Independent School Educators' List (ISED-L): January 2008

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Re: Lobby Display/Announcement System

Peter -

We've had 6 plasma displays (a pair of displays each in 3 separate
buildings) running for the past three years. Our setup is 1 old PC per
building with a VGA splitter and VGA-Cat5-VGA extensions to the screens (the
screens are as far as 100 feet from the PC). The PCs have PowerPoint Player
and Windows Media Player and pull either a PowerPoint slideshow from a
shared network folder or point to a Windows Media stream from our streaming
server.

Management is a bit of a hassle - VNC access to the PC (from either a Mac or
a PC) to load the appropriate show. It really doesn't take long -- a few
minutes to update the PowerPoint slideshow content, then about 60 seconds
per PC to VNC in, close the current PowerPoint show and open the new
PowerPoint show (or Windows Media stream).

Our students often submit video clips from weekend sports events or dances
or concerts and these are easily embedded in a slide on the PowerPoint show
so that the plasmas are more than just scrolling announcements; they are
also 1-2 minute video shows. Clubs also submit slides with announcements
(the most common is our fishing club which submits a photo of the winner of
the monthly fishing competition winner).

When we have school events (Open House, dinners, etc...) we get special
PowerPoint slide shows dedicated to those events. When major sporting
events are taking place during the school day (March Madness, Red Sox home
opener, etc...) we stream the TV coverage to the plasmas for the boys to
watch between classes (or during lunch or free periods).

The plasmas don't have audio (4 of them are near classrooms), but we haven't
found this to be too much of an issue.

The PCs driving the plasmas are all 5+ years old and while we've lost a few,
we've got the OS imaged and ready to roll out and we've got a few old PCs
lying around.

The whole setup is very low cost and very functional. The management takes
a little bit more work than some of the proprietary systems, but we've been
able to deal with it pretty easily.

Christopher

--
Christopher Butler
Academic Technology Director
St. John's Preparatory School
Danvers, MA

On 1/31/08 8:13 AM, "Peter Richardson" <richardson@RUTGERSPREP.ORG> wrote:

> Friends,
>
> I am a bit embarrassed to be asking this as I know it has been
> discussed on this list before. But, because they were not on my radar
> at the time, I did not pay adequate attention.
>
> Can anyone share ideas on a system that would display daily
> announcements, etc on a screen that we would put up in our lobby? All
> thoughts are welcome.
>
> Thanks
>
> Peter Richardson
> Director of Technical Services
> Rutgers Preparatory School
> 1345 Easton Avenue
> Somerset, NJ 08873
>
> 732-545-5600 x238
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: NEH Summer Program

Thanks for forwarding this on.

Does anyone have any experience with applying for a NEH or other=20
federal grant? I was speaking with my Development Director today and=20
we'd love to know more about other independent schools' experiences=20
with this.

We are a small (380 students) k-8 Episcopal school. Are NEH and other=20
federal grants awarded to schools like us?

Many thanks for any information!

Andrea Jenkins
Trinity Episcopal School

On Jan 17, 2008, at 12:58 PM, Marti Weston wrote:

> ANNOUNCING:
> National Endowment for the Humanities (U.S.A.)
> Applications to Conduct an NEH Summer Program
> in Summer 2009
>
> Each summer the National Endowment for the Humanities supports faculty
> development through residential projects: 2-6 week Seminars and
> Institutes and 1-week Landmarks of American History and Culture=20
> Workshops.
> These projects are designed to provide American teachers with the
> opportunity for intensive study of important texts and topics in the
> humanities.
>
> SEMINARS AND INSTITUTES
> Application Deadline is March 3, 2008 (receipt)
> Seminars and Institutes foster excellent teaching by encouraging=20
> collegial
> discussion of humanities topics within close-knit scholarly=20
> communities.
> They also promote active scholarship in the humanities in ways suited=20=

> to
> teachers at all levels from grade school through college. =
Participants
> have called the seminars and institutes life changing experiences. =20
> They
> often note that they view the host institution as an important =
resource
> for future scholarly endeavors for themselves and for their students. =20=

> The
> application guidelines for projects to be held in 2009 are posted on=20=

> the
> NEH website at: <[ http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/seminars.html
> ]www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/seminars.html> (for school teachers and
> college/university teachers).
>
> LANDMARKS OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE
> Application Deadline is March 17, 2008 (receipt)
> These grant opportunities are part of the "We the People" initiative,
> which is designed to enhance the teaching, study, and understanding of
> American history and culture. Landmarks of American History and =
Culture
> workshops bring groups of K-12 teachers or community college faculty
> together for intensive, one-week, residence-based workshops at or near
> significant American sites. Eligible applicants include museums,
> libraries, cultural and learned societies, state humanities councils,
> colleges and universities, schools and school districts. Collaborative
> programs are encouraged. The application guidelines for projects to be
> held in 2009 are posted on the NEH website at: <[
> http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarks.html
> ]www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarks.html> (for school teachers)=20=

> or <[
> http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarkscc.html
> ]www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/landmarkscc.html> (for community =
college
> faculty).
>
> As part of the NEH's We the People program, the new Picturing America
> program promotes the teaching, study, and understanding of American
> history and culture in K-12 schools by introducing young people to=20
> some of
> America=92s great art treasures. NEH encourages proposals for Summer
> Seminars or Institutes for School Teachers and Landmarks of American
> History and Culture Workshops for School Teachers that focus on one or
> more of the Picturing America art works or artists as well as the=20
> events
> or periods of American history depicted and the humanities themes
> represented. Please see [ http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/
> ]http://PicturingAmerica.neh.gov.
>
> Now is the time to draft a proposal or to contact a colleague whom you
> think might be interested in developing a project. We strongly=20
> recommend
> that you work with one of the program officers listed below:
>
> Thomas Adams 202-606-8396 [ mailto:tadams@neh.gov
> ]tadams@neh.gov
> Douglas Arnold 202-606-8225 [ mailto:darnold@neh.gov
> ]darnold@neh.gov
> Barbara Ashbrook 202-606-8388 [ mailto:bashbrook@neh.gov
> ]bashbrook@neh.gov
> Judith Jeffrey Howard 202-606-8398 [ mailto:jhoward@neh.gov
> ]jhoward@neh.gov
> Julia Nguyen 202-606-8213 [ mailto:jnguyen@neh.gov
> ]jnguyen@neh.gov
> Robert Sayers 202-606-8215 [ mailto:rsayers@neh.gov
> ]rsayers@neh.gov
>
> Program staff can answer questions, provide samples of successful
> applications, and comment on an informal draft. Staff can help=20
> anticipate
> questions that are likely to arise in the review process.
>
> Applications must be submitted electronically through Grants.gov.
> Institutions must register with Grants.gov, a process which usually=20
> takes
> about two weeks.
>
> We look forward to working with you.
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,=20
> attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
>

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

Jason,
We tested Vista on our Lenovo tablets and decided based on that test not to=
move to Vista this coming summer. We just weren't please enough with the =
performance to move in that direction. XP Tablet Edition does fine on the =
tablets and has been very stable.

We moved to Office 2007 last summer and have had no issues. OneNote 2007 i=
s, as many have said, much better than 2003. The incorporation of tables i=
nto the new version would be enough on its own to make the switch worth it.=
The only user problems we have had with the Office switch have been of th=
e "where did that button go" vein. Also, most of our students haven't dealt=
with incompatibility between versions of their Office before. It took a c=
ouple of reminders about saving into "Word 97 - 2003" format before mailing=
that document to mom and dad to get the students to remember to take that =
step.

Jessica
------------
Jessica Sepke
Director of Technology and Information Systems
Saint Mary's School
Raleigh, North Carolina
www.saint-marys.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators [mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.=
EDU] On Behalf Of Jason Hyams
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 8:19 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We plan on moving our incoming students to tablet computers.
The reason for my interest in Vista is how it performs on a tablet
versus XP.

The Office 2007 package ships with OneNote and our faculty currently use
Office 2003 with OneNote.

Does Open Office or Google Docs have an alternative to OneNote that
integrates with the other office applications?

Has any tablet school been successful using the OneNote alternative?

Thank you for replying to this discussion!

Jason Hyams
Director of Technology
St. Agnes Academy

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Greg Kearney
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 6:48 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

I always ask this question when this kind of thing comes up. "Which
children on the scholarship list do not get to come to our school so
we can send money to the richest man in the world? (Bill Gates)" You
should see the looks on peoples faces when I ask it. At times I have
resorted to taking the scholarship wait list into the meeting and
asking those pushing for the latest version of Office to select the
children that will not be able to attend by name.

We use OpenOffice and Google Docs and save our money for better use.

Greg
On Jan 30, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Norman Maynard wrote:

> I would echo the opinions that the move to Office 07 would be
> easier than
> the move to Vista; however, I would offer that perhaps a better move
> would
> be away from proprietary suites altogether. I absolutely do not mean
> to
> start any kind of OS-type flame war, etc., but the future, it seems
> to me,
> is in open-source and more so, web-based apps. Why not save money
> and move
> kids from Office 2003 to Google Docs, or Zoho, or Buzzword, which
> kids seem
> to really like? We've moved to OpenOffice, and though there has been
> some
> difficulties, they've been pretty minor.
>
> Bottom line, it seems to me that as educators we ought to be pushing
> collaborative models whcih invite learning and user involvement over
> proprietary, for-profit models. Add to that Office's troubling .docx
> format,
> and I see no reason for us to spend valuable resources on overpriced,
> overpowered, non-cooperative software.
>
> My $0.02
>
> Norman Maynard
> Principal, Upper School
> Thornton Friends School
> 13925 New Hampshire Ave.
> Silver Spring, MD
> 301.384.0320
>
> On Jan 30, 2008 5:05 PM, Karen Douse <douse@harpethhall.org> wrote:
>
>> A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> on
>> Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 11:53 AM -0600 wrote:
>>> Would you stay with XP or go to Vista this summer?
>>
>> We plan to stay with XP - too many negative reports about Vista. XP
>> works
>> great and we don't see any advantage to changing right now.
>>>
>>> Would you stay with Office 2003 or move to Office 2007 this year?
>> We moved to Office 2007 for everyone on our campus last fall. We
>> did some
>> preview sessions in the spring and offered lots of training time
>> before
>> school started. The transition went as well as any of us could have
>> expected. The students learned it easily
>> and immediately, and most faculty members picked up the differences
>> very
>> quickly. I wouldn't hesitate on this as long as you prepare
>> everyone in
>> advance to expect the change.
>>
>> Karen
>>
>> Karen Douse
>> Director of Library and Information Services
>> Ann Scott Carell Library
>> Harpeth Hall School
>> 615-346-0116
>> douse@harpethhall.org
>>
>>
>> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
>> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
>> attribution,
>> non-commercial, share-alike license.
>>
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
> attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, n=
on-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Lobby Display/Announcement System

Hi Peter,

We have been using a system to do this for the past 4 years at Ensworth. The
name of the software package is Firesign (http://www.firesign.net). This
allows us to schedule various segments to display on different displays at
different times. This year we worked with them along with our web site
designer/host Whipplehill to integrate the data from our website to the
displays. Now the displays show news, calendar events and athletics
information pulled directly from the website without double entry. The
system has worked great and requires little effort with the information
being pulled automatically.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Tony Trumbo
Director of Technology
The Ensworth School
Nashville, TN

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:13:45 -0500, Peter Richardson
<richardson@RUTGERSPREP.ORG> wrote:

>Friends,
>
>I am a bit embarrassed to be asking this as I know it has been
>discussed on this list before. But, because they were not on my radar
>at the time, I did not pay adequate attention.
>
>Can anyone share ideas on a system that would display daily
>announcements, etc on a screen that we would put up in our lobby? All
>thoughts are welcome.
>
>Thanks
>
>Peter Richardson
>Director of Technical Services
>Rutgers Preparatory School
>1345 Easton Avenue
>Somerset, NJ 08873
>
>732-545-5600 x238
>
>[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
>Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
non-commercial, share-alike license.
>=========================================================================

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Curriculum Guide

Our curriculum guide is updated every couple of years. An Assistant Head
Master is in charge of it but Program Directors submit changes, all of
which must be approved by the Head Master and parent council.

We used to publish it on this schedule because of the cost of printing
it. Now that it is available online, we will be able to update it more
often.=20

http://www.bls.org/cfml/l3tmpl.cfm?page=3DCatalogue

I post it in pdf format. It is used by the entire community, given to
each family, and used by outsiders wishing information about the school.
It's in four sections:

Main Catalogue
Course of Study
Extracurricular Activities
Prizes and Scholarships

The latest version online is 2004-05. We have print copies available at
school.=20

Cathy Meany
Boston Latin School
=20

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Nathan, Patty
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:28 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Curriculum Guide

How is your curriculum guide maintained? How is it updated?
What format is the guide in?
Where is it housed?
Who uses it?

Patty Nathan
Principal of Media and Technology
The Epstein School
404-250-5611
pnathan@epsteinatlanta.org

________________________________________________________________________
______________
The Epstein School is a proud beneficiary of the Jewish Federation of
Greater Atlanta.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ] Submissions to
ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Lobby Display/Announcement System

Hello:

We looked at the products from Samsung in this area. They have a software
piece that goes along with the product to control content and also stand
alone options. See the quote below from an article I quickly found on
their new latest and greatest.

"Leveraging Samsung's proprietary MagicNet Pro software, the SyncMaster
700DXn large format display enables users to control content across
several displays using a single computer, eliminating the need for a
dedicated PC for each display. With MagicNet Pro, content creation and
distribution is simple for all network operators -- users can simply
drag-and-drop existing content files, requiring minimal supervision and
training. "

See the article here .... I hope this helps.

http://www.samsung.com/us/news/newsRead.do?news_group=productnews&news_type=consumerproduct&news_ctgry=monitors&news_seq=6405

Sincerely:

Bruce Lemieux
Director of Technology
Cushing Academy
39 School Street
Ashburnham MA 01430
blemieux@cushing.org
Phone: 978-827-7075

A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> writes:
>Please let me know what you find - I overhead someone at the newer school
>I'm at talking about the very same subject.
>
>Thanks.
>
>On 1/31/08, Peter Richardson <richardson@rutgersprep.org> wrote:
>>
>> Friends,
>>
>> I am a bit embarrassed to be asking this as I know it has been
>> discussed on this list before. But, because they were not on my radar
>> at the time, I did not pay adequate attention.
>>
>> Can anyone share ideas on a system that would display daily
>> announcements, etc on a screen that we would put up in our lobby? All
>> thoughts are welcome.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Peter Richardson
>> Director of Technical Services
>> Rutgers Preparatory School
>> 1345 Easton Avenue
>> Somerset, NJ 08873
>>
>> 732-545-5600 x238
>>
>> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
>> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
>attribution,
>> non-commercial, share-alike license.
>>
>
>
>
>--
>Michelle S. Ohnstad, MLIS
>michelle.ohnstad@gmail.com
>Head Librarian
>La Jolla Country Day School
>La Jolla, CA
>Web: http://www.ljcds.org
>
>Library Media Specialist
>Pacific Ridge School
>Carlsbad, CA
>Web:

http://www.pacificridge.org
>
>Wiki: http://www.independentschoollibraries.wikispaces.com
>Blog: http://indy-school-librarian.blogspot.com/
>SLA-SD Chapter Blog Administrator
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
>Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
>non-commercial, share-alike license.

Sincerely:

Bruce Lemieux
Director of Technology
Cushing Academy
39 School Street
Ashburnham MA 01430
blemieux@cushing.org
Phone: 978-827-7075

Confidentiality Notice: The electronic mail and/or documents accompanying
this transmission contain confidential information belonging to the sender
which is legally privileged. The information is intended only for the
individual(s) or entity named above. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying,
distribution or taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this
information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this transmission
in error, please immediately notify us by telephone at the number above to
arrange for return or to destroy the original document. THANK YOU.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Independent School group for ISTE or NECC?

I think I read recently that NAIS is looking into creating some sort of
independent school group within ISTE or an independent school presence
at NECC. Has anyone heard anything about this? Could you put me in
contact with anyone working on this? Thanks, as always, for your helpful
suggestions. =20
Patt

Patt Moser, Director of Information Services and Upper School Head
Librarian
Sidwell Friends School
3825 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington D.C. 20016
Tel: 202-537-8164
Mobile: 202-595-4941
Fax: 202-537-8174
Email: moserp@sidwell.edu
Web: http://www.sidwell.edu/upper_school/library.asp

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Lobby Display/Announcement System

Please let me know what you find - I overhead someone at the newer school
I'm at talking about the very same subject.

Thanks.

On 1/31/08, Peter Richardson <richardson@rutgersprep.org> wrote:
>
> Friends,
>
> I am a bit embarrassed to be asking this as I know it has been
> discussed on this list before. But, because they were not on my radar
> at the time, I did not pay adequate attention.
>
> Can anyone share ideas on a system that would display daily
> announcements, etc on a screen that we would put up in our lobby? All
> thoughts are welcome.
>
> Thanks
>
> Peter Richardson
> Director of Technical Services
> Rutgers Preparatory School
> 1345 Easton Avenue
> Somerset, NJ 08873
>
> 732-545-5600 x238
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> non-commercial, share-alike license.
>

--
Michelle S. Ohnstad, MLIS
michelle.ohnstad@gmail.com
Head Librarian
La Jolla Country Day School
La Jolla, CA
Web: http://www.ljcds.org

Library Media Specialist
Pacific Ridge School
Carlsbad, CA
Web:

http://www.pacificridge.org

Wiki: http://www.independentschoollibraries.wikispaces.com
Blog: http://indy-school-librarian.blogspot.com/
SLA-SD Chapter Blog Administrator

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Curriculum Guide

How is your curriculum guide maintained? How is it updated?
What format is the guide in?
Where is it housed?
Who uses it?

Patty Nathan
Principal of Media and Technology
The Epstein School
404-250-5611
pnathan@epsteinatlanta.org

________________________________________________________________________=
______________
The Epstein School is a proud beneficiary of the Jewish Federation of=
Greater Atlanta.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

nuggets on ISEnet ning

Hello ISED listers,

The ISEnet ning http://isenet.ning.com/ is nearing the 600 mark today.
It's been interesting to watch it grow and see what is "sticky" about it
and what is not. There are some recent nuggets I'd like to mention in
case you haven't been on the site for awhile, so I hope you'll forgive
me for pushing these links to you. I've shortened the URLs since long
ones break.

I love the question that this video brings up for me
http://tinyurl.com/2j34bc which is, "How does our classroom change when
our students are more "published" than we are." =20

Math teachers- check out this video (mentioned today by David Warlick)
for a fascinating algorithm to solve multiplication problems:
http://tinyurl.com/3yaxq3 that uses intersecting lines.=20

Join Susan's online professional development opportunity for Virginia
area schools: http://tinyurl.com/3drhjs that will be led by Will
Richardson & Sheryl Nussbaum Beach. Wow!

Add to a photo stream http://tinyurl.com/2rl93d of our office spaces
started by Bill.=20

Is your storage room of technology equipment http://tinyurl.com/373yl8
as organized as Chris's?=20

What would you add to James's list of things http://tinyurl.com/2wjno7
you can accomplish with Windows scripts?=20

Check out the PowerPoint files http://tinyurl.com/ytwrpp that Jamie
posted in the Internet Safety group. What other files could we be
sharing, and building together, so that we don't all have to reinvent
the wheel?

By the way, there's also a new NAIS ning http://naisnet.ning.com/ that
will be used (among other things) to support discussion around the
annual conference.

Thanks everyone for making this an interesting place to exchange videos,
ideas, comments, files, and more, and thanks Fred and Jamie for helping
facilitate. I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions for improving
the nings,
Demetri

Demetri Orlando
Battle Ground Academy
Franklin, TN
demetrio@battlegroundacademy.org

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

I have been using a tablet for a couple of years and have not found a huge
degree of difference between XP tablet and Vista. Vista comes with a
handwriting input tray that hovers on the edge of your screen and is ready
for use whenever you pick up the pen; that said, my Toshiba tablet came with
similar OEM software. I have been very frustrated with Vista's "mobility
Center," which is supposed to be a suite of tools for tablets and laptops
but, since my tablet is already *2* years old, it has a lack of support for
some features, and I find connecting to a projector much more cumbersome
than I did in XP.

I've been looking for open-source or web-based alternatives to OneNote
(which is a great program) for some time. As far as I can tell, there are
alternatives in the development stage - something called "Baskets" or
something like that, for use with Linux, and Springnote online (although
that feels like it has a different intention) but neither, as far as i can
tell, come close to the quality of Onenote. Given its usability and lack of
competition though, I would be surprised if one didn't materialize within
the next year or so.

In peace,

*Norman Maynard*
Principal, Upper School
*Thornton Friends School* <http://www.thorntonfriends.org/>
Silver Spring, MD 20904
301.384.0320

On Jan 31, 2008 9:29 AM, Greg Kearney <kearney@tribcsp.com> wrote:

> OpenOffice also fits nicely into our, "you must master three OSs"
> education plan as well.
>
> Greg
> On Jan 31, 2008, at 6:24 AM, Tim Cooper wrote:
>
> > OpenOffice and its mac cousin NeoOffice are amazing alternatives to
> > Microsoft Office 2003/4/7/8 and both can be set to open and save in
> > Word
> > format to be compatible with the MS Office that people have at home
> > (including docx). Why spend the money for an inferior product?
> > OpenOffice is an open source collaboration of business and
> > universities to
> > provide a viable, reliable product for no cost to the public. Doesn't
> > this reflect the values we want to instill in our students? Abiword
> > is
> > also a good open source word processor, but OpenOffice is a true
> > office
> > replacement (it even has its own drawing program).
> >
> > Dump MS Office for OpenOffice.
> >
> > Tim Cooper
> > LREI - Little Red Schoolhouse and Elisabeth Irwin HS
> > 40 Charlton St.
> > New York, NY 10014
> > 212.477.5316 ext 364
> > tcooper@lrei.org
> >
> > [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> > Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
> > attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> non-commercial, share-alike license.
>

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

OpenOffice also fits nicely into our, "you must master three OSs"
education plan as well.

Greg
On Jan 31, 2008, at 6:24 AM, Tim Cooper wrote:

> OpenOffice and its mac cousin NeoOffice are amazing alternatives to
> Microsoft Office 2003/4/7/8 and both can be set to open and save in
> Word
> format to be compatible with the MS Office that people have at home
> (including docx). Why spend the money for an inferior product?
> OpenOffice is an open source collaboration of business and
> universities to
> provide a viable, reliable product for no cost to the public. Doesn't
> this reflect the values we want to instill in our students? Abiword
> is
> also a good open source word processor, but OpenOffice is a true
> office
> replacement (it even has its own drawing program).
>
> Dump MS Office for OpenOffice.
>
> Tim Cooper
> LREI - Little Red Schoolhouse and Elisabeth Irwin HS
> 40 Charlton St.
> New York, NY 10014
> 212.477.5316 ext 364
> tcooper@lrei.org
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
> attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

Jason, Alex, et al,

I'm also interested to hear from anyone who has gone to Vista on tablets
for the same reason... I've heard that Vista is more of a native OS for
tablets, as opposed to an add-on to XP: "XP, tablet edition," but have
no hard data on this. So I'm wondering whether we should go with Vista
on our 08-09 crop of tablets (w/2Gb RAM) and keep XP for all our older
machines.

I'd echo the comments on OneNote 2007 as a huge improvement over OneNote
2003. Even if a school were sticking with Office 03, you could still run
OneNote 2007 with it. I haven't heard of any open-source alternatives to
OneNote.

I'd also agree that the switch to Office 07 is not as painful as users
might anticipate. It's pretty off-putting at first because it's not menu
driven, but the feedback I've gotten from most users once they get over
the hump (1-2 weeks of use) is that they prefer the new ease-of-use
features, like zooming, auto-preview of font changes, more intuitive
location of features, etc.=20

Looking forward to the m700,
-Demetri

Demetri Orlando
Battle Ground Academy
Franklin, TN
demetrio@battlegroundacademy.org

--------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:19:13 -0600
From: Jason Hyams=20
Subject: Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We plan on moving our incoming students to tablet computers.
The reason for my interest in Vista is how it performs on a tablet
versus XP. The Office 2007 package ships with OneNote and our faculty
currently use
Office 2003 with OneNote.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

OpenOffice and its mac cousin NeoOffice are amazing alternatives to
Microsoft Office 2003/4/7/8 and both can be set to open and save in Word
format to be compatible with the MS Office that people have at home
(including docx). Why spend the money for an inferior product?
OpenOffice is an open source collaboration of business and universities to
provide a viable, reliable product for no cost to the public. Doesn't
this reflect the values we want to instill in our students? Abiword is
also a good open source word processor, but OpenOffice is a true office
replacement (it even has its own drawing program).

Dump MS Office for OpenOffice.

Tim Cooper
LREI - Little Red Schoolhouse and Elisabeth Irwin HS
40 Charlton St.
New York, NY 10014
212.477.5316 ext 364
tcooper@lrei.org

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We plan on moving our incoming students to tablet computers.
The reason for my interest in Vista is how it performs on a tablet
versus XP.

The Office 2007 package ships with OneNote and our faculty currently use
Office 2003 with OneNote.

Does Open Office or Google Docs have an alternative to OneNote that
integrates with the other office applications?

Has any tablet school been successful using the OneNote alternative?

Thank you for replying to this discussion!

Jason Hyams
Director of Technology
St. Agnes Academy

I always ask this question when this kind of thing comes up. "Which =20
children on the scholarship list do not get to come to our school so =20
we can send money to the richest man in the world? (Bill Gates)" You =20
should see the looks on peoples faces when I ask it. At times I have =20
resorted to taking the scholarship wait list into the meeting and =20
asking those pushing for the latest version of Office to select the =20
children that will not be able to attend by name.

We use OpenOffice and Google Docs and save our money for better use.

Greg
On Jan 30, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Norman Maynard wrote:

> I would echo the opinions that the move to Office 07 would be =20
> easier than
> the move to Vista; however, I would offer that perhaps a better move =20
> would
> be away from proprietary suites altogether. I absolutely do not mean =20
> to
> start any kind of OS-type flame war, etc., but the future, it seems =20
> to me,
> is in open-source and more so, web-based apps. Why not save money =20
> and move
> kids from Office 2003 to Google Docs, or Zoho, or Buzzword, which =20
> kids seem
> to really like? We've moved to OpenOffice, and though there has been =20
> some
> difficulties, they've been pretty minor.
>
> Bottom line, it seems to me that as educators we ought to be pushing
> collaborative models whcih invite learning and user involvement over
> proprietary, for-profit models. Add to that Office's troubling .docx =20
> format,
> and I see no reason for us to spend valuable resources on overpriced,
> overpowered, non-cooperative software.
>
> My $0.02
>
> Norman Maynard
> Principal, Upper School
> Thornton Friends School
> 13925 New Hampshire Ave.
> Silver Spring, MD
> 301.384.0320
>
> On Jan 30, 2008 5:05 PM, Karen Douse <douse@harpethhall.org> wrote:
>
>> A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> on
>> Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 11:53 AM -0600 wrote:
>>> Would you stay with XP or go to Vista this summer?
>>
>> We plan to stay with XP - too many negative reports about Vista. XP =20
>> works
>> great and we don't see any advantage to changing right now.
>>>
>>> Would you stay with Office 2003 or move to Office 2007 this year?
>> We moved to Office 2007 for everyone on our campus last fall. We =20
>> did some
>> preview sessions in the spring and offered lots of training time =20
>> before
>> school started. The transition went as well as any of us could have
>> expected. The students learned it easily
>> and immediately, and most faculty members picked up the differences =20
>> very
>> quickly. I wouldn't hesitate on this as long as you prepare =20
>> everyone in
>> advance to expect the change.
>>
>> Karen
>>
>> Karen Douse
>> Director of Library and Information Services
>> Ann Scott Carell Library
>> Harpeth Hall School
>> 615-346-0116
>> douse@harpethhall.org
>>
>>
>> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
>> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, =20
>> attribution,
>> non-commercial, share-alike license.
>>
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, =20
> attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Lobby Display/Announcement System

Friends,

I am a bit embarrassed to be asking this as I know it has been
discussed on this list before. But, because they were not on my radar
at the time, I did not pay adequate attention.

Can anyone share ideas on a system that would display daily
announcements, etc on a screen that we would put up in our lobby? All
thoughts are welcome.

Thanks

Peter Richardson
Director of Technical Services
Rutgers Preparatory School
1345 Easton Avenue
Somerset, NJ 08873

732-545-5600 x238

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

> students and faculty at my school. Just how much privacy to surrender in
> exchange for ease of use or financial savings should be made by each
> individual, and I submit that our default position as administrators should
> be to provide the highest level of privacy possible, which people could then
> give up as they choose.

And I would be stunned if this were not the "default position" of everyone
on this list.

Ross Lenet
Mathematics and Computer Science Teacher
Sidwell Friends School, Washington, DC
lenet@patriot.net

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

I agree with y'all about how it'd be nice to not send more money =
Microsoft's
way. I'm not sure Google, however, is the innocent Indy. <start =
privacy
mini-rant> Certainly Google Docs (which I use), isn't free. You pay by
giving up some of your privacy whenever you use it. That's a choice
consumers should be able to make, and I'd rather not make it on behalf =
of the
students and faculty at my school. Just how much privacy to surrender =
in
exchange for ease of use or financial savings should be made by each
individual, and I submit that our default position as administrators =
should
be to provide the highest level of privacy possible, which people could =
then
give up as they choose. =20

David Rossell
Administrator of Network Services and Planning
Norwood School
8821 River Rd.
Bethesda, MD 20817
(301) 841-2178
drossell@norwoodschool.org

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Greg Kearney
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 7:48 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We use OpenOffice and Google Docs and save our money for better use.

Greg
On Jan 30, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Norman Maynard wrote:

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, =
attribution,
non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

DrupalCon 2008, Boston MA, March 3-6th

Hello, all,

This announcement might be of interest to all people
on the list with a web site :)

On March 3-6th, in Boston, MA, DrupalCon 2008 will
take place.

Drupal ( http://drupal.org )is a content management
system used to build traditional web sites, as well as
more complex publishing platforms, social learning
environments, newspapers, portfolio applications,
blogging applications, school-specific YouTube clones,
etc. In addition to being wildly flexible, secure, and
stable, Drupal has the added benefit of being open
source.

If you are a school looking for options with expanding
your web presence, this conference could help show
some of the many options available. If your school is
already running Drupal, this conference will provide
the opportunity to meet other people using Drupal in
schools, as well as provide the opportunity to meet
many of the active developers within the Drupal
community.

I am helping to organize some of the
education-specific events: an informal meetup at
Legal's Test Kitchen on Monday, March 3, and an
Education-specific session within the DrupalCon. There
are other education-related sessions proposed, as well
as sessions of general interest to people working with
(or thinking about working with) Drupal.

If you or anyone from within your school has
questions, feel free to respond on-list, or contact me
directly.

Useful DrupalCon Links:

http://boston2008.drupalcon.org -- the home page of
the conference site, with links to registration
details

http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/session/drupal-education-meetup
-- info on the meetup at Legal's Test Kitchen

http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/session/drupal-education
-- info on the BoF -- feel free to comment about
topics you'd like to cover, as this will be a working
session.

http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/sessions -- an
overview of all proposed sessions. You can log in and
vote for the sessions you'd like to see occur.

Cheers,

Bill

____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.

http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We use OpenOffice and Google Docs and save our money for better use.

Greg
On Jan 30, 2008, at 5:00 PM, Norman Maynard wrote:

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

I have to 2nd the idea of Google Apps. We were running into the
problem of our families not purchasing MS Office and our students
bringing Works documents in to our mac based school. Now with Google
Apps we are able to avoid many file conversion issues. We also added
access for our advisory board, tech task force, and parent
organization, which has helped these groups actually complete projects
more efficiently.

Lisa

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 30, 2008, at 6:00 PM, Norman Maynard <nmaynard@thorntonfriends.org
> wrote:

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

I would echo the opinions that the move to Office 07 would be easier than
the move to Vista; however, I would offer that perhaps a better move would
be away from proprietary suites altogether. I absolutely do not mean to
start any kind of OS-type flame war, etc., but the future, it seems to me,
is in open-source and more so, web-based apps. Why not save money and move
kids from Office 2003 to Google Docs, or Zoho, or Buzzword, which kids seem
to really like? We've moved to OpenOffice, and though there has been some
difficulties, they've been pretty minor.

Bottom line, it seems to me that as educators we ought to be pushing
collaborative models whcih invite learning and user involvement over
proprietary, for-profit models. Add to that Office's troubling .docx format,
and I see no reason for us to spend valuable resources on overpriced,
overpowered, non-cooperative software.

My $0.02

Norman Maynard
Principal, Upper School
Thornton Friends School
13925 New Hampshire Ave.
Silver Spring, MD
301.384.0320

On Jan 30, 2008 5:05 PM, Karen Douse <douse@harpethhall.org> wrote:

> A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> on
> Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 11:53 AM -0600 wrote:
> >Would you stay with XP or go to Vista this summer?
>
> We plan to stay with XP - too many negative reports about Vista. XP works
> great and we don't see any advantage to changing right now.
> >
> >Would you stay with Office 2003 or move to Office 2007 this year?
> We moved to Office 2007 for everyone on our campus last fall. We did some
> preview sessions in the spring and offered lots of training time before
> school started. The transition went as well as any of us could have
> expected. The students learned it easily
> and immediately, and most faculty members picked up the differences very
> quickly. I wouldn't hesitate on this as long as you prepare everyone in
> advance to expect the change.
>
> Karen
>
> Karen Douse
> Director of Library and Information Services
> Ann Scott Carell Library
> Harpeth Hall School
> 615-346-0116
> douse@harpethhall.org
>
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> non-commercial, share-alike license.
>

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 11:53 AM -0600 wrote:
>Would you stay with XP or go to Vista this summer?

We plan to stay with XP - too many negative reports about Vista. XP works great and we don't see any advantage to changing right now.
>
>Would you stay with Office 2003 or move to Office 2007 this year?
We moved to Office 2007 for everyone on our campus last fall. We did some preview sessions in the spring and offered lots of training time before school started. The transition went as well as any of us could have expected. The students learned it easily
and immediately, and most faculty members picked up the differences very quickly. I wouldn't hesitate on this as long as you prepare everyone in advance to expect the change.

Karen

Karen Douse
Director of Library and Information Services
Ann Scott Carell Library
Harpeth Hall School
615-346-0116
douse@harpethhall.org

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We're moving to Office 2007 in February during our "mid-winter" break.
We did a test install on about 10 users PCs, people who use Office
daily, to gather feedback and test for problems. Based on the feedback
received from our test users, we're not anticipating any issues with the
migration, and training will be minimal. We'll be developing FAQ's
based on problems the test users encountered with the user interface.
Otherwise, I agree with David; 2007 is actually easier for our novice
users to navigate.

I have no plans to move to Vista, period. We're not a laptop school,
but for our environment there is no perceivable benefit that Vista could
provide us. We'd have to spend a fair amount of cash to upgrade some of
our machines the 3-year old range with more RAM just to run it smoothly.
Also, until ATI gets some stable Vista drivers out the door, I imagine
I'd see regular crashes here just like I do at home (I'm almost to the
point of moving back to XP Pro at home).

Now, to respond to your comment on "keeping them stuck with Office 2007
through 2012", I'm assuming you perform no software upgrades on these
laptops through their entire school life. In that instance, sticking
with XP could prove problematic, as Microsoft will eventually
discontinue support for XP, including security updates. Vista should
last you longer in that line of thinking, just be sure to order the
laptops with 2GB of RAM, discreet graphics chipsets, and turn off the
eye candy.

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of David Rossell
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 3:20 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We'll be moving to Office 2007 next year but are holding off on Vista.
Office 2007 is easier for novice users than 2003, and OneNote 2007
provides
some important enhancements over OneNote 2003. Every time I've loaded
Vista,
I've loved the eye candy, but ended up giving up on it after persistent
problems with printer drivers, management software, and incompatibility
with
other software we use on a daily basis.

David
=09
David Rossell
Administrator of Network Services and Planning
Norwood School
8821 River Rd.
Bethesda, MD 20817
(301) 841-2178
drossell@norwoodschool.org

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Ann Hamel
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 1:10 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

Alex,
My experience with the two products this year would have me voting for
just the opposite. Vista has been nothing but a thorn in our side.
There are so many things we can no longer do because of the dramatic
changes in Vista. Very security-oriented, but not user friendly. Maybe
the SP1 will be out by summer, but even then I would be cautious. On
the other hand, the transition to Office 2007 has been fairly smooth.
The changes there are mostly visual and not conceptual and the learning
curve has been a nice and gentle slope. Our students (who supply their
own laptops) have come to us begging to help them re-install XP over
their Vista and others have given us the
patiently-waiting-for-you-to-catch-up look in regards to Office 2007 -
no changes wanted there.

Good luck!
-Ann

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Alex Ragone
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 11:02 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

Jason,

We've decided to go to Vista on new machines and hold off on Office 2007
as we feel the changes to Office offer a greater challenge to our entire
community than the incremental change to Vista. =20

We are struggling with how to move to Office 2007. Lots of training may
be required with little benefit to the education that happens here.

- Alex

A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
writes:
>I'm debating with myself as I often do about configuring our incoming
>student notebooks with Vista and Office 2007.
>
>I feel we need to move our incoming students to Office 2007 so they are
>not stuck with Office 2003 through their senior year in 2012. I'm not
>sure about moving to Vista.
>
>Would you stay with XP or go to Vista this summer?
>Would you stay with Office 2003 or move to Office 2007 this year?
>
>
>
>Thank you for your input!
>
>
>Jason Hyams
>Director of Technology
>St. Agnes Academy
>
>[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
>Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
>

+++++++++++++++++++++
Alex Ragone
Director of Technology
Collegiate School
New York, NY
212-812-8695

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution,
non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

We'll be moving to Office 2007 next year but are holding off on Vista.
Office 2007 is easier for novice users than 2003, and OneNote 2007 =
provides
some important enhancements over OneNote 2003. Every time I've loaded =
Vista,
I've loved the eye candy, but ended up giving up on it after persistent
problems with printer drivers, management software, and incompatibility =
with
other software we use on a daily basis.

David
=09
David Rossell
Administrator of Network Services and Planning
Norwood School
8821 River Rd.
Bethesda, MD 20817
(301) 841-2178
drossell@norwoodschool.org

Good luck!
-Ann

Jason,

We've decided to go to Vista on new machines and hold off on Office 2007
as we feel the changes to Office offer a greater challenge to our entire
community than the incremental change to Vista. =20

We are struggling with how to move to Office 2007. Lots of training may
be required with little benefit to the education that happens here.

- Alex

+++++++++++++++++++++
Alex Ragone
Director of Technology
Collegiate School
New York, NY
212-812-8695

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, =
attribution,
non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Hands on Tablet PC Institute

The Bolles School's 3 day hands-on Tablet PC Institute is filling fast.
If you are considering attending, please email me (adsitf@bolles.org) to
be sure we still have room for your registration.

=20

Dates, content information and registration materials may be found at
the link below. If you are considering a laptop program, you need to
"tech a look at tablets"

=20

http://www.bolles.org/2008Institute

=20

Frank Adsit

Academic Technology Coordinator, The Bolles School

7400 San Jose Blvd

Jacksonville, Fl 32217

904.256.5125

904.739.9363 (fax)

=20

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

Hello, all,

I was just about to respond in a similar vein as Ann
--

Although I haven't been a sysadmin for a few years
now, my general rule with any MS product was not to
touch it until SP1 came out. The initial launches of
most of the major Windows OS followed the similar
pattern as Vista: the initial launch revealed the
bugs/usability issues not caught my MS QA (assuming,
of course, they do QA ;) ), and these issues get fixed
in the SP.

As Ann says, the switch in productivity software is
often less of a shift -- IMO, this is also due to the
reality that students are spending more time online,
and only using a small portion of the range of
functionality within the Office Suite --

Toward that end, maybe this would be agood time to
give OpenOffice a whirl --

Cheers,

Bill
--- Ann Hamel <ahamel@fvs.edu> wrote:

> Alex,
> My experience with the two products this year would
> have me voting for
> just the opposite. Vista has been nothing but a
> thorn in our side.
> There are so many things we can no longer do because
> of the dramatic
> changes in Vista. Very security-oriented, but not
> user friendly. Maybe
> the SP1 will be out by summer, but even then I would
> be cautious. On
> the other hand, the transition to Office 2007 has
> been fairly smooth.
> The changes there are mostly visual and not
> conceptual and the learning
> curve has been a nice and gentle slope. Our
> students (who supply their
> own laptops) have come to us begging to help them
> re-install XP over
> their Vista and others have given us the
> patiently-waiting-for-you-to-catch-up look in
> regards to Office 2007 -
> no changes wanted there.
>
> Good luck!
> -Ann
>
>

____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.

http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Looking for "great" school websites

We love our external website - designed locally and programmed by =
Whipple Hill - who also provides our SIS and Podium (student database, =
grading, etc.). My biggest complaint is that it is ASP and every little =
choice on the page causes the whole page to refresh - I can't even begin =
to tell you how annoying this is and how much it slows down what we are =
trying to do.
My $0.02
Ann

Ann Hamel

Director of Technology
Fountain Valley School of Colorado
6155 Fountain Valley School Road
Colorado Springs, CO=A0 80911

719-391-5330
ahamel@fvs.edu

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things =
brought together. (Vincent van Gogh)

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators =
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Bill Fitzgerald
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:18 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Looking for "great" school websites

--- Peter Kwiterovich
<pkwiterovich@norfolkacademy.org> wrote:

> www.norfolkacademy.org
>=20
> www.gilman.edu
>=20
> St. Christopher's School in Richmond
>=20
> They all use Whipple Hill

Disclaimer: I design web sites, and I'm somewhat of a
standards zealot.

None of these sites validate XHTML strict, and this
page (literally, my second click on the site)
https://www.norfolkacademy.org/podium/default.aspx?t=3D47052&ch=3D0&it=3D=
1
has table-based layout used as a formatting crutch,
as opposed to fully semantic markup.

This combination has the potential to render the site
inaccessible to users with disabilities.=20

Mind you, I did not go through the site with a
screenreader to see what actually happens, but these
are flags to look for when evaluating a site.

Cheers,

Bill=20

=
_________________________________________________________________________=
___________
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.=20
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, =
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

Good luck!
-Ann

Jason,

We've decided to go to Vista on new machines and hold off on Office 2007
as we feel the changes to Office offer a greater challenge to our entire
community than the incremental change to Vista. =20

We are struggling with how to move to Office 2007. Lots of training may
be required with little benefit to the education that happens here.

- Alex

+++++++++++++++++++++
Alex Ragone
Director of Technology
Collegiate School
New York, NY
212-812-8695

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons,
attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

Jason,

We've decided to go to Vista on new machines and hold off on Office 2007 as we feel the changes to Office offer a greater challenge to our entire community than the incremental change to Vista.

We are struggling with how to move to Office 2007. Lots of training may be required with little benefit to the education that happens here.

- Alex

A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> writes:
>I'm debating with myself as I often do about configuring our incoming
>student notebooks with Vista and Office 2007.
>
>I feel we need to move our incoming students to Office 2007 so they are
>not stuck with Office 2003 through their senior year in 2012. I'm not
>sure about moving to Vista.
>
>Would you stay with XP or go to Vista this summer?
>Would you stay with Office 2003 or move to Office 2007 this year?
>
>
>
>Thank you for your input!
>
>
>Jason Hyams
>Director of Technology
>St. Agnes Academy
>
>[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
>Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.
>

+++++++++++++++++++++
Alex Ragone
Director of Technology
Collegiate School
New York, NY
212-812-8695

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Vista & Office 2007 on new student laptops

I'm debating with myself as I often do about configuring our incoming
student notebooks with Vista and Office 2007.

I feel we need to move our incoming students to Office 2007 so they are
not stuck with Office 2003 through their senior year in 2012. I'm not
sure about moving to Vista.

Would you stay with XP or go to Vista this summer?
Would you stay with Office 2003 or move to Office 2007 this year?

Thank you for your input!

Jason Hyams
Director of Technology
St. Agnes Academy

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Daily Instruction, Assessment & Brain Research

Our school, Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis, TN., is a Schools Attuned site. We are currently trying to come up with workable ideas for teachers to use to insure that brain research on learning is taken into account when teachers plan instruction
and assessment. Does anyone use checklists, submit lesson plans for review, peer review, etc. to insure that differentiation is actually taking place in the classroom? Thank you in advance for any input.

Coralu Buddenbohm
Assistant Librarian
Lausanne Collegiate School
1381 W. Massey Rd.
Memphis, TN. 38120
cbuddenbohm@lausanneschool.com
Library (901) 474-1014
Voicemail (901) 474-1203
http://www.lausanneschool.com

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Re: For Web Masters/ Designers

I tend to leave all my working applications open when I am actively
coding/designing: Photoshop, Illustrator, Coda (a really wonderful
coding app), Parallels VM for IE in Windows, all the other various
browsers I test against, and occasionally Aperture. Parallels in
particular is a pretty large memory hog.

My machine is a Macbook Pro with an Nvidia 8600M GT graphics card--the
model that was released early last summer. It has 2GB of of RAM and I
run an external 23" Cinema Display while I am at my desk. I have been
exceptionally happy with this setup. I get very little application
slowdown with the exception of Aperture, which really seems to like
having the whole computer to itself. If I had to make a change, I'd
say upping the RAM to 4GB would be the first, though it would be
mostly useful for allowing Parallels more memory.

(By the way, I am a long time lurker. Thank you all for the great
conversations that those of us who rarely post are enjoying as well!)

Best,
Joe

_______________________________________________
Joseph S. Kallo
Webmaster
The University of Chicago | Laboratory Schools
1362 East 59th Street | Chicago, IL 60637
Phone: (773) 834 1866
jkallo@ucls.uchicago.edu

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Re: Color printing/photocopying guidlelines

This is a MIME message. If you are reading this text, you may want to
consider changing to a mail reader or gateway that understands how to
properly handle MIME multipart messages.

--=__Part96B04229.0__=
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Our Science Department Head forwarded Sue Scott's posting (below) to me =
for a response.
We recently surveyed peer schools in our state and I found no one with an =
unlimited color printing policy, as ours has been up to now. In fact, I =
found numerous schools that support NO color printing by students =
whatsoever. Others allow limited color printing before initiating a charge =
and still others charge from the first copy.
=20
What we're doing now: We're testing software (pcontrol from pcounter.com) =
that allows us to set very flexible controls and track usage by student. =
Our idea is that we'll establish norms and setup an account per students =
with "credits." Students will use one credit for each page of B&W printed =
and two or three credits for each page of color. When their credits get =
low, the student will receive a message to that effect. Ultimately, their =
account can be recharged with a debit to their financial account.=20
=20
In the meantime, we've put an administrative hold on all color printing, =
requiring a PC lab attendant to okay the printjob, and we've put a similar =
hold on B&W printing jobs of more than 10 pages.=20
=20
Our goal is to control runaway spending, mainly from student error or =
willful abuse (like printing off an entire state driver's licensing manual =
in color).=20
=20
=20
=20
Ron Ussery
Media Services Director
Brookstone School
440 Bradley Park Drive
Columbus, GA 31904

706-324-1392, ext. 1406

>>> sscott@spa.edu 1/28/2008 12:03 pm >>>
We are currently evaluating our school-wide configuration of printers
and photocopiers and it would be helpful to hear from other schools
their policies around color printing and photocopying. =20

For example, we are a K-12 school and have networked color laser
printers available to all teachers on our K-5 campus but do not
currently have any networked color printers on our 6-12 campus. Our
guiding principle has been that younger kids produce more work in which
the color information is important but is not as crucial for most of the
work produced by older students. We have not taken the plunge into
color photocopying because of concerns about the cost and the challenges
of defining what kinds of things warrant the additional cost of being
copied in color.

It would be helpful to hear how other schools have answered these
questions.

Many thanks.

Sue Scott

Technology Director

St. Paul Academy and Summit School

1712 Randolph Avenue

St. Paul, MN 55105

Phone: 651-696-1435

Fax: 651-698-6787

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, =
non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

--=__Part96B04229.0__=
Content-Type: text/plain; name="Ronald Ussery.vcf"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Ronald Ussery.vcf"

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
X-GWTYPE:USER
FN:Ronald Ussery
EMAIL;WORK;PREF;NGW:RUssery@brookstoneschool.org
N:Ussery;Ronald
TITLE:Media Specialist
END:VCARD

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

--=__Part96B04229.0__=--

Color printing/photocopying guidlelines

We are currently evaluating our school-wide configuration of printers
and photocopiers and it would be helpful to hear from other schools
their policies around color printing and photocopying. =20

=20

It would be helpful to hear how other schools have answered these
questions.

=20

Many thanks.

=20

Sue Scott

Technology Director

St. Paul Academy and Summit School

1712 Randolph Avenue

St. Paul, MN 55105

Phone: 651-696-1435

Fax: 651-698-6787

=20

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: Question about Graduation/End-of-Year Activities at K-8 Independent School

Thank you. Phil H=20

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Bill IVEY
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 5:51 AM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Question about Graduation/End-of-Year Activities at K-8
Independent School

A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> on
Monday, January 28, 2008 at 6:52 AM -0500 wrote:
>Graland School is currently examining our end of the year=20
>activities/celebrations(including graduation,awards ceremonies,hallowed

>traditions, etc) for our eighth graders. Currently our school has a=20
>ninth grade, but that program will end next year. Even though we could=20
>rely on the tried and true activities from years past, we believe we=20
>must find out what other schools are doing. The committee on which I=20
>serve thanks you.

Hi!

Pine Cobble School (PK-9): Nine days before graduation, the 9th grade
takes a one-week trip to Costa Rica. The day they return, a Wednesday,
the 6th-8th grades have day-long class trips, culminating in an
all-school (picnic. Thursday: half day, with all-school awards ceremony.
Friday: half day, graduation.

Stoneleigh-Burnham School (7-12): Our May traditions in the middle
school include all-school "Spearth Day" (service in the morning, a sort
of fair in the afternoon) and "Founders Day" (like a field day with a
movie added in). Then, during the last week, we have a Six Flags trip,
the final performing arts show of the year, and a Moving Up ceremony.
The Seniors have their own schedule, but that's probably different than
what you're looking for.

Take care,
Bill Ivey
Stoneleigh-Burnham School

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ] Submissions to
ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
non-commercial, share-alike license.

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Re: For Web Masters/ Designers (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED=20
Caveats: NONE

Both Photoshop and Dreamweaver are memory hogs. I make due with
Dreamweaver and connecting FTP sites as drives (in lieu of Filezilla).
I also tend to use Photoshop Elements to lighten the load and because it
has that great feature that lets you combine multiple photos for a
single "good" shot. Also, if you have an AGP graphics card with a small
amount of onboard RAM (most likely in a laptop) that second monitor is
chewing up system RAM as well. Load as much RAM as you can get. I have
a HP Compaq nx9420 with 2GB of RAM. I typically run Dreamweaver, Visual
Studio, Word, IE6, and Firefox. VS is the first thing I close (if I am
working in Flash or Photoshop).

At home it is similar with a PowerBook and 2GB of RAM. =20

___________________________________

Jason Johnson - Program Director
Web Services Branch - Walter Reed Army Medical Center Ingenium (ISO
9001:2000 certified)
Office: 202-782-1047
Cell: 202-262-0516
jason.johnson@ingenium.net
jason.p.johnson2@us.army.mil=20

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Norman Maynard
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 4:27 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: For Web Masters/ Designers

For those of you who are web designers, web masters, I'm curious: what
kind of hardware are you using?

I find that when I am working on our web site, I can often have open:
Dreamweaver, Lightroom, Photoshop, Word, Filezilla, media player,
Firefox and may be a few other programs open - as well as trying to
drive two monitors, and my poor little laptop just can't handle it.

What kind of rig do you all use?

--
Norman Maynard
Principal
Thornton Friends Upper School
Silver Spring, MD

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ] Submissions to
ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
non-commercial, share-alike license.
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED=20
Caveats: NONE

[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Monday, January 28, 2008

Get ISED-L your way!

Creative Commons License

Blog Archive