October 2019
Causeway Coastal Route
Northern Ireland, UK
Photo by Brian Foley
Three-Year Technology Plan
Technology Plan Action Plan FY20-FY22.pdfThe SAMR Model
Adapted from email written to staff, September 2019
The Dedham Public Schools are often recognized as a state leader for our excellent technology including excellent use in the classroom. Many of our staff members are exemplary users of technology to improve student learning. Sustaining our successes and continuing our improvement are the current challenge. We have a new three-year Technology Plan which among other things is targeting how we can better support teachers in this area; in fact, this is the first and foremost goal.
While we have anecdotal information on current practices with technology in the classroom, we need more concrete data that describes how, where and when teachers are using technology to enhance the learning environment. To this end, the district leadership team will begin gathering data this fall to (a) help ensure effective instructional technology support and (b) support our efforts to secure future funding to sustain technology initiatives in the Dedham Public Schools.
As a district we recognize the importance of using data to inform our practice as well as the need to maintain the integrity of the learning environment and teacher anonymity. Data collection will take place during regular classroom visits by building principals, department heads, directors and district level administrators. The data we collect will include grade span, content area, devices/applications in use, a SAMR indicator, and any narrative that may be necessary to contextualize the use of technology. Individual teacher names will not be part of the data collection. For more information on the SAMR model you can watch the videos linked here and here. In addition, we’ll be conducting an educator survey to accompany this data collection. If you have specific recommendations regarding educator support or training, please reach out to Judy Foley (jfoley@dedham.k12.ma.us), Technology Integration Specialist PreK-12.
Videos About the SAMR Model
Updates and Presentations
Google Updates
This is a presentation, created by my friend and colleague, Neal Sonnenberg, Medfield Public Schools, which summarizes changes that Google has made over the summer. I have modified the presentation so it focuses on specific changes that are applicable to Dedham Public Schools. If you have any questions about these changes, please contact Judy Foley.
KnowBe4 Training
Adapted from email written to staff, September 2019
Cybercrime is getting more serious by the month. Hackers are getting smarter about tricking people into clicking on fraudulent links or opening malicious attachments in emails. It has happened to our school community members. It can and may have already happened to you personally on your own Dedham Public Schools computer and Dedham email as well.
You may or may not be aware that the district recently ran a simulated phishing security test to determine what our vulnerability would be if a real phishing attack were to be attempted in Dedham. Over 31% of Dedham Public Schools employees took actions that would have exposed our district to potentially catastrophic consequences.
Because of this, we have decided that it is very important that everyone gets comprehensive security awareness training. You are critical in the effort to keep our data and systems safe, increasing your own personal and family awareness and teaching appropriate principles to our students.
We will be sending out an email tomorrow from our vendor KnowBe4 to enroll you in an initial training (Subject line of email: You’ve been enrolled in training). Please follow the instructions on the email. Basically you will enter your DPS email address and then you will get an email to activate your account. Enter your accurate first and last name. You will then have access to an initial interactive training video. You can close and resume the training video at any point. The timeline to complete this is three-weeks. You will receive reminder emails until you complete the training. If you do not receive an email on or around Tuesday, October 1 from KnowBe4, please email elservice@dedham.k12.ma.us, msservice@dedham.k12.ma.us, or hsservice@dedham.k12.ma.us.
Tip: In addition to the “Report as Spam” icon you have on your email to help reduce spam emails, you will soon be getting a fishhook or “Phish Alert” icon to report suspected phishing attempts to our Help Desk. You will see this when logged into a Chromebook or if you are logged into a Chrome browser on another type of machine.
We will be periodically sending out simulated phishing tests regularly so we can continue to improve our security. Be on the lookout for these in your inbox. I am happy to answer any questions you have about our security efforts.
Stop, look, and think before clicking that link!
This graph shows the number of people who opened and then clicked the phishing email sent out in early September.
