The TWAIN blog

Today, I took part in a webinar on Microsoft Live@EDU and their new Exchange Online services for school districts and I was blown away. I was given a preview to a system that changes how we manage information in our districts. The squeaky wheel lost to a cloud today.

If anything – watch their interactive website which includes animated films designed by students. Link is embedded or find here: http://my.liveatedu.com/

Here is what Microsoft says they will provide FOR EACH USER:
25GB of space on SkyDrive (their own individual home folder)
5GB of space in email
Ability to send 20MB per message
Instant messenger (which can be open for staff and not students)
Microsoft Sharepoint services – collaborative documents shared online
A website that includes blogging, calendars, document sharing, etc.
Microsoft Office Live access (Word, Power Point, Excel) online (no installers)
Microsoft Live Search

In other words, a teacher could upload their files to this system and then open rights up to students to view/edit. Teacher and administrators could create folders to share documents and files. The shared folders on our file server migrate up to this system and then we assign rights to the specific folders.

Microsoft Office Live is the web version of Office – Word, Power Point, Excel. Students and staff would have WEB access to these tools without having to install on their own computers.

Total cost for this: $0.00 for hosting. No advertisements on ANY student access service but staff may have Microsoft advertisements (only in top banner of screen). The advertisements aren’t commercials but a banner about a particular Microsoft service.

Positives:
Hosted off-site (no need for a second NOC….or a first NOC for that matter).
Free – and that is free forever (no fee later)
Web access means all materials are online all the time. No second upload for teachers wanting to post documents on their websites. They simply assign rights to their documents in their folders to who they want to view or edit the docs.
Microsoft availability online means kids and staff access Microsoft Office on any computer with Internet connectivity. Same version for everyone.
Built-in Spam and Virus scanner
Leave-ability: Graduates from district take email and info with them. Account goes from district address to @hotmail.com if they want it. All documents and files go with them and out of our control and management
Lots of space gives 30GB of space per user but may be up to 50GB once we get into the Office/Web apps
Private and secure
Collaborative work environments online
Instant Chat
Student websites – Students could make portfolios for classes and be able to share them with future employers/colleges.
Teacher websites – Teachers can generate websites with blogging, calendars, documents, document sharing, etc.
Syncs with our current Active Directory and setup (all current and archived emails with Folders migrate over)
Mobile phone access is built-in via the web
Low maintenance
Low migration issues
Offers ShareView which includes ability to link 15 users for screencasting

Negatives:
Hosted off-site so if the site is down or Internet is down, we are down.
Advertising on some areas (but it is for Microsoft products only)
25GB of space gives freedom to put music, games, etc. in the system. It will be hard to monitor it but we will look into that and how our network access control can help.
Microsoft – most viruses and hacks are targeted at them but in this day and age, we are all targets
Some migration issues. I think if we are to do this, we pay for the advanced migration tools and maybe hire an engineer to come help us migrate it all over. This could be our only cost.

My district uses Active Directory and Microsoft for everything so the migration will be simplified. The presenter in the webinar shared how universities migrate over 30,000 users in a week. We have 710 staff and have not opened up student accounts beyond the high school.

All this said, does the cloud beat the wheel? Do we migrate completely online? This changes cost dramatically but then the money for our own hosting goes to bandwidth. We open the pipeline!

I want to know from others out there who are experiencing this what their thoughts are. Districts, universities, businesses going Web 2.0 cloud – what do you think? Is it worth $0.00 for this??

A few more quotes from the staff I took to TCEA:

“…I found that becoming immersed with other professionals in the digital world was exhilirating! Just watching everyone move about the conference with their various devices communicating and recharging gave me a true sense of what our students have been born into. After 20 years of attending various conferences in education, I found myself rediscovering the joys of connecting with others who are excited to try new ways of engaging their students. But that’s where the similarities between conferences from then and now end because today’s methods go “outside the box” in EVERY direction! What an eye-opener!! So many news ideas swirling around in my head!”

“I would tell [my campus staff] to get on their comfy slippers and commit some time to traveling through a few Web 2.0 links, so they can begin to see all of the possibilities for connecting with their students and colleagues (even parents) in new ways. I also believe the library can act as a “medium” for promoting Web 2.0 and supporting the staff/students.
I think that [our principal's] persistence in starting the school news broadcast has been a great catalyst for getting our teachers and students to get their feet wet with potential for podcasting and vodcasting.”

“I learned so much I am about to explode. I can’t get it all out of my head and use it fast enough.”

“TCEA is great. You can go and see new technologies that are coming out as well as current technology you have. You can attend the sessions or visit the booths of various companies and find new ways to use current equipment and well as get a chance to talk directly to the vendors to get answers to questions you may have. No matter who you are, there is something of interest to go to and new things to learn.”

“I felt that my brain was totally saturated with new ideas by the time I left. The excitement for using technology in my classes was very elevated and it was well worth going.”

I posted an online form for my crew from Kerrville to fill out about their experiences at TCEA this year. The form is available online through Google Docs at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pcJ_EAVrg90uwhN_UriPRUw.

Responses so far:

“Great wealth of information teachers, technologists and instructional integration. Don’t let time scare you away from integration. As many of the presenters share, these tools are free and easy to use and your students will love them.” This person also added that when I get ready to offer training, she would be willing to help offer some ideas and training too.

“There are so many sites for information and resources out on the internet for teachers and students that it is mind boggling. We haven’t scratched the surface in KISD. Other districts and teachers are doing some incredible teaching through websites, blogs, wikis; going paperless during meetings and other administrative types of activities; organizing information through paperless,searchable software (like ONE NOTE) that could save the district $$ in binders and paper as well as increase productivity and save time. I thought I was knowledgeable about technology and I realized how little I really know.”

“Wow! The amount of technology and resources that are available to educators is awesome and continually increasing. It is up to us who went to this conference to share our knowledge of the resources with others who can use it in the classrooms. Thanks to everyone who made it possible for us to attend!”

“This has renewed my creative energy in technology integration in my classroom.”

“It was invigorating! What a refreshing change to see all the integration being used. I would love to see our elementary school try some of the great integrations ideas that are out there.”

I think they liked it! And this isn’t everyone! Will post more as they come in.

Now….can you see why I have the greatest job in the world???

I had a real thorn in my side in my previous job. The campus website. It took up a lot of my time not only with all the updates; but with my need to constantly want to make it more streamlined. I wanted it to be easy to access and I was constantly working on it.

I moved to this new job with thoughts of grandeur. I wanted to break away from working HTML and CSS. I thought I might be able to give some direction to the new website and help them find a company to run it. I did that. But now….I am spending my days migrating the old website to the new one.

The district got rid of their old Webmaster and did not keep the job open. So….I am once again regulated to being the webmaster.

It isn’t such a bad job but it is a tedious job. It is a desk job – almost clerical to migrate everything over. And people who don’t have any experience in web design have no idea how much time the process takes. Copy and paste is their idea of web migration. They don’t know that it isn’t that easy. There are formats. There is code. There are steps and procedures for every piece of each site.

For future planning, I am deleting all references to web design from my resume and profiles. I won’t even mention that I taught it, either. I taught a great program to ninth graders several years ago. It was even for industry-standard certification.

I enjoyed that aspect of it. Teaching someone else to design and implement a real business model of success. Teaching students to get certified to design a website before a certification to drive in the state of Texas. Teaching design, color strategy, font concepts, etc. That was exciting web design times.

But now….it’s an albatross around my neck. I thought I would become the CTO here and put the web design business behind me.

I know all tech directors have something that they are bound to do but don’t feel the passion for it. This is probably the first in a series of such items. I really want to get out of web design though only because it removes me from providing training and instruction. It is really sit and do. I don’t like that. I want to stand, speak, share, instruct, learn, give, and receive with a group of learners. The more I sit at a desk, the more frustrated I get. I just want to be able to teach.

Someone recently asked me what I would show a group of tech-savvy teachers if I had 15 minutes with them?

I started spinning out ideas and thought I would share mine. Then ask the collective what they think they would show?

1) I would show Wordle.net which has some interesting things to show with the Obama Inauguration Speech. Visual themes in written word. A teacher at the high school today had her kids finish out their poetry theme by posting their poems in Wordle and getting an instant peek at the most repetitive words. A quick peek at visual themes and then generating their own.

I think as an addition to this I would add oneword.com – which challenges visitors to type in a box on screen based on a one-word prompt. The site even times down on the screen so you only have 60 seconds to type on the topic. I would combine the two by typing a 60 second prompt, copy and paste into Wordle to see it play out.

2) Wikipedia – The Discussion Tab – Show the back-end of how the discussions between the authors of information collaborate to post accurately. This is the history of the collaborative process of creating the world’s largest and most current encyclopedia. Pick a few research topics and lead a discussion with the teachers to find out how this could be used in their classrooms. What are some ways this could be used? Also see if they can cross-collaborate with these tools. How could you combine this tool in an English class? Math class? Science? etc.

3) Google News Feed – Go to Google News and search a topic. Then you can sort by year, by blogs that are on that topic, and you can even subscribe to RSS/Atom feeds for receiving the most up-to-date information on the topic. If not ready to get into RSS/Atom? Click on Google News Alert and put in your email address. You can receive email alerts when a new story breaks on the topic. Instant news!

For research topics, students can not only research archived data but they can receive the most current information as well. And with cell phones in the classroom…..updates to their topics could be filling up their phones (while they are turned off or silent in their backpacks). Click on Mobile Updates and put in your cell number. Instant text updates.

15 Minutes to shine. What do you show to a group of tech-savvy teachers? Tech-savvy Administrators? Counselors? Librarians?