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Berrien Springs Public
Schools Technology Plan |
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Begins: July 2008
Completes: June 2011
Berrien Springs Public Schools
District 11240
269-471-2891
A member of
Contact:
Brandon W. Waggoner, Director of Technology
Phone: 269-471-2891
Fax: 269-471-2590
E-mail: brandon.waggoner@homeoftheshamrocks.org
This plan can be found online at http://www.homeoftheshamrocks.org/techplan.htm
District
The
Berrien Springs Public Schools will provide community-centered education driven
by student needs to prepare individuals in learning for life in a changing
world.
Introduction
Along with many different
nationalities, 47.7% of the district’s approximately 1800 students are
considered minority. This diversity creates
unique experiences for all students to learn about different cultures other
than their own. Of the nearly 1800
students in Berrien Springs Public Schools, 46.6% are considered to be in the
category of low socio-economic status, and 12.3% are in special education
programs. Berrien
Springs Public Schools has five schools (lower elementary, upper elementary,
middle school, high school, and alternative education) all in a single campus
location. As well, Berrien Springs
Public Schools has approximately 110 teachers serving the district. With all of the wonderful qualities of
Berrien Springs Public Schools, the district has become a magnet for over 300
schools of choice students.
Vision
We
believe technology is a tool that enriches the learning environment, increases
employee efficiency, prepares our students for the future, and facilitates
communication between members of our learning community.
Goals
The
technology goals of Berrien Springs Public Schools are specifically created to
prepare individuals for “learning for life in a changing world.” Berrien Springs Public Schools Strategic Plan
2001-2006 includes nine strategies to improve the district during this time
period, the following are strategies directly addressed by this technology
plan:
1.
Enhance
the curriculum
2.
Develop
additional options for students and community beyond the regular K-12
curriculum.
3.
Create
a systematic process and plan for staff development.
4.
Maintain
and continue to upgrade quality facilities.
5.
Align
Human Resources within District as Needed to Support Vision and Plan
6.
Involve
and Support Parents as Key Partners in the Education Process.
7.
Develop
a Comprehensive Mentoring Program and Network.
8.
Formalize
community partnerships that benefit students, schools, and community.
9.
Promote
the community and schools to showcase accomplishments and benefits.
The
primary focus of this technology plan is to integrate technology into the
curriculum and to directly address the students’ needs for 21st
Century skills through curriculum, infrastructure, and professional development
for teachers. Following are the goals of
this technology plan in order of priority:
Goals |
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Curriculum
Berrien
Springs Public Schools believes that it is important to have both integration
strategies as well as specific standards and benchmarks in order to help our
students not only learn 21st Century skills, but also become better
students through the use of technology.
It is also the belief of Berrien Springs Public Schools that teaching
technology is not reserved to computer lab instructors, but rather to the entire
Berrien Springs Public Schools staff.
Instruction of technology must also take place directly as a result of
using the technology for the instruction of other curricular areas such as
math, English, social studies, and science.
A new technology curriculum will be introduced that will be K-12 and
involve all classes throughout the district. The curriculum was created using
State of
Following
the mission of Berrien Springs Public Schools, the purpose of improving
students’ 21st Century skills is to prepare the students for life
following the K-12 experience. By using
technology in the classroom, students will not only improve upon the quality of
their educational experience, but they will also receive these 21st
century skills. Students will continue
to be given opportunities beyond the classroom in the form of online learning
provided by
Curriculum
Implementation Timeline
|
Objective |
Begin
Date |
Completion
Date |
Responsible
Party |
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Identify
needed resources to update capabilities based on current and emerging
technology |
July
2008 |
June
2011 |
Technology
Director and Technology Planning Committee |
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Procure
needed equipment and resources |
July
2008 |
June
2011 |
Technology
Director, Curriculum Director, Superintendent, Principals |
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Train
teachers to integrate curriculum into the classroom |
July
2008 |
June
2011 |
Technology
Director |
Communication
Technology Plan
Dissemination
This
technology plan will be distributed through the school district website located
at http://www.homeoftheshamrocks.org
as well as through a public board of education meeting at which this plan will
be discussed, voted upon, and approved.
As well, Berrien Springs Public Schools uses email as an effective tool
for communication. Currently, all staff
members have email accounts and a large portion of communication takes place
through email. This technology plan will
be disseminated to the staff through an email attachment.
Communication and
Parental Involvement
Parents
are always encouraged to use email as a form of communication with our teachers
and administrators. Parents are able to
locate all teacher email accounts on the Home of the Shamrocks website located
at http://www.homeoftheshamrocks.org. Included in the goals of this technology plan
is the purchase and implementation of a teacher, student, and parent web portal
system that will facilitate communication.
As well, parents will be involved in the planning and implementation
process through the curriculum council.
Collaboration
Currently,
Berrien Springs Public Schools has an Adult Education and English as a Second
Language program. These existing
programs currently use Successmaker and NovaNET by Pearson Education and are
provided at our Middle School. These
programs allow Berrien Springs Public Schools to have a greater impact on the
community as a whole including those who have moved to this school district
from other countries.
Berrien
Springs Public Schools has been fortunate to receive some support from
Whirlpool Corporation in the form of donations and consultation.
Berrien
Springs Public Schools will continue to seek out and collaborate with colleges
and universities in research and other endeavors. Some of the universities that the district
has collaborated with in the last three years include Andrews University,
Michigan State University,
Professional
Development
In years past, many
districts have simply placed technology into the classroom without giving
consideration to the fact that teachers need to be taught how to effectively
integrate the technology into the classroom.
Because of this, Berrien Springs Public Schools finds that technology
professional development is an integral part of an overall technology plan.
|
Action |
Responsible Party |
Date |
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In-house Technology
Courses Created/Reviewed |
Technology Director |
Summer 2008 |
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Technology Courses
Scheduled for year |
Technology Director |
Summer 2008 |
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Staff begin taking
advantage of professional development opportunities |
Technology Director |
November 2008 |
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Berrien Springs Public
Schools offers technology classes after school for staff |
Technology Director |
November 2008 |
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Technology Professional
Development program evaluated and revised |
Technology Director |
Late Spring 2009 |
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Technology Professional
Development program evaluated and revised |
Technology Director |
Late Spring 2010 |
The Berrien Springs Public
Schools Professional Development Teacher Standards will be directly correlated
to the grade level curriculum based on the ISTE standards for students in the
next three years.
Teachers will have
available numerous options for professional development. These experiences will include on-site
training, off-site training in the form of classes, online courses (some being
through Michigan Learnport), and conferences.
Hardware
Currently Berrien Springs Public Schools has
approximately 600 computers. The
majority of the computers are personal computers (PCs) with the Microsoft
Windows operating systems. There still
remain several Apple Computers in the range of 10-15. Approximately 120 of the PCs are laptop
computers purchased through the Freedom to Learn initiative. The majority of the computers reside in
computer labs. Computers at the moment
are replaced as they age and cease working.
Currently the district uses 5 servers that act mainly as file servers in
addition to a web server and a Food Services server.
- Increase the accessibility to computers
either through the increase of classroom computers or mobile labs.
Infrastructure
The Berrien Springs Public Schools network is
comprised almost solely of 3Com networking equipment with the exception of Mars
Elementary which has Netgear brand equipment.
Currently, the majority of the networking equipment in the High School,
Middle School and Sylvester Elementary are 10/100 Megabit hubs with the
exception of the “core” of the network.
The “core” of the network has 10/100 Megabit switches with Gigabit fiber
optic cards to connect to the other buildings.
This “core” creates our Wide Area Network over fiber optic cables that
connects all five buildings together.
Most cabling at this point is category 5e cable. The connection to the Internet is currently comprised
of 2 T-1’s running through a load-balanced Cisco router to
In July 2008, Berrien Springs Public Schools will be
switching their connection to the Internet by load balancing 2 connections from
separate ISPs in order to provide redundancy.
As well, Berrien Springs Public Schools has experienced an exponential
growth in the use of online providers for curriculum and content. These multiple online endeavors have caused
congestion in our Internet connection.
The upgrade will greatly improve our current capabilities.
Since technology will be used to improve student
achievement, some equipment will need to be added and maintained. Following are some of the goals relating to
infrastructure and improving our system for student and teacher access.
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In order to maintain our equipment, one of the goals
is to institute a technology equipment obsolescence plan. The plan calls for computer technology to be
replaced every 5 years. Ideally,
one-fifth of the computer technology would be replaced every year. Preferably, the technology will be replaced
by building. Including Alternative
Education, Berrien Springs Public Schools has 5 school buildings allowing for 1
building per year to get replacements.
Support
Currently, technology support is carried out by the
Technology Director, a part-time desktop technician, and student
technicians. Most support is addressed
the day following the report unless there are an exceptional number of work
orders. Technology problems are reported
through email or phone message to the Technology Director. The reporting process and support
priorities are included in Appendix B.
Student Online
Protection
With
access to computers and people all over the world also comes the availability of
material that may not be considered to be of educational value in the context
of the school setting. On a global network it is impossible to control all
materials and an industrious user may discover information that is
controversial, inappropriate or illegal.
However, Berrien Springs Public Schools will make all prudent efforts to
block inappropriate content in accordance with state and federal law such as
the Children Internet Protection Act (CIPA).
In order to be in compliance, the district will use OpenDNS, an online
content filtering system. As well, the
district blocks content locally considered inappropriate through a firewall and
a proxy server running SquidGuard and DansGuardian. The
Budget and
Timeline
The Budget and Timeline created here reflects the
priorities and the funding realities of Berrien Springs Public Schools by
placing the higher priority goals and the lower cost goals toward the beginning
of the technology plan period. By doing
this, it is hoped that the higher priority goals (those of the greatest need)
will be completed while keeping in mind the current budget status, which is
healthy but very trim. Grants will be
sought for most of the lower priority projects in order to avoid drawing monies
from the general fund.
2008-2009
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Action
Item |
Goal |
Expected
Completion |
Approximate
Cost |
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Data Analysis tool |
1 |
September 2008 |
$3,500 |
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Purchase one Curriculum Performance System (CPS)
in Sylvester Elementary for common assessments as a pilot |
1 |
September 2008 |
$2500 |
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Teacher Training for Data Analysis Tool |
1 |
October 2008 |
$0-Train the Trainer picked up by BCISD |
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MACUL Conference |
2 |
March 2009 |
$2500-out of Title IID |
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Internet Connection Upgrade |
7 |
July 2008 |
$3000 |
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KRESA SIS and Financial Accounting |
1 |
July 2008 |
$34,000 |
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KRESA Training |
1,2 |
July 2008 |
$0-included in price |
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Pinnacle Gradebook |
1 |
July 2008 |
$17,600-purchase |
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Pinnacle Gradebook Training |
1,2 |
August 2008 |
$8,500 |
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Technology Director Salary |
N/A |
N/A |
$43,700 |
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Desktop Support Technician |
N/A |
N/A |
$9,700 |
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Capital |
N/A |
N/A |
$10,500 |
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Supplies |
N/A |
N/A |
$16,000 |
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TOTAL |
$154,000 |
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2009-2010
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Action
Item |
Goal |
Expected
Completion |
Approximate
Cost |
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Data Analysis tool |
1 |
September 2009 |
$3,500 |
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Curriculum Performance Systems |
2 |
September 2009 |
$5000 |
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MACUL Conference |
2 |
March 2010 |
$2500-out of Title IID |
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Internet Connection |
7 |
July 2009 |