PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Communications & Directories - Update for North PTSO Board

Erik — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:50:33 -0800

Today, Janet and I made a small presentation to the PTSO Board at Newton North. Our purpose was to update them specifically on what's happening with respect to the North PTSO website and directory. Our talk covered that and also the NPS? TAC? more generally. Here are the highlights.

NPS TAC 2008-2009 Projects

Learning (Lead: Shelley Chamberlain)
Learning Management (Lead: Missy Costello)
PTO Communications & Directory (Lead: Erik Britt-Webb)
Overall Communications (Lead: TBD)

PTO/PTSO Communications & Directory – Primary Goals

Improve information access and collaboration within each PTO through the use of common/shared infrastructure
Dramatically streamline and improve the sharing of calendar events and news items across the district by enabling district-wide (and multi-school) events/news to be shared in a structured way down to local school PTO websites (via content syndication) and vice-a-versa
Dramatically streamline and improve how PTO contact directory information is gathered, validated, published and maintained
- For each PTO
- Across PTOs for families with children in multiple schools
Make it easy and secure for appropriate school constituents to interact across a range of Newton school and PTO websites, using a single identity and authentication credentials (rather than having to maintain different ones for NorthPTSO.org, WardPTO.org, NPSTAC.org, etc.)

Pilot Projects

Being conducted simultaneously at www.NorthPTSO.org, www.WardPTO.org and www.NSPTAC.org.
Implemented local calendars that are slowly getting populated
On WardPTO.org, provide an archive of email blasts (coming soon to NorthPTSO)
Working feverishly on short-term online directory gathering process/tools, while long-term solution is ironed out
In the next couple of months, looking to tackle the challenge of receiving, editing and organizing content for the NorthPTSO and WardPTO email blasts

Help Needed

Graphic designer to improve look & feel of these websites
Technically-minded person who can help configure modules being used to power the functionality of these sites (using the Drupal?.org system, but little to no programming required)

PTO Communications & Directories

Advertising revenue for PTO Newsletters

Erik — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:17:05 -0700

Following on the topic of Online Payment Options, I was in another conversation about how to handle the large volume of requests to include community service advertisements in the PTO newsletters. It would be nice if there was a non-intrusive way for community service providers to advertise their services to families through the PTO newsletters AND at the same time, for the PTOs to make a little advertising revenue.

As I was documenting some findings for Online Payment Options, I also discovered the Paypal Node module. Module is designed specifically for taking online micro payments in order to post content to a website (which could then flow into the PTO newsletters). This sounds like a perfect solution for the allowing people to advertise in the school PTO newsletters, while the PTOs make a little coin off the advertisement.

On the "business side" of this equation, I think there are three major steps to be able to effectively accept and charge for advertising on their website and/or in their newsletter.

Speaking on behalf of the Ward PTO as an example:

First, we need to revamp the way we receive and organize those articles/advertisements via our website. This will dramatically reduce the administrative burden on the newsletter editor
Second, we have to change how they get published, both in terms of (a) being available as individual articles/ads on the website and (b) being included as a list of clickable titles in our newsletters
Third, with these in place and test-driven for a couple of newsletter editions to make sure it's working smoothly, then I would recommend that we introduce the concept of charging for advertising, including charges for one week or multiple-week ads.

It true that if we use Paypal, we pay $.30 per transaction plus 2.2% of the total, which could take a big bite out of a $1.5 charge for an ad (for instance). I'm sure there are other options we could pursue. My main goal, though, would be to ensure that whatever we "turn on" is easily scalable, in case (and hopefully when) we get a flood of worthy community service announcements and advertising revenue. :-)

NPS TAC

PTO Communication via Email Lists

Erik — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:39:00 -0700

Nearly every PTO communicates with their respective families via some kind of email lists. Several use Constant Contact, while others use Google Groups or other software/services.

Communication Goal: One of our goals as an NPS? TAC? is to provide a good set of tools that all PTOs can use, if they choose, to communicate with their families and teachers. The advantage to having multiple PTOs use the same tools/platform include: avoiding duplicate service fees and making it easy for parents to see the wide variety of school-related newsletters to which they could subscribe. This way, a family with kids at Ward, Bigelow and North could not only subscribe to their respective newsletters from one page, but also subscribe to the School Committee newsletter and others.

Long-Term Solution: We believe we can implement the CiviCRM set of modules on the Drupal? platform to provide a district-wide set of functionality, including maintain family information for PTO directories, making it easy for families to sign-up for mailing lists throughout the district and enabling list administrators to keep those lists secure and to communicate effective with their list members.

Short-Term Step: We have created a Constant Contact account that currently maintains email lists for the following organizations:

Ward Elementary School PTO (www.wardpto.org)
NPS Tech Advisory School (www.npstac.org)

Sign-up for these lists here.

If you think other organizations might be interested in consolidating their lists into this account, please contact Erik Britt-Webb at communication@npstac.org.

PTO Communications & Directories

Image Galleries for PTO sites

Erik — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:03:20 -0700

I’ve been working with the newsletter people at Ward PTO and North PTSO to setup PicasaWeb accounts for collecting images to use in their respective newsletters. I’ve been finding it difficult to USE the images one they’re in the albums. It’s just not as friendly as I had hoped.

So, I’ve been thinking about changing course and suggesting that they turn on the Image Gallery features native to their respective PTO websites. As an example, I have created a couple of image galleries on this site.

The pros of using the embedded image galleries is that it’s much easier to embed the images into other posts and you don’t have to hassle with another site/login account.

The cons are that you have to use the web form to upload each image (a little more cumbersome) and we lose the other bells and whistles on the PicasaWeb site.

What do others think?

NPS TAC

NNHS PTSO Web Site Requirements

Erik — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:21:00 -0700

PTO Communications & Directories

NorthPTSO.org themes

Erik — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:45:06 -0700

Team,

Doing my piece of our homework from our PTO Sites & Directories Meeting 07/07/08, I installed a few more themes and made the Fancy one the default. I think it looks pretty sharp!

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Sites & Directories Meeting 07/07/08

Erik — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:40:06 -0700

ATTENDEES

Erik Britt-Webb, Lisa Cohen, Charles Frankston, Janet Porcaro, Arnold Sodder

DISCUSSION

We spent most of our time walking through the
installation of www.northptso.org and getting familiar with the way the
modules and themes work. We focused especially on CiviCRM - the way it
is installed and how to work with it.

We also spent some time
talking about hosting requirements and potenial options, including:
Dreamhost, buying/configuring our own serve and hosting it in NPS? data
center or with someone else.

We agreed on a few action items below, but not on a next meeting time. Erik will propose the next time and see who can make it.

ACTION ITEMS

Here is a snapshot of the action items at this point. The complete lists, where changes should be made is on the Project Plan page.

Completed

Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal?/CiviCRM) -- Erik/Arnold

New

Review Drupal Themes and identify favorite ones -- ALL
Review Resources captured for Drupal in Education group.
In particular, look at the K-12 school sites, to see what other schools
are doing (I realize this isn't PTO sites, but it's still useful).-- ALL
Identify 1-2 favorite school sites from the Resources page.-- ALL
Document NNHS PTO Directory Requirements (data elements for students, parents, households, etc., reports needed from directory) -- LJCohen

Ongoing

Draft site map --LJCohen, Janetsville
Determine cotent types --LJCohen, Janetsville
Determine taxonomy? --LJCohen, Janetsville
Create basic content pages to mirror content on current site (www.nnhsptso.org) --LJCohen, Janetsville
Define hosting/technology requirements; document on Hosting and Technology page --Arnold,Charles
Complete hosting price/feature comparison; select host account--Arnold,Charles

Next Meeting

I suspect not everyone can make this, how about a next meeting of Monday, July 14, 7-9pm, Erik's house?

PTO Communications & Directories

NNHS PTO Directory Requirements

Erik — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:17:34 -0700

This is a placeholder for NNHS PTO Directory Requirements, to be completed by LJCohen and Janetsville.

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Sites & Directories Meeting 07/07/08

Erik — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:18:23 -0700

Start: 07/07/2008 - 7:00pm

End: 07/07/2008 - 9:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Location: Erik Britt-Webb's Home, 120 Woodchester Drive

Purpose: Joint working session for web site and CivicCRM directory www.NorthPTSO.org

PTO Communications & Directories

Drupal in Education

Erik — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:18:11 -0700

There is a community service providers, teachers and IT staff who are developing a pool of resources to support the use of Drupal in Education. I'll write more on this, but I encourage people to explore the Resources tab tab.

I think the GDO discussion on the Adams 12 Five Star Schools may be particularly useful to our situation.

PTO Communications & Directories

CiviSMTP - Outmail mass mailing for CiviCRM

Erik — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:53:19 -0700

Arnold and I were recently talking about the need for high-volume outbound email service for NPS? district-wide email communication.

On that point, I just stumbled upon CiviSMTP, a service specifically for handling large-volume outbound email generated from our own instance of CiviCRM. See an overview here http://www.uas.coop/civismtp-overview.

PTO Communications & Directories

NorthPTSO Drupal Install & Config Notes

Erik — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:51:08 -0700

This page notes the steps taken to install and configure the software for the NorthPTSO.org site.

DreamHost User: schoolprd
MySQL User: npsadmin
NorthPTSO Admin (1st) User: npsadmin

1. Install Drupal? 5.7 to /drupal-5.7-pto

2. Create MySQL DB: northptso-d57crm20

3. Go to www.northptso.org; create first user: npsadmin

4. Set files & temp directory locations

5. Enable Clean URLs

6. Install/enable Admin_Menu module (no configuration needed)

7. Enable core optional modules: Blog?, BlogAPI, Book, Color, Contact, Help, Menu, Path, Search, Taxonomy?, Tracker, Upload

8. Install CiviCRM using Automated Install for Drupal 5 directions.

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Sites & Directories Project Update

Erik — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:45:35 -0700

As you can see from recent activity, the PTO Communications & Directories group on this site has fired up a project that I am calling the PTO Sites & Directories Project. We will be capturing wiki?-style content (e.g., project plans, action items, meeting minutes, research & decisions) in the PTO Communications & Directories collaborative book.

I just posted: PTO Sites & Directories Project Plan and PTO Sites & Directories Meeting 06/30/0 book pages to get things rolling. If you're a member of this group, I invite you to read and edit these pages. Even if you're not a member of this group, anyone is welcome to post comments on the pages if you have useful input or questions.

PTO Communications & Directories

Hosting and Technology

Erik — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:23:08 -0700

Let's use this page to gather information about hosting and technology options and capture our decisions.

Hosting

Do we need a VPS (Virtual Private Server) or better account, so
we have decent performance & control?
Here's info on Dreamhost Private Server offering

Technology

Content Management Platform

I’m anticipating that we’ll implement
this using Drupal??, but also open to Joomla??. These seem to be two of the most mature and prevalant systems with the most proven deployments and integrations to other systems.
Drupal examples: www.wardpto.org
Joomla examples: http://www.nnhs.net/library (see this discussion)

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Sites & Directories Meeting 06/30/08

Erik — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:04:09 -0700

ATTENDEES
Erik Britt-Webb, Lisa Cohen, Geoff Epstein, Janet Porcaro, Arnold Sodder

CHARTER
We met and discussed project scope, as described in the PTO Sites & Directories Project Plan. We've divided the project into three parts. We're in the process of establishing teams to define and carryout the action items for each project.

ACTION ITEMS
Here is a snapshot of the action items so far. Going forward, make updates to the Action items on the Project Plan page.

PTO Website

Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal?/CiviCRM)
Draft site map
Determine cotent types
Determine taxonomy?

PTO Directory

Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal/CiviCRM)

Hosting/Technology

Price/feature comparison; select host account
Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal/CiviCRM)

Next Meeting

Monday, July 7, 7pm

I realize this seems like very soon, but hopefully we will have some progress to review, and I also want to synchronize with other team members who did not make our first meeting (e.g., Charles, Peter, Libba).

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Sites & Directories Meetings

Erik — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:59:34 -0700

Let's use this page for collecting meeting minutes.

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Sites & Directories Project Plan

Erik — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:03:59 -0700

Based on conversations and our meeting on 6/30/08, here is a draft of our project charter and timeline.

PHASE 1 CHARTER: To be completed over the summer of 2008.

We haven't discussed the idea of a "phased implementation" of PTO sites and directories, but it makes sense that what we're doing now is Phase 1, to be followed by additional phases. So let's start by referring to this as Phase 1 from the outset. Here are our major objectives.

Determine a web hosting account

Flexible enough to meet a range of tools
Scalable to support multiple sites/domains (e.g., wardpto.org, npstac.org, nnhsptso.org, nshspsto.org) and decent volume of web and email traffic (e.g., send out thousands of emails in a given day)
Team members: Arnold, Charles, Erik

Establish/refine/implement a PTO website framework

Incorporate/learn from best examples so far
Incorporate new/leading thinking around content types, extensive taxonomy? capabilities
Support content syndication between sites (e.g., cross-posting notices and calendar events)
Team members: Erik, Lisa, Janet

Design and implement a common directory system

Probably based on CiviCRM/Drupal?
Get this ready for NNHS PTSO, who seems to have highest sense of urgency
Team Members: Lisa, Geoff, Janet, Charles

ACTION ITEMS
Let's use this space for the active management of project action items. Team members can directly edit/update their action items, or post comments.

PTO Website

Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal?/CiviCRM) - Erik
Draft site map
Determine cotent types
Determine taxonomy?

PTO Directory

Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal/CiviCRM)
Define/Refine attributes to capture & how to organize them (schema)
Define guidelines & use cases for how the directory will be used

Hosting/Technology

Price/feature comparison; select host account
Setup sandbox – northptso.org (Drupal/CiviCRM)

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Communications & Directories Meeting

Erik — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:41:20 -0700

Start: 06/30/2008 - 7:00pm

End: 06/30/2008 - 9:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

This is to confirm that we're meeting tonight, 7-9pm at my house: 120
Woodchester Drive (near intersection of Comm Ave. & Hammond St.)

Agenda:

Confirm/refine scope of our efforts
Tee up probably 2-3 work streams, including:
- Site design for NNHS PTSO website (and others like it)
- PTO Directory design
- Technical hosting, content and contact management systems behind the scenes
Review work to-date, resources to draw upon and next steps

For more info, contact me at 617-916-5320.

PTO Communications & Directories

NPS PTO Directory & Websites project

Erik — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:11:41 -0700

Dear Team,

I’m sorry for taking so long to get this project up and running. I know there are a few others that we may want to join us, but I want to make sure we have a solid core team in terms of picking a first date and clarifying
priorities.

In terms of meeting time, in the next 2 weeks, are there any dates that are particularly good or bad for you? The only dates that DON’T work for me are July 3-6.

In terms of our priorities, I think they are:

Determine a web hosting account that we can share for multiple domains (e.g., wardpto.org, npstac.org, nnhsptso.org/net, nshspsto.org) – Charles suggested we should plan to get a VPS or better account, so we have decent performance & control
Establish/refine/implement a PTO website framework, based on some best examples so far. Personally, I’m anticipating that we’ll implement this using Drupal?, but also open to Joomla? or other systems. See www.wardpto.org for basic Drupal instance.
Design and implement a common directory system, probably based on CiviCRM/Drupal. Get this ready for NNHS PTSO, who seems to have highest sense of urgency at the moment.

Your thoughts on this?

PTO Communications & Directories

School Portal Capabilities

Erik — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:28:43 -0700

In a previous post (NPS Portal Possibilities), I talked about the different kinds of portals that exist or may soon exist in the Newton Public Schools. And I gave a brief definition of what a portal is.

Now, I want to breakdown and further describe how we might segment the functionality of a school portal into a few, well-defined buckets. I've been thinking about it for Newton Public Schools, I put together the following three graphics to define four major components, in terms of their purpose, functionality and technology behind the scenes.

Figure 1: Four Major Functional Areas

As you see, Figure 1 depicts the four major functional areas: Learning Management, Content Management, Contact Management and Student Management.

Learning Management is just a specialized case of Content Management, focused on content and collaboration around the learning curriculum.

Contact Management is particularly compelling to me, because (a) it's such a labor-intensive and error-prone activity, (b) it could dramatically improve the family experience of managing their contact info and preferences, especially when they have students spread across multiple schools, and (c) it could greatly improve the sharing of information and events--not only within a school but across the district.

Student Management is the hardest nut to crack, both in terms of technical integration with our chosen School Management System (Chancery SMS), as well as protecting the highly sensitive student records.

In terms of priorities, the School Portal pilot has concluded that Learning Management is our highest priority right now. Fortunately, there's already been a pilot going at Bigelow, so we already have some momentum that we plan to extend with new pilots at several other schools next fall.

It seems that Content and Contact Management capabilities might be best piloted through some of our PTO organizations and their websites, where the benefits could be greatest in the near-term and the risks are lower, due to being outside the regulations of an official school entity.

Student Management is our lowest priority.

Figure 2: Examples of Primary Functionality

Figure 2 provides some examples of functionality that each major component enables.

Figure 3: Technologies Being Explored or Piloted

Figure 3 identifies some of the key technologies being explored or piloted for each of the functional areas.

These graphics, along with some other slides, are also available in the attached Powerpoint file NPS_Portal_Story_04-29-08.ppt.

School Portal

Free Software Speeches and Documentaries

DPic — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:35:08 -0700

There aren't super-recent but they are seriously worth viewing.

Speeches:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1647626314188526128 - The Free Software Movement
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6390784544771380326 - The Danges of Software Patents

Documentaries:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3498228245415745977 - The Code Linux
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409 - Revolution OS

School Portal

Free Software for Schools: Success Stories

DPic — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:23:18 -0700

Please look into these stories:

http://www.sd73.bc.ca/district-operations.php/page/linux-in-education/

http://www.linux.com/articles/62285

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid39_...

http://www.itinfusion.ca/linux/school-district-ditches-windows-for-linux...

Also look at entire public school systems, governments, and big businesses switching to Linux:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#Government

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#School_and_education

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption#Business

And these stores keep showing up-- i'd like to see Newton in one soon!

1-1 Learning

PTO Calendar Integration

Erik — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:10:49 -0700

I've had conversations with a number of people about how we can integrate PTO calendars together. Hopefully, the idea is pretty simple. For starters, let's imagine how the PTO Council and individual School PTOs might be connected together.

As I've illustrated in this graphic, the PTO Council would be the source of all district-wide events, while each School PTO would be the source of its respective school events. Each School PTO calendar would also subscribe to the PTO Council calendar, so that people reading the School PTO calendar would see events for that school and/or district-wide events.

Similarly, the PTO Council calendar would subscribe to all School PTO calendars, so that people reading the PTO Council calendar could selectively see events district-wide or for a specific school or for all of the above.

As a test example, I just created the Ward PTO Calendar, which is now the source for all Ward PTO events. In that calendar, the Ward events have a small yellow line along their top edge. In addition, you will also see a few events with a small red line along their top edge. Those are from the PTO Council Calendar.

In order for this to work effectively, all the Newton PTO Calendars need to adopt some common standards, though which we can conduct "Internet Calendar Sharing"--also known as ICS or iCal for short.

School Portal

NPS Email Lists

Erik — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 11:49:14 -0700

Below is a draft list of all NPS?-related email lists that I've tracked down so far, with related websites. Please update as appropriate.

You can use this to sign-up for their email lists.

This also demonstrates how many different lists there are, being hosted in different places, and how many times we're paying duplicate fees to Constant Contact, simply because we have not "crossed the bridge" on managing lists for multiple schools/organizations through a consolidated account.

Other NPS lists

NPS School Committee (ConstantContact)
NPS Tech Advisory Committee (ConstantContact with WardPTO, Sympa)
Newton Parents (Sympa)

Elementary School PTOs & Newsletters

Angier PTO ()
Bowen PTO ()
Burr PTO ()
Cabot PTO
Countryside PTO
Franklin PTO
Horace Mann PTO
Lincoln Eliot PTO (Google Group)
Mason-Rice PTO (JCommunity by Joobi)
Memorial Spaulding PTO
Peirce PTO
Underwood PTO
Ward PTO (ConstantContact shared with NPSTAC)
Williams PTO
Zervas PTO

Middle School PTOs & Newsletters

Day PTO (ConstantContact, was Mailman list)
Bigelow
Brown

High School PTOs & Newsletters

Newton North (ConstantContact)
Newton South (ConstantContact)

NPS TAC

Exploration Ubuntu

DPic — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:43:42 -0700

Start: 05/24/2008 - 10:00am

End: 05/24/2008 - 5:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

Where: Wiesner Building, E15 (in other terms, "the lower atrium of the Media Lab")
[map] Streetview

20 Ames Street
Cambridge, MA 02139

"The event will be open to the public for people to
see and try Ubuntu for themselves. Machines will be set up for
visitors to experience Ubuntu, volunteers will be there to assist,
and discs will be available to take home and try. In addition, people
are welcome to bring in their own computers to have Ubuntu installed
at the event. There will be demonstrations, installations, tours, and
a game session. Food, drinks, and a social environment make the
Exploration Ubuntu event fun and enjoyable for non-technical
individuals and technical people alike."

Please show up if you can make it!

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MassachusettsTeam/Events/InstallFests/2008-05-24

School Portal

Free & Open Source Software in K-12 Education

DPic — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:36:19 -0700

Start: 04/29/2008 - 4:00pm

End: 04/29/2008 - 6:30pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

On April 29th, 2008, Saint Stephen's Armenian Elementary School is
opening its doors to the community for a special event focusing on
"Free & Open Source? Software in K-12 Education." We are inviting
teachers, IT personnel, and school administrators from Boston and
nearby suburbs to come and see for themselves how FOSS can help them
to meet all of their educational computing needs. They will be able
to "test drive" Open Office.org and other apps in our 100% Linux
computer lab, and to learn from local experts how to introduce FOSS
in their own schools.

Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) is a unique approach to software
development. A typical FOSS project is a shared enterprise involving
unpaid volunteers as well as employees of IBM, Sun, Novell, and other
significant players in the commercial sector. FOSS applications are
not locked up as trade secrets, jealously guarded by their
inventors. Instead, the human-readable "source code" is out in the
open where it can be examined and improved upon by other programmers
anywhere in the world. This has resulted in frequent releases,
improved response to the needs of users, and the development of
specific solutions to problems that have not yet caught the attention
of the commercial software sector.

The philosophy behind FOSS is one of openness and collaboration. It
encourages users to (1) ask lots of questions, (2) to find their own
answers to these questions, and (3) to collaborate with others to
find new solutions to old problems. FOSS is therefore an excellent
match for the kind of learning environment that many of us would like
to see in our schools--one that encourages and rewards open inquiry
and collaboration.

The agenda for the April 29th event will be as follows:

4:00 Doors open
Guests invited to "test drive" Ubuntu, Open Office,
Tux Paint, Tux Typing, Stellarium, etc.
Local Open Source experts & educators
available for informal discussion

4:30 Introduction - Michael Selva (St Stephen's)
I will introduce our invited guests & local experts,
and review our own experiences in
moving from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux,
OpenOffice.org, and other FOSS applications

4:45 - Keynote address - Warren Luebkeman (RESARA)

5:15 - Question & Answer

5:30 - Guests continue to test drive, speak 1:1 with our keynote
speaker & other experts, and browse the literature table

6:00 - Concluding remarks by M Selva

Our Keynote presenter is Warren Luebkeman of RESARA, an open-source
solution provider from Keene, NH. He will be describing his
company's experience with implementing FOSS solutions in schools.

St. Stephen's is located in Watertown, 2 blocks from Mount Auburn
Street & close to the Cambridge/Watertown line. It is accessible by
public transit using #71 MBTA bus running between Harvard Square and
Watertown Center. Ample parking is available on the street and in a
private parking lot on Nichols Avenue. For a detailed map, please
visit http://tinyurl.com/278q42

If you plan to attend, please RSVP via email to ms@ssaes.org, or by
telephone at 617-605-7429.

****************************

Note: We held a similar event last October which featured Mark
Shuttleworth, the South African space traveller and the founder of
the Ubuntu Linux distribution. You can read all about it at

http://baronselva.edublogs.org/2007/10/31/technology-open-house/

==============================

===================
MICHAEL SELVA
Technology Specialist
Saint Stephen's Armenian Elementary School
47 Nichols Avenue, Watertown, MA
phone: 617-605-7429
email: ms@ssaes.org
blog?: http://baronselva.edublogs.org/
map: http://tinyurl.com/278q42
=================================================

1-1 Learning

School Portal Meeting Notes

janetsville — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:33:16 -0700

When: March 11, 2008, Erik’s Home

Attendees: Erik Britt-Webb, Janet Porcaro, Arnold Sodder, Charles Frankston, Lisa Cohen, Bob Rainville, Miles Fidelman, Neeraj Mital

Meeting goal: To review evaluations and establish top priorities for the school portal

Agenda

Review of ground rules
Review of notes from last meeting
Shift in School Portal priorities
Review solution evaluations
Identify outstand issues concerns by stakeholders
Discussion of SCI Community Portal

This tool would probably best be used as another channel for communication to and from school portal. A Newton North parent has agreed to underwrite the expense of the first year.

If there is a school portal and a community portal, users will probably be very confused about the purpose of each. The role of a community portal will need to be carefully defined and differentiated from that of a school portal.

Streamlining Communications Committee presenting School Portal to NNHS teachers was rescheduled due to the issues around change management.

North appears to be slowing down its pace, reducing its scope (e.g., eliminating grades) and reducing the number of teachers who would participate in the pilot release (e.g., 30 or so teachers).

Once we have chosen a system, it is important to have documentation about the process and our choices. Erik, Janet, and others are working on continuing to draft the story.

Solution Evaluations: Summaries removed from these notes until they're polished by evaluators)

Summary

What are the new requirements/priorities for Newton North?

• Teacher web pages/homework assignments
• Basic communication
• Email communications

The group agreed that for the Newton North pilot, the best recommendation would be to use Moodle?.

Action Plans

Janet and Erik will work on the story line

Miles and Arnold will work on Moodle and Edline?

PARKING LOT DISCUSSIONPTO directories and emails

Strong recommendation to explore CIVY CRM for PTO’s email and directory procedures

In parallel there is school portal and PTO portals gathering separate information because of the confidentiality issue

Sometimes PTO’s do a better job

Next meeting March 25

Course Management

Working with Communications for Newton Teacher's Association

Erik — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 08:23:07 -0700

Had a great chat last week with Brad Hammer, a Ward School 3rd grade teacher who is also lead/chair of the Communications Committee for the Newton Teacher's Association (i.e., Teacher's Union). Here's an excerpt of my follow-up with him.

It was great to talk with you last week about tools/techniques for Teacher Communications.

As I understand it, you're looking for insights, best practices and tools to achieve easier and more effective communications from the Newton Teacher's Association to its teachers. One of your key goals is migrating your primary email addresses for teachers from their school address to their home address and being able to track/know how has updated address and who hasn't. Today you're using iContact with mixed success.

We discussed a "journey" for improved contact management and communications that I'm helping facilitate for PTO, from which the Teacher's Association could directly benefit. In the near-term, that journey involves consolidating contact management & lists into one Constant Contact account, where a small group of editors can manage lists and email communications to those lists.

By next fall, this journey would have implemented a real contact management capability, as well as email management, most likely using CiviCRM to manage a unified/common directory across schools, for teachers, parents and students. This would provide very robust contact/communication management capabilities, which iContact and Constant Contact are not designed to do, and also safeguard who can do what with which lists.

My understanding is that you're interested in participating in this journey, starting with collaborating on how to manage your Teachers list(s). I've invited you to merge your contacts/lists into our NPSContacts account on Constant Contact, or we can help you with your own CC account, if you prefer.

Am I generally on target in my understanding? How would you like to proceed?

Thanks again for reaching out to me. I look forward to collaborating on this in the future.

PTO Communications & Directories

How to survey for attendance at NNHS Showcase Event

Erik — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:47:56 -0700

I was talking with janetsville the other day about a need to survey potentially all NNHS families to see who thinks they might attend an NNHS Showcase event being planned.

We talked about using Evite, or maybe a simple survey on this site or SurveyMonkey or Zoomerange (those options evaluated at Survey Tools).

Then, I just noticed DPic's comment on Google Docs. When I read the Google Docs blog? entry?, I realized they offer a way to create a simple survey form, where the data gets saved into an online Goodle Docs spreadsheet. This could be a simple, free and useful way to do some data gathering in the future.

Just thought I'd point it out.

PTO Communications & Directories

Integrating CiviCRM for online School Directory

Erik — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:55:44 -0700

I posted this today to Drupal?'s Education and CiviCRM groups. While the post seems to focus on school portals, I'm really thinking more in terms of the PTO sites (including PTO Council?).

Does anyone have (or know of) experience integrating CiviCRM into a school portal (website), such that students and parents can self-manage their contact information for use by the school and/or school PTO?

Today in Newton Public Schools, we have 21 different school sites, with none of them sharing any user login or contact information between them. My vision is to integrate the 21 sites into a single instance of CiviCRM, so they can share user login and contact information across them.

Even there is not direct experience with this, is there anyone interested in scoping out such an implementation and maybe even working together to pilot test something like this?

PTO Communications & Directories

Developing content for PTO Communications & Directories

Erik — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:00:50 -0800

You may have noticed that I just created a new collaborative book, entitled PTO Communications & Directories. Let's start using this book to jointly develop this content.

PTO Communications & Directories

Survey Tools

Erik — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:45:08 -0800

There are several tools we could use to survey people (e.g., PTO representatives). This applies to the PTO-specific survey, but also to other survey needs, such as the NNHS showcase event scheduled for March 17 (?).

To be fair, I (Erik) have to acknowledge that I have NOT used any of these options, so my assessment of them (so far) is based on very limited knowledge. I encourage others to add their perspective here!

Survey Monkey

Free - Allows up to 10 questions and 100 responses per survey
Monthly Pro ($20/month) - Allows unlimited questions and up to 1000 responses per month (across all surveys), with $.05 charge for each response over the 1000/month limit
Annual Pro ($200/year) - Allows unlimited questions and unlimited responses
Very easy to use; solid infrastructure & response time
This is what the NPS? Strategic Planning team used for their "appreciative inquiry" survey last year

Constant Contact Survey Module

Note - pricing is for email+survey; if adding to an existing email account, our out-of-pocket expense is just the amount above what we currently pay.

Free 60-day trial (limited to 500 responses)
Tier 1 - $22.50/month - 500 responses/survey limit
Tier 2 - $45/month - 2500 responses/survey limit
Very easy to use; solid infrastructure & response time
Don't know of anyone currently using this

Drupal? Survey Module

Free - no charges whatsoever
We would probably just install it on the NPSTAC.org site
This is definitely less polished than SurveyMonkey or CC and will be a little slower response time when taking the survey, but would be a nice opportunity to integrate the data into our site and make it more available for other uses

PTO Communications & Directories

PTO Communications & Directories

Erik — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:41:01 -0800

This book is the place where we are collaboratively developing and aggregating content and conclusions about PTO Communications and Directories.

It works in conjunction with the PTO Communications and Directories group, through which discussions, events and content are channeled.

PTO Communications & Directories

Technology survey for PTO Council

janetsville — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:03:28 -0800

We are interested in distributing the attached survey to PTO Co-Presidents.

There are a number of ways we could administer the survey, which are captured here.

PTO Communications & Directories

NNHS PTSO School Directory

janetsville — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:00:04 -0800

I'm thinking we should look into MySchoolDirectory.org as a possible solution for North next year.

http://myschooldirectory.org/

Does anyone know anything about it?

~jmp

PTO Communications & Directories

Great meeting last night!

janetsville — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:12:22 -0800

It felt like we work building up some synergy and accomplished quite a bit. I suggest we continue on this positive tone by structuring our meetings even more tightly with a detailed agenda when possible. We also need to remember to encourage equal participation from all members particularly with new members coming into the group. The practice of using a "Parking Lot" for topics to be discussed at a later date is useful in keeping the meeting on track while not dropping any good ideas or discussion topics.

Finally, accountability. We all work better with accountability partners. Do we have deadlines for assignments taken on last night?

Lisa Mirabile (former PTO Council Co-President) has joined the site. Please welcome her in because she is an excellent web person and may have suggestions for improving the navigation and visual design of the NPSTAC site.

School Portal

DrupalCon 2008 in Boston - March 3-6

Erik — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:49:01 -0800

Start: 03/03/2008 - 8:00am

End: 03/06/2008 - 5:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

I'm Registered to attend Drupalcon Boston 2008. Is anyone else interested in attending with me?

Drupalcon Boston 2008 takes place from March 3, 2008 to March 6, 2008
at the Boston Convention and Expo Center. Drupalcon is the twice-yearly
gathering of Drupalers to learn about, discuss & advance Drupal?,
and to network with other Drupal community members.

Meet Drupal community leaders, top developers, your favorite module
maintainers, dojo trainers, members of the Drupal association,
potential business partners, and future employees. They are coming from
every corner of the world to meet you in Boston! Take a look at videos from the Barcelona conference.

PTO Communications & Directories

Joint Meeting of Board of Alderman's Program, Services, and Finance Committees

janetsville — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:48:34 -0800

Start: 02/27/2008 - 7:25pm

End: 02/27/2008 - 10:45pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

The joint meeting of the Aldermen's Programs & Services and Finance Committees will be held on FEBRUARY 27 at 7:45 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber. For the first time, the aldermen will consider the override budget. This is a critical opportunity for voters to be involved with the override process.

Wednesday, Feb. 27
7:45-10:45 p.m.
Aldermanic Chamber, 2nd floor of City Hall

1-1 Learning

If I join the site, will I receive automatic email notifications from the site?

janetsville — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:27:09 -0800

Once you join the site and have been approved, you can log in and edit various options. On the top right hand screen is a set of menu choices, click on My account. Once in your account screen, click on the Edit tab. There you can make various changes including the option to turn off Email notifications if desired.

School Portal

How do I join the NPS TAC site?

janetsville — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 07:22:41 -0800

When you go to the opening page of the site, enter in a user name or email and a password and click on Create New Account. You will come to a My Account screen where you are required to enter a Username, enter your email address, your real name, and your Relationship to Newton Public Schools. You have the option of subscribing to selected groups to help focus your area of interest. You also have the option of entering some personal information to help other members get to know you. The last step is to click create new account. You will then receive an email notification where you much click on the links provided to verify that your email address works. Once your registration has been approved, you will be set to join the conversations and collaborations on our site.

School Portal

About PTO Communications Initiatives

Erik — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:31:30 -0800

The NPS? TAC? has begun to organize volunteer resources and initiatives to support PTO/PTSO communications to their respective teacher and family communities. See the PTO Communications & Directories group for the latest discussions, events and other activties on this subject.

Specific examples of PTO/PTSO support currently underway include:

Setup Constant Contacts account to manage email distribution lists for Ward Elementary School PTO; this is also available to any other NPS-related school or organization interested in using it
Preparing a fairly robust content-managed website for Ward PTO that will dramatically improve many of the publishing and data-gathering tasks and serve as a template and reference model for other PTOs
Preparing survey to go out to PTO leaders to understand how PTOs are communicating and managing contact directories and to share best practices
Hoping to organize, launch and complete an initiative with at least one or two schools that would turn printed teacher/student/parent directories for Fall 2008 from a cost item into a revenue-generating line item.

NNHS PTSO Meeting - Chat with Principal Jennifer Price

Erik — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:48:30 -0800

Start: 02/12/2008 - 7:30pm

End: 02/12/2008 - 9:00pm

Timezone: Etc/GMT-5

PTSO Meeting, February
12th, 7:30pm. in the Library

Please join the PTSO for an
informal chat with our Principal Jennifer Price. Tuesday, February 12th at 7:30
p.m. in the Library.

We look forward to getting an update on many changes at North. Topics
include: technology upgrades, new resources for students, the Senior Year
Project, Sophomore Open Campus, the No Smoking Zone, and more.

This is a great chance to ask Principal Price any questions you might have
about Newton North!

If you have questions, please contact Martha_hadeler@yahoo.com, (617)
371-9320.

PTO Communications & Directories

Glossary and definitions for FAQ's

janetsville — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:22:48 -0800

The site now has a glossary which is slowly getting populated with terminology. Once a term has been entered into the glossary, it is automatically marked with a small red question mark throughout the site. If the user hovers over that symbol with the mouse, the definition pop's up.

In the FAQ's section, there is some overlapping definitions which are more geared toward how to use the content item.

School Portal