I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the SEDC Boot-up Camp. It is a conference that is several years old. In past years students and teachers from the six SEDC districts have been the main participants. This year the conference was expanded. The first person I ran into Monday Morning was JL Thornton, the Technology Director from San Juan District.

I also noticed that 5 of 12 students in Cory Stokes' afternoon iTunes/iPhoto class were from Whitehorse High School. Whitehorse is a bit south and east of Blanding on the Navajo Reservation. It was good to see that they made the trip. JL pointed out that these students didn't get to do a lot of traveling during the school year, so this was a big deal.

I heard one group talking about the lack of participation by the Urban Districts. Maybe next year. For this year there were at least 250 students, a bunch of faculty (teachers and administrators) and a couple dozen instructors. Classes were technical in nature. Ranging from many different tutorials in how to use software applications, Novell Netware, Linux, Cat 5 cabling, PC troubleshooting and setup. The conference ran through Thursday.

This is a kick-off for the Cyber Corps program that has been run by SEDC for the past 4 years. UEN has supported the Cyber Corps project for that entire time. We started by offering grants to districts three summers ago. I was part of the group that read the grant applications.

The basic idea behind Cyber Corps is to use students to support the technical needs of a school. Most schools, even in the best of times, don't have the resources to pay technical professionals to take care of PCs, networks, printers, etc. Cyber Corps is a win-win program. The school benefits by developing a responsive group of technically savvy students. The students develop some great, marketable skills. Every secondary school should be participating.

It's good to see the growth and success of this program. My compliments to all of the staff at SEDC and all those students and faculty from around the state who have shown the foresight to support this program. And thanks for inviting me to participate..........
7:41:56 AM    comment []