Live reporting - Technology

2. Guests/Presentations


b. Capital Plan


Technology
Tim Raposa

Requesting to purchase additional netbook systems for the high school and to expand to the Remington Middle School

Electronic whiteboard replaced in request with a newer projector at half the cost for the same functionality

Laptop carts - requesting three additional
providing mobile technology to classrooms

Remington-Jefferson lab upgrade
speed and productivity gains for labs

The document with the details of this budget section can be found here: Technology
http://www.scribd.com/full/41397723?access_key=key-2bt9xmfrik6410wd4fr


Rohrbach - which are the whiteboards in this request?
Raposa - these are the Epson Projector units are half the price. They are more light weight, they use a pen to touch instead of your finger. They made this targeted for schools so we can afford to buy them and afford to keep them.

The whiteboards we bought before are portable, they can be moved from room to room.

A really good deal.

We are trying to raise the percentage penetration across the district, most schools are about 35-40%. Some of the buildings with their own money have purchased additional units.

Sabolinski - we are working with the schools to make sure that the units are being equitably allocated across the district.

Raposa - every grade level can use this technology to improve the experience

Glynn - The Gmate software, does that include Professional Development?
Kingsland-Smith - no we have been trained on this already so we did not need that.

Sabolinski - we had a question on jumping into iPad technology, Tim has been looking into this
Raposa - it is an eight month old product, it is a great consumer device but how to do manage the devices for a school environment. Everything that needs to be loaded to an iPad is via the iTunes store. Apple is working on developing a process to use credits with the iTunes store to avoid having multiple accounts.

We are looking at a 'mobi' device, it will connect to the iPad and allow the teacher to project and control the iPad as she walks around the room. We may try this in a lab environment before we do a major rollout. We are watching two districts that are small and complete Apple environment before we do something.

Let's get the wireless in first and then either they can bring in a unit or eventually we can continue to expand the population of netbooks, etc.

Textbooks can be replaced with e-readers. But that is a developing story.

Nutting - I want to note what a terrific job Tim and his staff does. It has been a good benefit for the Town and Schools. It saves lots of money and covers both sides of the house.

Franklin, MA