1. Neil Manders, Technology Coordinator Windham Central Supervisory Union FINALLY, A First Class, A-1 Solution  A tour of how a project called the Virtual School Network has helped bring technology off the shelf and move it forward in the district.

2. Quick Overview of District April, 2004  The district: – 10 schools: 2 admin offices; Covering 365 sq. Miles – Most schools single grade or grade clusters – Student population approx 1100 – Teaching, support staff and admin approx 225  The technology:

3. NES BES TES JES WIN ES Ward ES DES MES WCSU LGUHS Verizon’s Frame Cloud Sover Net ISP WCSU Technology High school centric Modem Bank Pop Mail accounts Apache Server

4. The Technology (Continued)  Lack of technology staff to provide local assistance and motivation  No centralization all under local control  Varied use of technology from school to school  A few individual initiatives but no broad initiatives

5. What Were the Issues  Tech-lethargy – No district-wide initiatives – Lack of local support – Other interests on plates – Technology thought of as add-on  Need for collaboration across the district (teachers, administrators & students)  Very limited Dollars for Technology – Small schools; small dollars

6. Newfane Brookline Townshend Windham Wardsboro Dover Marlboro Central Office LGUHS Sover Net ISP Jamaica Harmonyville office Verizon Frame Cloud Duncan Cable SDSL So. Vt. Cable The Match that Ignited Change

7. More Matches  NCLB awareness and requirements  Technology GLEs  Reduction of District Technology Position  Desire to get more out of the districts investment in FirstClass – SVTC First Class Project – Admin Use of First Class out of the box  The Superintendent  Is that all there is?

8. Dennis-Yarmouth District Cape Cod, Mass. Yarmouth School District Yarmouth Maine The Two Yarmouths

10. What Did We Want  Increase the use of technology in the schools  Keep system costs ALAP (as low as possible)  Use the limited tech coordinator time to supporting teaching and learning not infrastructure  Get/nudge/pressure local involvement  Maintain some school identity but create district unity  Small learning curve in order to get up and running  Flexible system to grow with use and need  Cross Platform use  New and useable web sites for all schools – Easy publishing of school information – Non-techie management and content loading – Lots of people able to contribute directly – all sites reach out and include their respective communities – All teachers to have easy web publishing for their classes

11. What Did We Get  Professional accounts for all teachers and staff  Heightened awareness and participation by school personnel  Workshops, discussions, and trainings at all schools  School board attention, training and involvement  AND

12. Customized User Desktops Intranet/In-house communications

13. Internet/ Web Communications School Web Pages

14. Brookline elementary

15. Dover Elementary

16. Jamaica elementary

17. Marlboro elementary

18. Wardsboro elementary

19. Newfane elementary

20. Windham elementary

21. Leland and Gray HS

22. Lets take a First Hand Look

23. What next  Increase participants involved with sites  Build up all school sites with CONTENT  Work with teachers  Create new templates  Expand use of forms, form tracking and paper reduction  Create on-line learning environments for PD and student use  Integrate local SIS actively into the system

24. Cost  Design and Set up fee  Hosting fee – Example (a): 1 district + 1 HS + 7 elem Design/setup = $9300 Hosting = $5000 Year one = $14,300 Year two + = $5000 – Example (b): 1 elem. school with VSN Lite (web site only) Design/setup = $400 Hosting = $400 Year one = $ 800; Yr. 2 = $400