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A recent post to the Tennessee Technology Trainers email list outlined a few "Help Needed" items. This post comprises my knee-jerk reactions. They may be wrong.

Initial steps for identifying staff technology training needs and developing a plan to address those needs

It's somewhat heretical, but my work with throwing an unfamiliar OS and unfamiliar applications into three classrooms with virtually no training suggests that what teachers need is reliable computers with Internet access and a place for students to keep their files and settings. Teachers and students pretty much know how to use computers if they have access to them in sufficient numbers. A lab full of computers down the hall is OK, but unless kids can log in and have their own "stuff" there (files, settings, and so on) it bears no resemblance to how most people use computers productively. See my post from a few days ago about how frustrating it is to try to work in a lab. I think that everyone who manages a lab should be forced to work using only the standard configuration that students use. If we did that, students would quickly have a much more usable computing environment.

Ideas for replacing outdated equipment

Use it. The computers that many schools consider to be outdated are completely usable as thin clients. For two years I've been using K12LTSP in three teachers' classrooms. By adding a switch, some RAM and a second network card to the teachers' existing workstations, I was able to add 5 computers to each of these classrooms. In spite of my doing no training outside of showing the teachers how to log in, these machines have been heavily used. I was afraid that teachers and students would be put-off or confused by using Fedora Linux, Firefox, and OpenOffice.org rather than the computer operating systems and applications that they were accustomed to. I was wrong. I did a standard install of the software, essentially just hitting return a few times. My support has been minimal. Perhaps the best thing is that student all have their own accounts, so all of their files, settings, bookmarks, desktop backgrounds are available to them wherever they log in. If you want to upgrade a lab, a single $3000 server will make those old Windows 95 machines into incredibly fast thin clients running Linux.

I haven't tried it yet, but apparently the latest version of Edubuntu has terminal server stuff working out of the box. I've been a K12LTSP/Fedora person for quite a long time, but ran Edubuntu on a laptop recently (until it died) and was quite impressed with how easy it was to install and maintain. I'm tempted to move all my machines over to it.

Templates that teachers can use to email their lesson plans to administrators

No. No. No. Email is not a very good way to communicate things like lesson plans that benefit from (1) having a long-term record of the communication and (2) sharing with other people who might be able to use the information. How about setting up a content management system like Drupal or Joomla? Each of these systems allow setting up such templates that are posted to the web and are immediately searchable for use by others. Drupal's Flexinode module is pretty flexible and would be much better than anything you can do in email. Oh! And Moodle has a Teacherplan Module that (if you can believe what the creators have to say about it)

allows teachers to place teacher plans in a separate and configurable module in the 1.5.3 version of Moodle. It is basically a trimmed HTML Resource module, with two added benefits:

• A list of objectives can be entered for each course. These can be edited from the Update Teacher Plan page.
• The index page for the Teacher Plans can be viewed keyed on plans (using the chosen format) or keyed on objectives met

And of course it's all free and Open Source.

Ways to communicate the need for more money to the powers-that-be at the State level

I know nothing about how to do this. I suspect they know that we need more money. Heck, I'd just like the powers that be at my state level to give me a raise that keeps up with inflation. I'm not very optimistic.

Here are some ideas for convincing folks that we're spending money well and that giving more to us is a good investment:

• Upgrade a lab by installing a $3000 server, providing every student their own file space and show that students who have persistent access to their work (at school, at least) use computers more effectively.
• Use Moodle to allow teachers to post assignments (and maybe lesson plans). Demonstrate that using your existing server and free software you've accomplished what would cost $10,000/year using the most popular proprietary learning management system.
• Experiment with giving kids USB drives with portable applications installed on them. This'll let kids have a consistent computing environment, with their files, applications and settings anywhere they have access to a Windows machine.