Meeting Minutes from our January Meeting

Winter Regional Meeting
of the Vita-Learn Southeast Region

January 29, 2009

River Valley Technical
Center Springfield, VT

In attendance: John
Minelli, Margaret Cintorino, Arlyn Broccoli, Peter Drescher, Doug
Holcomb, Tracy Koehler, Matt Martyn, Wes Vaughan, Jayne Esposito,
Nancy Westlund, Lauren Baker, Sean Sullivan, Paul Smith.

Our
second meeting of the Southeast region began with a general sharing
of issues of concern related to technology, as well as ideas and
lessons on the forefront. Peter Drescher spoke on state technology
issues including the current draft proposal of the new state
technology plan and the upcoming meeting – January 30 – to
discuss a possible revision of the technology GE's. Peter also
talked about details of the new technology plans that each district
need to create. They are due by June 30th
of this year and will be in effect for three years. Details of what
is expected can be found on the DOE website in the eucational
technology section as well as in the draft of the new state
technology plan. Peter also talked briefly about the details of the
upcoming economic stimulus plan and how that may have a positive
impact on Title II D funding available to schools in the state. Peter
was cautiously optomistic that additional funds will be there but
details were still sketchy at this time.

Next we
had two short presentations on web 2.0 tools from Margaret Cintorino
and Arlyn Bruccoli. Margaret shared information about idesktv.com
and capturing and saving youtube videos and she also talked about the
online component of Inspiration. Arlyn did a very informative
PowerPoint presentation on various web 2.0 things including briefly
touching on the possibilities presented by the LNV, and the RiverDeep
Learning Village.

We
closed with a general discussion on all things tech, including ways
to attract more classroom teachers to our meetings. (including
whether that is a goal of the group – to make it more like a mini
version of VermontFest or whether this group of tech integrationists
and tech directors should instead focus on specific tech issues) Our
next meeting will be on April 30, 2009; exact location to be
determined although we will continue to move our location further to
the southern portion of our region as we have done previously.

Questions?
Please write John Minelli at minellij@hartfordschools.net