This document provides steps for turning a school into a technology center, beginning with establishing a technology-friendly culture and acquiring relevant software tools. Step 1 involves gaining confidence and support for embracing technology. Step 2 is to set up a school wiki to track resources, explain their use, and foster collaboration, then link other tools like websites and learning platforms to the wiki. The wiki should contain materials like lesson plans, directories, and instructions. Proper implementation involves choosing the right tools based on a provided architecture diagram and focusing on content organization through the wiki.

1. Created by Marin Documentation Group How to Turn Your School into a Technology Center – Steps 1 - 2 presented by: www.schoodl.com

2. Created by Marin Documentation Group How to Turn Your School into a Technology Center www.schoodl.com This presentation covers these steps: 1: Working on your school milieu 2: Getting a school wiki

3. by Marin Documentation Group Step 1: Change your school milieu – show confidence in your decision to embrace and use your technology; enable a trusted and experienced technologist (parent or teacher) to take the lead. Step 2: Acquire the software in the diagram, and link it together, starting with your wiki, enabling you to keep track of your resources, explain their use, and foster collaboration.

4. by Marin Documentation Group Sample Ardenwood started their wiki with 4 pages: + home, (where they placed the Back to School Newsletter) + an Algebra 1 lesson plan, + IEP information, and + the Staff Directory.

5. by Marin Documentation Group Step 1. Change your culture Take this quiz: Is technology at your school:  Highly valued?  So so?  A detriment? 

6. by Marin Documentation Group Step 2: Choose your tools How can you properly implement Web 2.0 technology with all of the tools available? Yes, many tools provide redundant services. Use the School Documentation Architecture diagram on the next slide as a road map.  social networking blogs websites youtube wikis e-learning

7. by Marin Documentation Group Components: + School and teachers' websites + District/school email, attendance, and grading programs (private) + Document repository (private) + Teachers' social networking platform (private) + School marketing + Content management system (Wordpress) + Educator's tools (Curriki, Thinkfinity) + e-learning platform (moodle, Drupal, Blackboard)

8. by Marin Documentation Group Wiki The essential tool that holds everything from forms, to announcements, to lesson plans, to the staff directory, to directions on turning on the overhead, to a map to your school. Keeping content in one place takes discipline, but people will no longer have to wonder where documents are, how to turn machines on, where files are, who to ask, etc.

9. by Marin Documentation Group Single-sourcing Part of the wiki culture is “single-sourcing,” or, “writing once, and publishing many times,” saving redundancy. An example of single-sourcing is, if the secretary updates the monthly newsletter, publishing it on the school website, or, printing it out and placing hard copies in teachers' mailboxes. Now, at your school, write once and copy anywhere, via “cut and paste.”

10. by Marin Documentation Group Viewers How do viewers, for example, parents, see information, such as a teacher's lesson plan, that is stored “behind the cloud?” Individual teachers' websites (in the center) will eventually link back to their wiki page. But, don't worry about reciprocal-linking now. For steps 1 and 2, in turning your school into a technology center, concentrate on getting the word out to your staff about publishing in the wiki.

11. by Marin Documentation Group Review 1. Notify your staff that you will be converting to a technology center this year, and that this will be accomplished auspiciously, with “xx” taking the lead. Promote your new document repository at teacher's back-to-school days, district meetings, etc. Put the url everywhere-on fliers, in newsletters, so everyone remembers to access it. Tell your technical guru to help promote your wiki. 2. Get your wiki and add pages; don't worry about making mistakes. Unlike the old days, it's hard to crash a computer or make an irreversible error.

12. by Marin Documentation Group Conclusion: I hope this presentation helps you visualize using software more effectively in your school. Knowing that you can do this gradually, starting with a wiki , and promoting it lavishly, should begin to grow your technology center slowly, and make an immediate difference in organizing and using all of your school's written content. For more information, contact [email_address] at www.schoodl.com . References: http://community.thinkfinity.org/people/schoodlelly?view=overview