LTAC notes-April

The LTAC meeting this morning was attended by Union Springs, Auburn, Moravia, Jordan-Elbridge, Cato-Meridian, Southern Cayuga and CNYRIC.

Meetings for next year were set for the third Thursdays from 10-noon with the noted exceptions. Sept. 18, Oct. 16, Nov. 20, Dec. 18, Jan. 15, Feb. 12 (2nd Thursday), March 19, April 9 (2nd Thursday). May 21, 2009 will be the annual visit to CNYRIC and the time will be 8:30 am.

The WAN was discussed. Everything is going well. There was discussion on the bandwidth of video conferences and the need to move it off the districts' Internet access.

Union Springs and Port Byron are working with OCM on VOIP. Auburn and Southern Cayuga will be looking at it.

If you are adding anything for 2009-10 it needs to be added as an amendment in your tech plan this summer.

Next security meeting is May 6 at 8:30 at the RIC.

The CNYRIC WAN will be down Saturday April 26 for install of the generator.

Tony talked about the courses for distance learning and the virtual field trips that have been going on. All districts in the DL service will have Polycoms onsite by the end of the week.

Ann talked about library automation training and handed out copyright compliance posters

Jerry talked about repair services.

AMX gave a presentation on their products.

Next meeting is May 15 at noon at CNYRIC.

Media Statistics

The most recent statistics from media services show that videostreaming is being used more and more. For the month of March, 35% of the Medianet usage was for videostreaming. We will be adding another group of streamed videos from Learn360 in the next few weeks.
82% of the requests for videos for March were made directly by teachers using the Internet.
The top 5 videos requested were:
Phases of Matter
Dying High in the ER
Nutrition Basics
Road to Riches: Pros and Cons of Credit
Volcanoes

Odyssey of the Mind

Our Odyssey of the Mind tournament will be held on Saturday at the Regional Education Center on W. Genesee Street Road. We have 68 teams registered with almost 500 students participating. Weigh-in for Tee Structures begins at 7:30 and the actual competitions will begin around 8:15. There will be two award ceremonies. The first at 2 PM will be for Road Rally, Wonderful Muses and Tee Structure. The second at 3 PM will be for Dino Stories and The Eccentrics. We look forward to this being another successful year.

LTAC meeting February 13

The LTAC meeting was held with 6 districts and CNYRIC attending. Dave Greenfield discussed the new Cisco shaper that has been installed for internet bandwidth. He provided information for districts to get the reports that they need.

Rick discussed the CNYRIC move scheduled for March. The date is subject to change pending completion of the building. The mainframe and the WAN will be down when the move takes place.

Ann discussed the libraries' Union Catalog which will be updated with new data. The server for OPALS will be upgraded next week.

There is no March meeting due to the scheduling of Superintendents Conference Day. The next meeting will be APRIL 10. This is one week early because of the Spring Break.

Leap Year

Do you need something to show students about Leap Year? Try EdVideo Online.
Use our catalog to look up Leap Year.

Daily Deskercise involves a variety of mental and physical activities designed by fitness expert Slim Goodbody to improve overall health. Centered around the fitness theme leap year, invigorating exercises help explain the reason for adding an extra day to the calendar every four years.
Primary, Intermediate, ©2006 Slim Goodbody
Titles in this series
Daily Deskercise: Leap Year: Workout One
Daily Deskercise: Leap Year: Workout Two
Daily Deskercise: Leap Year: Workout Three
Daily Deskercise: Leap Year: Workout Four
Daily Deskercise: Leap Year: Workout Five

New Video Resources

I recently had the chance to look at two new sources of video clips. VITAL from WNET, New York and Teachers Domain from WGBH, Boston.

Teachers Domain has many resources for science. It also features special collections for Between the Lions, Civil Rights and Learning from the People.

VITAL contains ELA and math activities and resources, including over 140 resources for grades 3-6.

These resources complement our BOCES collections and EdVideo Online which is supported by WCNY.

Check out my del.icio.us for the links.

Happy New Year

Welcome back to a New Year! I visited Disney World over the holiday and I was amazed at the technology. First of all when you insert your admission ticket you also place your finger on the sensor. After that you must use the same admission ticket each time you re-enter because it combines the ticket with your finger. They had an amazing light display at Disney MGM. All of the buildings in "New York" were lit by thousands of lights which were synchronized to the music. It was amazing!


Back to work...The media statistics for the year show that the most requested video titles are Cells, Circulatory System: Your Plasma Pipeline, Dying High: Teens in the ER, Ocean Life, Periodic Table. It seems that science videos are popular!