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We are proud to announce the implementation of School Center for the creation of School, Teacher, and Departmental web pages.
School Center is an online service that uses a graphical interface through Internet Explorer to publish web pages. We are currently utilizing this service for 50 schools and departments for the 2003 – 2004 school year. We plan on to implement School Center for the remaining schools in our district in the 2004 – 2005 school year.
Our first group of school webmasters has been trained in School Center and they will utilize this service exclusively starting April 1 st of 2004. There will also be a 10 hour course offered for this service in February of 2004. Training for the remaining schools in the district will happen in the fall of 2004.
An Enhancing Education Through Technology Grant with funding from No Child Left Behind legislation had funded the implementation of QUEST: Quality Educational Strategies and Technologies.
QUEST is an 8-day long, standards-based professional development program comprised of a training curriculum aligned to state and national standards for both students and teachers. Offered in an on-site classroom laboratory, this hands-on training truly models the ideal teaching environment that blends the student curriculum, the national educational technology standards for teachers, the best of new and existing technologies, and research-based instructional strategies.
The content of the QUEST curriculum is drawn straight from the state student curriculum standards in Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. Using a professional development “for teachers, by teachers” model, QUEST facilitators are classroom-trained teachers who guide participants through model lessons in each curriculum area. All model lessons are curriculum-based and utilize the best of the schools’ new and existing technologies to enhance students’ understanding of curriculum concepts.
As a part of the 8-day QUEST training, participants will learn how to combine multiple technologies and instructional design theory for the purpose of developing their own integrated technology lesson plans and units.
Click here to view the QUEST brochure.
QTL: Quality Teaching and Learning
QTL: Quality Teaching and Learning is a 50 hour workshop that incorporates best teaching practices and shows teachers how to effectively integrate technology into their classrooms. Developed by ExplorNet in cooperation with NCDPI, the workshop takes a thematic approach to technology integration using a Making Connections theme. Activities include writing, problem solving, gathering and organizing data, measurement, researching on the Internet, learning map/graphic skills and working collaboratively. Teachers also learn classroom management practices for using technology such as flexible grouping of students and multitasking.
Participating elementary schools send a team of educators for an immersion-type training. During the week, various software packages and tools such as document cameras, scanners and digital cameras are used. Follow up includes model lessons in each teachers classroom and the implementation of QTL lessons that are written by participating teachers on day 6 and 7 of the training.
Visit the QTL Website for more information:
Technology Policies, Procedures and Standards Manual
Recently, the Council of Great City Schools conducted a Peer Review of the Guilford County Schools Technology Services. One of the recommendations of that audit was that written standards and procedures were needed to insure the integrity of the district's network services.
The Technology Policies, Procedures and Standards Manual was written to provide guidelines for using all technology resources in a responsible, legal and ethical manner. The procedures outlined in this document have been developed by the Technology Applications Review Committee (TARC). The goal of the committee is to provide a standard and controllable network environment for the district.
Additional information can be found in the Policies and Forms section.
Extended Learning - SuccessMaker
NCSLearn’s SuccessMaker software is being installed in the computer labs and classrooms of 41 Title I elementary schools. All Level I and Level II students will use the software to help increase academic achievement in reading and math. Students will utilize the programs for a minimum of thirty minutes, three days a week as a part of the Extended Day Learning Program. Daily and weekly formative assessment data for each student is available to the classroom teacher.
New Web-Based Help Desk System
Repairs, loading software, resolving computer-related problems, installation of new equipment or the addition of computer cabling may be requested by submitting a help desk request ticket. All requests from school or administrative sites are coordinated through the Help Desk.
Technology Services recently implemented a new web-based help desk system that enables the school contact to enter and track request tickets from their site. The major advantages are:
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Submitting request tickets online eliminates the wait often experienced as over 100 sites are trying to access the help desk
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Users will be notified via email when a ticket is assigned and completed
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While a ticket is active, the school’s technology contact is able to view the history log of the ticket as it progresses toward completion.
Guilford County recently purchased eScholar, a data warehouse for centralized student information. A data warehouse enables the district to combine data from various sources and to provide countywide reporting more easily.
We are currently completing phase I of the implementation which includes two years of history for student demographics, enrollment, absences, courses and grades, testing information and exceptional child data. During phase II, discipline data, ESOL information, free and reduce lunch status and special programs will be added. Later, detailed teacher information will also be included.