Preparing students and staff members for the 21st Century During the school year the district moved forward with the purchase of multimedia equipment as part of the Dorseyville Challenge . For the pilot project the district equipped seven classrooms. Over the summer the district will set up an additional forty-three classrooms. The interactive classrooms will include Mimio Interactive units, overhead multimedia projectors, speakers in the ceiling, and a multimedia cart with a document camera and DVD player.
One of the hottest items in the country the last two months was Apple's new iPadTM. A pilot team of students, teachers, and administrators reported their findings using a new social networking tool that is part of the FirstClass suite of communication and collaboration tools. The district team will share their findings at the 2010 Three Rivers Educational Technology Conference in November. Here's a sample set of comments from the discussion group:
Matt Harris (administrator): The keyboard dock rocks. I used it with the iPad for a couple of observations. Worked great. I put the student pictures from the picture company cd into the dropbox folder so I can access student pictures anytime. Helpful for meetings where students are being discussed and you can't immediately picture him/her.
Dave Snyder (library/media specialist): Dragon Dictate works amazingly well as a speech recognition program that may be able to be used for students with either the in-ability to type or physical/learning disabilities that make typing difficult.
Joe Eisel (teacher): dropbox app - works really well on the ipad; vnc app - works ok, great tool, but a bit glitchy, some lag; air mouse - works great on the iPod and the iPad; hp iPrint app - works well - you can print any photo 4" x 6". if you want to print a document you need to take a screen shot of it
The high school updated a former computer lab, Room 175. The new project-based space now provides an interactive environment using a new wireless technology from Polyvision, the Eno Board . In addition, the space offers video-conferencing capabilities. On June 15, Perry Dougherty, from Polyvision, will conduct a series of workshops to train high school staff members to use the new interactive tool.
As part of the June in-service days teachers will work on updating and creating new curriculum maps for courses at both the elementary and secondary levels. Season Gigliotti, a DMS teacher, and Jill Tabis, a high school teacher, refined a set of training materials originally designed by Norton Gusky for the June in-service sessions. The training materials guide teachers on the use of the EdInsight Curriculum Mapping tool that the district will use.
 The Fox Chapel Area High School will offer English 9, English 10, Health 9, U.S. History, World Civilization, Algebra I, and Algebra II as part of a Summer School credit recovery program using the Apex Learning system this summer. The courses will be facilitated by Fox Chapel Area High School teachers. Although the majority of the work will be completed online, students taking the virtual classes will also be required to report to the high school for two hours one day per week for assessments and group activities.
Scott Hand will lead a team of eight high school teachers as they begin to develop virtual learning courses. Joining Scott for the initial training will be Kevin Conner from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. For the 2010-2010 school year the Fox Chapel Area High School will offer two virtual learning courses based on existing courses at the high school - Physics and Business Essentials. In addition, the Virtual Learning committee will meet in August to look at several new options for virtual learning proposed by the Allegheny Intermediate Unit as part of their new Waterfront Learning initiative.
At Kerr students completed their end of year podcast .
Safety Nets
Special education staff members will receive training on the new IEPWriter system beginning in the second week in June.
Improving Communications
The district used SurveyMonkey an online survey tool to gather input on Grading. Over 900 parents and over 240 teachers shared their input.
The district has been investigating options for the upgrade of the voice and video networks. The district submitted a Request for Information (RFI) that will provide a picture of the options and cost for an upgrade to the voice system. Linda Fischer, a consultant with the McKinley Group, developed the RFI. For the video system RPC Video has been working on an engineering study that will become the basis for a Request for Proposal (RFP). The district plans to start work on the initial phase of the video upgrade this summer in conjunction with the Dorseyville Challenge upgrade of classroom technology.
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