Minutes, 04-11-01 Meeting

Committee members present: Linda Berger, Barbara Brattin, Bill Chapin, Mary Donnellan, Jim Huisel, Greg Johnson, Tamara McCulloch, Dennis Nixon, Mary Olson, Fred Owen, Andrew Page, Dan Przygoda.

Packets will be mailed to members who were not in attendance.

Next meeting: Internet Policies Review Session May 2^nd 7:00 to 9:00p.m. at Almond Campus Media Center. This is a special meeting to review our current Acceptable Use Policy and consider other policies that are needed.

 Summary of the Meeting

 News:

• The meeting began at 7:00p.m. with a thank you to tax-payers for passing the Education Fund rate increase.
• An E-rate application has been submitted. Funding is now conditional on the use of a web filtering system. This fact led to a discussion on various issues related to filtering. Some of the following ideas were shared:
• Filtering provides a false sense of security and is based on faulty criteria
• Filtering limits access to many web sites.
• The concensus of those present was that filtering was not desirable. The technology department will experiment with the firewall/filtering software this summer to balance the filtering level desired by the committee with the federal requirements.
• After mention of the planned Internet policy review meeting scheduled for May, we discussed safety and legal issues involved in posting student pictures with names on the school web site, an issue that will be included on the agenda at the May meeting.
• Tamara reported on the staff Collaboratory Projects and the enthusiasm these projects have generated. Northwestern University will host a Collaboratory Symposium on April 25^th but due to state testing our staff will not be able to attend. Mr. Chapin will attend and speak about the The Collaboratory as a source for staff development. Unfortunately, Tamara announced that she will be moving this summer, which means that we will lose her as our contact for the projects. We thank Tamara for her dedication to our tech committee this past year.
• Grant applications have been submitted for Palm handheld computers by the Physics Department. The group discussed the prospect of eventually replacing calculators with Palms in math.
• The new e911 phone project is nearing completion and 911 calls will identify not only the extension but also the location of the extension.
• Kevin Huang will pick up used computers at the Almond Campus for the Explorer Post if any are donated.
• The Blue Devil Institute of Technology, our program to offer accredited courses for our faculty, is offering a Desktop Presentation class. It will begin this month with 10 faculty members enrolled.

Projects:

Major projects for next year will include incorporating online courses offered through the Illinois Virtual High School into our curriculum. Bill showed us a mockup of the possible format for the faculty web site. We also explored PowerSchool as a possible replacement for SASI. We all liked the format and the possibility of using this might eliminate the need for all faculty members to have a website. Bill has asked for volunteers and possible questions to investigate this program further. Three labs will have computers replaced with the possibility of using wireless in the Group Instruction Lab at O’Plaine.

FBLA presented their award-winning web work and briefed us on their activities including the Smiles program for senior citizens. The group will serve as a pilot school for the Techno Kids Camp held this summer for one week. FBLA members will work with the young campers and computers.

Bill is looking for 3-4 area businesses to volunteer to arrange tours of their technical facilities this summer for around 10 student and adult techies. A sign up sheet was passed around. Any interested parties should contact Bill Chapin.

We reviewed the Home Computing Survey for students and parents and have tried to pin-point the information we will actually need. There is need for further revision on the draft to make it shorter and easier to complete. Distribution of the survey either by handing it out at registration or by sending it home with the registration packet was left undecided. We ended the meeting with Bill requesting that we submit the feedback form found on the committee’s website.

Minutes submitted by Linda Berger, WTHS Technology Department Clerk.