I’m on the Ypsilanti Public Schools technology committee, and right now we’re trying to figure out what the technology needs of the district are in preparation for the upcoming bond vote.  The technology in the schools hasn’t been significantly updated since the last bond 10 years ago.  Although much of what was implemented at the time was pretty state of the art, ten years on, the computers are aging and a lot of stuff needs to be updated.  The timing of a bond, assuming it passes of course, means that it’s going to be probably another two years before we get any infusion of new hardware.  Nonetheless we need to determine a direction and figure out what our needs are going to be now.

Right now we are looking at what the kids need to learn and be able to do and figure out how technology can make that happen.  We’re also looking at the district’s tech infrastructure needs to determine what will be needed to support that both to optimize productivity and minimize operating costs going forward.  As part of this effort, I set up a special blog at ypsdtech.wordpress.com as a place where anyone who’s interested can participate in the discussion.  We’ll be posting questions on there and looking for the community’s input.  If you have some ideas about how technology can be useful, please feel free to head over there and participate by commenting in response to the questions.  The comments are moderated, and if you have any suggestions about what questions we should be asking, send me an e-mail.