SPS Tech News
Welcome
Yammer
Have you heard of Yammer? It is basically educational facebook. It is a digital community of NSW DEC employees. In Yammer, you can ask questions about anything related to education and get help and advice. Lizz and I have been doing a lot of reasearch and asking questions particularly about our iPads. This community have been extremely helpful. It is not just techonolgy information that gets shared, there are Literacy groups and Numeracy groups, groups for iPads users and who knows what else. I am only new to Yammer myself but am finding it extremely interesting and useful. To sign up you will need to use your email address but instead of 'det' you use'tafe'. Speak with Lizz or Janet if you are interested in joining up and we will explain more.
iPads
So, I mentioned iPads and I know some of you have been asking about when our new iPads will be rolled out. Brendon, Lizz and I have been meeting and chatting regularly the last couple of weeks talking about the iPads. There are a LOT of issues around implementing iPads into the school. Primarily the reason is that iPads are designed to be individual devices, not to be shared amongst hundreds of people. For this reason, there are issues around setting them up. We are pretty sure we have worked out how we are going to set them up, however, we still require more research into the process and may require more equipment. This is a priority for us at the moment, but we do ask if you could just be patient with us please. We will not be setting the iPads up until we have sorted a system that will work for us. They will roll out as soon as we can.
Technology Survey
I know that there is a mental health survey for you to do at the moment, but we will be shortly sending out a survey for you to do as well. This is in the exact same format as the mental health survey but will not take you as long. We are seeking information on what you would like to learn about technology, your skills in technology and what we can do to help you. It is short and we do ask that you put your name on it so that we can identify who needs help in what areas. This will come out in the next week or so.
Technology Bulletin
Don't forget to check out the first edition of the Technology Bulletin found in Week 8 School Biz or click the link below.
Technology Team
If you have any questions or suggestions please chat to us. We would love to know where you want to take technology in our school. Thanks.
Brendon, Lizz, Karen and Janet