Resources and Software Available in Ontario Schools and the Halton District School Board
Ontario:
The Ontario Software Acquisition Program Advisory Committee advises the Ministry of Education on the acquisition of licenses for publicly-funded schools in Ontario. The Ontario Educational Software Service is the distribution method whereby the software is sent to School Boards, Faculties of Education and First Nations Schools. Check out this link for more information on the software available to schools in Ontario.
https://osapac.ca/ccpalo/home/
HDSB:
Elementary Internet Tools - HDSB
This site is a great reference that students in the board have access to information at home. Some of the items require student specific information, such as a library card number, but these are all things that students of Halton District School Board would easily have access to.
http://www.hdsb.ca/library/pages/elementaryinternettools.asp
Bring I.T.
HDSB is piloting a program where some classrooms are Bring I.T. classrooms which allows students to use personally owned electronic devices.
http://www.hdsb.ca/aboutus/IT/Pages/BringIT.aspx
Halton District School Board has a multi-year plan in place that states by the year 2016 the "Halton District School Board will provide and maintain a technology infrastructure to engage and support 21st Century learning for all students and staff.
Targets - By 2016:
• WiFi connectivity will be provided in 95% of the Board’s portable classrooms (currently 0%), and in 99% of school building classrooms, including all school libraries (currently 80%);
• develop an annual plan that will maximize the efficient use of technology;
• within the next four years, 60% of the Board’s classrooms will be "Bring IT" classrooms (currently in pilot)".
http://www.hdsb.ca/aboutus/Plans/Strat%20plan%20all%20pages.pdf
Fantastic Post. The targets are interested. I am surprised to learn that only 80% of the libraries have wifi. How do you feel these targets will impact teachers and students?
ReplyDeleteI feel that those in the 20% without will be at a huge disadvantage. The way I look at it is that 20% equates to 1 in 5 school libraries without wifi capabilities. That is still a lot of schools in a growing school board. This means having to be tethered to desktop computers in a single computer lab where all the teachers are fighting for lab time. If they can put wifi in a library, the next logical step will be to place it throughout the school so that teachers can keep their students in their classrooms and complete research projects and use all kinds of collaborative online tools. The need for actual computer labs will cease and teachers can use technology more productively. This obviously comes at a price but if school boards implement a B.Y.O.T. policy (Bring Your Own Technology), the price isn't as high as they won't need to purchase technology for each classroom but rather, just a few per classroom - enough to cover those who can't afford it.
DeletePleased to report that in Halton, 100% of schools have fair to strong wifi networks in all teaching spaces. As a teacher librarian, I can't tell you of one school that doesn't have wifi in the library...The plan was developed late 2011 and a lot has improved since then. We are also ahead of our projected targets for Bring IT classrooms (mounted projector, teacher device and doc. camera).
ReplyDeleteAs well, the Elementary Internet tool page was recently moved to a Single sign on format, where students can access our subscription databases using their network username -the same they would use when logging onto a school computer. All of the grade links are open/unlocked!!
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