The Tech Committee met in the morning of December 8th, 2004, so that Kennedy Staff could participate, although only a few parents could make this time period. Don Perry, Wally Loague, Paulette Goodman, Ernie Chamot, and Wayne Lindquist were present.

Technology Tour. The technology tour went well. There were enough parents to make a full group to show around, but not so many that we had to break them into multiple groups. Don was an excellent tour guide; Paul Shipman and Jenny Donatelli gave a nice demonstration of the use of various aspects of computer and video technology in the classroom, with help setting up from Wayne and Vicki Ross; Brent Davis presented the different projects and capabilities of the Tech Lab, well; we had a radio set up to hear the Kennedy radio station broadcast by Wally's office; and Ernie presented the new Kennedy website and explained the activities of the Tech Committee in the LRC Computer Lab with help from Debbie Houston.

New Tech Committee Projects. We discussed new activities that the Tech Committee could get involved in to help the school. Possibly sponsoring clubs for students interested in various aspects of technology, such, as a radio club, had been suggested by Debbie. There are currently some little "clubs" meeting during the school day during supervised study to share their interests. For an after school club, there would have to be a teacher responsible for safety and liability concerns. Wally is interested in kids recording loops to play for the radio station, so a radio club is a reasonable possibility.

There is a new science program in a field test stage in the district. Several lessons are being given out at a time to some teachers for them to experiment with, before the program is adopted across the district. Ray Rehberg (the district's Director of Instructional Technology) and Craig Williams (the district's Chief Information Officer) are sponsoring a workshop by "national guru" Bernajean Porter (Sp?), on integrating technology into the curriculum, working with 2 teams February 14-16.

KJHS Website. The students in Webquest have been directed to discuss their current team webpages and plan changes with their team leaders, and the team leaders have also been contacted by email for their input. Some have a good idea of what they want, but there still isn't a consistent view of what should be on a team's webpages. For instance, some teams have teacher bio's and/or pictures, useful to introduce each teacher to a parent visiting the site. But others don't seem to think this is appropriate. We are working on a safe way to provide easy email access to the teachers in a secure manner, but many teams haven't thought about this. It would be very helpful to come to a consensus of what webpages and content could be consistent across the different team webpages, so a meeting has been scheduled with the team leaders before school on:

With the exception of the Panthers and Crazy 8s, we have yet to begin receiving team newsletters from the newsletter editors. We need to follow up on this, and will also try getting the Eagle Talon newsletter, edited by Judy Gordon, onto the website. Wally Loague offered to scan the newsletter, since the original electronic version had been inadvertently lost, and to convert it to a PDF. Wayne will send our public domain PDF printing solution, PDF Redirect, to Wally for this purpose.

Next Technology Committee Meeting

The next Tech Committee meeting is scheduled for::

1. Scan Eagle Talons newsletter and convert to PDF - Wally, Wayne
2. Meet with team leaders on team webpages - Ernie, Don
3. Contact team newsletter editors - Ernie
4. Represent school's interests in District Web Redesign Steering Committee - Ernie
5. Incorporate teacher email search into standard design Kennedy webpage - Ernie, Ralph, Debbie Deacy
6. Follow up on radio club idea - Wally, Debbie Houston

Return to Tech Committee page, reload KJHS home page, or NCUSD 203 web site.