So much for returning to less urgent tasks. What a quarter it has been! The Presidential election and its “up close and personal” impact on Lab, collective bargaining, the ISACS site visit, architect selection for the Master Plan, budget cuts…wow. I’ve been here a long time, and it’s never dull, but this quarter has set a new benchmark for furious activity.
I’d like to finish up the Milestones theme as this calendar year concludes. I’ve already mentioned replacement cycles and moving network management to the University’s control. With a robust wireless network in place, we could create the next milestone: pairing teacher laptops with permanent audiovisual systems, which we began five or so years ago. It’s rare to see technology change teacher behavior overnight, but as we’ve equipped virtually every teacher with a laptop and over 80 instructional, common, and meeting spaces with audiovisual systems, we’ve seen big changes in how teachers run their classes. Even some of the most technophobic and change-resistant teachers here quickly realized how using these tools could benefit students and leverage class time better. I can’t point to a better example of a good return on a technology investment.
There are lots of other important landmarks as well — redesigning the web site and hiring a superb webmaster to care for it, running four years’ worth of summer tech workshops, hiring a tech team full of people who care about kids, teachers, and doing good work, resolving a challenging library situation by embedding a tech support worker there full time, implementing a web based student information system, moving tech support offices to the main building complex, envisioning and creating a state of the art Language Lab, bringing administrative data managers together to recast how we manage school data–but the three big ones stand out in my mind as the most significant to the most number of people.
As this calendar year draws to a close, let me express my fondest wishes to you and yours for a new year filled with abundant joy, the best of health, and the fellowship of family and friends.
Let me also encourage you to remember our troops during the holidays–those in harm’s way especially, but all our soldiers who will not be home with their families and friends while they serve our country. Thanks for reading.
Posted on December 19th, 2008 by Curt Lieneck
Filed under: Uncategorized
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