What have we been doing?

• Increased use of laptop computers in science, math, and social studies
• More assists with using the laptops
• Questions and fix and break problems with the laptops
• Increased use of Gateway PC with large screen for classroom projects
• Assistance using the Gateways for projects
• Technology Fair
  • Three science teachers illustrated a variety of lab activities and other computer based programs
• AGI gifted program and science department at high school trying to work out a program for the fall with the University of DE Marine Studies Dive In Program
• PA. School Librarian’s Association Committee Meeting in Hershey, PA.
  • Presented seminar on Best Books for YA (with Tristate Young Adult Review Committee)
• Continued providing additional training on use of laptops in classroom
• Continued providing additional training with use of LCD projector and laptops
• Provided entire staff at staff meeting with free trial database (a Bigchalk spinoff product)
• Continued to provide assistance using Bigchalk, PowerLibrary, Microsoft products, and Dreamweaver MX
• Maintained school’s website
• Quick break & fix help in classrooms with PC computers, laptops, televisions, and VCRs
• Investigated various online electronic databases for possible purchase
• Provided one-on-one assistance where needed in the classrooms
  

What are our goals for next month?

• Library inventory (big job – takes about 5 days to complete)
• Maintain good level of service
• Continue to provide assistance with all types of technology and products
• Continue to provide one-on-one assistance where needed
  
  What problems do we have?
  
• Sometimes we all feel overwhelmed and overloaded – things have been too hectic
• Set-up printers for mobile laptops

What have we been doing?

Things are just very hectic and busy at the high school as the marking period comes to an end. In the month of March, we have been training additional teachers on using various technology tools, such as the computer mobile labs and LCD projectors. With the increased use of equipment, more people need assistance and different problems arise.

The science department is still struggling with some of the printer issues, and several more staff members are asking for help in using the computers for laboratory activities.

We are starting to see staff members who have never made requests before asking for assistance. This is wonderful, but occasionally a bit stressful. Our general goals at this point are to get more staff members on board and find a smoother way of helping first time students' work with the lab probes and equipment.

It seems as though every department has some sort of project happening. Junior English projects were due this month, while music department students were just beginning. Seniors are under time constraints to finish their graduation projects and many other students are using the computers to complete other assigned projects.

On an average day, the library does not have enough computers to help everyone who needs to work on a project. When the mobile labs are not in the classrooms, the library uses them as overflow. Students greatly appreciate it when we can bring them out into the library for student use.

• The mobile labs - are we ever going to get the printers installed for these units

What have we been doing?

Science Department:

• More projects are being done that are computer based, and the latest project using the digital camera to take photos through the microscope and then incorporate those pictures into a digital lab report on mitosis was extremely successful if quiz and test grades are a reflection of student learning. 
• Mary is still trying to work with her web page and get it on the school server.  There are many issues that will have to be resolved with this as more people attempt to work with this concept.

  Library:

• Many classes are coming in and using the electronic databases for research and personal use.
• Trained faculty and staff on Bigchalk and PowerLibrary via the February staff meeting.
• Helping teachers use the mobile lab carts in classroom.
• Received many book orders and have been processing items and cataloging them.
• Working with individual teachers on Bigchalk and PowerLibrary – installing the databases onto computers in the classrooms.
• Working on web page for school
• Attended a CCIU meeting regarding Access Pennsylvania and how to add, edit, delete, or change cataloging records via a web site. 

  Social Studies Department:

• Sophomore classes have been using the Internet for research on the current relationship between Mexico & the U.S.  They use this information to not only write perspective papers about their topics, but to also ask informed questions of the ESL students at AG to compare life here & in Mexico.  This is our second year & both groups of students really seem to enjoy the cultural exchange.
• AMC classes tried out the Chester County Hall of Heroes website to learn about how young men in our area were impacted by WWII.
• The WWII veterans & historians have done a fabulous job on the biographies linked to the site.

• Our goals for the next month include (not missing any snow days) continuing the growth within the science department and school of computer usage and sharing the inspirations that various teachers are having with new ways to incorporate technology. 

• Our problems continue to be those of time management for everyone and more help with some of the technology issues that arise in emergency situations.  We do find it difficult to leave our classrooms to assist someone else when a problem comes up that needs immediate attention in order for the other classroom teacher to feel comfortable trying something some new.

What did we do this month?

• With the holidays and mid-year exams a lot of activities have been put somewhat on the “back burner”. The biggest things accomplished in science were more people using the laptops for presentations and lab activities and the usual attempt to adjust lab activities to appropriate levels and equipment supplies. This will be a never-ending process.
• The library has hired a second part-time aide to work from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. With this extra help, the library can now open early for students to work in the computer lab and on research projects. The additional help allows for us to help deliver and set-up the mobile lab and other technology requests.
• Charleen worked with many English classes on research projects for their 11th grade projects. Charleen introduced classes to Bigchalk, Power Library, and proper citation methods.
• Charleen also complied a report for Dr. Hudacs on what the future library would look like. This report was needed to present at a population/growth meeting for our district.
• Jenn and Charleen continued to work on the school’s web page. The Social Studies Department is excited that their new projector has arrived & Jenn will provide help to any department member who has problems setting up the system.

What do we have planned for next month?

• The library desperately needs to upload/ install the electronic card catalog on all of the computer lab’s PCs. The library will also try to install Dreamweaver MX on the library computer lab’s PCs.
• Jenn will soon being writing a grant proposal, possibly for an additional projector for the SS department.
• Her sophomore classes will soon start researching the current relationship between Mexico & US. Jenn has begun her Internet search for sites relevant to the topic & will start her classes brainstorming on how they will present their findings to the class. This project also involves the ESL students at the HS, so Jenn will soon meet with the ESL teacher.
• Projects on the horizon for science include working with the digital camera for mitosis PowerPoint lab reports and working with Medaka again to develop some better ways to move photos.
• The other big project and looming will be computerizing our Kingdom Survey Activity. Lots of ideas floating around about how to do that and what we want to accomplish with it. This will be a project for the coming months.

What kind of help do we need?

• Help is needed with looking for a better way for students to access the photos they have taken and keep track of which ones are theirs when we are only using one computer to download the pictures. (Science related)
• Charleen is in the middle of tracking down the Spectrum Catalog disk to load onto the library computer lab’s PCs. Disks and other items were not so organized when Charleen took over being the librarian in April 2002. I may need to borrow another school’s disk.
• Once Jenn’s students decide which technology medium they will use to create/explain their US & Mexico Project, she will know if she needs help! If they want to use I-movie & video, like last year- Jenn will definitely need Joyce’s assistance!
• The Shared B folder is still missing from the network M-Z users? We need help getting that back on the server. Classes and teachers use this folder.

What do we have planned for next month?

• The library desperately needs to upload/ install the electronic card catalog on all of the computer lab’s PCs. The library will also try to install Dreamweaver MX on the library computer lab’s PCs.
• Jenn will soon being writing a grant proposal, possibly for an additional projector for the SS department.
• Her sophomore classes will soon start researching the current relationship between Mexico & US. Jenn has begun her Internet search for sites relevant to the topic & will start her classes brainstorming on how they will present their findings to the class. This project also involves the ESL students at the HS, so Jenn will soon meet with the ESL teacher.
• Projects on the horizon for science include working with the digital camera for mitosis PowerPoint lab reports and working with Medaka again to develop some better ways to move photos.
• The other big project and looming will be computerizing our Kingdom Survey Activity. Lots of ideas floating around about how to do that and what we want to accomplish with it. This will be a project for the coming months.

December at the high school was a bit of a hectic time, between the Holidays and snow days we seemed to be constantly running out of time to do anything. Within the science department our major focus was again on developing and using the lap tops to work with laboratory exercises in biology and chemistry. Two more teachers came on board with this process, so there are now four of us working with the process. More teachers are also taking advantage of the laptops and using them for student presentations and research. The problems with the printers- getting them to work remotely-still inhibit some of the work, but everyone seems to be finding ways around that for the time being. Several major projects, both research and creative will be in the plans for the second semester, especially with genetics and mitosis.

Charleen & Jenn spent a day with Joyce trying to rearrange & set up a new Guidance page. We made good progress, and are now waiting for guidance to make some changes to their notes in order for us to finish the site. Joyce was a fantastic help & we could not have done it without her!

Charleen has been busy down at the library. With the help of Charleen’s aide Pam, we were able to install PowerLibrary, Bigchalk, and Dreamweaver MX on all of the mobile labs (approximately 60 of them). This process took approximately 10 hours of time to complete. Other than this big task, not much else happened due to the amount of snow and holidays.

In regards to the HS website: Charleen & I have been working on up dating the winter sports schedule for the web site. Charleen worked with Joyce to learn how we could successfully transfer a word document into the web site template. Since then, up dating sports schedule has been fine. We talked to guidance and discovered that they would like a whole new look for their page. After understanding their requirements, we realized that we would need help designing their creation! Again, Joyce is coming to our rescue and we will be meeting on Dec 10th to learn how to create the new web page. Charleen and I have limited knowledge with DreamWeaver, but once someone shows us how to accomplish the task we have no problem up dating the site.

Report cards were due this month and thankfully Craig was helpful in guiding the new Integrade Pro teachers at the HS through the process. I believe that the support we have received from tech has encourage the staff members who started using Integrade Pro at the beginning of the year to keep with it.

In Jenn Waite’s classroom this month: my sophomores presented their research on current issues of the Middle East. They did a nice job presenting their PP presentations and I was pleased with their work. The topics generated good discussion on some of the most complex issues of our times: such as the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict. My rubric worked for grading purposes, but I do have some specific changes to make. The PP rubric has made it easier to grade presentations and I feel that I do a better job of staying objective.

In AMC: I looked for information about WWI and found web sites for my students to help them illustrate their timeline project. I brought in the portable labs for two days so they could type up their entries & find pictures. I placed a list of the web sites in their class folder on the network so everyone could access them. Not having a printer hooked up to the computer cart is difficult, but if I plan accordingly and the students follow my directions, I can work around it. They must save to the network in order to easily print from my computer without logging on & off. I showed them how to get to the class folder & wrote down the directions, and still had people save it incorrectly! Oh well!

This past month our team met with Dr. Hudacs and Joyce Perry about the new school license for DreamWeaver MX. As a school we have approximately 750 licenses and we will be installing the software in all of the computer labs, as well as, classrooms. Charleen has started to install DreamWeaver onto the computers in room 301 (Library – Computer Lab).

Jenn and Charleen learned how to fix the locked up computers on the high school mobile labs. We discovered through Craig Miller and another teacher that we can take the battery out of the laptop and this will reset the computer and the student and/or teacher who froze the pc will not need to enter his/her password. This obviously is not the best solution, but it works.
Charleen finally got the administrator password on the high school mobile labs (thanks to Brian!) and will soon be adding the PowerLibrary and Bigchalk Libraries to the desktops.

Charleen has completed 95% of freshman orientation to the library and its resources. The remaining 5% will be done on a one-to-one basis.

We’ve had a few more teachers sign-out the mobile laptops, LCD projectors, and large television with Gateway computer attached than last month. Teachers and students like using these resources. Having the two mobile lab units has been an incredible resource for the high school. Teachers are thrilled to have these additional computers for classroom use.

The English Computer lab has been getting a ton of use – mostly by the English department. The lab is being used for writing as well as research projects. Ann Thomas, English Department Chairperson, is the person who teachers must see to use the room. If the lab is open, other teachers may use the lab.

The Library Computer lab has been getting a lot of use by the “Related Arts Team” among others. The lab has been used for research, PowerPoint projects, and many other things. Charleen recently worked with the Allied Health Class to install a program that they will use in the next few weeks. The program will be uninstalled upon the classes’ completion of the project.

As of November, Charleen has been selected to become a member of the Tri-State Book Review Committee for Young Adults. As a member of this committee, I will read books, write reviews for publications, and submit reviews via FileMaker Pro (another new program to learn!!!!). As a benefit to our district and school, every book that is reviewed our school library gets to keep for its collection. The Tri-State Committee meets every 2 months during the school year. This past month, 38 books were given to me to review (wow!), amounting to a total value of $923.84.

In the science wing, more staff members are using the laptops for both research and for lab activities. Labs on enzymes and diffusion have been done using the probes and software gathering materials. In Mary King’s classes, working with the UD Extreme Odyssey 2002- a deep-sea vent study has been an ongoing project. Students have all used all kinds of technology, from power points to videos to describe cell parts and their functions. Finding new web sites for upcoming units is taking a lot of time especially looking for sites that will assist in a good description of glycolysis and the krebs cycle. Continuing the process of developing more labs or modifying existing ones to utilize our existing probes will be the major focus for the next couple of months. Hopefully more staff will attempt to try some of these labs. One of our major problems is our inability to print information out- for both research and labs, but hopefully this will be solved in the near future.

I found this fantastic site for interactive maps on the Internet: www.yourchildlearns.com/geography.htm . The site allows you to download regional map puzzles for free. I loaded the various regions on my laptop & decided to try out the map on the Middle East with my sophomores. I usually go over the location of the various countries, capitals & landforms by using the overhead, but always wished there was a better way. Instead of using the overhead, I decided to hook up the projector system to my laptop and have the students “solve” the puzzle. They enjoyed the “game” and I liked the fact that I could point at various landforms etc. with the arrow & it was larger & clearer than my handmade overhead. I also think it is useful to “see” how the countries fit together & how they share borders. I only wish they placed landforms on the map- or that I could add them to it.

I have also have been using the portable labs in my classes for research on Current Issues of the Middle East & to help design PP presentations. Saving to the network is fantastic!

Joyce came in to help me make use of the mini cassette that has just been sitting in my desk drawer. Last year she came in and taped my students’ musical performance for their presentation on Latin America. I wanted to place a clip of this into QuickTime so I could show it to my class & give them some ideas for what we could do for our class presentation. She brought the equipment & showed me how to hook up the video camera to the Mac and play the video in iMovie. We chose 2 clips to remove from the track & placed them into my iMovie, adding title pages etc. I am not sure I would be able to do this again on my own, since I am not comfortable with Mac or iMovie but it showed me the potential. I saved the iMovie onto a CD-RW & I can now play it in QuickTime. Thank you, Joyce!!

As for the other two mobile labs held in the library, the English and Social Studies departments are using the labs for all sorts of project. The labs are checked out almost every day and we anticipate that usage will drastically increase as teachers become comfortable with the technology.

The two projectors, also stored in the library, are getting used by various departments who use the mobile labs and by teachers who wish to enhance their presentation to the class using his/her own classroom computer. Teachers are extremely grateful that these projectors are available. As a team, we would like to have carts ordered to help teachers use the projectors with ease, rather than using books and other means to project data to class.

All incoming freshman are expected to undergo an orientation to the library and all of its available electronic databases (mostly PowerLibrary & Bigchalk). Freshman have been pulled from study halls, resource rooms, and soon English classrooms (for those students with no study hall or resource period.)

The library’s computer lab has PowerLibrary and Bigchalk loaded and students have been using these resources for research. The English computer lab (room 505) does not have these databases available at this time. Charleen tried to install the databases, but was unable to do so since those computers are password projected for folders needed on the “C” drive. Another attempt will be made in the near future!