eTech Ohio Connections
Volume 2, Issue 1

Mission: To advance education and accelerate the learning of Ohioans through technology.

Visit the eTech Ohio website for the latest eTech Ohio news and information.

Be sure to check out the latest updates to the eTech Ohio Opportunity Tracking Tool, available through your Hall Pass account.

• What is Hall Pass? Hall Pass is eTech Ohio's single sign-on user account for its website. Hall Pass provides you access to online resources, such as timely, relevant email communications based on your interests and job responsibilities; online professional development registration; grant applications; certificates of participation for the State Technology Conference and other continuing education offered by eTech Ohio; access to the TPT online tool (for development and approval of your district's technology plan); access to the BETA Building Surveys (Biennial Education Technology Assessment); access to discounted technology products through the Equipment and Services Catalog; and more.

  To access more information on Hall Pass visit the eTech Ohio website.
  

  For additional information or technical support, please call 877.383.2406.

• Next month is the eighth annual State Technology Conference, scheduled for February 13-15, 2006, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. The theme for the 2006 State Technology Conference is Ohio Connects! Bridging Learning, Technology and Achievement.

  Key Dates and Deadlines:

  • Tuesday, January 31, 2006 - Deadline for presenter presentations/handouts to be uploaded via Hall Pass. Access proposals online!
  • February 3, 2006 - Register by this date and receive $50 off the on-site Full Conference registration rate; registrations received by 2/3/06 will include lunch; on-site registrations DO NOT INCLUDE lunch.
  • February 13-15, 2006 - Eighth annual State Technology Conference.


• Conference Notables: NEW for 2006! Event Schedule - use this online tool to create a personalized schedule of Conference sessions and events, then import into your Outlook, Palm or iCal calendar. Details available online.

  NOW OPEN! Workshop Registration - Classroom Integration and Technical Support Workshop registration is now available. Register online through the Conference website.

  Educator Awards Reception - make plans to join us in celebrating and honoring the 2006 Technology Teacher, Coordinator and Leader Administrator of the Year and finalists. The Educator Awards reception is Monday, February 13, 2006 from 4:30 - 5:30 pm in the Ballroom 2 of the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

• Funded entities should use Professional Development Grant funds to provide technology-related professional development opportunities that are consistent with the organization's technology plan. The opportunities supported by the grant funds should assist teachers and administrators in gaining the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively integrate technology into the classroom, school or district in order to promote student achievement. These opportunities include attendance at the State Technology Conference and other conferences; workshops and in-services; and graduate level courses. The funds may also be used to purchase online accounts for technology tutorials, and in-service resources; as well as for funding to support technology-related committees (e.g., Technology Planning Tool (TPT) Committee, Technology-Oriented Curriculum Committee, Software Selection Committee, etc.).

  For detailed information on permissible and prohibited uses of PD Grant funds, please see the FY06 Spending Guidelines.

  For assistance in planning your FY06 technology professional development, please contact consultant Unice Teasley, your eTech Ohio field representative or eTech Ohio Customer Service with any questions or concerns.

• The SchoolNet Plus Grade 8 application for FY06, is available to eligible education entities through Thursday, January 26, 2006. Visit the eTech Ohio website to view a list of FY06 SchoolNet Plus Grade 8 guidelines.

  In response to district needs, eTech Ohio has revised and expanded its catalog offerings to include workstations, servers, laptops, printers, displays, projectors, handhelds, tablets and PDAs. Vendors will be able to offer special promotional items as well. Visit the eTech Ohio website to view the Equipment and Services Catalog. You must be logged into your Hall Pass account to access the Catalog.

  As always, districts will be able to use SchoolNet Plus funding to purchase items offered on the Catalog in accordance with the spending guidelines for SchoolNet Plus Grade 8. Additionally, Ohio schools can purchase from the Catalog using other funding sources such as local, state or federal funding that allows the purchase of educational technology equipment.

  Visit the SchoolNet Plus home page for more details about SchoolNet Plus Grade 8. Contact coordinator Steve Crumbacher, at 877.383.2406 or 614.728.9643 or your eTech Ohio field representative for additional information.

  Contact Larry Koslap, at 877.383.2406 with questions related to the Equipment and Services Catalog.

• Ohio has reached a milestone in the E-Rate program. With Wave 16 funding awards, Ohio schools and libraries have topped $500M in funding over the life of the program. Congratulations to all applicants! Through Wave 25 of the 2005-06 funding year, Ohio applicants have received $51.3M in E-Rate discount awards. Total funding to date for Ohio is almost $510 million. Funding waves are being announced by the Schools and Libraries Division (SLD) program administrators every week. SLD hope to have Priority 1 funding requests reviewed and decided by December 31, 2005. Internal connections funding awards remain at the 90% level only.



• A big "Thank You!" to all those who participated in the eTech Ohio E-Rate Workshops for the 2006-07 funding year. Over 700 school officials attended the 27 workshops for Ohio schools and libraries. eTech Ohio looks forward to providing personalized E-Rate support throughout the upcoming Funding Year!



• eTech Ohio provides E-Rate program support including technology planning, annual workshops, listserv news and information, and individual problem resolution. For more information on the federal E-Rate program, contact Dan Farslow at 877.383.2406.

• TPT v3 provides a streamlined, more complete planning framework for integrating technology into district curriculum and classroom instruction. It was designed from the ground-up to be E-Rate compliant.

  Most software applications have an end of life. As such, after Sunday, April 30, 2006, TPT v2.5 will no longer be available. No edits, additions or corrections will be allowed in TPT v2.5. All technology plans in TPT v2.5 will be archived.

  In order for an organization to file form 470 for E-Rate, a written technology plan must exist. This does not mean that the technology plan must be certified, just written. Organizations can fill in a budget for the funding year in which they are applying; all three years do not have to be written. For certification, the three years must be completed and approved.

  For more information about TPT v3, contact your eTech Ohio field representative. For technical support, please call 877.383.2406.

• Thank you for submitting the BETA Teacher and District Surveys. As of the Wednesday, November 23, 2005, submission deadline, eTech Ohio received 85% of the teacher surveys, as well as nearly 90% of the building surveys. Congratulations - and thank you for helping us to inform policymakers statewide of your educational technology needs.



• The BETA06-07 building survey correction period concluded on Friday, December 30, 2005. Data will be released in time for districts' budget planning process in the winter. Access to this data will also give districts enough time to inform the technology planning process prior to the April 30, 2006, priority deadline for the TPT.

  BETA will provide answers to questions like these and more, offering important guidance both to you and to state policymakers regarding technology funding and support. Completion of the BETA survey is a requirement for many state and federal technology funding programs, including SchoolNet Plus.

  Please do not hesitate to contact your eTech Ohio field representative or the eTech Ohio Customer Service Desk at 877.383.2406.

• TIPs next step sessions are being now being scheduled to assist districts in planning technology integrated professional development. In these sessions, district teams will review resources, conduct an inventory of current professional development offerings and begin updating/creating a professional development plan for integrating technology. To schedule a TIPs session, contact your local eTech Ohio field representative.



• Check out our newest TIPs resources! eTech Ohio has conducted interviews with several experts on topics of high interest to educators including technology integration, HQPD, and evaluating professional development. The newest one is with Edie Holcomb on TPT planning. These interviews are available in audio and text formats on our website.

• Visit eTech's new action research resource! eTech Ohio has created a new resource that provides information about action research and shares findings from studies conducted through the Action Research and Technology online course offered by eTech Ohio. The site explains what action research is, how teachers can get involved in action research and provides the study reports from teachers who participated in the course as well as brief interviews with the facilitator and a participant.

  For additional information, contact educational technology consultant Sandra Paxton at 877.383.2406.

• Ohio Public Television Stations quite literally have made dramatic moves to better serve their community and to provide easy access to their services and staff.

  In an innovative partnership, WVIZ/PBS, 90.3 WCPN ideastream and the Playhouse Square Foundation joined forces to renovate the .One Playhouse Square. building, located at 1375 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, creating the Idea Center at Playhouse Square. When completed, Idea Center will serve Northeast Ohio as a center for the arts, technology, education and ideas. While retaining its classic architectural look as a part of its historic landmark designation, the building has been reconfigured with state-of-the-art technology and as an environmentally safe and efficient high performance facility.

  Originally built in 1912 by Walker & Weeks, designers of the Cleveland Public Library's Main Branch and Severance Hall, previous occupants of the building include the Kinney & Levan Department Store, the Cleveland Public Library, Stouffer's corporate headquarters, and WJW radio, where Alan Freed first coined the term "Rock-n-Roll."

  Idea Center will occupy the three lower floors of the facility and include:

  • An Education Center with multiple classrooms with transformable rooms, saturated with technology for instruction and distance learning activities
  
  
  
  • A PB&J Area where hundreds of students and teachers visiting Idea Center will gather, conduct breakout sessions, and have lunch or snacks
  
  
  
  • A 300-seat Studio Theater that will accommodate television productions and intimate theatrical performances
  
  
  
  • Studio 2 or The Viewing Stage, a street front studio on Euclid Avenue
  • A street front Dance Studio for professional and amateur dance rehearsals and master classes

  Workstations and systems furniture have been installed to accommodate the first wave of ideastream staff that moved to their new headquarters. Satellite dishes for WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN, supporting ideastream broadcast activity, were installed on the building?s roof. Over the winter, systems integration, equipment installation and testing and debugging relating to broadcast activity will continue with radio and television production at Idea Center targeted for January.




• More innovation can be found with the nationally unique collaboration between WOSU and COSI in Columbus. WOSU is building its new digital media center at the science museum, which was designed as a civic space for community forums, debates, educational activities and other broadcast and non-broadcast activities.

  The media center will give the more than 500,000 children and parents who visit COSI the opportunity to witness television and radio professionals and students at work in multiple studios and production facilities. Surrounding the studios will be hands-on digital media activities that blend COSI?s science education mission with WOSU's broader education mission as part of The Ohio State University. WOSU recently unveiled its first exhibit at COSI: the EffecTV, featuring a high-definition, digital TV camera and video monitor hooked up to a computerized special-effects device. At the touch of a button, visitors watch images of themselves distorted in about 20 ways. WOSU@COSI will open its doors in the fall of 2006.




• Significant changes are in the air for WNEO/Channel 45 and WEAO/Channel 49 (AKA PBS 45 & 49) during the coming year. Two separate public television stations that serve two distinct television markets, WNEO (PBS 45) is licensed to the city of Alliance and serves the Youngstown designated television market and WEAO (PBS 49) is licensed to the city of Akron and serves the Cleveland/Akron/Canton television market. Combined, the stations serve a total population of 4,621,500 throughout northeastern Ohio, in 18 northeast Ohio counties.

  For years, the stations depended on outsourced production facilities to accommodate the content creation and production that has long been a specialty of PBS 45 & 49. Series like Math & Science of the Blimp; One State-Many Nations: Native Americans of Ohio; and others are perennial in the ITV catalogs. Weekly local broadcast productions such as NewsNight Akron, Youngstown 2010 Reports and High School Football Game of the Week are PBS 45 & 49 community-supported staples.

  Thanks to a Public Television Facilities Planning Grant PBS 45 & 49 will purchase a three-camera portable production package and related monitoring equipment for use both in-house and for field production. They will be able to travel to sites like The Butler Museum or Stambaugh Hall in Youngstown; The Inventors Hall of Fame or Lock 4 in Akron; or The Cultural Center for the Arts or The Negro Old Timers community center in Canton and cover the issues, places and people that will educate and expand the knowledge of those in their viewing areas.

  WNEO and WEAO have served their communities well, but the production equipment will allow them even more opportunity to extend their reach.




• The WOUB Center for Public Media is currently installing a digital broadcast control room, which will have 10-channel broadcast capability. The 10 channels will be used for digital broadcasting of WOUB-TV and WOUC-TV. The digital broadcast control room can be used to control other WOUB facilities, including the six radio stations currently operating. The operation will be controlled by a 12-channel automation system and a Grass Valley K2 series multi-format video server. The digital broadcast control room has glass windows to enable people touring the building the ability to see the facility. The renovation and equipment has been funded by grants and has cost more than $840,000.

  The WOUB Center for Public Media is installing a digital broadcast control room, which will have a 10-channel broadcast capability for the broadcast of WOUB-TV and WOUC-TV .The digital control room can be used to control other WOUB facilities, including the six radio stations it operates. The operation will be controlled by an automation system and a multi-format video server. Persons visiting the Center will be able to observe the new facility in operation through large windows

  Ohio Stations, helping to fulfill the eTech Vision "To provide leadership and support in the equal access and use of technology to extend the knowledge of all Ohio citizens."




• WGLE's (FM 90.7, Lima) 24-year-old antenna was replaced in December. WGLE celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2006 and has used the original antenna during this period. The transmitter was replaced earlier this year. Both projects were funded with federal and state funding.



• The WOUB Radio Network hosted three Mountain Stage performances in 2005, including one where Alison Krauss and Union Station was the main performer. The shows have gained popularity in the broadcast area and Larry Groce from Mountain Stage describes Athens as "their home away from home." Additional Mountain Stage performances are already scheduled for 2006. Membership revenue and audience ratings were up one year after WOUB-FM changed the format from classical music to news/talk. WOUB Radio donated the classical music CD collection to the Ohio University School of Music, which increased the collection to more than 15,000 CDs, one of the largest classical music collections in the state.

For additional information, contact public information coordinator Kelly Martin at (740) 593-4944.