Tonight I had the pleasure of attending the WRDSB Student Trustee meeting at Cameron Heights Secondary School. The student trustee team is led by Sajdeep Soomal and Adrienne Fiander under the direction of WRDSB trustee  Kathi Smith and staff advisor  Kevin Donkers (login to view this link).  As I have for the last four years of attending these sessions, I anticipated an engaging evening of discussion around a variety of issues.

Sajdeep and Adrienne had prepared a list of topics for discussion which included:

• an update on the Board technology plan for the next year
• use of mobile technology within schools
• clarification of the WRDSB email policy
• future directions with YouTube
• ebooks (eTextbooks)
• and ideas for Facebook for school related platform.

From my perspective, we had a fascinating discussion. As we covered the topics, the students asked insightful questions about the use of technology. Over the evening, our conversation touched on smart boards in secondary schools, digital citizenship, tablet use, business models,  network management (bandwidth capacity, security, virus protection, data integrity, freedom of information & privacy needs and legal requirements) and our collective responsibility for being  good role models for appropriate, ethical and safe online activity.

Thanks to all for a great evening. I look forward to continued conversations online and my next face to face meeting!

~Mark