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Atrium School, Watertown MA

The Atrium School is located in Watertown, MA. We have 150 students in grades PreKindergarten to 6. Our computers are primarily Macs, and we use anything from Pluses and SEs up to refurbished PowerMacs. We are in the process of installing an Ethernet that will have a WindowsNT server, so we can use both Macs and PC's. The school also owns two powerbooks (160 and 170) and three refurbished duo's and a dock for them. These are available in classrooms and to teachers to take home. As we acquire new computers, they are being placed in classrooms. We also have a computer lab with six computers, a scanner and a color printer.

I am the technology coordinator and also science coordinator. I work 60% time. We have extensive parental involvement and support in installing the Ethernet network.

For Internet access we have Shore.net as our ISP. Our website is at http://www.atrium.org/~atrium. We have a couple of pages still subject to approval for public consumption, both put together by the under 16 contingent (a fifth grade student and an older brother). These are a fifth grade page at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/8711/ (totally student initiated and generated) and a page celebrating our el mercado event at http://www.cybercom.net/~mcreedon/ben/publish/html/mercado.html This latter will be uploaded to our server when it's finished. We also have a cable modem from Continental Cable (they gave it to us for free) and it is attached to a PowerPC in the library.

We have used HyperStudio for several projects for the first time this year, on topics in social studies and science. The kids love it. We also use ClarisWorks 4.0 as our standard for word processing. This is available on all classroom computers from grade 1 up. We also did some work with GeoLogo as part of our math curriculum this year.

Moneyware: Technology is expensive. What's more, it is an on-going expense that never ends. Brewster has made a significant investment in technology. The initial expense included about $900,000 for a campus-wide network infrastructure connecting 19 buildings with more than 2,000 data ports. Hardware and software costs during the start-up period amounted to approximately $530,000. In addition, a new 42,000 square foot building was built that provided the teaching space and library facilities required for the pedagogical approach the new School Design Model required for integrating technology into the curriculum. The cost of this was $3.2 million, but only a part of that is attributable to the new model and to its use of technology. The school had already articulated a need for a new building prior to adopting the School Design Model as the principle behind its paradigm shift.

Annual Fund: The on-going technology-related costs also are significant. In reality, it is the Annual Fund which allows the Brewster to pay for its program. Following are year-to-year costs that Brewster didn't incur in the past (and most schools are not incurring), but are essential to the functioning of the program now.

• Non-student PowerBook replacement $60,000
• Server replacement, upgrades, and backups $90,000
• Desk-top publishing lab hardware $10,000
• Multi-media lab hardware $15,000
• Library hardware $10,000
• Video conferencing hardware $35,000 (an initial cost of $150,00 this year)
• Software: Upgrades and new applications $40,000
• Professional Development: In house summer institute personnel and stipends $60,000
• Curriculum Development: Redesigned curriculum to take advantage of integrated technology $50,000
• Maintenance of the network: Personnel and spot repairs $60,000

On going Faculty Training: All teachers at Brewster attend a 7 week summer institute to learn how to integrate technology into curriculum and into best teaching practices. To do this, they first learn new teaching and learning tools which have been selected by the school from a menu of options resulting from educational research to meet the needs of our student population and to meet our intended school-wide outcomes. They then learn to design curriculum, also with an eye to meeting those student and school-wide outcomes. Finally, there is a great emphasis placed on learning to use educational technology in support of those pedagogical and curricular "core" technologies.

It is understood that at the end of 7 weeks teachers are at the starting line. It is not possible to assimilate all the information imparted during the summer so as to be able to fully comprehend it and use it seamlessly in their classrooms immediately. The educational leadership of the school has been reconfigured to be able to spend up to 50% of their time in all the classrooms making observations and providing feedback to teachers to help them become more professional practitioners.

There is another source of on-going professional growth for Brewster teachers. The teachers' office space has been intentionally designed to enhance the opportunity for collegial exchange. Such a space, in an environment where technology is ubiquitous, encourages technological competencies to move latterly very rapidly. Brewster does have teachers demonstrate useful technologies, techniques, software, web sites, etc. at faculty meetings, but there is no one person responsible for technology training. It is a responsibility undertaken by the whole school, students included.

Humanware and FTE Issues: Brewster employs a network with an installed base of well over 500 computers and more than 2,000 data ports serving its 350 students and 65 faculty members. A team of three FTEs, one network administrator, one Apple certified technician, and one receptionist, form the Tech office and meet the technology needs of the community. Brewster is a laptop school. Every student and teacher uses a Macintosh PowerBook. Since we have become a school where technology is embedded in everything we do, we can no longer function properly unless everyone has a functioning computer at all times. The tech office maintains the network and all computers at near 100% reliability. It does this by keeping a surplus of "loaner" laptops into which an individual with a non-functioning laptop can put his/her hard drive to be able to continue to function with all their own information. The receptionist meets, greets, and triages the incoming requests for service and the technician turns the repairs around in, usually, one day.

E-mail and Campus Bulletin Boards: Brewsternet, our e-mail service is very heavily used at Brewster. In fact, recently our FirstClass server required an upgrade due to our heavy reliance on it. The school had been limited to 99 simultaneous users and there was an ever increasing frequency of times when users were queuing up and the mail slowed to a crawl. We have increased to a maximum of 250 simultaneous users which should solve the problem for the immediate future. FirstClass provides us with both internal e-mail and a gateway to external e-mail and it provides us with an elaborate means for conferencing between and among teachers and students. All teachers maintain separate conference sites where assignments, electronic presentations, homework, and other information is exchanged between them and their students. There are also conferences which answer technical questions, give weather reports, news, advertise what's lost and found or for sale, campus chat lines, etc.

Another very important part of the technological infrastructure is the campus intranet, Brewstranet. It houses a suite of custom designed software which is used to generate complex curricula, evaluate and report on student, faculty, administrative, and school functioning, to provide backups for faculty and administrative electronic information, and to hold selected files downloaded from the internet in what we call information silos.

Labs vs. PowerBooks: Brewster is a laptop school. All teachers and all students use Macintosh PowerBooks in all but three disciplines. There are three computer laboratories for educational purposes which require desk-top machines with both greater dynamic RAM memory and larger monitors than those found on laptops.

One lab is for courses which use computer graphics as the palette in support of the teaching and learning of the principles and practices of art. Students use high end applications such as Bryce (for 3-D rendering), Macromedia Director, Photoshop, Illustrator, BBEdit, Poser, Painter, and others. The objective of the courses is art; the software programs are learned as tools necessary to be able to meet their objectives. This lab includes an Avid non-linear video editing suite.

Another lab is for courses which use desk-top publishing in support of the teaching and learning of the principles and practices of journalism. Students use Photoshop and others for laying in graphics and Word and PageMaker for creating and laying out all the school's publications. These include the school newspaper, the yearbook, an award winning literary journal and others.

A third lab is dedicated to music technology. Students learn to compose and create music using MIDI and a powerful 24-track recording studio. The music can then be pressed to CDs.

There are approximately another 20 desk-top computers employed directly in support of academic programs in the library, the deans' offices, the college counseling office, some science labs, and on a few teachers' desks. Of course, there are many dozens of other desk-top machines widely used by administrators and staff personnel for their purposes which are not directly academic. These functions do not require portability.

Everything else does. The ubiquitous availability of technology is not about the learning of technology; it is about learning... and teaching... and the advantages that access and communication lend to connecting those endeavors. Brewster is a laptop school because we want to capture the collective intelligence of the community at all times. Because of the portability of laptops students and teachers are able to have their computers with them at all times. The notes that a student might take in class; the electronically mounted presentation that the teacher can upload to their conference site to provide students the opportunity to down load in their dorm room at night; the access that she has to the CD tower or the intranet (Brewstranet) from her dorm room or study hall or library; the e-mail communication between teacher and student, or student and student can take place at any time, including right now while the question is burning; all these are important and enhance the opportunity to learn, but there is more.

In another section we emphasized that the basis for the successful integration of technology into curriculum at Brewster was not the hardware and software infrastructure so much as the more human technologies, the "core" technologies, of teaching and learning and classroom management that take advantage of the networked computing technology. We believe that no single teaching approach is sufficient to meet the needs of all the students in a class. Therefore, at Brewster multiple teaching modalities are employed. These include direct teaching and a number of collaborative approaches requiring a decentralized classroom. The point is... the classrooms need to be flexible so as to be able to be reconfigured in a minute to provide the appropriate space for whatever is being done that day. This cannot be done in the static condition of a fixed laboratory.

The Web: The Web has seen an amazing increase in the number of valuable educational resources available in the past two years. These are providing a wealth of useful enhancements to the intentional curricula of Brewster teachers. As such, the Web is seen as very valuable, but at this point we still have not tapped its full potential regarding its use as a data source for students. We have had the technical ability to provide full-time access to all the students, but were convinced that, at this point, there was more to be lost than gained by such a move. The potential for wasting time is enormous and it is our feeling that there is no time to waste, so we have avoided the potential problems by denying full time access and have opted for controlled access from a few locations in the school instead. In addition, we have created an intranet into which valuable web sites could be downloaded to enable Brewster students to begin to learn to be effective information navigators.

This week, however, things will change. Working with Cabletron, we are installing a new virtual LAN which will provide the opportunity to turn on or off access to the internet or any other part of our network at any place and at any time.

Curriculum: Ideas, Integration requirements: Certainly the Curriculum tools database developed on-site, which enables curriculum writers, teachers and students to interact is an important technological innovation we have at Brewster. Also, the manner which technology is integrated in the classroom teaching so as to serve the curriculum raher than replace it is an important factor.

Netiquette, Software Honesty, Web-ettiquette and AUP's: The school has a printed software policy in the student handbook, and the discipline standards are applicabe to all network misdemenors - if a student"hacks" into another person's computer, then it is treated as theft, and the same consequences apply (could be expulsion). Send us e-mail for more info or attached file. Ged or Doug.

Hardware and Software Acquisition for Faculty: Not so much an issue with the "computer-per-position" requirement of Brewster.

Standarization of Hardware and Software

Had to standardize so as to be able to "spread the word" amongst students and faculty alike. We are still an all Mac school.

Security, Networking, Grade reports and Admin Software

As a visitor to our school answered my question -- he is a top-management consultant for network security to the likes of IBM, Apple and Compaq -- "What is the biggest threat to network security?", without a drop of breath, he answered - "14 year old boys."

Security will always be an issue as we deal with the next Everest for some of these kids --" because I wanted to try and see how far I'd get..." is a too often refrain to the question, "Why did you try and access the Admin/Teacher files etc, etc"

All grade reports are done on an in-house Filemaker Pro developed database, with all the reports being produced from there.

Teacher evaluations/ Peer evaluations/ Administrative evaluations are done using a Filemaker Pro database/server across the school. This is used to demonstrate the teachers effectiveness and value as a teacher in the classroom.

A Quick Overview of Colorado Academy

Colorado Academy is a coeducational preK-12 independent day school located on 75 wooded acres in south suburban Denver. The school features a college preparatory curriculum for its 730 students, with particularly strong fine arts and athletics components.

A Quick Overview of the Colorado Academy Technology Program

Technology at Colorado Academy provides the underpinnings for an exemplary information literacy program, taught at all levels through the libraries. The libraries are hubs of constant research and recreational reading, utilizing both print and electronic media. In addition, three computer labs provide a place to conduct the curriculum integrated computer program which is a feature of Colorado Academy's technology program. That is, students learn technology related skills which enhance and support classroom content in all subject areas. Written guidelines outline the skills that 5th, 8th and 12th graders are expected to demonstrate when they leave the lower, middle and upper schools. Classroom teachers, with support from the technology staff, are well on their way to becoming the primary technology instructors for their students.

The basis of the school's infrastructure is a Windows NT 4.0 server. Every student and faculty member has his or her own login name, password and a directory for storing files. Every staff member and students in grades six and higher all have email accounts. Fiberoptic cable connects every building and Ethernet 10 base T connects all stations. There is also TV cable connectivity to every building. The labs, libraries and every classroom have full Internet access across the school's T1 connection. As of summer 1998, there will be 250 computers for student use, a ratio of three students per computer.

Other servers include a UNIX machine which handles email services and TCP/IP addressing. Print serving for both inkjet color and laser printers is handled by a secondary domain name server, and web page serving is handled by an NT secondary domain name server. Work on the school web page, particularly the Library Reference Desk, has resulted in visits from educators from as far as Great Britain and in requests to link to our page from schools and districts across the U.S. and Canada.

We have just hired an outside source to be on campus 3 hours daily to direct more of the network and maintenence issues. We also hire a local high school student (usually preparing to move into technical training) to work on campus 4-5 hours daily doing all types of technical trouble shooting.

We just finished building two new computer and library centers for our PK-5 and our 6-12. I would be happy to share our resulting thoughts on new construction. In the area of personnel, for a school of 750 we have 2.80 full time computer teachers and as head of the high school lab, I am also the Director of Technology.

For students, in addition to some Windows machines in the computer room and library, we have some Macintoshes (on their own file-sharing network), a couple of old DOS machines, and a couple of Linux terminals. All machines can access the shared printers. Students do programming in Windows or Linux, and word processing on all of these systems. A few faculty prefer to use an old Linux mail system rather than the Lotus Cc: Mail. Some secure systems like our grades and comments system, were custom-built by a faculty member and are run on a Linux system not on the general network.

The Country School is an independent day school for students in grades Pre-kindergarten through 8. We have approximately 220 students and 40 faculty. With the exception of one PC in the business office, all computers (about 35) are Macintoshes. This year, we opened a new learning center in which we have the computer lab, library, science rooms and a music room. Two weeks ago, we installed in that building an ethernet network with a server running Windows NT. By the fall, all 23 computers there will have Internet access. Our campus has classrooms in four other buildings, but plans to network those have not yet been made. We have computers in most classrooms, but many classes and students come to the learning center if they need to individual use of the computers. A bank of 11 AlphaSmarts help the word processing efforts. The digital camera, scanner, and projection to the big screen television enhance our technology program.

Although we continue to expand our supply of hardware and software, more emphasis has been placed on training staff to use the technology and to integrate its use in their curricula. We feel that it important to train both teachers and students in using the technology. Students in grades 1-6 come to the computer lab 1-2 times/week for instruction with the Technology Coordinator. All lessons are designed to relate to the units being taught in class. Teachers of grades 1-4 come with their classes and are invaluable as they assist the coordinator and relate the lessons to their work in class. Students in grades 7-8 take at least one computer elective in advanced computer uses. There has been a lot of attention given to ensure that throughout the year students have a variety of experiences with technology in ways which are developmentally appropriate.

The school helps teachers obtain technology for use at home. We established a loan program through which teachers can borrow a limited amount, interest free, to use towards the purchase of hardware. Payments are taken from their paycheck for a year. With a purchase of 5 computers one year, we acquired external modems (28.8K) which we couldn't use so we loaned them to teachers who wanted Internet access at home. Using the computer for report writing has made an enormous difference to the faculty's computer proficiency.

The faculty as a whole have greatly improved in their use of technology and in integrating it into their curriculum, but the growth has been in spurts. Four years ago, we expanded our lab and took advantage of the training offered by the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools. In six months, 21 teachers each had 12 hours of instruction on ClarisWorks. Since then several have taken additional computer courses, and I have offered workshops to faculty.

Most of the training though has been informal, individual and focused on specific skills or pieces of software. Lower School teachers have the advantage of learning new technology when they come with their classes. We have more and more peer training. Parts of divisional meetings are used to show student work and teachers' ideas when implementing technology in the lessons. As one member of the teaching team learns and implements something valuable, he/she will teach the other team members so that both sections of students have the same opportunity to use the technology. We keep asking faculty to focus on how they use technology in their program so that we can effectively use the resources have and maximize future purchases.

Derby is a co-ed day school with 280 students in grades PreK-9. We have about 80 Windows computers, (mostly 486 and pentiums) on our Novell network, a 56K line connecting them all to the Internet, an automated library, and e-mail for the faculty. The computers are distributed in two-11 computer labs, 13 in administrative offices, and the rest in classrooms.

We have two full time faculty teaching computer classes and a part time network administrator. Our network administrator deals with the infrastructure, troubleshooting and installing hardware and software. One full time person from the FutureKids company teaches their curriculum in weekly classes to grades 1-6. As academic computer coordinator, I teach the middle school weekly classes in keyboarding/word processing, and the upper school classes in desktop publishing, multimedia and web page creation. These classes equal a classroom teacher's full-time course load. In addition, I focus on working with the grade 4-9 subject teachers to help them incorporate computer skills into their classes. I also oversee the upper school lab, chair the Technology Committee, and run faculty training workshops.

The areas I would most like to discuss concern curriculum integration and faculty training.

Harbor Day School Technology Summary

Harbor Day is a coed K-8 day school consisting of 400 students and 32 faculty members. Four years ago we underwent a major upgrade of our educational technology. This was fueled by a desire to move computers beyond the lab based program that it had been into a situation where we infused technology throughout the curriculum and provide our faculty and students with the knowledge and support to enable them to do so. We have two full time technology specialists. The first is Technology Resource Specialist - Heidi York who works primarily with K-5 students and faculty in both formal classes and individual support. The Director of Technology - Jeanne Robb (me) oversees all of the network, hardware, software, and administrative issues as well as teaching 6th and 7th grade technology classes. Beyond that we have been pleased to see many of our teachers really take off and become very innovative in their technology use.

Holderness School, NH

Holderness is a small coeducational boarding school in central New Hampshire. We have approximately 270 students, of which 210 are boarding. Our student facilities consist of three computer labs which have a total of 45 computers. One of these labs is exclusively Macintosh(7.6) and the other two are IBM(Win 95 and Win 3.1) On the administrative side, each faculty and staff member has a computer in their classroom or office, and all the computers on campus are part of "Holdernet". I am the full-time Director of Technology with another full-time assistant coming next year. Total number of workstations on campus is approaching 100. We have six network servers which are running Appleshare, Windows NT, Novell and First Class.

The software we have standardized on is Microsoft Office, and we use Filemaker Pro for our Dean's Office and Athletic Office. The rest of the administrative campus uses Blackbaud(Admissions, Alumni and Business Office) Our e-mail package is First Class(3.5), which is the backbone of our communication. We maintain a 56kb line to the internet, with an upgrade to a 384kb probably occurring this summer. Our web page is slated to come up July 1. Our library is running Athena, which has been awesome.

Teachers have been great trying out new technologies. The English department has started to take off using First Class as a way to revise papers. The foreign languages are using the CD-ROM's that come with their text books. The science department has discovered that they can cover some body systems, both human and animal, using some inexpensive cd-roms. The History folks have been doing some great research for their papers, and one teacher has her video disk, her Mac, and her TV wired together. The math dept has also put Excel to good use. People are really starting to use it more than a "filler." Faculty training has occurred either during in-service days, or the famous "free lunch". Once a week I offer a one-hour tech workshop over lunch (I buy from the Deli downtown) that is limited to six people.

Hopkins School, CT

Hopkins has this year implemented a Microsoft NT 4.0 campus wide network to support the cross platform (Mac & PC) environment of 125+ machines (and growing) to support 600 students. We have 3 'labs' and machines available in the library for student use. In addition to that there are numerous smaller student machines for specific purposes (e.g., 4 in the language office, two high end machines in the art department to support both the visual arts efforts and the video course. Additionally, all classrooms are now wired with 10BaseT ethernet and video (not all have computers, however. Our primary software suite is based on Microsoft Office (word, excel, powerpoint) and server based FilemakerPro (for grades & comments and general database work).

Staffwise, we seem to be a collection of part timers and 'full' timers that also teach, coach, and advise (oh, and run the junior school computer literacy activities, also ...the latter applies to me, the director of academic computing and my assistant director). Many departments have identifies 'area coordinators (usually dropping one section of teaching). This is presently coordinated through a 'Computer & Technology Committee' which I chair.

Assistant Director of Academic Computing Responsibilities
DATE: 5/12/97
Now that Jim is on board (on a part time basis, anyway), there have been some questions from some of you as to who to go to for what. Jim and I have discussed this at some length, and what follows is a abbreviated version of what his (at least initial) primary responsibilities are:
(1) "Academic Administrative" Computing, primary support person to include secretaries, scheduling, MacSchool, registrar, college counseling, head advisor needs, and support for administration and administrative projects. Support is to include : purchasing guidance, installation of hardware & software, troubleshooting problems, training in hardware and program use (including G's& C's)
(2) Primary support person for the following academic departments: English, History, Arts (Mac)
Support is to include all of the above PLUS technology and curriculum integration.
(3) Additionally, Jim will act as the course coordinator for the internet portion of the computer literacy effort. Please tell your people in these respective areas to contact Jim directly for assistance. Obviously, these are flexible guidelines, but it should give you a good starting place for your needs.

Technology became a priority for Middlesex in late 1994, and the school began to plan for a huge push for technology in 1995. In early 1996, the funding for a five year initiative became available, and the real work began with the installation of the campus wide network infrastructure in the Summer of 1996. We have a fiber optic backbone connecting all of our academic, administrative, and dormitory buildings. Operating on this backbone are four servers: 4.1x Novell fileserver running academic applications, 3.12 Novell fileserver running administrative applications, 4.1x Novell CD-Tower running research CD-ROM Applications, and a UNIX based webserver providing us with a website and POP3 mail server.

The school has standardized on Windows 95 and Microsoft Office 97. We have one central database application from which we generate all our business office, dean's office, registrar's office, and admissions materials. We have a separate database application from which we generate all our alumni and development materials. All publications, both administrative and student based, are designed in PageMaker, although most of these publication are published off site. Additional software used on campus includes, EOSi's Windows based card catalog, Adobe Photoshop, Geometer's Sketchpad, Peanut Software's Winstats, Netscape, and several research packages licensed on the Internet or on CD-ROM.

Realistically, we have funding for the five year plan, and are currently looking to our Development Office to find the endowment necessary to move forward after the initial five years has expired. We realize that we will need a significant amount of money just to maintain these systems let alone improve them as technology changes.

Until the summer of 1997, we had spent a great amount of time on the hardware/software portion of this project, and very little time on the humanware. We have made some strides in faculty training, however, this year we hope to make even more. We had offered faculty training session during the summer of 1997, and they were very successful. Half of our faculty attended these sessions. This summer we have offered "technology grants" to faculty interested in working on curriculum changes with the technology department. Twelve faculty members have approached us to do just that, and twelve have been approved. Add to this the standard training we offered last summer, and we should see faculty participation in technology initiatives bloom over the next couple of years.

Staffing is a real issue. We currently have myself and one full time faculty member working in the technology department. In addition, we have one intern assisting in the Library with technology. We provide all service and support to all administrative/operational functions and academic functions. This means we support the 4 fileservers, two technology centers, administrative offices, faculty offices and classrooms ( not all have computers yet ), faculty homes with computers, and first level trouble shooting with students who have computers in the dorms. Both my assistant and the technology intern are leaving in June, and we have proposed two full time positions to replace these two individuals. One will be a network specialist to manage the networks and the problems arising with administrative use. The other will be a support specialist who has a training background and can help draw our faculty into the world of technology, while supporting the library and classroom hardware.

We added student assistants to the technology center this year, and they have proved very beneficial. We obviously cannot be everywhere, so we have trained these students to do simple things like help students log into the network, read and send e-mail, print, etc. We have also trained a few of them to install network cards and do first line trouble shooting in the dorms. Next year we will expand the size of this group, so we have at least one student per dorm.

Noble and Greenough School, Dedham MA

At Nobles, we have approximately 500 students in grades 7-12. We are primarily a day school with about 50 five-day boarders. We have about 225 computers on campus with one full time person, one almost full time person and several part-timers overseeing the computer program. My own position as computer coordinator involves educational computing. I oversee about 100 computers, primarily Macs. I am involved in teaching a variety of courses in grades 7-10. I oversee our educational web pages at www.teachingcompany.com and our very active campus bulletin board. Christopher Smick is Director of Administrative Computing and oversees about 125 computers in administrative depts, Science Building and our new Digital Learning Center for the Modern Language Dept. He also oversees our campus network and our main web pages at www.nobles.edu for the school. His position is defined as 4/5 time. Two other members of the computer dept are 1/2 each. Claudia Keller teaches 3 sections of our main course, Computer Proficiency 3 and oversees our main computer labs. Michael Turner teaches 2 section of the same course and is the coordinator of administrative databases, using FileMaker Pro extensively. Accordingly, we have 1 + .8 + .5 + .5 = 2.8 FTE people here in the computer dept. Because of our new Modern Language Lab, there are two people in the modern language dept each now actively overseeing computer hardware and software there, perhaps to be estimated as .25 each or .5 total. Finally because we use students aggressively, our headmaster -- Dick Baker -- has estimated that we have another .5 to 1 FTE of "computer support" in the form of unpaid but very useful students, which we call the Student Staff.

The following excerpt called Going Hybrid is from a recent publicaton to the parent community and is probably of interest to other people at the symposium

Going Hybrid (cross-platform)

I remember a song by The Who called Going Mobile. Though I wonÕt sing this one on stage, this seems an appropriate metaphor with which to announce the next phase of computer evolution here at Nobles: Macs and Windows computers on campus in most of the educational computer spaces, perhaps in equal numbers in 2-3 years. The immediate current plan is to have four Windows computers in each of at least four spaces next fall (East Lab, West Lab, Library, Middle School lab).

Over the last month, I have had discussion with three key groups that I am part of: the computer dept teaching faculty (Mike Turner, Claudia Keller), the student staff led by seniors to be Diane Simoni, Bianca Mauro and Katiana Anglade and an administrative group which we call The Global Computer Department (Dick Baker, Bill Chamberlin, Chris Smick, Ben Snyder). In each group, I have shared the contents of a report from Colby College which is a fascinating, informative document about their decision to evolve from a Mac only school to a hybrid (e.g. cross-platform) school. It has been clear to me for about nine months that this is the right decision for Nobles. I recall sharing these observations with Bill Chamberlin last September when telling him about the color significance of each lab. Reading the Colby report (www.colby.edu) sealed the discussion for me.

Nobles has evolved over the last few years as an aggressive computer-using community. We have focused on several software programs that are cross-platform: ClarisWorks, First Class (NoblesNet), Pagemaker, Photoshop and now HyperStudio. Our new East/West computer labs have alleviated the space problems of the last few years. Our new student staff office provides a wonderful location for help and support. The current group of sophomores involved on the student staff have a good deal of Windows skills and know-how. We have identified excellent translators for the Windows computers and Macs that allow disks from the other type of computer to be used. We are ready to take on the technical challenges of supporting more types of computer on campus and therefore can change the advice that we have been giving to families purchasing computers.

It is our strongest suggestion that every Nobles family own a computer at home, a modem and their own legal copy of ClarisWorks -- the mac or windows decision might be made for purchasing reasons, personal reasons or for compatibility with the work/school requirements of another family member. We believe that for the next few years, any student with a computer, modem and Clarisworks should be fine. We plan to incorporate lessons aggressively on Windows computers and Macs into all of CP classes as of Fall 98.

I certainly do know that there will problems ahead of us as a result of this decision. As the Colby report makes clear, one of the biggest issues in the computer world is the ongoing s&m (support and maintenance) that everyone faces as a result of more technology. My former headmaster once mentioned the metaphor of "no elephants without hay" as perhaps applicable to the computer world. As we increase the number of elephants in our schools, the support and maintenance grows (the hay). Our decision to go cross-platform will cost us a bit in terms of having to feed two types of elephants, but we are ready. I purposely bought one more Windows computer this year for the student staff office just to see what the hay might be. Without question, it is because of the student staff program that we are ready to take on the challenge of having a lot of "mobile elephants" come this fall.

More details regarding Windows Computers/Macs are in the 8 page handout available from the admissions office titled Computer Info for Parents. The following topics are also covered in this pamphlet: computer access, purchasing advice, translating between Macs and Windows computers, Clarisworks, honesty and software piracy, typing practice and modem access to NoblesNet from home. To quote Dick BakerÕs intro: "Very soon, a personal computer will be a necessity here, with the School offering loaners to those for whom such a purchase would be a financial hardship." Here is what I consider the most important statement in the pamphlet: any family with a Windows computer or Mac should purchase a legal copy of Clarisworks, a modem and make sure you are connected to NoblesNet.

Oak Hill is a co-ed day school with 450 students in grades Pre-K through 6. We have 93 Macintosh computers in classrooms, lab (21), library, clinic, and offices. All teachers, coordinators and head of school have a Powerbook furnished by the school. We have a schoolwide Ethernet network, a fully automated library (running Alexandria), e-mail for the faculty, and an ISDN connection to the Internet. Administrative offices also have PC computers which are on a Novell network.

We have both networked laser printers and many non-networked printers in classrooms. We have four LCD panels with overhead projectors for teachers to use on request. As the computer teacher, I use a unit in my classroom every day for instruction.

We have a generous budget for software, and software for specific grade levels or subjects areas is kept in appropriate classrooms. Because we purchase multiple copies of classroom software and site licenses or networkable software we rarely encounter abuse of software licenses. We have adequately warned teachers of the consequences of missusing software.

We have one full time technology coordinator/teacher of classes in grades 1-6. Another staff person is part-time technology specialist and part-time school registrar. As technology coordinator, I plan with classroom teachers and coordinate computer classes with their curriculum. Grades 1-4 have class once a week; grades 5 and 6 are on a rotating schedule with class approximately once a week. I teach keyboarding in grades 3-6 at the beginning of the school year with practice continuing throughout the year, but all other classes are integrated with the academic curriculum. I also do teacher training and parent classes, all ordering and maintaining an inventory of hardware and software, and run the computer lab. The technology specialist deals with most of the hardware maintainence and problems.

Almost all teachers use the computers in their classrooms daily for curriculum integrated software, word processing, and special projects.

The struggles: how does one keep up with the technology and all the duties? What is the best plan? Time is always my biggest struggle.

Every school needs to come up with its own organizational structure, but I can say how we do it at Park School (a coed preK-grade 9 day school of 509, and 69 faculty). We have 150 networked Macs and 20 networked Wintel machines, fileservers, e-mail, WWW, an automated library, and more. We decided to formalize a technology department after trying to have a separate "academic" department for several years, composed of several part-time faculty. That system broke down once we networked the school. Right now we have 2.8 people. None of us has classroom responsibilities (except for a one term typing class in grades 4 & 5), though we often mentor technology-rich classroom activities with regular faculty. Students don't go to "computer class" here. Our director is responsible for the well-being of the program and takes care of strategic issues and critical systems. He makes the system-wide decisions. One of the staff manages one of our 3 computer labs, and takes care of everything "internet". She is responsible for our web site, and is teaching us all about how the Internet can be used as a teaching and learning tool. She concentrates on our upper school. The 3rd person is responsible for the lower school and manages their lab. He also spends 1/3 of his time doing technical support (printer jams, installing software, trouble shooting, etc.) All three of us have a strong teaching background, and we still consider ourselves teachers in our current tech department roles.

Because we have a technical infrastructure that is critical to the overall health of our academic and administrative programs, we decided we needed people who would specialize. Unfortunately, one can't just install a system of networked computers and walk away from them. It is critically important that the system remain "up and running" and that it is optimized for your particular school. For schools of our size, this cannot be done as a side job.

That being said, we spend a lot of time working with individuals who wind up taking leadership roles in the educational use of computers within their own specialties. We consider ourselves successful when our faculty, students, and administration take ownership of their technology and how they use it.

My name is Jeff Ritter and I am the Technology Coordinator at Randolph School in Huntsville, AL. I appreciate your notice and would like to be added to your mailing list (see address below). I will not be able to attend either conferences this year, but wanted to get in touch with you and A) let you know what we are doing, B) get anything that you put together from the results of the conferences.

We are a coed independent school with approximately 700 students k-12. In about two weeks, we are giving our teachers laptops for them to use over the summer and next year. We are holding training sessions both on the day the laptops the arrive and for three one week sessions over the summer. We hope to go to laptops for students in one grade within a year and beginning implementing on a larger scale there after.

I hope this has given you a little bit of a look at what we are doing at Randolph. We are very interested to hear what other schools are doing and would welcome the another opportunity to sit down and have a symposium on Technology in Independent Schools. Let me know how I can be involved in the future, and if you put anything together after the symposium, I would love to receive a copy. Thank you!

Thanks for your response back. Would love to be on the email list for the symposium. You are also welcome to the information on the school on the page. Is there any other information you would like me to provide? Is there anything you would like me to send for the symposium? Let me know if there is anything I can do.

What about holding a symposium for Southern schools? Kinda a long way to travel for a day symposium right in the middle of the fourth quarter. Maybe have regional symposium with a national symposium over the summer. Just thinking out loud (or in writing?!?!). Let me know what you think.

Thanks for everything!
Jeff Ritter

The Rashi School is K-8. We are currently occupying a building rented from the town of Needham, MA, but will be moving into another rented facility in Dedham next year. The lease at the Dedham site is for three years; the intent is that we will be moving into our own (owned) permanant site in the fall of 2001. These transitions obviously affect our planning for technology infrastructure investments.

The school is planning to invest in internet access for computers in the middle school (grades 6-8) next year. Teachers will also have access to the internet through a shared computer in the faculty lounge. Computers in lower school classrooms (2 per classroom) will not be networked. The middle school computers will be in a lab next year. All the school's curriculum machines use the Mac OS. For those familiar with Macs, our computers can be dated by saying that all use Mac OS 7.1 or later. The average computer is probably three years old.

The Rashi faculty is generally committed to incorporating computers into curriculum, however there is a wide diversity in teacher expertise in this area. Extensive funds and time for professional development are available, although the ultimate choice to use these resources to learn about computers is left to the individual faculty member, and there has not been a tremendous amount of professional development in computers among faculty thus far. In many classrooms, computers are used primarily for individual enrichment.

Progress is being made. The school is in the last stages of producing a three year technology plan in order to access E-Rate funding. 1997-98 was also the first year that there was a half-time position of "technology coordinator" at the school. A technology "scope and sequence" is also being developed. Faculty members will attend a training at the WGBH teacher center on "Using one computer in the classroom" later this spring.

By way of introduction, Riverview is a residential school for students with moderate- to - severe learning disabilities. The current enrollment consists of 120 students, which includes 2 day students. The students range in age from 11 to 20 years of age. They present a wide range of learning disabilities and their conditions are generally compounded by other social, emotional, or medical limitations. The emphasis is on individualized student centered education. To this end we divide the population into six teams each with a group of two to four teachers, using a self - contained thematic model, similar to the structure of a middle school.

In the past four years we have been making the transition from the Apple II world to Mac and PC computers. There still are a few of those old systems being used for word processing out there! The transition process was kicked off with a donation from our parent's association of $18,000 with which we set up a multi-platform lab of 4 Macs and 4 PC's (win3.1). This lab is used to teach computer skills to small groups as an elective class, where students rotate through this class each trimester and may have this elective each of their four years as students here. Two years later another donation enabled us to purchase a power Mac for each of the academic teams (there were 5 at the time) and approximately $12,000 was spent. Our most recent addition of hardware came at the beginning of this year in the form of a $22,000 donation which purchased the equipment for a 10 computer lab designed for use by entire classes of students. This lab is equipped with IBM equipment, it is our first foray into a networked environment, and is where we maintain our internet connection. In addition to the equipment listed above we have assorted older Mac and PC machines that are distributed throughout the classrooms and dorms. Each class room has at least one computer but the lack of standardization has created many challenges. Another factor is the fact that at last count 73 of our students have a computer in their dorm room. They also have a diversity of hardware and software configurations.

The primary application of this technology was, and to a large extent remains, in the area of word processing. I remember when Steve conducted a week long training session for our faculty on Bank Street Writer. People were in shock over the thought of being required to turn in reports using this new technology rather than a typewriter; that was only 8 years ago! We are now using ClarisWorks as the standard around campus. It took a few years to wean folks off BSW. Many still have no idea of what a database or spreadsheet is, nor any clue as to what you can do in painting. At this point most teachers have branched out and are using some math software, primarily for drill and practice. Some use Inspiration for brainstorming and presentation. Also Encarta is used by many classes for looking things up. One team this year has begun to use Write OutLoud successfully to promote independent writing skills. Typing Tutor 6 is used to teach keyboarding in the computer classes. History classes use simulations like If My Name was Changed at Ellis Island and Immigration from Tom Snyder's Decisions, Decisions series. A teacher recently approached me looking for the program CrossCountry USA to use in his social studies class, we are getting a Mac version and investigating if it is available for the PC. ( I used to use this program in the IIe mode back when I was a SS teacher ) I provide this example to underscore the point that at this point people are using the software they are comfortable with.

As you may infer, the humanware quotient here at Riverview is rather low. I came into the position of teaching the computer lab classes and acting as computer coordinator from the background of first being a teacher and then because of my interest in, and experience in, using computers with my students. Many of our staff only use the computer as a report writing tool. A few have explored its use as a presentation tool using prepared materials and hardly anyone has begun to prepare their own presentations. This is changing as we see an influx of new staff and as older staff break down and buy their own equipment partially in response to pressure from their own kids. My primary job responsibility is teaching students and then keeping the hardware up and running. There are two middle administrators who have helped organize and implement our efforts to give staff some training and support. I now meet monthly with these folks to discuss current issues and future planning. A large push to improve the level of sophistication of our infrastructure has come from the parents who have been strong proponents of expanded email services.

We are in the early stages of a campus wide renovation which will give us new academic, residential, library, and gymnasium facilities. The challenge as I see it is to balance the need to make decisions today with the ever changing face of the technological landscape. The topic questions for the symposium reflect many of the concerns and issues that have been discussed around here as we begin to wrestle with these issues. I must say I am looking forward to the sharing of ideas, solutions, and points of view that this weekend's meeting will afford.

Rocky Hill School

Rocky Hill School enjoys a glorious location on the shores of the Potowomut River in East Greenwich, RI (directly south of Providence). We are a coed, day school with 308 students in Nursery through grade 12 served by a teaching staff of 45.

We are currently a Macintosh based campus on the instructional side with 44 computers distributed between two labs (one in the upper school building and one in the lower school building) and various classrooms. Our library/media center has 5 pc-based and one "token" Macintosh. Both of the labs have a LocalTalk network that does not extend outside of the room. We have four dedicated phone lines for Internet access; these lines are "free of charge"from Bell Atlantic (formerly NYNEX) thanks to an agreement between the RI Public Utilities Commission and the state back in 1993 which gave free lines to all schools and libraries in the state for the sole purpose of accessing the Internet. These lines are located in the library, the upper school, the middle school and the lower school. In the computer labs we run a program called Vicom Internet Gateway which allows five computers to simultaneously access the Internet through the single modem located in each room.

We have our own school web site which is located, for the present, off campus but which is entirely home-grown. Almost all of our staff has a web page. Keeping the site updated and interesting has become a challenge. One of our greatest successes with the web site has been the middle school homework hotline page which is updated daily.

On the administrative side we have 11 intel-based computers and seven Macintosh. Several of the administrative computers are connected on a LAN. We are using Raiser's Edge in the development area and MMS for attendance and US/MS grade reporting. Faculty have access to two Macintosh powerbooks which are available overnight, weekends and vacations as well as during the school day. All student comments at the end of marking periods in the Upper and Middle Schools are done on FileMaker Pro. Lower School teachers use ClarisWorks to write their reports - a combination of a spreadsheet checklist and a word processed comment. All teachers have email accounts.

We currently have one full time technology person. The faculty is incredibly responsive to all my efforts to advance the use of computers within the curriculum. In the past I have held technology workshops after school once or twice a month focusing on specific needs of the teachers and introducing new concepts or applications. I teach one upper school "computer literacy" elective designed mainly for new upper school students who have not had the advantage of our lower and middle school program. I also have middle school classes three times a week, I teach a middle school keyboarding elective which is required for all 7th graders and I work with one lower school class. The lower school has two teachers who help out as "computer resource"people with grades k-5.

Immediate plans include completing the drafting of our technology plan (can you believe that we do not have one?) and networking the campus. We also will be purchasing more pcs with the goal of provding equal access to both platforms. My own frustration is that I do not have enough time to work on curriculum integration. I consider myself incredibly lucky, however, given the amount of support from all segments of the school community. What a great job!

Shore Country Day School, MA

Shore Country Day School is a Readiness through Grade 9 private school on the north shore of Boston. We have about 430 students and the campus has five buildings. In the summer of 1996, the entire campus was networked, combining older, smaller networks into one Novell 4.1 LAN. We have about 150 Mac and Windows computers across campus, with the administration mainly using Windows and education using mainly Macintosh, with some Windows thrown in. Our email is run on a First Class Intranet Server and we have an ISDN Internet connection available to any computer on the network. We have two computer labs, one in each division, and at least one computer in every classroom. Our brand new Lower School lab opened in Sept., 1997 in a new addition. Our older Upper School lab is planned for either renovation and/or relocation in the near future.

All technology coordination falls under my job description, Director of Technology. We have had a part-time technology assistant for two years. We are currently undergoing a search for a full-time Educational Technology Assistant to start anytime after July 1! Coordination of the program, network planning and administration, administrative computing, etc. all fall under my job. The new person will coordinate the two labs, teach some Upper School computer courses, train faculty and assist in the integration of technology into the curriculum. We have had a Technology Planning Committee since 1990 which consists of myself, the Dir. of Finance & Operations, the librarian, and representative faculty from each division. This spring we started a parent volunteer program. With about 15 volunteers to work in the Upper School lab, we have been able to provide assistance to students during study halls, as well as to teachers teaching in the lab. The parents also receive some technology training, the reason many have been willing to volunteer!

Our faculty and administration are all very technology-crazy. Last summer (1997) we conducted our first Summer Technology Institute for 12 faculty and taught by 5 faculty members. Taught on our system and using our software, they learned everything from Stupid Mac Tricks to web surfing and publishing to HyperStudio. We are holding our second STI this summer and it's full already! We hope to add an "intermediate" session the following summer.

Shorecrest Preparatory School, Florida

Shorecrest Preparatory School serves 825 students from 3 years old through twelfth grade. Our technology department consists of four full time people with a variety of additional teachers taking on technology teaching responsibilities. Approximately 160 computers are located in classrooms and three labs as well as administrative offices.

In my job as lower school computer coordinator I am responsible for the Early Childhood Center and three sections of each grade, kindergarten through sixth, for a total of 480 students. My duties involve teaching numerous classes in the lab, troubleshooting lab and classroom hardware difficulties, ordering , previewing, and evaluating software, assisting classroom teachers with the implementation of technology integration and supporting the faculty of 26 in any technology endeavors.

Our technology coordinator is the network administrator. He works under a twelve month contract and is responsible for creating and maintaining the school's web pages as well as the school's local network. Shorecrest has a strong commitment to teacher training and the technology coordinator has developed and delivered a variety of offerings beginning with Macintosh Basics, Introduction to ClarisWorks and currently is extending the offerings to include an Introduction to Netscape, as well as Creating Web Pages. In addition he teaches two classes to students entitled Computing Essentials which vary from semester to semester based on the class enrollment. In the past students in these classes have been involved in developing portions of the school web pages by interviewing and "reporting" on various aspects of campus life. The coordinator's assistant is responsible for troubleshooting, repairing, installing software, and assisting where ever needed. This position is also full time with a twelve month contract. The fourth member of the Technology Department teaches middle school keyboarding and application classes as well as supervises the lab during "free" periods.

The newest addition to technology offerings is the area of programming. One faculty member from the math department is currently teaching a section of Visual Basic and we plan to extend that offering to include advanced programming for the 98-99 school year.

Many faculty members are investigating ways or are currently incorporating technology in their everyday teaching. Both the journalism class, which publishes the student newspaper, and the yearbook staff use technology extensively. Physics classes, geography classes, and numerous other classes are beginning to either visit the labs regularly or utilize equipment in their classrooms.