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A PLACE FOR LEARNING AND SHARING

An Intranet for Teachers

C&I 335 Project Proposal by Gloria Henke

Background:
As the technology director for my high school, one of my responsibilities is to train the faculty and staff to use technology. Finding the time to train the faculty during the school year can be difficult. I have done the training in classes using tutorials I have prepared. Many times teachers cannot attend the classes but greatly appreciate the tutorials. Frequently teachers lose or misplace the tutorials so I am continually reprinting them. In addition, when programs are updated, I need to revise and reprint the tutorials and distribute the revisions to everyone. Much time and energy could be saved by posting the tutorials on an internal website. Since we have a networked computer in every classroom and two faculty computer labs, all teachers have ready access to a computer.

Objectives:
The goal of this project is to provide an internal website with tutorials and web resources for faculty and staff. An Intranet can provide teachers access to the most current training materials. In addition, training materials would be readily available and easily distributed. As teachers become comfortable using the Intranet, other uses for it will evolve.

Teachers will be able to share resources and ideas by placing them in department pages.

Interdepartmental pages can be created and accessed easily.

Educational websites can be listed and evaluated by all teachers.

The administration can post announcements and manuals.

Faculty and staff can create their own web pages and include them on the site without concern about parent or public scrutiny.

Process:

I will first convert the printed tutorials I have created either to web pages or PDF files using Adobe Acrobat. Those tutorials are for GradeQuick, the grading program required by our school to submit grades. They deal mainly with entering and submitting grades. I will also create tutorials on using the many types of reports available. Additionally our school will be using GradeQuick to take attendance, so I will create tutorials on using that module. It will also be necessary to create a tutorial for substitutes to take attendance.

Other training modules could be on:

Using Power Point

Navigating the Internet

Creating Web Pages

Creating Web Quests

Concerns:
An Intranet would be new for our school. I'm not sure how difficult it would be to set up. We have been using Groupwise, an E-mail program for the last year as our primary means of communication. Some teachers are still not accessing their E-mail. It may be difficult to encourage some teachers to use the Intranet. Since I have never created files with Adobe Acrobat, I don't know if it would be better to use Acrobat or to create web pages with HTML. The site needs to be user-friendly. It also needs to load quickly. Adobe Acrobat pages tend to load slowly.

Evaluation:
One evaluation of the project will be a rubric distributed to the teachers where they will indicate which training modules they used, what was helpful, and what should be changed. It may also be possible to tally how many times the modules were accessed. Another gauge of its success will be the number of web postings and contributions the faculty make to the site. If one teacher from each department contributes to the site in its first year, it will accomplish a major goal. I would consider it a positive sign if faculty and staff make suggestions for improvements to the site - that would mean they see it as valuable.