MUSD establishes its SECOND ITv Connection - and - TLA's are back!
Through our active involvement with the Pinal County ITv Consortium, we have been awarded a 'portable' ITv unit. portable is a bit of a misnomer, it's a 52" plasma TV on a cart with a VSX5000 Codec. The word 'portable' refers to the fact that it is not hard mounted as in the HS ITv Distance Learning classroom.
Gina Pinch (Director of Technology) and John Hornketh (District Senior Technician) worked to secure the high speed access necessary to send and receive ITv audio/video transmissions.
Today John and I tested the new configuration are are delighted to announce that we connected to Jack Wallbrecht (CTE Director) at the HS ITv Classroom and to Chris Hanson and Central Arizona College in Coolidge, AZ. Chris manages the ITv/Distance Learning Bridge at CAC, overseeing a vast variety of ITv hosts across Pinal County and beyond. Thanks to Adrian Ingles (Consortium Tech Consultant) for his assistance today as well.
John finalizing configuration settings and connections!
What does this mean for MUSD? We can now expand our offerings of ITv sites from the HS ITv (Distance Learning) Lab to include the MES Library site. This will reduce some event bottlenecking that occurs during large scale events like Read Around the Planet, and provides teachers an option to bussing to the HS. We selected MES as this year's recipient due to incredible teacher support of ITv. These teachers will now have easier access and (we hope) broadened opportunities to use this incredible technolgoy with their students and for professional development.
John connects to Maricopa HS ITv Room
It is my expectation that MUSD will continue its robust partnership and
involvement with the Pinal County ITv Consortium, managed by Director Jill Dingman. It is my hope that, over
the next few years, the district, recognizing the value of this
educational tool, will look toward supporting the development of ITv at
each of our schools sites.
We reach Chris Hanson, at CAC Distance Learning Bridge
Our first events at both the HS and MES will happen in November. When teachers return from Fall Break after this coming week, I will begin promoting and registering teachers to participate in Read Across Arizona, a K-12 classroom-to-classroom event that connects Arizona classrooms via ITv, in celebration of literacy!
Tech Literacy Assessments (TLA) are back! The State Department of Education has again awarded MUSD several hundred assessment licenses. NCLB (No Child Left Behind) mandates that all 8th graders will be proficient at technology (based on AZ State and NETS Technology Standards). We originally became connected to TLA through our partnership with the Pinal County ITv Consortium.
From ADE Website: School Effectiveness Division
Student Technology Assessment
Arizona has partnered with Learning.com to assess the technology literacy skills of 25,000
students. This project will target districts receiving Title IID competitive grants and formula
grant funding over $30,000 in 2005-2006. Click here to learn more about the implementation of the
2006 TechLiteracy Assessment PreTest Instructions. Read details in press release.
Assessments will begin shortly after return from Fall Break and will continue into early November. This year we expect to assess about 277 fifth graders and 200 eighth graders. Fifth graders are assessed as a benchmark, the district is best able to determine where students are deficient and develop plans to improve those measures from 6th through the eighth grade.
This is MUSD's 3rd year participating in this state assessment process and each year Gina Pinch presents the resulting data to the Leadership Team.
Each year I have acted as both District Coordinator and Proctor for Mrs. Pinch (assessments are conducted and monitored in a manner similar to AIMS). This year I will be training MS lab instructors, several 5th grade teachers and an elementary lab aide to act as proctors in my stead. This time of year I am involved with TLA, Read Across Arizona, my regular scope of work and preparing for a series of upcoming Conferences (watch for conference updates) - so I am delighted that the impacted staff (and their Principal's) are being so gracious in lending their support in the way of time and availability for training.
If you would like to learn more about ITv at MUSD and Pinal County or about TLA, feel free to contact me:
Amy Chayefsky, Technology Integration, achayefsky@musd20.org
POSTED BY Amy Chayefsky AT 10/05/2007 5:03 PM
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