2012 - Happy New Year!  

   During our winter break, the latest issue of the GSB Alumni Magazine arrived and the lead article concerned technology use at Gill St. Bernard's School.  Kathie Andersen's article was very helpful, because our campus layout does not lend itself to a widespread understanding of all that goes on in each division.  But after reading the article, it was hard not to be impressed with the many and varied initiatives underway throughout our curriculum.  Teachers are finding ways to reinvent the classroom experience for students in ways that make sense.  Students are engaged as teachers challenge themselves to explore new approaches to teaching and learning.

   Beyond the classroom, much has also changed this past year in terms of our technology infrastructure. A new server array, an updated phone system and the extension of our wireless network throughout the campus are significant changes designed to create seamless network access.

   What lies ahead for this upcoming year? We will complete our Blackbaud integration project, a work-in-progress over this last year.  We have plans to begin to move towards a virtualized work environment for specific computer users.  This means that people may do their work at a work station utilizing the software and storage found exclusively on a server drive.  Work stations are environmentally friendly in several different ways, and should provide an improved computing experience for users.  We will continue to monitor our Internet pipeline and improve access as needed. And we'll explore cloud-based solutions for storage and software.  Whether it's Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365 or Dropbox or Box.net, the possibilities arrive at a fast and furious rate.

   What about devices used by teachers and students?  Tablets continue to be a device worth exploring.  We seem to be firmly in a more free market of hardware and software now, and it's unclear if the iPad is the obvious choice for school use.  The lack of Flash support coupled with the lack of USB inputs are serious drawbacks, in large part offset by a great App store and excellent product reliability.  Mobile phones are increasingly finding their way into schools as a learning tool.  GSB is moving cautiously on this front, but it seems clear to me that in the future, smartphones will be commonly used by teachers and students alike to facilitate learning.

   One of the ways technology can help promote learning is through data analysis.  Using computing power, it's possible to sift through and analyze amounts of information that, in an earlier age, could not have been examined.  Data analysis is done by many people and organizations, but perhaps Google is the most prominent practitioner.  No doubt, it helps to have the most visited search engine.  One of things Google has done over the last few years is to re-examine the past year's searches to offer a window on our world.  If you see what has been searched the most on Google over the last year, you get a sense of what we find compelling and important. So before we get too far into 2012, why not take about three minutes and review 2011 via Google and our collective searches.

(Interested in learning more about how Google tracks searches and then parses the data? 

Click here.