July+2008+meeting

July 2008 Meeting
4:00-5:00 pm / Monday, July 7, 2008 / AIU Central Office - Mann Meeting Room In attendance: Tim Devlin (AIU), Kevin Conner (AIU), Toni Sulkowski (Peters Township SD), Mike Baker (South Side SD), Rebecca Morris, Karlton Chapman (Quaker Valley SD), Norton Gusky (Fox Chapel Area SD)

Identify workshops for conference
The committee discussed possible ideas for 2 hour workshops for Tuesday, November 5. Ideas included:
 * Tablet PC - Ananda Gunawardena (CMU)
 * Podcasting - with Grace Poli, Apple Distinguished Educator
 * Moodle - (Norton suggested that this might be a better topic for a presentation since many people would not have access to Moodle after the workshop.)
 * Wikis - Mike Baker offered to lead and use a template design he created
 * Multimedia production -
 * Web 2.0 Smackdown - Mike Baker outlined how this worked at another conference. The participants would judge which tool is the coolest? Norton proposed using a Fox Chapel team led by Scott Hand, the district's CFF technology coach and use several of the FC student CFF cohort
 * We could let the participants present a tool or two and let the crowd decide what they like the best. Think of this as a Geeky Karaoke.
 * I'd go as far as to make a special award for the winner(s) and add the tools and winners to the wiki.
 * 50 ways to do a Digital Story - Kevin Conner volunteered for this session
 * Advanced PowerPoint - Jana Baxter and Ann Noonen [added by Jana Baxter and updated on TRETC web site by Norton]

Possible presenters to invite
The committee brainstormed possible presenters and key issues that were part of the National Educational Computer Conference in San Antonio or have been "hot topics" in the past year:
 * iTunes University - Norton and Kevin developed the initial content for the state of Pennsylvania. They will consider putting together a presentation
 * Internet Safety - CMU and SuperComputer Center are developing a project similar to iSafe. Tim Devlin offered to contact CMU or the FBI for a possible presentation.
 * Social Networking - The committee could not identify any school district that has had success with any social networking tool. Norton will post to the AIU blog to see if there are any possible presenters.
 * Online tools - Karlton Chapman will contact Bob Hague, a QV teacher who uses YouTube as part of Social Studies
 * Blogging in the classroom - Tim Devlin will contact Chris Stengel from Mt. Lebanon
 * Robotics - Karlton will contact teacher in QV/ Norton will contact Robin Shoop, the director of the Robotics Institute
 * Podcast Pittsburgh - Jana Baxter will follow up to see if this group is interested in sharing their project

Identify possible vendors
Norton related that the Technology Council had sent out an email message to all of the vendors who were at the conference last year. There were 4-5 vendors on board, include Verizon Wireless. Jared Roberts from the Tech Council has more details, but he's on unavailable for the July meeting. Norton will share with Jared about the following vendors that the group felt might be interested in participating in TRETC:
 * Cable Tech - Toni suggested
 * Nettrkker - Kevin will check
 * Questeq - Norton will check
 * ePlus/HP/Cisco - Tim will contact
 * Polycom - Tim will follow up
 * Rodata - Tim Devin will contact Joe Laughlin
 * RPC Video - Norton will check with Steve Obenreder and the use of a MediaSite system

Next meeting - 4:00 pm on August 4