Michael C. Warren

While last month I started developing my action plan, this month many things started getting put into action. I researched some topics that I thought might be of interest for teachers, such as using Google docs, Google sites, and Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey got the most interest from teachers and they have already started to find ways to use it for their classes. Our Microsoft Certification program was having some problems I worked to get things up from the last part of last month. As a contact person between our IT department and Certiport I eventually worked to help get a solution so that students could run the software over the network. The problem was our firewall, as well as restrictions on the student’s accounts. We created a new account just for the Lab use that goes around the firewall issue, and gives students more access for the application on the workstations.

Our current web hosting service that also provides our broadband connectivity has told us that they will not be offering web and mail hosting for us next year, so we are in the process of starting to look for a new hosting provider. As part of our search we have a meeting planned in May with eChalk, but I have started to research what services eChalk provides. From what I see so far they have been around for a while, and offer a number of good services. In early may we will have a teleconference and I hope it answers some of the questions I have regarding technical offerings and specific web manipulation. If we go with one of these new services I am hoping we can also use it as an online learning management solution as well. I have talked to our counselor and she is interested in offering additional staff development for things like TAKS in an online environment to help teachers make sure they do the allotted training required.