Holidays, Technology and Energy

The teachers and students are on winter break and the 12 month employees are working through the 23rd. I am taking the time to clean ActivBoard filters, catch up on some cleaning and other basic housekeeping. We sent information on what to turn off for the two week break so as I’ve been walking the campus for the filters, I’ve been checking on those technology items that needed to be turned off.

I’ve found that the worst offender of not being turned off in a room is the printer, followed by the monitor. According to the Office Equipment Energy Savings Calculator, LBL the following table shows that you can save $30 per printer annually by turning them off at night and logically more if you turn them off during breaks and on weekends. You can save an amazing $42 per monitor!

Equipment	Annual Energy Cost Off at Night	Annual Energy Cost On 24 Hours/Day
Monitor (15″)	$12	$54
Laser Printer	$14	$44

So lets just take these numbers and not consider that they are turned off for 2 weeks during the winter break and the 2 months of summer because they are usually left on during the weekends for the duration of the 10 month school year that teachers are here. Now, I’m going to use my school which is above 700 students but below 1000. With 4 computers per classroom with approximately 50 instructional rooms, 89 lab computers and 25 miscellaneous desktops on campus that would be 314 monitors and a savings of $13,188.00/year. As for the printers, we have 1 team printer per grade level, 1 per classroom, 3 in the labs and 25 for other staff. These numbers are approximate, which leads to a savings of $2,550.00/year for 85 printers.

Okay, my school is smaller and of course the high schools will be a lot larger, but I am going to just use my figures for our whole district. Lets take the total savings of $15,738.00 times the 43 elementary, middle and high schools we have and that is a savings of: $676,734.00 annually. That is on the low side because most of the other schools are larger than my school, especially the middle and high schools. But, if you look at that number you can see how saving that amount on just monitors and printers could be spent on something else in our currently tight fiscal situation as a district.

Think about it…

Filed under: Education, Educational Technology, Elementary School Information, K-12 Ed Tech, Technology , energy, Fiscal Savings

ActivBoards a Year Later – Plus Miscellaneous Ramblings

 

It’s been almost a year since we got our first 18 ActivBoards. In that time 50 more ActivBoards have been installed, making it one in every classroom. We’ve had the expected growing pains, but also a great leap in teacher and student interactive learning. As I wander the halls on my way to fix some technology I see every class using their ActivBoard in some way.

We are now into intermediate training on integrating other technology and lessons into the ActivClassroom. The latest ActivTechnology training class that our teachers have been working on is integrating streaming video into a flipchart lesson. I like using gadgets in lessons because I see the students as gadget lovers. The students are already using digital technology, iPods, xBox, play stations, computers and the internet so why not use what they use and like to teach them?

I see them more involved in the classroom, but we also need to watch that we don’t just use the ActivBoards as a replacement for the whiteboard. The key word here is INVOLVED. Students need to be involved in the class, interact with the ActivBoard, not just answer questions or read to ActivBoard. All the items that I mentioned above that students use like the iPod are interactive, which is why they like them. I wouldn’t want to just sit and listen to a lecture anymore than a child likes to.

• I want to interact
• I want to have fun
• I want to learn without feeling it’s a chore

Don’t you think our children are the same way?

We have received ActiVotes for the classrooms, which will increase the student interaction. I can’t wait to see the students faces when they get to use the ActiVotes, (I call them eggs because that’s what they look like).

• Congratulations to Tes Powell for passing her National Board Certification!
• Lastly, I’ve been having a ball getting 165 new HP Short Form desktops ready for deployment into our classrooms. I know the students and teachers will see the difference between these computers and the ones that I will be replacing. This is another step toward an advanced, up to date ActivClassroom.

Technorati tags: Promethean, ActivBoard, K-12 Education

Filed under: ActivBoard, Elementary School Information, K-12 Education, Promethean , ActivBoard, Promethean, Student Interaction

Blogging as Part of Your Class

I’ve been working on this post for a month with a teacher at my school. Together we’ve started a blog for his 5th grade class (click here). The idea is to engage the students on the computer in a way that gets them interested in their work, while teaching them how to communicate. We also want to get the parents involved with their children together outside the classroom in an environment that the kids feel comfortable. The blog has been up for two days and in that time the students have already started asking questions about assignments with over 25 comments.

The blog consists of the main entrance page that contains the Upcoming Events post, pages that contain weekly class Lesson Plans in Math & Science, a Homework page and an Online Resource page.

• The Upcoming Events post is static, sort of; Keith will change it depending on events as they change each month. We decided that instead of making new posts, then having the posts scroll down as in a typical blog, that Keith would just write the upcoming events in the text editor and save the update. He will also change the time stamp to reflect the new age of the post.
• The weekly Lesson Plans are short basic overviews on what the students are doing that week, if there is a test and what is expected. It is not a detailed lesson plan, but something that gives a parent an idea about what their child is working on.
• The Homework page gives the students a homework assignment due later in the week. The student can ask questions by using the comments section of the page. The comments are moderated by Keith so that nothing inappropriate gets on the blog.
• The Online Resources page will change, be added to as time goes on and Keith finds sites that he wants his students and Parents to visit.

The Blogroll has basic links to our school page, the county school page and eharcourtschools, which is one of our main math sites. As I mentioned above, the Pages have comments allowed so that the parents and students can communicate with Keith after hours when Keith is online at home. It is also a help to the parents that cannot contact Keith during the school day. They leave a comment and Keith can email them a personal reply or leave a comment of his own if appropriate.

I personally believe a blog is an easy method of communicating your class goals than maintaining a web site. The quickness of editing a post or page is much faster than using FrontPage, DreamWeaver or another HTML program. The manipulation of the pages is easier and you can add video, pictures and other multimedia much easier. Lastly, you can communicate in faster and better with your students and their parents.

Check out Keith’s blog: Mr. Thompson’s 5th Grade Class

Technorati tags: Educational Technology, k12 Education, Blogging, Elementary Education

Filed under: Blogging, Education, Educational News, Educational Technology, Elementary School Information, K-12 Ed Tech, K-12 Education, Web 2.0