As a group over the last two years we have worked on the business of creating an information system for the GTPS district that would enable the organization to take advantage as well as share the massive amount of data that has been generated in the past, is being generated today, and will be generated in the future. In other words, make everything available to everyone anywhere and at anytime. Big task, lots of ideas, many many willing participants, lots of work, nothing stuck. Just maybe, just maybe, we have hit upon the right formula to accomplish what I had set out to do if we haven't got it exactly, we are oh so close. We have tried many avenues toward getting this done, different versions of SharePoint, Manila, Moveable Type, Web Pages, and Wikis. Nothing seemed to fit. If you have read this column at all over the last year or so you may remember earlier posts aluding to my grandioise plan for this information system. I really wanted it to be all things to all people and I still have that goal in sight, well maybe not to all people. The base construct of the system was demo'ed to a group of would be users and they ate it up. After all, information is king in the organization and the way to stay on the cusp of what is going on is to be connected to the information source. If the source is not available and or not made available to the information consumers, well nothing good can come of it. Debrief, debrief, debrief. Document, document, document. Distribute, distribute, distribute. This are the 3 D's of information processing. You won't find that anywhere else but right here. The 3 D's concept is an idea that I have been developing over the last few years but until I heard parts of it through the ideas of others nothing really clicked and while it does appear to be common sense and it really is, organizations, especially educational institutions, just don't do it. One of the people that has helped to conceive and devleop the system, Betty Garrity, has provided what will amount to the final piece in our attempt to build this information system and it is a link to the district's eboard system. For those of you that don't remember eboards they are a web based bulliten board system that enables teachers to construct a web presence that they can use for effective communications with both students inside and outside the classroom as well as provide a parental conduit to whats going on in the classroom. We have at present, a small version of our base SharePoint site up and running and while it looks good and the key features are working, it is the link to the new structure of the eboards system that will give it its real presence for the teaching staff. Giving the teaching staff a real presence will ultimately lead to a better experience for our students which, after all, is what this is all about. The new design will give us more structure and a common interface of which to build upon. Needless to say I think everyone is excited about the possibilities represented in this new system and I will address those next. Till next post.
8:16:10 PM 
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