Attendance: Mary Teresa Maule Alft, Leigh Anne Moran, Pat McKeon, Charleen Forba-Mayer, Mary King, Jenn Waite, Leanne Hubbartt, Olivia Spencer, Craig Miller, Joyce Perry, Pat Sine

1. Started by addressing the question of how to get more tech support to the schools as prompted by the discussion at the October meeting
   • Olivia responded that the Strategic Planning committee is now addressing the need for additional tech support. This will be written into the Action Plan so that funding will be directed to the problem.
     
     Olivia reported that the community members on the committee urged that the request not be specific in terms of people, etc. However, they did stress that there was a need to justify any requests.
     
     Craig reported that a plan is already in motion to develop a database of hardware and help calls. This will provide a running documentation of how tech support time is currently used and how long requests go unfulfilled.
     
     Olivia reported that simply increasing the tech aide positions to full time might not be the answer. This might require new contract negotiations and could impinge on other initiatives of the district. If this is not done, another solution might be to supplement the systemwide help support.
     
     In order to get this initiated, Olivia urged that any group with an interest should push for this in whatever forum they participate in. Right now, the best avenue for this is through the technology subcommittee of the Strategic Planning committee. The next meeting of this group will be held on December 3. Olivia suggested that a group of 3 ITLTs come to the meeting. Leanne, Pat and ??? agreed to represent the group. The following outline was the result of a brainstorming session.
     
     

     Suggested outline 1. Why tech support in a school is different from tech support in business a. Limited time with students b. Usually can’t reschedule c. Plan B is available but less effective – not cost efficient 2. Why should specialists be used? a. If you are fixing a computer, you are not using your highly trained, very expensive skills for the most effective purpose b. Student time is finite and inflexible 3. What does a help call look like? a. Graphic from Craig re Wanda’s time Tyranny of the Urgent Squeaky wheel Not good uses of resources – computers, staff, student time

     
     Additional topics included:
     • Aging technology costs more to support (note: one of the key findings of the Gartner TCO report)
     • Who should tech aides report to in order to use their time most effectively and to support them best?
       
       
2. Craig will be getting numbers together to support some of this discussion. He'll check with Jerry for what has been collected districtwide. In addition the following agreed to get whatever data is available to Craig by Thurs, 11/21.
• PLE -- Leigh Anna
• AGIS -- Pat
• FEMS -- Leanne
• HS -- Charleen
  
3. Joyce presented data from the enGauge survey. While the data looked pretty good for the district, there are several additional steps that should be followed to build on this. At this point, data has been distributed to each of the buildings. The building personnel can then discuss the findings and illustrate each data point with more detail. This then serves as a discussion focus for ongoing technology planning.
   
   For continuation of the discussion among the ITLTs, Joyce will be circulating questions on the listserv.

NEXT MEETINGS:

• January meeting -- to be announced