As educators we talk about "thinking outside the box". The question we often hear is how to get out of the box to do this........at Van Meter we are tearing down the sides of the box to make thinking endless!!!!

We are looking for a name for the VM Student Tech Team. Some ideas......SOS (Students Obliging Staff), DAWG Squad (Dawgs Are Willing Geeks).......just some late night thrown together ideas. The motto.........."We Bust Ours So We Can Fix Yours".

Look how far we have come............"old school technology"

Old School Technology Help Desk

Look how far we have come.....enjoy........

Technology Issues

We have been experiencing issues with getting students who are trying to use USB wireless cards up and going. We have been in contact and hope to have the problem solved very soon.

There were also some log in issues that happened the night of the rollout. This is a simple fix and I will be in the HS conference room to help students before and after school and also throughout the day.

Thus far we have had very good connection at school and the system seems to working well. If you are experiencing difficulties at home, here is the tech support number for Apple:

AppleCare Phone Support 800-800-2775

We also have our JMC Parent access links up and going on our school website. Along with the, please check out the school website to visit other staff blogs and wikis.

Here are a couple cool tricks from a young Mac user on youtube.

Click on this link......

Cool Mac Tricks

Van Meter Goes Outside The Box

Very cool and exciting things are happening at Van Meter. Along with the 1:1 Apple Computer Program, we are also hosting a Virtual Reality Program. There are only 2 schools in the world that can boast such a feat, and we are fortunate to be one of those schools.

We are also partnering with the ECI Program at DMACC West to help provide our students and parents with great resources to teach our students how to be "safe surfers". We will be offering workshops to inform parents and students of what is going on and how to protect your students. Stay tuned for updates.

Feel free to direct questions to any of the following:

John Carver, Superintendent of Schools (jcarver@vanmeter.k12.ia.us)

Deron Durflinger, Secondary Principal (ddurflinger@vanmeter.k12.ia.us)

Mike Linde, Director of Technology (mlinde@vanmeter.k12.ia.us)

Shannon Miller, Technology/AV Coordinator (smiller@vanmeter.k12.ia.us)

This Blog will allow you to ask questions about what we are doing here at Van Meter in regards to technology. We might not give you an immediate response, but will do our best.

In regards to the the VM 1:1 Laptop program, I will be available in the mornings for students who have questions. As with all new products, there may be some "tweaking" to get all technology resources to where we want them. We are working daily to get all pieces of the puzzle working.

If your student is having issues logging in, or if they are interested in learning more on how to get connected at home, have them stop in and we will do what we can to assist them in getting connected.