The good folks at Lake Forest Academy were kind enough to host yesterday’s semiannual meeting of the Lake Michigan area Tech Directors. This stunning campus has a fascinating history and could not be a more delightful place for such a meeting.
The economy was a hot topic of conversation. Pretty much everyone will be doing more with less next year. Cutting printing costs was high on everyone’s agenda, whether by educating users, piggybacking on Green initiatives, using only duplex printers, restricting printing to various degrees, or moving toward paperless operations by using file servers of web apps instead of hard copies.
A few schools have had to cut technology staffers as well, but haven’t cut service levels, so morale is taking a beating as the pressure ratchets up on senior staffers to deliver the same output with fewer resources.
Cloud computing was also discussed at length. About half the schools have or soon will have moved student e-mail to Google; there is more reluctance to move faculty and staff email to the “cloud” because some of the legal and risk management issues are stickier to navigate.
Folks are also looking to cut costs on web filtering services as vendors hike renewal price tags. Lab was one of two schools present who don’t do web filtering, so we listened in enough to learn that some of the web filtering tools out there are pretty powerful and have come a long way from the clumsier, ham-handed programs out there in the beginning.
This group has been meeting twice a year since way back in 1990. Even as people come and go from the group, there is a sense of community to it that makes it engaging enough to keep coming back, whether the Milwaukee or Chicago contingent is hosting. It’s become an important part of my personal learning network and I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to attend, contribute, and learn.
Posted on April 17th, 2009 by Curt Lieneck
Filed under: Uncategorized
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