May 6, 1999

Well I am not sure about evening meetings.  They work for me but we didn’t have the same turn out as for the mornings.  However, we did have great people at the meeting and a good general discussion.

Technology Review:

Every teacher now is connected but there are at least two (Mrs. Moon and Mrs. Best), which still have some technical issues.   Margo is aware of the problems and has contacted the vendors or is working on the situation.  Many of the teachers are genuinely excited about these new systems and are planning (especially for next year) how to incorporate this technology in their curriculum.

Aldo reported that there was still about $1,800 left in the School budget to buy printers.  The foundation recently received a donation that will allow the purchase of printers for the rest of the teachers.  In addition, this donation will also allow the purchase of an NT file/print server, which we intend to purchase as soon as the money becomes officially available.  Ultimately we also want to install some high speed, high quality printers for the “big” jobs.

Other equipment, which needs to be purchased, includes an HP8000 CD writer.  They are great to archive data and copy entire disks just in case the system drive fails.   In addition, most of the teachers really wanted to be able to show the internet on their TV’s so I thought I would pop down to Fryes this week end and pick up a number of the converters.  I believe the cost should be about $50 each (covered by the Foundation Donation).

We reinstalled the HP-photo scanner and digital camera onto Margo’s computer and that equipment is now available.  The teachers can drop off the pictures or borrow the digital camera to take images for web pages etc.  We plan to make one of Margo’s drives accessible to the network which will allow the teachers to retrieve their pictures directly from their computers after Margo has scanned or captured them.

Aldo also “tested” the teachers practical understanding of computers last week by sending them a document and asking them to open it.  Unfortunately, he forgot to tell them it was created on a Macintosh, which caused several teachers a lot of difficulty.  However, such is the nature of computer science and as our school board is well aware, to be functional one has to learn these “work a rounds”.  We had a computer class last Sunday for several hours and I was very impressed with the enthusiasm many of the teachers showed.  About thirteen teachers gave up a bit of the Sunday to learn about computers.  We worked through some of the WIN98 operating system and some tips on the OFFICE platform.  I received many positive comments so I think we will do this several more times.

There was general discussion about the web pages and consensus that the format was reasonable.  Be sure to check the web pages at www.mesaschool.org frequently as they have been changing on a daily basis.  Check out the Somis link between the Owl’s eyes.  It is a satellite image of Mesa.  As always, if anyone would like to contribute or have any comments, please feel free to send them my way.

There was a general discussion with Steve Torres (President of the Foundation) that technology be better represented at the Foundation.  In addition, Aldo felt that we have achieved many of the goals of the current Technology plan (Yeah!) and we need to revisit that document and provide a vision for Mesa Technology in the new millennium.   I know, it’s a very cliché line but then again, how often to you get to write it.

Tim