May 18, 2022

Welcome Back!

As you can see we have been offline since the pandemic began. We have begun meeting again late this year. I am happy to announce that we have added a few new members. Please welcome Emma Jarvis, Jenna Pratt, Tyler Jones and Todd Porter. Like all Advocates, they are imaginative, creative, tech savy and interested in promoting the Advocate's mission and vision. At the beginning of this year I (Georgie) stepped into an Emeritus role but remain committed to our purpose. We are currently in the process of updating POLARIS (Schoology) professional developent courses and hope to revisit a possible student digital academy.

The Advocates met for the 2nd time this month, February 19th, 2020. This was a special meeting setup to allow our Schoology Instructional Leaders an opportunity to become familiar with our POLARIS Lesson Center. Following a short presentation the Instructional Leaders were assisted by the Advocates to add their own SAMR lessons. The Advocates continued to add content to the course as well. The POLARIS Lesson Center is designed to allow teachers the opportunity to review lessons created by our own teachers that incorporates technology in a way that enhances the basic lesson. Principals have shared the course join code with staff and I am happy to say we have nearly 200 staff already participating. It is our intent that the course continues to grow and provided valuable content and information as teachers begin to embrace the PBL model.

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In other news, Keith O and Kyle B shared with the group that they would be the first to pilot the new Tech Helpdesk. The functionality of the new helpdesk should provide staff with an improved tech support experience. Janet T continues to gather quotes for the new 2 in 1 devices which we hope to rollout to staff next fall as a part of the new POLARIS Teacher Suite. (Bulb-less projector, Airtame and 2 in 1 device).

Janet and Dave H also shared their findings from the February Tech conference they recently attended in Columbus.

The November Advocate meeting was held on 11/6/2019 from 8AM-11:30AM.

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We began the day discussing our new pilot of the Chrome Extension from TextHelp called Read and Write. As you recall from our last meeting this extension allows all students and staff the ability to have any text (pdf, webpage, Google Doc etc.) read to them. Special thanks go out to Aleksa P for the background research into the platform and getting the 60 day pilot setup not just for our specified pilot teachers but for the entire staff.  Recall, the purpose of the pilot is to establish not only the platform’s capabilities, ease of use and educational value but also to see if it can be embedded into every teacher’s daily classroom use. To that end Monica M, Becky G and Kathy B will be meeting with principals in an effort to encourage all teachers to use the platform during the pilot. This is an Advocate initiative that has the potential to be another GAME CHANGER in the district.  The vision of the Advocates is Jackson Local Schools will be a technologically transformed educational community that personalizes learning and empowers all to achieve. Read & Write certainly fits our vision.

Our next topic was the progress Janet T and her team have made on the Teacher’s Polarbear Suite (Projector, AirTame2 and 2&1 device). 2&1’s are in and the hope is that by January we will have all the district pilot classrooms up and running.  GAME CHANGER!

Janet T provided the Advocates with an update on our print campaign through October. What a success! It was noted that across the district we have reduced color printing by 45%. That’s right 45%! Greyscale numbers are down as well but with color costing 12x that of greyscale we are winning all around. Our campaign strategy continues to utilize the “soft sell” and the idea that it is just the right thing to do. Staff are obviously embracing the approach and delivering big time. Kristina B prepared our 2MP Encouragement Flyer that will go out to all staff in the next day or two.  She is awesome!

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The Advocates spent the remainder of the time discussing our new Lesson Makeover project.  Last month we kicked the idea around and have now decided to move forward. I love that the Advocates can discuss issues so effectively. With so much valuable input from everyone we can quickly reach consensus. The project will invite the staff to apply for a complete lesson makeover by the Advocates and delivered directly to their POLARIS course. The purpose of all this is to encourage and show teachers how they can SAMR their lessons and bring instruction to a whole new level. GAME CHANGER! We continue to work out the details but are excited about what we will be able to accomplish.  Thanks to all the Advocates for their special talents and skills. When we “combine powers” synergy abounds.

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Finally, we were happy to get some great Chromebook news that they will be extending the support for many of our models which means we will save significant dollars by delaying the replacement cycle.

The Advocates met for the final time this year on Friday, May 3rd. As is tradition, we enjoyed breakfast and fellowship together. In honor of our scheduled June 20th Schoology trip to Delaware, Ohio (Birthplace of Rutherford B Hayes) we learned lots about the 1876 Centennial in Philadelphia and the incredible Presidential Election of 1876.

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We also discussed and finalized plans for our June 3rd Schoology training for power users. We finalized a survey for the teachers which they have since completed. The results of the survey have been shared with Lori Collier, our trainer, so she can customize the topics to be covered that day.

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We discussed the pilot of our proposed new teacher classroom upgrade which includes AirTame2 (wireless projection) a bulb free projector and a mobile 2 in 1 teacher device.  The HS pilot has been up and running and has been reported to be working well. Janet T has ordered additional setups for the other buildings which will continue the pilot in the fall.

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The Go Guardian pilot was a smashing success with every teacher reporting its benefits and ease of use. The Advocates under the leadership of Janet T, Alexa P and Keith O knocked this one out of the park.

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We briefly touched on Remind as the paperwork is being finalized for purchase and rollout next fall.

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Our paper reduction campaign will be announced at convocation next year. Kristina B has chosen an email newsletter product that will allow the Advocates to inform the staff about best practices in conserving paper and prints as well as to keep them updated on the district’s progress to its goal. Janet T will enhance a draft paper/cost avoidance tool that I suggested to be used to track our progress.

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Finally, we had a chance to kick back and enjoy ourselves by working through an online quiz that helps to identify your Spirit Animal.  Of course, I am the CROW. The crow is a spirit animal associated with life mysteries and magic.  The crow supports you in developing your power of sight, transformation, and connection with life’s magic.

What another great year. Thank you to the Advocates for their tireless work and never ending dedication to our vision.

The Advocates met on Tuesday February 12th, 2019. The Advocates missed the December and January meetings due to a scheduling conflict and a snow day. We had lots to discuss.

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Janet T started the day off as she was headed out to the Ohio Tech Conference in Columbus later that morning. The biggest news of the day was that for all intents and purposes the 1:1 rollout across the district has been completed. We now have more than 10,000 devices in the district. The vision of the Advocates has become a reality thanks to the hard work of the Technology Department.

So now what? Janet T shared the most updated Chromebook replacement schedule with the Advocates. Some tweaks were necessary as supported Google updates have been announced. It is imperative that we keep these devices as current as possible if we are to continue using them for testing purposes.

Janet T also shared a great deal of data as it relates to paper usage. One of the benefits of a 1:1 program we anticipated from the beginning was a reduction in paper usage and printing costs. We are beginning to see that and believe that next fall is the perfect time to begin a paper reduction campaign. The Advocates began in the afternoon to design such a campaign. We will continue that design next month.

The Advocates are also interested in attending the 2019 NEXT Schoology Conference in Boca Raton, FL in July. Any Advocates interested in possibly attending should visit the link Kristina B shared with you in Google. Kristina gathered as much relevant information as possible and we will review that information and determine if this is a possibility and for how many. With two years of POLARIS under our belt we think this is an ideal time to experience the conference, learn the latest and return to enhance the experience our teachers have with the platform.

Finally, we are planning an Advanced POLARIS training this June for some of our power users. Lori Collier from Schoology has agreed to customize the curriculum for that training. The Advocates brainstormed some candidates and will reach out to determine interest level as well as to gather their current strengths and weaknesses in an effort to guide Lori in her preparations. The intent is to have building level support for teachers and to help them utilize the platform features to their fullest and to take another step forward in blended learning.

The completion of the 1:1 rollout is a significant milestone for the Advocates and more importantly for the staff and students of the district. We understand that this is just one step and we have much more to do but it is always good to celebrate progress.

The Advocates met for the first time this year on Tuesday September 4th in the administrative offices.

We took some time to “catch up” and enjoyed some good fellowship. Advocates reported out on their summer adventures and shared stories of their trips.

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We started the day by reviewing two of our major district initiatives, Alertus and Sandy Hook Promise. Details were shared about each so that the Advocates could fully understand and prepare to support each.

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We also took time to get updates on the Phase 2 rollout of Chromebooks. Special thanks to Janet T and her team in again making the rollout as easy as possible. We also had an update from Keith O on the rollout of LanSchool. It is anticipated that that system will be functional in the next couple weeks giving teachers a tool to monitor and control every student’s Chromebook within the classroom.

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We also had a discussion about the use of the POLARIS gradebook versus the SunGard gradebook. A pilot will be conducted in grade 8 and 9 to determine the best way to proceed.

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We spent the afternoon discussing our task of publishing the K-12 district Digital Citizenship curriculum to the website as well as developing resources for parents. We have turned on the webpage we started last spring containing many lessons in the following silos: Internet Safety (Online privacy and security) Digital Footprint (Traceable digital activities) Information Literacy (Information gathering skills) and Relationships and Communication (Personal interactions online). To each of these lessons we will be adding a parent tip sheet as well. We are also are preparing parent-child discussion starter questions for the building principals to include in their newsletters. We will also provide a link to additional recourses concerning the question topic.

Finally we also determined that it would be best to have a website presence for each of the student advisories, Teams, Connections and Friends.

As always this promises to be a busy year but the Advocates are confident they can and will meet all of the challenges.

The Advocates met on February 12, 2018 after missing last month's meeting due to a snow day.

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Adventure1- New Website:
The Advocates and ATeam were quite pleased with the quality of the transition from the old site. Dave
H walked the Advocates through their own sites and demonstrated the ease with which editing was
possible. This prompted a discussion about how POLARIS, POLARIS Parent Access, teacher websites and
Sungard Home Access will all interact in the future. The Advocates believe that as more parents gain
POLARIS parent access the less need their will be to access teacher sites for daily assignments, notes,
practice assessments etc. as all course content will be visible in POLARIS. It was discussed that teacher
websites might better be used to house biography information and content/resource material that
former students could access after they are no longer enrolled in that specific class.

Adventure2-Google Certification:
Given the blah weather days of January-March the Advocates believe it is a good time to renew the
staff’s interest in earning Google Certification. The Advocates will begin a marketing campaign and
grassroots effort to increase the number of Google Certified staff. As some staff Google credentials are
soon to expire the Advocates have decided to provide vouchers for those who wish to recertify. For
those who do not wish to recertify we will provide an alternate Bearworks badge for use on their email
signature page. Kristina B and Aleksa P are planning in June to hold a 1-2 day intensive Google
certification session for those identified classified staff in an effort to better meet their needs for
accessible training opportunities.

Adventure3-POLARIS Course Catalog:
It was my thought that now might be the time to further build out the existing course catalog. By
working with our power users and instructional designers working in concert with our content expert
Advocates additional coursework could be created quickly. Following conversations with Monica M and
the other Advocates it was determined that we are on a good path and additional build out is not
necessary at this time. Instead, the Advocates are working on an LPDC option that would allow teachers
to design and enhance their own POLARIS coursework while earning local LPDC renewal credits.

Adventure4-Google Additional Services:
As a Google for Education district we already provide our students with the core service package
including such things as email, google docs, drive etc. Google also offers a wide variety of additional
services that we may elect to turn on. These additional services include apps like Google Earth, Blogger
and YouTube. It is recommended that before providing access to these services that districts have the
parents sign a form providing permission for their child to work with these apps. Keith O, Janet T,
Monica M and Becky G have taken on this task and will be prepared for a fall rollout.

Adventure 5- Social Media Awareness:
The interactions between social media, mobile devices, teens, tweens, parents and communities has led
to major national discussions about appropriateness, responsibility and adolescent mental health. In an
effort to provide the Advocates with information about specific social media apps and their use or
misuse I provided access to Josh Ochs’ site Smart Social Media at https://smartsocial.com/ Advocates,
many who have children themselves, found the learning opportunity “eye opening”. The Advocates will
continue to increase their knowledge base in this area and will begin to formulate plans for sharing the
information with staff, students and parents.

Wrap Up:
Janet T shared with the Advocates that the devices for next fall’s rollout are here in the district. The
cases are here as well. The tech staff will begin making the necessary preparations for next fall and will
follow the same roll out procedures used this year as all agreed the roll out was quite efficient and well
received by the building principals.

Monica M and Becky G continue to customize training opportunities for Phase 2 as well as to provide
collaboration time for Phase 1.

The Advocates met again on Oct 2, 2017 in the central office conference room. We gave JR Reindel an early Oct 14th birthday wish, cheered for the Tribe and booed the Browns. 

We again had a round table (at a rectangular conference table) discussion about the current status of all things related to the roll-out. Since our last meeting it was discovered that Google had released a Chrome OS update with a bug that caused the student Chromebooks to begin a never ending reboot cycle when turned on. This required the tech team to physically touch many, many machines across the district in an effort to remove the updated OS and reinstall back to the stable OS. The tech team's response was SWIFT and efficient thanks to Janet T's leadership. Special thanks to Keith O who worked out the solution and continues to work directly with Google to resolve any remaining issues. 

As a result of what we are now calling the "Google Incident" the media specialists reported that they have been challenged to support the students during this correction period but are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't thank Andrew R, Christina C and Elizabeth H enough for their tireless effort in keeping this train rolling. In every way they are the conductors who on-board and disembark passengers as well as make sure everything is running on schedule. They also had questions concerning the management of students forgetting to charge their devices and repeatedly asking for a loaner. Luckily, we have Advocate principals like Dave W and JR Reindel who they could partner with to arrive at appropriate protocols. 

Monica M and Becky G reported survey results as part of our first fifty day plan to better assist them in planning Phase 1 follow-up training as well as Phase 2 initial training. By the end of our day they and the other Advocates had a rock solid training plan for this Friday and beyond. Outstanding!

Janet T reported that they have broken devices starting to come in. They are also working with principals to develop a protocol for notifying parents, determining if the unit was accidentally broken or vandalized and issuing fines where necessary. 

Choo Choo The train keeps on rolling!

The Advocates met again on 4/26/2017 in the administrative offices from 8AM-3PM. It was another productive meeting, as always. The Advocates learned that more than 200 teachers have joined my Introduction to POLARIS course and enrollments in the other pathway courses remains very strong. Momentum is high, teachers are excited and well as they say in Legoland..."Everything is Awesome". 

The Advocates watched a short video on how to change the motherboard on a Lenovo N22 in just 12 minutes. Janet and her team have decided it is best to proceed with in house repairs as a part of our POLARIS Protection Plan (PPP). Janet has done a wonderful job working through a wide variety of PPP solutions and has come up with what we think is an outstanding option through Trinity3. The coverage includes a four year warranty on hardware, accidental damage, theft/loss, etc. on an unlimited basis for under $15.00 per year. Outstanding work!

The Advocates also participated in an online demo from Blackboard which has announced that by December of 2017 they will discontinue their SchoolWorld product, which is our district website platform. The Advocates discussed our options and have decided to migrate our current site over this summer to Blackboard's new product, Web Community Manager. The transition will be difficult and time consuming taking 8-10 weeks to complete. Not to worry though as Advocates Dave H, Andrew R, Aleksa P, Keith O, Lori M and myself have all formed what we are calling the A-Team. "I pity the fool who says we can't do it!"

The Advocates split up in the afternoon and some continued work on our 50 day plan for next fall and others worked on a content marketing strategy. All reported good progress.

Finally, some of the Advocates and several staff members (20 in all) will be trained on Friday 4/28 by Schoology's trainer, Lori Collier, as Instructional Designers. These individuals will develop the district course template or shell as well as serve as a support for teachers as they begin to develop their own courses. 

Sadly, we learned that Sarah Hamilton will be leaving the district at the close of the year. We are all very excited for her and her family as they move on with their lives in another state. Sarah, on behalf of the Advocates we wish you all the best the world can give and thank you for all your help during your stay with us. 

The pace has been fast and furious as the Advocates prepare to make a big announcement to all teachers on Feb 17th.

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So many preparations. Most of the day was spent preparing for the presentation. Details were finalized, plans made, speaking points developed and documentation reviewed. Certainly, with so many moving parts this is a task that could only be completed by many people. People with expertise in various areas and a desire to make change happen.  We call those people Advocates!

Two Advocates (Monica and JR) will also be making a board of education presentation on Feb 21st. 

The state of each sub task was evaluated and the Advocates feel they are quite well on their way to completion. Knowing the importance of this announcement the Advocates have decided to move their Feb 25th meeting up to Feb 9th for one final dress rehearsal before the big announcement.

Another very productive meeting down. The Advocates have installed the Schoology platform (POLARIS), assigned administrative roles to members and Dave Huthmacher has taken the lead as our District POLARIS administrator. 

Our conversion of our pilots from the original SPARCC sandbox is nearly complete and for the most part seems to have gone pretty well. With this behind us we should have no further account issues.

We took two conference calls from Schoology. The first at 10AM was with Lori Collier (former SPARCC employee and friend) concerning our purchased professional development time. We have set an in person meeting with Lori (she lives in our district with children attending our schools) at our next Advocate meeting on Dec 8 where she will run the Advocates through the details of course development. For this meeting we also decided to invite the elementary coaches and Linda Sutherland believing once trained they represent good first line support in the buildings.

The second call we took was with Gretchen Schell, our implementation specialist, where we all learned the admin side of the platform. While Dave is the primary admin we thought it was good for everyone to get a peek at the backend.  That didn't come out the way I intended! Ha Ha.

Janet Thompson surprised everyone by announcing that our eRate funds have been approved and we will be starting on the district wifi wiring project ASAP. The tech team's goal, with outside vendor support, is scheduled to complete the wiring project across the district by late August/early September. This is a critical step to implementing any 1:1 in the fall.

Despite not even being fully trained the Advocates have already begun to produce POLARIS courses. Advocates are awesome! The complete catalog of courses is on pace for completion in January but to be sure we added a work session on January 6th. Dave Waltman is putting together the hard copy/online course catalog for teachers once we are ready to roll. 

Videos have been produced showing our pilots at work and we hope to share that with staff in the next month. We continue at each building to market Google Certification and now POLARIS certification.

A year ago this time we had just finalized our mission and vision statements. We have come along way since then and are very proud that while making significant strides we continue to do things the right way. I could not be anymore honored to work with such fine individuals as together we commit to forever changing the way JLSD teaches and learns. 

The Advocates met for the last time this year, on May 11th, 2016. The progress they have made in just one year is amazing. Some highlights include, developing a mission and vision statement, reviewing, evaluating and piloting several learning management systems, creating an Advocate website, visiting and learning from various 1:1 districts, inviting and learning from Google Classroom users, branding of our digital academy as Polaris, including PBL and the work of Don Proffit into Polaris, developing a plan to allow all staff to become Google certified,submitting an application for a Straight A grant and the development of a Gantt chart to guide our efforts over the next couple years.

Specifically our work in meeting 8 included a review of our Straight A grant application and timeline, the development of all materials and procedures for the Google Certification project, the development of a New Teacher course in Schoology, the initial planning to deliver What's New in Technology this fall via a blended learning format, planning and preparations for the rollout out of Acellus at the HS and for a select group of subject accelerated credit flex students, an update on the 5th grade Sauder pilot for next year and the creation of draft parent information for our MS science pilot.

We are not there yet but we know where we are going and we will reach our goals. 

A special thanks to all the Advocates...they are collectively leading one of the most influential changes to JLSD teaching and learning in the past 30 years. 

Wishing you all a wonderful summer.

We had a busy agenda for today's meeting, the fifth since our creation. We started the day with with my traditional PowerPoint presentation summarizing our progress to date and setting expectations for the future.

Janet Thompson demonstrated how obsolete laptops can be converted into Chromebooks. While interesting, at $59 apiece not a particularly viable option for our district. 

We ran into a bit of an issue concerning our decision to go with WIX.com as our Advocate website but are working through it and hope to have our site up soon. We are very anxious to share with our staff all the exciting plans we have for the future. 

Our first guest speaker was Jenni Miller from the MS who demonstrated her use of Google Classroom in a blended learning environment. This is our second Google Classroom presentation and the group continues to develop the pros and cons of this pseudo-LMS. 

The group then welcomed Nordonia Hills City Schools representatives Angela Wojtecki, Library Media Specialist, Kyle Livengood, Technology Director and Todd Stuart, Curriculum Director who shared their 1:1 initiative experience. We had a great conversation and asked lots of good questions. We are planning to invite other 1:1 schools to our meetings and will be making our own site visitations to a few other districts.

Following lunch we had a fun team building experience and a good whole group conversation concerning, our POLARIS logo, Lyndsay Dimengo's 3 week CANVAS pilot, the decision to pilot Schoology in a few district classrooms and the possibility of running a small full year pilot of 1:1 in the fall. 

The group also got to experience some virtual reality as we shared three Google Cardboard devices and various VR apps. We all had fun watching others experience the new technology.

Our next meeting will be March 31st. 

The second meeting of the Tech Advocate Committee was held yesterday in the administrative offices from 8AM-3PM. All were in attendance. The five major projects occupying the committee's work at this time are as follows:

Project 1: Creation of a mission and vision statement

Project 2: Development of a Tech Advocate website

Project 3: Selection of a Tech Advisory Committee

Project 4: Selection of a district-wide LMS

Project 5: The creation of a curriculum/course of study for the proposed digital academy

Significant progress was made on Projects 1,3 and 5. Vision and mission statements were presented to the whole group and the group was instructed in the use of a decision matrix. The committee feels deeply that we must have strong consensus concerning our mission and vision. While our first attempt to reach that consensus fell a bit short, like all good students we made it a point to learn from the experience and have re-dedicated our efforts to find just the right mission and vision statements. Work will continue during the time between meetings with the hope of having our mission and vision by our next meeting in November. Committee members were asked to submit 3-5 names of those individuals they would recommend for the Tech Advisory Committee. This is an oversight committee composed of a core of advocates and other stakeholders who can monitor the advocate committee work, assure the advocates stay true to their mission and provide suggestions and support as needed.The names will be compiled and a multi-voting tool used to determine final membership.The curriculum for the digital academy (it is our hope to brand this term to better reflect JLSD) is coming along nicely. Thanks to the efforts of several advocates and their work with Don Profit it is our intention to develop a blended learning unit in the digital academy that will provide teachers with all the knowledge and support they need to engage students in Problem Based Learning (PBL).

The Advocates met last night (11/19/2020) in the HS Media Center from 3:15pm-4:15pm. This has been our first meeting since last April…darn pandemic. In attendance were Christina Conti, Matt Polen, Kathy Brand, Lyndsay Dimengo , Janet Thompson, Monica Myers, Dave Waltman, Becky Gribble, JR Reindel, Bridget Williams and Lori Morton.  We also welcomed our newest Advocate, District Communications Director, Todd Porter.

The Advocates reviewed teacher guidelines for the upcoming few weeks of mandatory eLearning voted on by the board of education last Tuesday. We had a short discussion before agreeing they should be approved and shared with staff in the coming days. You can see a copy of the final document in our Google Tech Advocate folder. Our original essential agreements on eLearning and Video Conferencing were also reviewed and are still applicable during this eLearning period.

Janet Thompson reported out on the tech department’s plan to tear down the K-2 laptop carts in an effort to reissue those devices to students needing them at home. Janet also indicated that she has been working to secure some needed power cords, kajeets and cases and feels confident we are prepared to transition. She also mentioned that we were also able to secure additional Google Enterprise licenses for some support staff that needed them.

In other news, I wanted to share that Monica, Becky and I have been working with Hanover Research to learn more about what common characteristics do students and teachers who are highly successful with eLearning share. We will keep you updated as the research rolls in.

The Advocates met on Thursday, February 7th from 8AM-11:30AM at the Central Office.  We began the day with a discussion about our planned rollout of the Teacher Polarbear Suite (Projector, AirTame2 and 2 in 1 devices). The total cost of the implementation will be spread across two budget cycles. The decision was made to begin the implementation by getting the 2 in 1 devices into the teachers’ hands first. We hope to deliver these devices in the Fall of 2020. The projector implementation is varied based upon the building.  Some buildings will need additional network drops and whiteboard/screen locations altered. Installation will begin first in those buildings/locations that are best prepared for immediate installation.

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In other news, the Advocates are proud to announce that the print reduction campaign is a resounding success.  It is apparent that the entire staff has adopted the change and has made it part of their culture. Our latest numbers show as a district we are down 51% on color and 16% in grayscale.

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We concluded the day by working on our newest course, The POLARIS Learning Center. This course is designed to help teachers improve their own lessons using the SAMR model. The SAMR model encourages teachers to include technology in their lessons in an effort to Substitute for non-tech activities, to Augment the lesson, to Modify the lesson or even Redefine the lesson in some way not possible without the technology.  The course will allow teachers to learn more about the SAMR model, to explore SAMR technologies and most importantly to use/review exemplar lessons/units uploaded by our very own staff. Teacher tested and student approved.

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Finally, our Read & Write pilot concluded successfully in December and the Advocates are proud to say that implementation is complete across the district and professional development continues.

The Advocates met yesterday October 9th, 2019 for the 2nd time this year. We were pleased to have Cassie Spangler join us as a stand in for Kathy Brand who had other responsibilities to tend to.

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We began the day discussing the Chrome Extension from TextHelp called Read and Write.  What a wonderful product. This extension allows all students and staff the ability to have any text (pdf, webpage, Google Doc etc.) read to them. The premium version ($1.75/student) also provides a list of valuable features too numerous to list.

 Special thanks to Aleksa P for the background research into the platform. Monica M, Becky G and Kathy B all got the ball rolling on this project and we thank them for their continued forward thinking approach to serving the needs of ALL of our students.  The Advocates wholly endorse this platform and have in typical fashion asked that a pilot be begun as soon as possible. Janet T, Aleksa P and Monica M will all work together to provide a 45-60 day free trial for the entire district. Specific teachers will be selected for the purpose of reporting back their experiences with the platform.

Janet T reported out on our Teacher Polarbear Suite (Projector, AirTame2  and 2 in1 device) pilots. Overwhelmingly, teachers have reported a good experience. We are learning from the pilot, as we always do, and continue to make adjustments to ensure a smooth rollout in the future.

Janet T was busy this day and also shared out our first data update on the print campaign. Our approach has been a soft one with encouragement to staff to conserve because it is just the right thing to do for our district and the environment. Janet’s graphs provide an easy to read and understand visual that allows us to track our success or failure. Janet T is awesome.  I am happy to report that through September our color copies are down everywhere in the district! We will be working with Kristina B to prep our next deliverable to staff in the next couple weeks for release in early November.

Keith O was the teacher’s MVP of last month with the successful rollout of Teacher GoGuardian. Many teachers have reached out to let the Advocates know how much they LOVE this new Chromebook browser monitoring tool.  Dave H even remarked that his media center visitations and requests for access to the Makerspace have doubled now that student browsing is being monitored for off task viewing. That means more reading and an uptick in student creativity. Pretty cool!

Finally, Georgie spent some time discussing the SAMR model for improving lesson design with the use of technology. The SAMR model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition) is an outline of how lessons can be redesigned to take original paper pencil lessons to a whole new level with the addition of specific technology and resources. Georgie also discussed the concept of teaching with Primary Sources. A lesson from the Library of Congress was demonstrated.  This lesson was meant to teach the concept of the Scientific Method using the original laboratory notebook from Alexander Graham Bell. How neat is that!

While moving from Substitution and Augmentation to Modification and Redefinition is no small task it is the future. Like teaching from Primary Sources both of these approaches challenge the status quo of textbook use, regimented lesson pacing, the value of state testing, classroom schedules and everything else that remains from the early models of education from the Industrial Revolution. The Advocates vision of “Jackson Local Schools will be a technologically transformed educational community that personalizes learning and empowers all to achieve.”  still stands strong and we vow to break down barriers and to continue to push the boundaries. That’s what Advocates do!

The Advocates met yesterday April 11th, 2019. Due to testing and a network emergency attendance was down but as Advocates do we pressed onward. The presentation mixed in some slides from our April meeting three years prior. We called them the “blast from the past” slides. It is always good when you are on a journey to reflect on where you have been so you can better determine where you are going.

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We congratulated Kristina B, our very first Google Cert, on renewing and earning her Level 2 Google Certification as well.  She is amazing.

We discussed our decision to move to Remind, a text based communication platform, for next school year as an enterprise solution. With more than 300 teachers sending 2.5 million messages through the free version it was time to put everything under one umbrella. By working with SPARCC we were able to secure attractive consortium pricing. The advantages of moving to the enterprise version are increased message length to 600 characters, integrations with our LMS and Google, archiving, voice calling, organization-wide messaging and rostering with our student information system.

We will begin piloting yet this year several new options we would like to see throughout the district. We are bringing to the teachers and classrooms bulb free projectors, AirTame2 wireless projection and 2in1 teacher laptop/tablets. These items will provide teachers with the ability to become much more mobile within the classroom and improve their ability to engage student’s in a blended learning environment.

We will also be testing Go Guardian, a screen management program that will allow teacher’s full access to student Chromebook displays.

Some of the Advocates registered for a ConnectOH conference in Delaware, OH on June 20th. We were unable to attend the Schoology Next conference in Boca Raton, FL this year but this is a good alternative. We plan a trip to the Rutherford B Hayes Memorial as well.

We also discussed our plans to roll-out a print/paper conservation program.  We finalized the calculation method to measure reduction and plan to follow up convocation next fall with regular Advocate newsletters as support for the initiative.

Finally, we are finishing up our preparations for the June 3rd training for our future building level POLARIS support folks.

The group met yesterday, Nov 1st, in the main conference room at the administrative offices.

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We took some time to reflect. We reviewed our Feb 2015 Roadmap document to see how well we have progressed since our beginning. We certainly have met nearly all of our intended goals. It has been an honor and a joy to work together to accomplish what we have to this point.  As Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs, says, “I’m looking forward to the future, and feeling grateful for the past.” (Please note that we can’t always get quotes from historical and significant figures and must turn occasionally to television spokespeople and celebrities.) We discussed our next steps as focusing on moving teachers up the SAMR ladder. SAMR is an acronym for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition.  In the Substitution phase technology is used by the teacher simply as a replacement for already existing instructional materials. For example, a teacher scans an existing paper worksheet to create a pdf and emails it to the students.  In Augmentation the instructional materials are substituted but enhanced by the technology. For example, a teacher’s pdf assignment is now embedded with Internet links that lead the student to additional resources. In Modification the technology is used to redesign the instructional materials. For example, the same pdf assignment and links are now rebuilt within an LMS (POLARIS), made accessible to an entire class, submitted electronically and scored within the LMS. Finally, we have Redefinition. In this phase technology allows the teacher to design instructional materials in a way that was previously inconceivable.  For example, the original assignment pdf is scraped. Instead a Problem Based Learning (PBL) situation is presented to the students who must then work collaboratively within the LMS to discover solutions to the proposed problem. Experiments are conducted, results presented, discussion boards updated and monitored, the students reach out to industry professionals for support and advice and learning becomes authentic and individualized.

Monica M, Janet T and Becky G have contacted Lori Collier (Amherst Parent and Schoology Trainer) to arrange a special training opportunity this June 3rd for a select group of our teachers who have demonstrated an exceptional POLARIS skill set and a deep understanding of blended learning. It is the Advocates hope that these trained POLARIS experts in each building will be a welcome resource for teachers wishing to climb the SAMR ladder.

Keith O provided a LanSchool update and it would appear we are very close to an operational rollout. This type of technology can be tricky to setup and we are thankful to have Keith’s expertise to tackle the issue.

Janet updated the group on the 2nd semester rollout to grade 3. All seems to be in place. Like every Advocate they each bring something special to the group and Janet is no exception. Her ability to organize, plan and execute is outstanding. In other news, it appears that K-2 will be going with classroom carts of Lenovo Yogas. These are tablet devices with touch screen capabilities best suited for the little ones. These will roll out either late in the spring of this year or in the fall of next year.

Monica and Becky spent the afternoon again leading our Advocates to finalize our Digital Citizenship curriculum for students and parents. Both have done an excellent job of getting all the “pieces parts” (Cheryl H) aligned.  They have made sure to careful choose student lessons for our advisory groups (FRIENDS, TEAMS and CONNECTIONS) that will be conducted with the students. They have also provided parent discussion questions for each lesson and principals will message parents making them aware of the resources available to them from our web page.

Finally, Dave H returned from the year’s OELMA (Ohio Educational Library Media Association) conference pretty excited about some new Augmented Reality opportunities for our students and teachers. Augmented Reality is a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. Imagine students using their Chromebooks to examine complex DNA strands up close. Students can get a whole new perspective on abstract scientific concepts and get to interact with something far more tangible than the alternative flat 2D image.

The Advocates met for the final time this year on May 9, 2018. We enjoyed our traditional end of year breakfast and added lunch as well. Food, fun and camaraderie were had by all.

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In the morning session we had the unhappy task of saying goodbye to Andrew R, a founding member. Andrew will be leaving us for a new opportunity at Hudson City Schools. While we are all sad, we certainly wish Andrew and his family all the best.

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We also had several discussions covering a range of topics. Janet T shared with the group that all is on track for the Phase 2 rollout in the fall. She also updated the group concerning forms for both the AUP and the Google for Education sign offs. Working with Keith O, Kristina B, Becky Gribble and Monica M they were able to get everything in order by the end of the day. Nice Work!

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Andrew R reported out on Makerspaces and things seem to be progressing nicely. Becky G shared that they will be incorporating elementary Makerspaces into their advisory time pilot in the fall. It is exciting that Monica M and Becky G have found a way to envision the school week in a whole new way with the creation of the advisory groups.  The Advocates always knew that just providing technology would not be enough to break the industrial model of education because of regimented school schedules. Makerspaces and advisory groups are beginning to erode those barriers. Our vision is becoming clearer every year.

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We also had the opportunity to have Libbi D, a MS math teacher share with us her use of Pear Deck, a shared presentation tool. She did a wonderful job and the Advocates certainly see a value to this type of technology. Andrew R shared a pros and cons of this product alongside a very similar product called NearPod.  The Advocates suggested that it would be best to first engage are staff with these types of technologies in an effort to gauge staff interest.

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Becky G and Lori M reported out on the progress of the elementary 1:1 device pilot programs. They reported that staff excitement was high and that they are quickly narrowing in on the proper device and use with the younger students. They will recommend solutions in the near future.

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Kristina B and Aleksa P both shared out information concerning their one day, all-inclusive Google Certification training for classified staff. Training will include one to one instruction, exploration time, exam practice and even testing opportunities should some wish to move forward.

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Keith O reported that LanSchool implementation is very near to being complete and should be available in the fall.

Planning for the fall digital citizenship parent night continues as well as our collection of student and staff lessons. Dave H has kindly built out a well-structured set of webpages on our district site which we will open in the fall.

Wow! We have come so far but our work is really just beginning. As always a special thanks to all the Advocates. Enjoy your summer!

The Advocates met again on December 11th for a full day of discussion and planning. We began the day reviewing our current certification counts. As of that date, we had 110 Google certified staff and 263 POLARIS certified staff. While we would like to get more staff Google certified we are quite pleased that a 1/3 of the staff is certified.  Recall, we began the certification process just a little more than 18 months ago.  Additionally, Kristina B and Aleksa P are continuing to offer classified training for Google certification. They are proud to announce they have their first certified trainee.

POLARIS certification has wildly surpassed our expectations. In fact, with so many teachers POLARIS certified we have had to adjust our professional development and training plans to keep pace. Monica M and Becky G continue to do a fantastic job in providing high quality PD. They have surveyed the Phase 1 teachers and are using that information to design training for the next group. Not only do we have many teachers POLARIS certified, they also represent a wide range of implementation levels. As we had designed, we have teachers who are Sprinters, Joggers and Walkers. The Sprinters have jumped into the 1:1 blended learning environment with both feet. They continue to advance their knowledge of the platform and instructional strategies faster than we can keep up. We plan to use these individuals to build out our POLARIS course catalog. 

New courses will be built into POLARIS for teachers to advance their knowledge starting in the spring. We will be offering LPDC credits for all courses. Problem Based Learning and Blended Learning will be expanded upon beyond our first introductory courses. We hope to add video of our teachers successfully using these strategies within the new courses. 

Janet T joined us and reported out our status with preparing for next fall’s rollout to 4,5,8 and 11. Cases have already been ordered. We have priced out the new Lenovo N23 and while it is not quite the same price point as last year’s N22 it is still affordably priced for its upgraded capabilities. Janet also reported that she is continuing to negotiate with vendors concerning our warranty period and delivery dates.  We are also beginning to pilot 1:1 devices in grades K-3. At this time we think we may go with a classroom tablet in grades K-1 and perhaps a laptop/tablet for 2-3 which may be taken home. More testing will be necessary. 

We continue to field questions from the staff regarding monitoring and testing security. Keith O continues to work with LanSchool to provide our teachers with the classroom monitoring capability they are requesting. Some teachers are asking for a lockdown browser for testing. Our Chrome management operating system may preclude that and we would prefer instead to investigate the development of a district honor code.  JR and Dave W have both agreed to begin some research into this area. We feel that it is a better approach to help students make better moral decisions than to increase security to thwart their efforts to circumvent existing security.

Here We Go!

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The Advocates welcomed Elizabeth Hayes, our new elementary media specialist, to our circle. As we all know the media specialists in our district, in my opinion, are the best team in the state of Ohio. Having met Elizabeth I know she will be a wonderful asset to our team. 

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The Advocates spent some time first going round the table sharing their thoughts, concerns or issues about anything related to our roll-out or future plans. With those issues collected and discussed we began work on a full Customer Support Service. We are making plans for building level support, POLARIS support, SunGard integration support and Just In Time (JIT) training opportunities. 

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Under Monica and Becky's leadership we are already making plans for Phase 2 training.

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All Advocates thanked Janet, Keith and Aleksa for their outstanding work this summer. We again learned that proper preparation and attention to detail make all the difference come game time. 

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Kristina is working on setting up the classified staff Google training program and we are all excited to welcome our new friends.

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Finally, we continue to add details to our 50 day plan. The 50 days will end on Halloween so let's hope we do not come across anything too scary that day.

It became evident at the meeting that as we dive into the details each member's area of expertise is beginning to shine ever brighter. 

The Advocates reviewed a new product from Squirrels, a North Canton based software vendor, called ClassHub.  This is a student device manager software package that would allow teachers to monitor student screens, lock screens, share their screen, push comments and messages to students etc. It is similar to LANSchool. Special thanks to Andrew for making the necessary arrangements. 

The Advocates also spent some time re-evaluating and tweaking our progress in four major areas. Professional Development, Marketing, Technology/Rollout and the First 50 Days plan.

Specifically, Janet shared some very interesting information concerning various POLARIS Protection Plan (PPP) options for our student devices. She has thoroughly researched possible options and we think we can soon zero in on one that is fiscally responsible for parents and students but still provides extensive coverage. Well done.   Keith shared with us the tech department's planned setup procedure for the 2000 Phase 1 devices. By using the latest technology the techies have developed an impressive and stream-lined process that should result in device setup in short order. 

We are currently running an AIR testing pilot at the MS and so far so good. Everyone agrees that how we test now will be greatly improved once students have their own device. We should also be able to shorten the testing time in every building significantly over the next couple years. 

Teacher's have embraced our new direction and are aggressively pursuing professional development both within the building and on their own. At this early stage more than 140 teachers have joined my Intro to POLARIS course and are actively working through our certification pathway. 

The Advocates met Friday January 6th to continue their work on building POLARIS content. Superintendent DiLoreto thanked the Advocates for all their hard work in providing direction for our district 1:1 initiative and our new LMS platform. 

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POLARIS content was finalized and great progress has been made on the ten courses in Phase 1. George Woods outlined a three step approach to the rollout focusing on Marketing, Administrating and Training. Advocate leads were identified in each area. Training efforts (especially for staff in grades 5,6,8 and 9) are being designed, planned and executed under the guidance of Monica Myers and Becky Gribble. Marketing strategies which include the Admin Council Mtg (Jan 10), the staff waiver day announcement (Feb 17) and the March board meeting are being handled by JR Reindel, Andrew Robitaille and myself. Finally, the development of policies and a Handbook of Technology defining the details of the implementation and rollout are being led by Dave Waltman, Janet Thompson, Keith Obermeier and Kristina Barrows.

The Advocates also had a half hour presentation on Blue Technologies latest ViewSonic Interactive Smart Boards.

So much to do and so little time. The Advocates strong belief in their mission and vision gives everyone the confidence that together we can make this happen. 

The Tech Advocates met yesterday Oct 26 in the central office. We welcomed a new employee Aleksa Pavichevich, Senior Technology Assistant, to our group. He is a welcome addition and brings lots of enthusiasm and technical skills to our group. He is also a parent with two children in our district. Welcome Aleksa. 

We reviewed our marketing plan for Google Certification.  The elementary buildings are conducting PLCs to assist teachers, the MS is providing tutoring and review by appointment and the high school just completed their survey and will begin their support service soon.

We also wanted to let teachers know more about our pilots so a few Advocates will put together a couple videos using our pilots to depict what a 1:1 classroom can look like in a blended learning environment.

The Advocates are very happy to announce that Polaris, our learning management system platform, has been secured for five years. We began the setup process via a phone conference with our implementation specialist and are proud to announce Dave Huthmacher as the district Polaris administrator. The rest of the Advocates will fill other roles such as building level admins, professional development directors and technical specialists. 

We are working to put together our first Polaris teacher catalog and hope to invite staff to complete coursework in the second semester. Teachers with Google certification will be encouraged to become Level 1 Polaris certified by completing seven credits in three required courses and those not yet Google certified will need to complete 15 credits including the required courses and several elective courses. All courses will be available for teachers to use for license renewal via LPDC.

The Advocates will meet again in November.  The creation of Polaris course content will begin within the week.

Our seventh meeting of the year was held on April 12th, 2016. George wore a construction hard hat to remind the team that hard work lies ahead but that hard work on something you have such a passion for can be enjoyable.  

The Advocates worked nearly the entire day on creating a gantt chart that maps out the work schedule for the next couple years. The plan is coming together quite nicely. With the gantt chart in hand Linda Salom got what she needed to continue her work on preparing our Straight A Fund grant submission for this round. 

The Advocates intend to all become Google Educator Level 1 Certified in the next couple months. Our first congratulations goes out to Kristina Barrows for earning her certification last week and Keith Obermeier for earning his certification just a couple days ago! The Advocates are now making the necessary arrangements to help the entire staff earn Level 1 Certification over the next few years. 

Some piloting of the Learning Management System (LMS) and 1:1 computing will be conducted next year in 8th grade science under the direction of Lyndsay Dimengo. At Sauder, a pilot is tentatively planned for 5th grade science and some STEM defined modules thanks to the the generosity of the PTG. Finally at the high school, a pilot is intended in US Government for students at risk of not graduating. 

The bulk of the Advocate work next year will be building out POLARIS (our blended learning digital teacher academy) and creating from that our first course catalog. They will also define course pathways, and determine requirements for POLARIS graduation.  Our timeline is to have all Level 1 courses built and ready for our first class of teachers in the fall of 2017. 

We remain committed to our vision that :

Jackson Local schools will be a technologically transformed educational community that personalizes learning and empowers all to achieve.

It is hard to believe that in just four meetings we have made such progress. Here is a summary:

Created a mission and vision statement

Finalizing Technology Committee membership

Reviewing possible LMS options

Attending SPARCC LMS vendor review meetings

Built courses in LMS option CANVAS

Will test pilot CANVAS course with L Dimengo classes

Begun building Schoology LMS courses

Finalized Advocate website choice as WIX.com

Branded the Digital Academy as POLARIS

Working on POLARIS brand logo

Continuing to map out POLARIS content

The Tech Advocates met on September 30th, 2015 from 8AM-3PM in the administrative offices. Prior to the meeting each member received an overview of five projects needing completed. These projects were discussed in a bit more detail via a PowerPoint presentation first thing in the morning. Team members chose projects to collaborate on and worked until 11:30AM. Following a one hour lunch the group reassembled to share and then returned to work.Three projects were engaged. Project 4 is the selection of a district-wide LMS. The starter tools for this project included a web link to a listing of more than 300 possibilities. The members were instructed to create a requirements list that would be used to evaluate possible LMSs. Members brainstormed more than 20 requirements. They also did some research into other entities that have already done a similar study. They have made very nice progress on this sub-task and will continue to refine the tool until ready to officially begin the evaluation process.Project 5 is the creation of a curriculum/course of study for the proposed Digital Academy. These members reviewed the coursework required of Malone instructors using Moodle and Ashland instructors using Blackboard. They also had a spirited discussion about course possibilities including such things as Small Group Instruction, PBL, Google Bootcamp, Student Orientation to Online Learning etc.Project 1 is defining a mission and vision statement for the Tech Advocates. Members brainstormed possible mission statements and during the wordsmithing process generated two mashups of the initial ideas. As other possibilities will be generated they will be training the entire team on a decision matrix tool to be used for the final selection.

The Advocates met this morning for the first time virtually! These are indeed unique times. Everyone was just glad to see one another and to take some time to catch up. I know for me personally that the time we shared was energizing and much appreciated.

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Our discussion today centered around two items, creating essential agreements for staff-student video conferencing and how best to provide eLearning professional development.

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George W provided a “draft” agreement for review and the Advocates discussed each point. Together they will continue to collaborate on the Google Doc in an effort to finalize the document. The platform chosen was Google Meet. Quickly, it was apparent the group philosophically landed in close agreement. Some major points included that video conferencing is just another tool in the teacher tool box and is best used for specific purposes.  At present, it would seem the Advocates believe that video conferencing is better used for student support in small group settings as opposed to being used to present new instruction for whole group. It was nice to have Kathy B and some intervention specialists join us to give perspective on how video conferencing can be so valuable to them and their students.

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The Advocates also came to consensus pretty quickly that it would be best to provide a POLARIS repository for teachers (the experts) to share their best practices and ideas from the past nine weeks with their peers as opposed to the Advocates building out a PD program. We will be able to offer LPDC contact hours for submitters and participants meaning teachers are helping teachers, just the way it should be!

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We plan to meet once more before the end of the year in an effort to review our work over the next two weeks and to finalize things for the summer and whatever the fall may bring.

We began our day with group discussion. Janet T needed to head over to SPARCC for a network managers meeting so she went first. She shared with the Advocates that our implementation of GoGuardian Teacher had gone so well the company reached out to ask that we share our experience in the form of a media release. Of course, Janet agreed and we had a wonderful opportunity to showcase our Advocate Team and they got some valuable feedback on how they could improve their implementation processes. Janet then shared this month’s data connected with our Print Reduction Campaign. Once again this month every building significantly reduced their color impressions. (20%-50%). We are excited to congratulate all staff in our next marketing flyer at the end of 2MP.

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Aleksa P shared with the Advocates data and progress on our Read Write district-wide pilot which will end Dec 18. Pilot teacher responses appear to indicate that this is a valuable student learning tool that should be adopted. The Advocates agree. Monica M and Becky G will be moving forward to complete the purchase for 2nd semester.

Next up Dave H joined us while splitting time in the OELMA meeting. Dave shared an update on the proposed new Chromebook case. He pointed out several issues with the case construction but in the end Janet suggested not using the top binding strap and that seemed to resolve the other concerns. Dave also shared his concern with AirTame’s issue about broadcasting streaming services. Keith O explained that this is concerned with how HDCP is handled.  An AirTame update is due out in January which may correct the issue but if not Keith thinks we have some other workaround options. Dave also shared his concern that Smart Notebook is heavily relied upon by especially math teachers and ending that service could produce an issue. Janet says we have 2 years on our contract and that by then we should have alternate solutions to Smart Notebook.

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George shared information about Screenagers. This group helps parents better understand how they can work with their child to reduce screen time while improving their parent-child relationship. They offer a free screening of two different documentaries at your choice of location. Monica and Becky will review this offering and decide if it is something we would want to move forward with.

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Finally, we again discussed our Lesson Makeover idea. It was decided that we would build a POLARIS course and template that would allow our teachers to share their enhanced lessons with everyone. Each submitter would submit a photo, a lesson or unit and a short narrative of how the lesson was enhanced with technology. Monica says we can begin with our team of Instructional Leaders we trained last June. We will also be able to offer LPDC credit, further expanding our in-district course opportunities.

Can you believe we are beginning our 5th year together? Wow the time sure does fly but we have accomplished so much. We began our first meeting of the year as we normally do by catching up with one another and sharing our summer fun. Some of us just relaxed, others went on adventures but everyone had fun.

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We did take a few minutes to enjoy our accomplishment of moving the entire district to 1:1 computing. We also delighted in the fact that nearly every teacher in the district is POLARIS certified and more than 170 are Google Certified.

Last summer we trained about 20 teachers to be POLARIS Instructional Aides. They are currently serving each of their buildings by guiding staff through POLARIS training and providing tips, hints and tricks to teachers for the best use of the platform.

We welcomed our newest Advocate, Bridget Williams. She is our new elementary library media specialist.  She is awesome!  After spending the morning with us I think she liked us too.

Janet brought us up to speed concerning our existing and planned pilots of the new teacher suite. (Bulb Free projector, 2 in 1 mobile device and AirTame2). Those pilots that began at the end of last year have been reported to be very successful and teachers are excited to see the new technology in use.

GoGuardian Teacher has had its troubles getting up and running after such a successful pilot last year. Like several other systems we are working to integrate with SunGard through the use of Clever we have run into data issues which have prevented us from opening up the platform to all staff. Keith O and I are continuing to “bang on vendor and support doors” daily and hope to get a resolution soon. One thing I know about Advocates is that they never fail.  Thanks for everything Keith.

Next we had a discussion about our latest initiative, the Advocates Print Reduction Campaign.  Our first tip newsletter will be going out this week to all staff and the Advocates will be adding a banner to their own emails encouraging environmentally safe practices when it comes to printing. Janet T shared all kinds of data with the group. She is working hard to gather the data from across the district (no small task) and to present it in a graphical and understandable way. Great work Janet. We have decided this year to work on establishing a solid baseline before setting print reduction goals. Janet will share our current progress with the Admin team each month.

Finally, we talked about cybersecurity and our new Director of Safety and Security, David Morgan. We discussed the importance of training staff on best cybersecurity practices and some of the monitoring tools we will be rolling out this year.

We have a mascot! With special thanks to Keith O we now have POLARIS and his two friends POLARIS A and Polaris B. Aren’t they just the cutest! Thank you my friend.  Check em' out HERE!

The Advocates always look to the future. We anticipate what new technologies will be needed as new needs arise.  As an example, Janet T and her team know that many of our existing classroom projectors are nearing end of life and will need to be replaced. These old projectors feature VGA connections, an old technology for video transfer. The more advanced method of video and audio transfer is HDMI. The problem with making that choice is that the old wiring would need removed and new wiring put in place. Ugh!

Never Fear the Advocates are Here!

While at the Tech Conference this year Janet T investigated some options and came up with “wireless HDMI”. This new technology allows the projector to connect to the computer using HDMI but wirelessly. Aleksa P demonstrated a new Casio projector with AirTame2. Pretty slick, pretty good resolution and requires no rewiring. By the way did I mention the new Casio projectors are bulb free? You say what? New technology using a laser/led light source means no bulbs to replace and an approximate 10 year production life. Oh, but it gets better. AirTame2 would allow teachers to move about the room (no wires) while projecting their lesson to the screen. Better yet it also means students could do the same from their Chromebooks. Oh, these times are a changing!

Dang you LanSchool!

LanSchool is software that allows teachers to view their students’ screens in an effort to monitor their activities and keep everyone focused.  Keith O has spent considerable time trying to make it work but at every turn it became more apparent that this was just not the solution. Again, Advocates to the rescue.  Janet, Keith and Aleksa all researched alternatives. We shared some possible solutions with the group yesterday and it appears that Go Guardian Teacher is the early favorite. This solution is easy to use, provides a live image of the student screen, keeps a history of each student’s web activity, and allows a teacher to lock a student screen, force a tab closure for unrelated browsing and share individual messaging between themselves and the student. 

Pilots: That’s What we Do!

The Advocates pride themselves on rolling out change by taking one step at a time and scaling the implementation as we go. In the coming months we will be placing new projectors, AirTame2 and Go Guardian Teacher solutions in various locations covering various grade levels across the district. We will learn from these pilots and perfect our installs and training until we are ready to begin a formal phase in.

As a quick hitter, special thanks to Kristina B and Aleksa P for their hard work getting our classified staff Google certified.

POLARIS PRINT CAMPAIGN

With 1:1 now in place and the POLARIS LMS platform being so widely adopted the Advocates would like to begin a campaign to reduce the district’s printing costs.  POLARIS is not only an LMS but also our vehicle to promote blended learning.  By reducing hard copies and better utilizing the platform’s advanced features teachers will be able to increase the blended learning that is occurring in their classrooms.  Savings will allow the Advocates to provide teachers with improved technology as described above as well as to provide the teachers with new 2 in 1 laptop/tablet options improving mobility within the classroom setting.

Advanced POLARIS Training

This June we will be providing advanced training on the POLARIS platform. Approximately 20 teachers have been selected to receive this full day training (on site) from Lori Collier, an approved Schoology trainer. The curriculum will be customized based upon the trainee’s responses to an interest and knowledge level survey being constructed by the Advocates. These individuals will then provide building level support for other teachers as we continue our 1:1 POLARIS usage.

The Advocates met in October on the 9th of the month.

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The presentation was focused on raising awareness among the Advocates concerning the impacts that social media can and does have on our students and our need to provide well designed digital citizenship curriculum not only for our students but for their parents as well.

We discussed the Momo Challenge, the latest version of the Blue Whale Challenge. Other challenges discussed were the Chubby Bunny, Fire, Frosting, Kiki and several others. We also shared some common teen chat acronyms as well. LMIRL (Let’s Meet in Real Life), GNOC (Get Nude on Camera), 53x (Sex), KMS (Kill Myself), GYPO (Get Your Pants Off) and many more.

We took time to review a recent PEW Research study showing that nearly 97% of teens have a smart phone and that 45% report that they are on the device “nearly constantly”. 83% of girls and 97% of boys reported playing video games. In a different study only 10% of teens reported their favorite activity was “playing outside”. Resoundingly, their favorite activity was “playing video games”.

With knowledge in hand the Advocates discussed internet monitoring and filtering options; like Securly for our Chromebooks. We currently use Securly to filter and while monitoring reports are generated they may not be regularly reviewed. Blocking inappropriate sites is a constant challenge as new paths to those sites are created almost continuously by third parties. Filtering is dependent on keyword criteria and as we had discussed teen users have developed a whole vocabulary that’s purpose is to evade filtering protocols. Additionally, this monitoring would only apply to district issued Chromebooks. As we discussed earlier 97% of students have smart phones and most are operating outside of our network.

The Advocates know the importance of appropriate student use of the internet. The question is whether we should “wage war” on teen efforts to access inappropriate content or instead teach them proper digital citizenship practices and how to create and maintain a positive digital footprint.  We are educators first and believe teaching children responsibility and instilling moral values is a priority.

The Advocates spent the remainder of the day working with Monica M. and Becky G. in building level teams.  They directed the teams to review our comprehensive online digital citizenship lessons, assisted them in choosing lessons for our TEAMS, CONNECTIONS and FRIENDS advisory groups and planned regular parent communications via principal newsletters. I also built a What’s That App? page on our district site that parents can use to learn more about social media apps and various challenges.

Our work continues next month as we continue to prepare for the final 1:1 roll out of Chromebooks in the 2nd semester.

It has been a long winter. The Advocates missed meeting in January due to a snow day. They met in February but missed again in March when Georgie needed to cancel. The good news is that they were able to meet yesterday on April 9th. We took time to wish Andrew R and Monica M all the best as they celebrate their birthdays this month.

We began the morning by discussing Makerspaces. “A Makerspace is a place where students can gather to create, invent, tinker, explore and discover using a variety of tools and materials.” Diana Rendina, Renovated Learning.  “Makerspaces provide hands-on, creative ways to encourage students to design, experiment, build and invent as they deeply engage in science, engineering and tinkering.” Jennifer Cooper, Designing a School Makerspace (Edutopia). Andrew R has spent time this year researching and learning about Makerspaces in hopes of bringing one to the MS Media Center. Several Advocates share his passion for such a project and have agreed to work with him to bring the Advocate Team a full report next month.

We then moved along to our 1:1 implementation. I am happy to report that from the tech side of things Janet T says, “We are good to go”. We will implement another 2000 or so Chromebook N23s next fall in grades 4,5,8 and 11. Piloting in K-3 has been very informative and exciting for the teachers and students. Once the details of the pilot are worked out we hope to implement the remaining 1:1 devices in the second semester of next school year.

Monica M says as far as training is concerned “We are good to go”. She and Becky G have done a fantastic job of developing training days that pair up similar content areas and a mix of abilities.

Keith O will renew his efforts to get LanSchool up and running with POLARIS.  This will give the teachers a new tool to monitor student screens and keep students focused on learning.

Finally, the Advocates embarked on a new project. The Advocates will develop/enhance our digital citizenship education for all students K-12. Additionally, they will build a single source repository on our district site for parents, staff and students to collaborate and learn to be safe and responsible users in the cyber world. Additionally, the Advocates will be planning and holding Parent Nights in the fall. Parents will have the opportunity to hear from experts in the field and improve their own digital knowledge as well as learn how to support their own children as they take their first steps working with the internet and social media.

The Advocates met this month on Monday November 6th. 

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We quickly started a conversation about our current hot button issues. Slide 1 was dedicated to “Loaners”. These are the devices issued by the media centers when a student has forgotten his device, failed to charge his device or needs a replacement due to a repair. Janet T has done a very nice job of putting together loaner tracking data for each level. The media specialists and their teams have also done a nice job managing the process.

The issue was that repeat student offenders were draining the available loaner reserve and that consequences would be necessary to help the students understand the importance of bringing their device charged and ready to use for coursework each and every day.  This would require the collaboration of the media specialists and the building administrators. How wonderful that our Advocate group has all the right members to work through issues quickly and effectively. We heard from Christina C, Andrew R, and Elizabeth H as well as JR and Dave W. Together we brainstormed and in the afternoon these individuals were able to put together a strategy that is consistent and will curb any misuse of the loaner program. 

While technology had the floor Janet T, Keith O and Aleksa P all shared with the group many other tech issues. Janet has gone ahead and ordered 3000 new Chromebook cases for Phase 2 . We learned our lesson on deliveries from China and she wanted to make sure we would have plenty of lead time for next fall. Janet is also on the prowl for the best end of year pricing she can find on the Phase 2 devices and she is a shopper. We are all quite sure she will find us the best deal possible.

Janet T and Keith O spent some time also discussing with the group our current bandwidth issue. Janet is making arrangements to purchase additional bandwidth from SPARCC and Keith O has installed some very sophisticated network management software that allows us to identify streaming internet issues quickly and to control/throttle the amount of data flowing through our network.  All the Advocates agree it is very good to have such expertise on the team.

We also discussed next steps in our training model for Phase 1 and 2 and in the afternoon Monica M spent time discussing with various Advocates their thoughts on training needs. Monica M and Becky G have done an outstanding job with our training program and all the Advocates say, “Thanks”.

Finally, the ATeam (new website development team) shared our incubation site with everyone. We have asked them to poke around and provide feedback. The ATeam continues to work hard and is planning a Go Live at the start of Christmas break. 

The Advocates met for the final time this year on Monday May 22.  We took this opportunity to celebrate our two year anniversary. In a bit of a switcheroo the Advocates presented the morning slide show instead of me. They reflected on how our work has impacted them directly and personally. They also made predictions of what the next couple years will bring. Simply stated, it was amazing! Georgie choked back tears (a few may have leaked out) and we all had some big laughs. What was just a vision has become a reality. Bless you my friends.

The Advocates are a highly talented group of individuals who are creative, determined and caring.  The group has become as one… a true collective. Lifelong friendships have been forged within our group and we all share a single passion to see this innovative style of teaching and learning forged into the fabric of the district.

It was not all celebration though as we know we have a great deal of work yet to do. We viewed a presentation from Securly, the product we will use to meet CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act), as students use their devices at school and home.  Securly will filter internet content on these devices both at school and home and make sure that students are safe from inappropriate internet content.

We also discussed the First 50 Day plan, again. Janet, Keith and Aleksa have made astounding progress in preparing our 2000 Chromebooks for distribution. All the devices will be delivered and ready to go to the buildings by the first week in June. Detailed plans have been shared with principals on how these devices will be handed out in the first couple days of school next fall. Keith also updated us on the WiFi wiring project and it appears we are ahead of schedule and will be ready for the start of the next school year.

Of course, after all that work we needed to celebrate our anniversary again with a specialty themed cake with two candles, thanks to Keith and his baker friends.

Finally, I would also like to report that more than 50 teachers have now earned their Google Certification and more than 100 teachers have earned their POLARIS Certification.  The Advocates thank the staff for taking such an active part in this district changing initiative.    

We will be busy over the summer making sure we are ready come next Fall but today we took some time to reflect and acknowledge our progress.

The Advocates debriefed from our big staff announcement on Feb 17. There was a strong consensus that the presentation went off as we had prepared and was well received by the teachers. Special thanks to our presenters Janet T, Monica M, JR Reindel, Lyndsay D and Andrew R/Big Kev. 

On Feb 21 JR Reindel and Monica Myers presented to the board of education on behalf of the Advocates.  Also presenting on the 8th grade science pilot was Lyndsay Dimengo. Other Advocates were also in attendance and jumped in to field questions as well.  Again, the presentation was well received and sparked spirited discussion and enthusiasm. 

Following the board meeting the Canton Repository and Massillon Independent both ran articles headlining the new initiative. 

The Advocates spent time at this meeting developing marketing strategies for our main target groups. (Teachers, Students, Parents). Our first marketing piece was a post on Facebook pointing our followers to the newspaper release. Our marketing plans will be executed over the next few months. 

Our teacher survey concerning preferred training dates was completed and shared with the group. Monica M and Becky G are working now on building out the training program. 

Finally, we took our first stab at outlining the first 50 days of next year's rollout. (Aug 8-Oct 20). We have set benchmarks and milestones in an effort to measure our effectiveness. 

The Advocates are excited to continue their journey and look forward to each and every new task or challenge.

The Advocates met on Thursday December 8th in the HS Learning Commons from 8AM-3PM. In the morning Lori Collier, our Schoology PD Instructor, visited with the Advocates and spent about 3 hours reviewing the functions and capabilities of the Schoology platform. Lori was a former SPARCC employee who now works for Schoology. She lives in our community and has a child attending Amherst. 

Advocates have outlined the courses to be released in Phase 1 and with this morning's training are prepared to build them out. We will meet again on January 6th to finalize the courses and will shortly thereafter open POLARIS to the teachers.

The first meeting of our second year was held on Thursday, September 22, 2016 from 8AM-3PM in the Central Office conference room.

We began with George's usual PowerPoint in which we welcomed our newest member David Huthmacher. We reviewed last year's work and began the preparation for this year's work. 

Our focus in the morning was on marketing our Google Certification course to the entire staff, showcasing our pilot projects and providing support for those wishing to start the certification process. 

In the afternoon we re-examined our Gantt chart from the end of last year. We examined surveys that have been conducted in the elementary and middle school and it is apparent the staff is anxious to move into a 1:1 computing environment as soon as possible. The high school will be surveyed on October 7, 2016 as we continue to collect the necessary data. 

Our discussion was whole group with everyone participating actively. The Advocates continue to try and balance "Doing it Right" with "Doing it Soon"  We are working together to find the best solution for the district, teachers and students.  

Janet Thompson reminded the Advocates that an upgrade in the wireless infrastructure in each building is necessary before any 1:1 rollout can begin. This work is scheduled for second semester and through the summer. 

We did adjust our schedule in an effort to advance the timeline the best would could. Our plan at this time is to select and purchase the Schoology platform for POLARIS, our learning management system. This decision comes only after a year of LMS reviews and pilots. Schoology is a preferred partner of Sungard and will integrate seamlessly with the teacher grade books. We have committed ourselves to the development of POLARIS coursework focused first on learning Schoology and delivering problem based learning to our students in a blended learning environment. This work time was shortened from one year to just the first semester. This would then allow teachers in the second semester to become familiar with the platform in anticipation of a limited rollout of student devices in the fall of 17-18. 

We are committed to developing momentum across the district by encouraging staff to get Google Certified and complete the required POLARIS courses. We will monitor their progress closely, provide support and when the "tipping" point is reached we will feel confident to begin the rollout. 

While we continue to take one step at a time our steps are getting bigger.

Wow, yesterday (March 31, 2016) was a very busy day. In the past month subcommittees of Advocates have been making district visitations as a precursor to our eventual desire to implement a 1:1 program here in the district. While the immediate focus still remains on an LMS selection and the development of Polaris (our branded digital academy) by multi-tasking we are setting the stage for later work.

The Advocates spent the first part of the morning sharing out the results from our 1:1 visitations at Aurora and Chagrin Falls. Several of the Advocates prepared a common questionnaire for all visitations. The questionnaire is quite comprehensive and gives us very good insight into their choice of devices, management of the devices and rollout procedures. Both schools have graciously shared all that they have including documentation they have developed. Janet Thompson has done an excellent job gathering the results in a spreadsheet showing a side by side comparison. Janet spent more than an hour sharing out  to the whole group. We are beginning to understand potential pitfalls and what works and does not work. Learning from those who have gone before has proven to be very beneficial. 

Linda Salom, Monica Myers and a few others attended a workshop in Columbus devoted to better understanding the Straight A grant writing process. It is our intent to move forward with the application process in hopes of securing additional funding for all the initiatives we are considering. Janet also shared that our potential eRate funding in the next round could also assist with the network infrastructure updates we will require.

The second part of the morning we had a visitation from Nicki Howard, Massillon Digital Academy Director, who shared with us a product called Acellus. Acellus is an adaptive online learning system that can present course content specific to each student based upon their responses in real time. This is a product that has possibilities beyond Plato credit recovery and could in fact be used with subject accelerated students and those students pursuing CCIP options. Matt Monter, our HS Plato instructor, is taking the software for a test run and will report back at our next meeting.

We also had a short visitation from Don Proffit, our Problem Based Learning consultant, and we were pleased to learn that much of the content he is now delivering can be adapted into Polaris for future training opportunities.

Following lunch all the Advocates spent the remainder of the day in focused discussion about conducting possible pilots, bringing the staff Level 1 Google certification opportunities and laying out plans for next year's work. The group has begun building a very detailed gantt chart to visually organize the entire year 2 project schedule.  Because of testing the group will meet again in just a couple weeks on April 12 and will be tasked with locking in that project schedule.

On Nov 18th the Advocates met for the third time this year. I am proud to announce we now have a mission statement (what we do)

The Technology Advocate Committee provides a framework to support the integration of research-based technologies for professional development, teaching, and learning.

and a vision statement (if we keep doing what we do where we will end up)

Jackson Local schools will be a technologically transformed educational community that personalizes learning and empowers all to achieve.

The Advocates have made significant progress in the selection of the oversight committee, called the Technology Committee. Suggested members at this point include:

Advocate Core: Janet Thompson, Becky Gribble, Matt Polen, Lyndsay Dimengo and Andrew Robitaille

JLSD Core: Dave Huthmacher, Linda Sutherland, Paula Blangger and Jordan Parks

Community Core: Ken Douglas (3-4 more to be named as we gather more nominations)

The Advocates continue to work on branding for the "Digital Academy" and a logo for the Advocates. We now have a Google+ Community for posting and sharing. George, Kristina and Keith will each build a mock up of a possible Advocate website using SchoolWorld, Weebly and Google Sites respectively. George and Lori will also each build a Canvas LMS course in an effort to enhance our knowledge of LMSs and inform our LMS selection process.

The first meeting of the Technology Advocate Group was held May 21, 2015 at the Jackson Local Schools Administration Office.  Members were introduced for the first time and a preview of the purposes and goals of the committee was layed out.