EdTech Meeting Thursday, April 27th 2006

 

Attendance: John Devlin, Alain Brizard, Jo Ellis-Monaghan, Sue Breeyear, Greta Pangborn, Steve Burks, Bill Anderson, Dennis Voigt 

  1. There were no changes to the minutes from the previous meeting or the year-end report.
  2. IT would be willing to provide funds for a faculty member to attend the conference Expanding Horizons: Pedagogy, Technology & Course Redesign VI.  This conference will be held at Fairfield University June 7-9, 2006.  Greta will get a list of the previous Teaching With Technology Workshop attendees and send them information about this opportunity.
  3. We discussed the tentative plan for the next round of laptop replacements.
    • About 70 tablets / laptops will be purchased this summer.   This first round will go to IT staff, about 45 faculty, and 5 staff members.  The participants in the current pilot program will be invited to participate in this first round.
    • The remainder of the machines will be purchased in January.
    • The machines that are currently involved in the pilot program will be re-imaged and used in the library.
    • The latch problem should be solved in the new versions, but the library will still need to worry about the corresponding charging issues for the pilot program machines.
    • We also need to move to Office 2003.  Jo and Dennis have both found the switch to Office 2003 fairly easy.
    • The question of whether to purchase the larger (handle) batteries is still undecided.  One piece of information we need is whether the batteries can be recharged independently of the machines.
  4. Bill Anderson also provided updates on work to be done on the JEM renovation, and the reboot and citrix systems that will be implemented this summer.
  5. The Ed Tech work that must be completed this summers includes
    • A report to the Provost following the teaching with technology workshop.
    • A report on the outcomes of the tablet pc pilot program.

submitted by: Greta Pangborn