I enter the 2010-2011 school year with great anticipation and excitement.  Many of the projects that were in major planning stages last year will ‘go live’ this year.

• Effective today, we have wifi hot spots in each secondary school. These hot spots will allow staff and students to use their own equipment for Internet access.
• Expanded use of web 2.0 and social media tools to support curriculum delivery. Staff and students now have access to Facebook. Facebook and Twitter, along with other resources will be used to extend school community and support curriculum delivery.
• By mid month, we will role out email for elementary students. In addition to the secondary role out last April, all students fill have a Board assigned email address to support curriculum and communication needs, and identification in other online environments.  All students will be part of our FirstClass system.
• Launching our Future Forum project (semester 2), developed as our 2009/2010 PLP project
• Automated processes now reduce manual work to support account management
• Redesigned and significantly improved drupal based web sites for our secondary schools
• Moodle hosted setup to deliver Health and Safety content (launched Sept. 2nd)

Significant projects for this year include:

• expanded development of our Library Learning Commons (LLC) project
• a complete rewrite of our Technology Acceptable Use procedure to align with Digital Code of Conduct, Digital Citizenship, and Character Development programs
• iPads & netbooks in the classroom
• continued involvement in the PLP program
• a look at e-book strategies
• expanding our wireless project
• building on our Digital Citizenship program

Day one went well. We hit our startup targets and hit the road running. It is going to be a great year!

~ Mark