Florence Unified School District #1
April Board Report
Nicole Steele, Director of Educational Technology
2012-2013 School Year Preparation
We still have a quarter of the current school year remaining, yet the technology team is busy planning for next year. At this time we are busy receiving quotes for instructional software, administrative software and maintenance renewals for infrastructure and making purchases of equipment to prepare us for next year. The start of next school year may still seem like a long way away, but the work done right now ensures that we have all of the equipment and software that we need when students and teachers return in July.
USDA Rural Development Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant
In May of 2010 the Florence Unified School District, along with other Pinal County school districts and the Pinal County Interactive Television Consortium, applied for a competitive United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) grant. This grant, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, is designed to provide funds to meet educational and healthcare needs in rural America. While not considered rural, our district was able to participate as an urban hub to the many rural districts involved in our grant. The Pinal County ITv Consortium requested approximately $355,000 to fund distance learning equipment for participating schools. We received word in March 2011 that our grant was fully funded and recently received our equipment! The funding of this grant has provided Florence USD with videoconference bridging equipment, installation services and three years of Polycom maintenance on the equipment. Among other things, this bridging equipment will enable us to connect all of our schools via videoconference simultaneously. Additionally, we will bridge videoconference calls for other Pinal County districts, providing our bandwidth permits, when Central Arizona College’s bridging services are at capacity. Our IT team is currently working with the installation company’s engineers on preparing our network for installation. We hope to have the equipment installed and ready for use in May.
Walker Butte ITv Collaborative Project
In February Lori Nelson, Walker Butte K-2 and FUSD district librarian, posted a videoconferencing collaboration request on the Internet for Walker Butte kindergarteners to share their findings on their study of caterpillars, cocoons and butterflies. This multidisciplinary collaboration would provide our students with the opportunity to share books on butterflies and what they learned during their studies with their peers throughout the country. Ms. Nelson has had an overwhelming response to her request! Currently, seventeen K-2nd grade classrooms in eight different states have responded and committed to this collaboration. Ms. Nelson is currently working with the Walker Butte kindergarten teachers on preparing for their videoconference collaborations. Collaborations will take place at the end of April/beginning of May. What a great, exciting use of our technology!
FUSD Technology Twitter Feed
Follow the Florence USD technology team on Twitter! Our Twitter handle is @FUSDtechthisout. This Twitter feed will be used to provide FUSD faculty and staff with updates on resources and trends in educational technology as well as the community with updates on educational and informational technology projects in Florence USD.
Technology Work Orders
The technology department staff has completed 168 official technology work order requests during the month of March. The continuing assistance of the site technology contacts has increased the efficiency of assisting district staff. Many thanks go to Jonathan Cochran for coordinating these efforts.