2013-05-27 to 2013-05-31

This week I

• helped a Grade 1 teacher with uploaded her students' iMovie trailers as (private) YouTube videos.
• edited and launched the convergenceconference.ca site (using Box Clever's WebGuide CMS).
• met with the Convergence Communications Committee (via Google Hangouts) to prepare some things for the conference.
• investigated various M.Ed. programs, leaning toward UBC's.
• found out who my new boss will be.
• helped scaffold some digital citizenship resources for teachers and students.
• learned more JavaScript to write a Google Apps script for bulk deletion of Google Apps accounts.

2013-05-21 to 2013-05-24

A few notable things from this week were:

• My boss announced that she has decided to set down as Director for next year. There are a number of reasons for this, including a desire for change and, I think, more autonomy. She will be a school Principal next year.
• In preparation for the Convergence Conference in November, we launched the website and I toured around the venue again and took pictures to get a feel for how things will work.
• I helped do some tech support for a session with a number of our school Leaders that involved the Joint Consortium for School Health. As part of this I wrote a little script for the spreadsheet of a Google Form that I put together for them.

2013-05-13 to 2013-05-17

This last week I

• helped fix some Lego Mindstorms NXT brains by updating the firmware
• got in touch with Lego Education, and they are going to replace the brains that have bad screens
• suggested some workflow improvements for collecting data with Google Forms
• helped host the final "Innovation Exposition" session, this time with Elementary Teachers (the sharing site/pages will hopefully be going up soon)
• learned some more Python and JavaScript programming
• replaced a spark plug in a motorcycle during a lunch hour
• participated in an ATLE Convergence Conference planning meeting via Google Hangout
• attended an IT/ET meeting that featured good information sharing and collaborative discussion
• arranged to present a Lego Robotics session to a grade 3 and a grade 6 class
• and, of course, did all of the regular stuff like answering questions via phone and email.

2013-05-06 to 2013-05-10

This week saw the first of the "Innovation X" expositions where we brought in teachers that had participated in AISI projects. They shared about their projects, including highlights and lessons learned, and provided us with some feedback including how (if) they intend to continue in light of the cancellation of AISI support. It was amazing to hear from the teachers and to give them a chance to share with others.

I also attended the AEL / Serious Labs presentation about their AISI V project. One of the teachers has a husband that works for Serious Labs, so they were able to form an interesting collaboration where students provided feedback to an authentic audience.

As well, this week I helped configure some laptops for this weekend's Young Scientist Conference at the U of A, set up an Apple TV at AJS, judge a Science Fair at ERH, and all of the regular office-related things. I've said it before, but it bears repeating that it's valuable to just walk through a school because invariably there will be quick things to fix or technology-related questions to answer.

2013-05-03 Friday

This is the first of my weekly Friday posts. Since I've been posting daily this week, though, there's not as much to say.

I hear that there may be some interesting things coming out from Alberta Education in the next week or so, and there will be more information to come about my new job as well.

One of the highlights of today was a meeting this afternoon about Discovery Education services. We've been trying out Streaming Canada Plus and Science Techbook. I can't say I'm a big fan of either, but the direction that they are going is very interesting.

2013-05-02 Thursday

I spent some time with AirParrot, Reflector, and AirServer for different AirPlay options. I also experimented with Circuits.io and Upverter.com for circuit board design.

I've decided that this will be my penultimate daily blog post, from now on posts will go live on Friday afternoons.

2013-05-01 Wednesday

A few of the things I accomplished today:

Vectorizing a Scanned Object for CNC Cutting
Confirmed that the Dropbox program doesn't work on our Windows 7 machines
Experimented with GPIO, Pure Data, and Python and OpenSoundControl on a Raspberry Pi
Advised a Music Teacher on some sound system equipment
Answered some questions about Google Sites and Docs.
Tried out Reflector for iPad mirroring on PC and Mac.

And my wife stopped by for a visit at lunch with two of our daughters.