Breakout Sessions for Thursday, March 12, 2009

Thursday, March 12, 2009

TH102: The Netherlands ICT Reform
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Leadership and Vision, Planning and Budgeting
SALON B

Parliament in The Netherlands requested in 2008 to the Education Council to produce recommendations on digital learning resources and ICT in education. Almost all educational establishments now have computers, broadband internet access and educational software. The willingness of teachers and lecturers to deepen their knowledge of the subject has also increased in recent years. The discussion on ‘free’ school books in Dutch secondary education has given extra impetus to the debate on the digitization of learning resources.

In recommendations, the Education Council is highlighting the importance and the great potential of open learning resources against a background of experiences so far with ICT in education.

TH 103: Technology Leadership in Times of Economic Distress
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Leadership & Vision
SALON D

Do you have Deer-in-the-headlights syndrome? Don’t be caught by surprise as the budget cuts continue to hit. Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) need to be proactively involved in the budgeting and planning process, with the objective of partnering with school business leaders to address school budget cuts. While there is the cost side of computing, there are ways that the IT organization can help reduce overall costs. During this session we will review the results of school CTO and superintendent surveys, take a holistic view of the costs of technology, discuss proactive strategic and tactical approaches to minimize the damage from reduced technology investments, and explore how technology can be used to save time and money. This session introduces the “K-12 CTO Toolkit – Technology Leadership in Times of Economic Distress” being jointly developed by CoSN and Gartner. Participants will be able to: Discuss the overall ramifications of budget cuts; Evaluate the benefits of proposed projects; Plan for ways of saving school or district expenses.

TH104: Refreshing the NETS for Administrators: Transforming School Leadership for a Digital Age
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Leadership & Vision
SALON E

Administrators play a pivotal role in school transformation. As we transition from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age, administrators will need the knowledge, skills, and disposition to prepare students for our digital world. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) developed the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS) in 2002, following the wide acclaim and adoption of the NETS for Students and Teachers. In this interactive session, we ask that you Bring Your Own Laptop and participate in roundtable discussions on how best to refresh the NETS for Administrators. You will learn more about the NETS and they can lead to school transformation.

TH105: Google Apps - Implementation & Changing the Way we do Business
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Business Leadership and Systems Management
MR406

Prince George's County Public Schools decided in March 2008 to implement the Google Apps Suite.  We would like to share our experience of how we went about migrating 28,000 users from Microsoft Exchange to Gmail.  We believe our experience may help others by sharing our lessons learned, our challenges, and how it has changed the way staff work. Google is integrated into our network; we have provided users with single sign-on access. It's also a ubiquitous tool for staff to access their work from anywhere. We would like to share how users are using Gmail and Google Apps suite.  We will discuss Google Apps and our 1000+ cell phone users and how we are providing options for them.  We will also discuss how we secure our environment, backup, restore, and provide tools for e-discovery. Another final topic is our future plans with integrating Google Apps with our LMS  to create a low cost anytime, anywhere learning environment for all staff and students.

TH106: Social Networking, Web 2.0 & Learning:  What the Research Says
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Leadership & Vision, Team Building and Staffing
MR408

Are you looking for innovative uses of Web 2.0 for learning that are grounded in sound educational research? Join this session to learn more about research relevant to Web 2.0. Learn to design tomorrow's lessons using the latest social, learning, and neuroscience research on critical thinking, multi-tasking, multimodal learning, and collaboration.

TH107: Maine's Impact Study of Technology in Mathematics
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Planning & Budgeting
MR400

This presentation will inform attendees about the history, rationale, structure of im plementation, and results of the MISTM research study, a Federally funded grant that explored how professional development around the use of interactive math applets could affect instruction and performance in middle school mathematics classes.

TH108: Denmark’s Educational Technology Strategy
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Leadership & Vision, Education & Training
MR412

Denmark is considered one of the leading countries in Europe in use of technology in education.  Hear about their strategic vision, including the Reform of Upper Secondary Education in Denmark in 2005.  Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn from the key Danish architects of these exciting efforts.

TH 109: Mobility Applications Consultant
ESSENTIAL SKILLS: Communication Systems
MR400

Is your network ready for a state-of-the-art mobile learning solution? Learn fromt eh company that brings you the world’s most ecure, reliable, and intelligent network. From the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1976 to the launch of the iPhone and beyond, AT&T has been dedicated to supporting the needs of education. We’re recognized as the leading worldwide provider to businesses of IP-based communications services. We’re also the top U.S. provider of wireless, high speed Internet access, Wi-Fi, local and long distance voice. Our dedicated professionals can help you tailor the right solution for your needs. This presentation will review how your institution can leverage the strength of AT&T’s remote connection options, networked applications, integration specialists and consultants to design and deploy and end-to-end solution. Your mobile users have unique needs; we’ll explore options to ensure that their communication needs are met in the most secure, efficient and cost-effective manner. Finally, the discussion will feature case studies that highlight how AT&T has put technology to work to serve the needs of higher education and K-12 institutions.