Development of a New Educational Technology Plan
During the 2003-2004 school year, a technology planning committee was convened to plan and develop a new technology plan for our school division. A separate website that is dedicated to our technology plan provides information about the development of this new plan, and includes hyperlinks to documents and a presentation related to the planning process. Our new technology plan was designed to serve as
a blueprint to guide our school division in constructing an effective
division-wide educational technology program. Most of the projects
and initiatives in the Office of Technology and Learning relate
directly to goals and objectives in our technology plan.
The new City of Colonial
Heights Public Schools Three-Year Technology Plan for 2004 - 2007 was approved by the School Board on June 22, 2004. It was also
reviewed by the Virginia Department of Education and found to
be in full alignment with the Educational Technology Plan for
Virginia.
Security Enhancement:
Deployment of Spam Firewall
April 2004: We deployed a new Barracuda Spam
Firewall in our ongoing efforts in the battle against unsolicited
junk email.
Piloting of Online SOL
Testing
2003-2004 school year: During the spring of
2004, we successfully piloted online SOL testing at Colonial Heights
High School. Students taking SOL tests in World History I, World
Geography, and one section of Biology took their SOL tests online.
We used both wired and wireless networking, and workstations as
well as laptops, in order to evaluate online testing under a range
of circumstances and equipment. A Proctor Caching server was utilized
to maximize speed of access for students during online testing.
Deployment of New File
Servers in the Schools
2003-2004 school year: After the file server
at Lakeview Elementary failed to power up again in the aftermath
of Hurricane Isabel, we began to focus on the big picture,
and carefully examined critical needs related to improving the
security and reliability of our school servers and data. New Dell
PowerEdge servers were deployed at our three elementary schools,
Colonial Heights Middle School, and the School Administration
Office, replacing old, obsolete server hardware. New automated
backup processes were setup using the server tape drives and the
backup utility Retrospect.
Pilot Notebook Program
at Colonial Heights High School
2003-2004 school year: After much
planning, preparation, and teamwork, the school division rolled
out a new Pilot Notebook Program at Colonial Heights High School.
Students in Mr. Buddy Palatiere's Honors Biology class were given
Gateway wireless notebook computers, and a wireless
network was setup in the classroom. For content filtering
when the students take the laptops home, CyberSitter was selected
to block access to inappropriate material. Symantec Client Security
was selected for robust firewall protection on the laptops, and
productivity software was provided with Microsoft Office
XP. Mr. Paul Riding provided dedicated technology support to assist
the teacher and students, and insure an effective deployment
of the notebook computers. Mr. Palatiere developed much of
his own curriculum and instructional materials to effectively
integrate this technology into his classroom. Please visit the home page for
the Pilot Notebook Program for more information. |
