This log is a linear record of what I have been doing for a full year regarding the integration of technology at the school level.
Roles:  Chaiperson of the Technology group, Resources person for the staff.  Representent of the Technology group in the Leadership group (school enhancement plan)
 
September 97

It's impossible to go ahead and to do anything because of "work to rules".  We have 1/2 hour before school starts and 1/2 hour when school ends.  I have no extra time to look around and to see the resources of my new school.  I don't even have the time to find what kind of resources the school possesses for me as a teacher, so forget about technology wise and all around the school.  So, I need help in finding out the technology resources around the school. Therefore, September 30 I wrote a letter to a parent asking for some help to make an inventory of our technological resources as well as their physical location around the school.

October 97

The school is using the 'Mac' platform which is fairly different from what I've been using (IBM compatible).  The school is in the process of upgrading his hub to be able to give Internet access to ALL classrooms as well as more connection in the library, so for about 24 connections (so far the school has fewer connections and only very little classrooms have access to the Internet).  We have a Computer Lab of Apple IIe.  The location of the newest technology is located in the library.  Our Tecnician Librarian is in charge of them as well as the network.

October 14 is the School Development Day for the school.  Here is the agenda of the Technology Group.  Our goals for this year are stated the summary of the School Development Day article in the November Newsletter.

A survey is given to the teachers (goal #2) to find out what teachers use as program software, what they would like to learn, etc.  Unfortunatly enough, I had only one person who responded to the survey and it was not even a teacher but a teacher's aid. It appears that teachers don't have the time to fill in a long survey.  So I had to change my approach.

I'm still unfamiliar the physical components and parts of a network.  I am starting to understand them logistically.  I'm more familiar with what you can do with a network  rather than how it works!  But I'm learning.  My expertise and interest is more with the IBM plateform and in the integration of technology with the curriculum rather than the technological and physical part of it.

However, I realised that, there is not too many people that know either!  The human resources for helping the technical part of it are thin.  The location of the newest technology is located in the library.  Our Tecnician Librarian is in charge of them as well as network.

November 97

Things are not moving very fast.  I have difficulty to know what's going on in this school (re: resources: network, hardware and software).  I'm new to the school so I'm searching and I'm searching with the limited time I have.  The Librarian is in charge of the network, she has some information of some resources located in the library only.  But she doesn's share easily her information.  The Library is her 'juridistion' as she puts it, she is the 'technician' and want to stay in control of what is happening there.  Nobody really is in charge of the computer lab.

To know more about our network, I went for 'external'  help to see where we were at.  That helped me to understand better.  Here's an e-mail I wrote to a member of our CLC4 asking for help since I'm not a specialist in network stuff, the librarian was gready of her information and I needed help to have an overview of our state of affair at Banff Trail, and I needed some direction (new school, new Board, etc.).

There is no real inventory to know how many computers we possess and how many copies of such and such software or even a list of CDs.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m new to the school or because I’m working part time or because it’s work to rules, but I’m having difficulty to find out where the resources are in this school.  I believe the resources should be easy to find, otherwise we won't use them.  We can have the nicest resources if we don't know they are there... they are expensive and ... useless.

So this is in the process of being done.  I have some volunteer parents that started the hardware
inventory.  Finally I got the librarian giving us a first list of software and CDs available.  Again I
believe that if you want me to use the software, I better know it’s there otherwise it’s sitting on the
shelf.

I realised that the librarian was sparing of  information regarding our resources: hardware, software, network.  I'm still not sure why.  It seemed that any of my initiative is a threat for her.  So no need to say she wasn't pleased with me when I went for external help and called a Tecnology in Learning Specialist from our CLC4.

December 97

Our librarian is a technology librarian but she doesn't want to be part of the Technology Group for the School Enhancement Program.  It's not part of her job requirement.  The Technology Group is there to push the school forward regarding technology integration and the librarian is not interested in being a member of the group.  However, she did for our meeting (Agenda of Dec. 4) a written update on the network and inventory of library hardware and inventory of CD-Roms.  It's sad to see that we are not working together.

It's the first time we are meeting with the 'parents' members.  We never had the chance before.  This meeting is a major rush because we have to decide where we will spend our money for the 'matching grant'.  I knew we had to get going long ago because of  the dead line was Dec 97.  Until then, nobody seemed preocupied by it.  (Remember it's work to rules.)  So at our meeting of  Dec. 4th, the pricipal brings the subject up -very urgent!!

I have to meet with the person that built up our present network to find out his recommendations regarding the direction and the upgrading for our network.  I received the inventory of my volunteer parent for all the hardware through the school.  I made a research regarding buing a new server for our school.  Here's a shorted list of the hardware available in the school at the moment.

We need another meeting (Dec. 15) to find out what we need to buy regarding the matching grant.  Here's my proposal  to buy a bigger server with more harddisk space and more speed.

My proposal didn't go through because it has been said that we have already a server and we need to buy as many newer machines as we can.
 

*** still under editing***