportunities for prototyping, piloting and training on promising educational technology tools. Provide teachers with resources to develop strategies for successfully implementing technology throughout the curriculum.

Focusing in on Professional development PD survey listed 54 out of 142 items related to technology training Out of 31 Staff College offerings in 2011-12, 12 are based on technology integration Half of the technology staff colleges utilize a blended model of instruction

Additional Ongoing PD Best practices with using Tablet PC Use of emulator software for graphing calculators Geometry animations in Power Point Smart Response clickers Polleverywhere.com Wordle (Word Clouds) Online textbooks/resources American History Channel interactive software demonstration World language lab Twitter for PD #edchat

On the horizon… Partnered with software publisher, Valve, to have students work with real software authoring tools: Portal 2 Utilize Destiny to allow students to check out ebooks on their own personal devices Move all district workflow and forms to a web based model LoTI Spring Survey Google Docs More distant : Virtual Desktops from tablets & smart phones 2014-15 PARCC Testing using computers in LA, Math, and Science