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California School Districts
Chase Winthrop & Associates (CWA) assists California school districts and county
offices of education in developing educational technology plans. This is an important service,
as approved plans are necessary to receive EETT and E-Rate funding as well as the
K-12
Education Technology Voucher funding. CWA also provides assistance to schools districts in
network infrastructure evaluations, redesigns, preparing technology budgets as well as
help with hardware and
software volume purchasing through DELL and Microsoft. There are academic discounts for software
and hardware purchases when purchased in volume. Computer standardization
also is very important with network connectivity, let us help.
There are also problems between the individual schools and
the district office as many districts are utilizing and improving existing
technologies already in place. Many of the problems can be as simple as
configurations in the existing network (i.e. PC vs. Mac), let us help.
Over the past 10 years many state supported educational technology services provided professional
development, planning, and implementation assistance to help schools use technology to support
teaching and learning. More recently, these programs include the eleven Regional California
Technology Assistance Projects (CTAP) and four Statewide Educational Technology Services (SETS)
projects.
CWA programs help provide IT development and support in three program
areas including:
- Use of technology as a tool to improve teaching, learning and communicating
with your district.
- Hardware and network evaluations, implementation and/or restructuring
your existing network infrastructure.
- Using technology to improve school management and data sharing.
CWA services are intended to reduce local duplication of needed services and assure
equal access to many available resources within districts especially when the districts are in
rural and technologically underserved districts.
Educators need additional support and training so they may:
- Confidently and effectively integrate purchased technologies into instruction.
- Be aware of, and make informed decisions about emerging new technologies.
- Access and utilize the State-supported High Speed Network (HSN).
- Assist rural and underserved schools equally to access the use of new technology.
- Encourage schools to apply for State and Federal funds for technology.
CTAP - Overview and Demographic Profile
An Overview of Services:
The eleven CTAP regions are intended to provide a common and equitable system of educational
technology services statewide while addressing the unique characteristics and needs of the
counties and districts they serve.
The CDE has operationally defined CTAP services in terms of the following four major Program
Areas, which incorporate the legislative intent. Each CTAP region is accountable to deliver
services to educators based on these four Program Areas:
- Professional development and learning resources to use technology as a tool to improve
teaching and learning.
- Professional development and support related to hardware and telecommunications.
- Professional development and support related to using technology as a tool to
improve school management
- Funding and coordination with federal, state, and local programs.
Types of services delivered: The overall intent of the legislation (SB 1254) authorizing and funding
CTAP and SETS is to contribute to an increase in knowledge of technology in order to improve
teaching and learning by doing the following:
- Provide technology planning and technical assistance.
- Provide professional development in technology and curriculum integration.
- Work collaboratively with school districts, county offices of education,
and businesses in the region.
- Assist schools to utilize high-speed telecommunications networks.
- Document and address the needs of rural schools and technologically
underserved school districts and county offices of education.
- Evaluate the implementation of, access to, use of, and local impact of,
the services provided by the region.
A major role of
CWA is to provide support for your technology department and
to provide information and assistance with technology purchasing and
deployment decisions. One of the other issues so often ignored is the
implementation of an IT policy.
There are many reasons an institution should consider implementing a comprehensive
IT policy. An official, published IT policy:
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Allows all users to be informed of the range of information technology products and services available (e.g.,
e-mail,
file-sharing, or data storage space).
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Provides users information on where to turn for assistance with
information technology-related questions or problems.
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Allows members of the educational community to engage in constructive
dialogue about proposed or necessary changes in IT policies (without a
written document, policy conditions might be subject to
misinterpretation or individual translation).
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Protects an institution from potentially costly legal ramifications of
users' abuse and/or misuse of IT resources.
Classrooms and labs often have mixed network environments with MAC and PC based hardware
as well as software. Knowing the difference and how they communicate can make the difference
when trying to extend the use of applications throughout a specific school or the entire district.
Let CWA help you get informed about your hardware and network infrastructure!
CWA can help your lab assistants, network dept., district or school in the planning,
training, implementation and maintenance of your hardware or network infrastructure.
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