Tech for 2010

Technology has some great new and updated programs and opportunities for you for this coming year.  .  I sincerely hope that you will find these great options for you to use in your classroom.  Listed below are several of these options.

We are so excited to share that our system has now reached every school with laptop assignments for the full time classroom teachers.  Our ensuing goal here will be to address the itinerant teachers in our system.  As you very well know, laptops in the hands of our teachers is an absolute “MUST” before we can even dream of any type of 1:1 solution for our students in the future.

Moodle:  A classroom course delivery system—similar to Blackboard, Web CT and others.  You have the option for total online work if that is a possibility for your class.  Discussions, homework assignments, a course syllabus, course calendar, testing options…..and much more are available via Moodle in our system. 

            Link:  http://moodle.tcsnc.org

            Course training:  There is a course on the moodle server called Moodle 101
            this is a great introduction to its use for your classroom.

Campus Pack:  Transylvania’s own Social Networking site–both for you and for your students.  The software is integrated with Moodle...you and your students may move between the two programs as you use these in your classroom.  Campus Pack makes Web 2.0 technologies available with a social learning platform that integrates social media tools such as wikis, blogs, and podcasts into your e-learning environment.
         
        Link:  http://transylvania-k12-nc.campuspack.net

Course training:  When you first sign in to CampusPack, there is a course called CampusPack 101 with videos and tutorials to introduce you to the program and its many uses for you.  I hope you see great opportunities for you in your classroom as well as possibilities for PLC, School Planning, etc.

TCSTube:  Our own closed/secure "you-tube" site.  You andyour students may upload video for your classes in this area.

Instructional Resources:  If you have not taken the time lately to review the Instructional Resources available for our system, please choose that link out of our Quick Links area on the web site.

New Processes for our system include: Contact Logs & Forms Routing

Contact Log:  We will be maintaining the contact logs for our students in NCWise in the “Notes” section for each student.  You may find a brief step-by-step guide at the following location:

            Contact Log Instructions

Forms Software:  We are replacing the InTempo software with a new Process Maker forms routing product.  The link for the software is within our Quick Links area.

 You may view a 5 minute video introducing the software to you on our TCSTube website at http://tcstube.tcsnc.org/videos/87/form-request-instructions

Welcome to the Technology Department website of Transylvania County Schools.

Technology is central to many – perhaps most – activities/processes in Transylvania County Schools. We are on a continual search for better, more effective ways to accomplish required activities in our system. We recognize that technology provides the avenue for accomplishment of many of these tasks with greater accuracy and more efficiency.

Our goal is to remain in the forefront of technology in our county. We do not choose to use technology for technology’s sake. Rather we employ technologies, both emerging and proven, to best accomplish our task of educating the children of Transylvania County.

We explore every avenue possible for funding for the technology needs of our county.  One of these funding sources is the Schools & Libraries Commission through the federal erate program.