State of Technology

The Hixson Technology Center
This school year the Hixson Technology department has moved. Now when you are in need of technical assistance, are working on  media rich projects, or looking for a place to work in a technology rich environment, we invite you to come to the new Hixson Technology Center located on the 2nd floor in room 216.

Technology Requests

Many teachers have asked for a list of technology available to them, and so I thought this blog post would assist in this process. As always, if you ever need a piece of equipment all you need to do is fill out a tehcnology request. To do so simply click the Tech Req button in the dock at the top of the HxNetwork page which looks like this:

Then enter the organization number: 681433059

And fill out your requisition with as much information as possible so that we can provide the best service possible. 

Tech reqs can be used to: 

• Request a piece of equipment
• Report/Request service/repairs on equipment
• Request software install/service/repair/training/development
• Request for in class assitance with technology

Available Devices
The following devices are available for checkout: Document cameras, digital cameras, scanners, iPod touches, iPads, Apple TV's, Chromebooks, laptops, various adapters, and a portable audio recording booth. All equipment is checked out for 1 week at a time unless otherwise specified in the technology request. This is done to assure maximum use of the equipment and to allow others plan on its availability. Technology request are addressed in 2 business days. Please keep this in mind when requesting equipment; the more time we have to plan, the better we can support you.

LMT-Supported Technology PD
This summer the building LMT (or Tech committee) members have developed PD sessions which will be offerd the 4th Monday of every month. These sessions a geared to help prepare you for the 1:1 initiative/goal we plan to implement during the 2014-2015 school year.  The sessions offered will also be repeated  the 3rd Monday of  every month.  The areas the sessions will focus on are: Cloud-based file management, Online Classroom management tools, and communication tools.

Copying and Printing
In addition to developing PD, the LMT (or Tech committee) had many conversations around other technological aspects of our building. One primary conversation focused around copy limits and goals. The set version of this conversion is that overages on the copy machines or printing directly affect the amount of computers we will be able to purchase for our 1:1. The overall consensus  of our conversation was two fold:

• We would like everyone to have a better understanding of how often they are copying/printing so they can become more self aware and conscience of their printing, without setting a limit.  We realize that this is the transition year and in such we are not quite prepared to go without copies, but we also need to be aware that overages will cause issues in achieving a 1:1. We shared this information with Dr. Heisserer and he too agreed that it is difficult to make this transition and very much wanted to rely on the staff to be responsible with their copy/print jobs instead of setting a limit.  
• So, this semester there will not be copy/print limits to the copy machines, and there will be more detailed information published weekly about our overall copy/print counts as well as regular sharing of individual copy/print counts privately so staff can keep better track of their numbers.
• You may notice that printers are not yet back in the classrooms. They will return to the classrooms once TLC has installed the upgraded printing software.