Minutes+11-19-13


 * Tuesday, November 19, 2013**
 * Technology Team Meeting**
 * Puxi Campus**


 * Members Present**: Amanda DeCardy, Simon Power, Amy Hossack, Orion Weber, Simon May, Jeff Dungan, Bobby Hendricks, Sybill Hall, Jason Dillon & Andy Torris by video conference.

News from Andy - Parents and students wish to have more say in the types of Macs they have at school. We are moving to BYOMac at SAS. We are rolling out another option on the technology fee. BYODD - bring your own designated device. We need to have an option where we eliminate the tech fee. Kids can bring to school a Mac based on our specifications.

We will recommend hardware AND software

Some questions and concerns - Will there be lost classroom time? Will we entertain multiple types of operating systems? We estimate that 60-70% of our student body will still get their machines through the school. How can we make this work and make it work well?

LMS - Learning Management System - what works in China? We know Blackboard is supported in China. Make a change? Look at other options? It needs to be fully supported in Mainland China. Think sustainability.

Future of tech leadership? Director of Educational Technology at SAS? All of the Deputy Superintendents will have cross campus responsibilities and on of them will be responsible for tech leadership.

American School Bombay - [] The collaborative is made up of international schools seeking to more closely examine and evaluate a range of educational technology access, practices, beliefs and outcomes related to teaching and learning.

Spending down budget line - things we buy throught the tech fee, need to directly affect the 1-1 program such as LMS. Or Hardware or Software specific to the 1-1 classrooms.

Lots of spare student laptops - 200+ Sell them to new students? Turn them into testing machines?

__Edublogs__ Will there be a switch? Current blog platform is brutal. We are unable to migrate both our packages (500 teacher and 3000 student) into one package. cost is 8000/year The plan is...sites.saschina.org/

Bobby - suggests we do not move to a new blog platform, but they we have a single sign on - rather than sprawl our tech over many sites such as powerschool, blogs, etc, we should look for an all in one system.

response - we need an immediate solution to our blog situation

Plan - Orion will check with Jewel to see about the payment. Ideally we will begin in December, begin with the six principals blogs & ADs, which will be coordinated by Amanda who will coordinate with Abbey T, to share the message that we are updating our blogs, trfs will manage their own division, Simon will add 500 blogs in a google doc which we will highlight to indicate who did it.

__Budget Requests__ We will check up on subscriptions, make sure there are no double ups.

Next steps - when things are not approved, trfs will contact the teachers to share this, we will explain budget restraints etc, if there are further questions the teacher is to speak to Andy Torris

__Apple TV__ Bobby asks are we using Apple TVs or are we not? Orion's concerns - They are not a sanctioned apple product in China. They were designed for a home, not a network. On a large network like ours you must be on the same vlan network. Currently teachers use the student network as a work around. When we switch to using Fortinet on the student network this will no longer work. The cost is not just the device it's the projector, the cables, the

Apple TVs are not guaranteed to work.

Simon P: Air Server works flawlessly. Amy & Sybil: Reflector is hit and miss.

__CASPER__ PXMS is installing CASPER on their machines. Orion: We eventually need to have CASPER on all the machines on our network. Not this year necessarily - but next year for sure. This will also need to be discussed with our BYOM discussion.

__Networks at SAS__ Phasing out Teacher Network and moving to SAS_staff, the reason is to prioritize band with and to register a device without having to use fortinet. We do not have the band with recommended for a one-one school of our size. Our new Cisco device will help with this. Proposed change date:

Teachers can have one extra device - they will have to register on their device.

Students will have to log in to Fortinet in the future. After Christmas.

We will also reign in the guest network. We will change the guest, guest log in.

Student devices: We can support the macbooks, but not student devices.

School owned devices such as ipads will be on the SAS_staff network.

__Bring Your Own Mac__


 * brainstorm discussion notes:**

What hardware is allowed & what are the requirements?

Software requirements & what is the school's role in dispersing them?

How would students get software?

Are we going to mandate any software?

If kids are bringing older laptops, what do we say?

Loaners? Will still be available.

You can't get on the network without meeting our standards?

Can we use bootcamp? Definitely no.

Students will be charged with printing.

We need to authenticate the mac address. Printing is another issue.

We will need to change the guest password every week at the start.

Must run CASPER

Why Macs - security from viruses, stability of the network

Suggestion: Buy and use an external usb hardware - time machine.

We are transitioning to a model where there is much less student support

Are students still required to replace their new machines every 3 years? You must purchase by 4 years, we recommend that you replace by 3 years.

Parents must bear the costs of all repairs outside of Apple Care.

minimum software requirement admin account identify mac address must run CASPER families will be responsible for all repairs

transition time - families that pay the tech fee are covered

loaners for a limited period of time, possibly for a week

possible solution to Equitrac - everybody gets 400 quai more in March, then everyone who comes in after that is on their own.

Software Package:

We have an expectation that the software on the machines is licensed/legal.

Simon May will contact Adobe to talk about reducing the cost or we give them the flick.

__Elementary macbook carts__ A brief discussion with Andy and Orion about bringing some of the older laptops that are scheduled to be replaced next year will come down to the grade 2 & 3 classes. This is fine - Jeff and Amy need to order carts.