Minnetonka High School, Tuesday May 8

Minnetonka has one high school of 2700+ students. For such a large student population, it felt surprisingly "small." I think it's the modular contruction ~ not everyone in the same place at the same time. Graduation rate of 99%. Growing by about 100 students a year recently. (Minnesota has open enrollment throughout the state.)

In the past five years, in conjunction with the technology efforts and strategic plan, they have seen the following gains:

• Increased enrollment in AP courses
• Risinge SAT / ACT scores
• Increased participation in co-curricular, leadership, and community service activities
• Fewer study halls and a dramatic reduction of "senior slide"

Some Things We Saw:

Arts Facility: A great - either new or newly renovated - arts building with an art gallery, auditorium with stage, all attached to the high school.

CAD Lab: Beautiful facility with new powerful computers. Lots of software - AutoCAD, Inventer 3D Max, Chief Architech, Studio Max, etc. Instead of purchasing the software, they lease it annually. Comes out to about the same amount of money, but they always have the latest professional software.

Chemistry: Using SMART Board to show, then pause, then write notes over a chemistry annimation. Part of a lecture / Q&A. In many ways, very traditional but with the added zing that annimation provides.

Geometry: Both teacher and students using the Smartboard. Website for the Law of Cosines - plug in numbers and get line. Could bring up own graphing caluculator for "traditional" work. Math book is headed online, with many resources already there.

Music: Three types of software.

• Smart Music: Provides musical accompaniment. Play into the mic, and the computer follows along with your - speeds up or slows down when you do. Computer can assess the student's playing, either at school or at home.
• Practica Musica: Ear training for notes and intervals. Tracks students' skill levels and can pull up an individual student's progress report.
• Finale: Industry-standard composition software.

Other Miscellaneous Notes:

Principal said that they don't pay a lot of attention anymore to student to computer ratios. (Theirs is currently 6:1.) Rather, they make sure that they have enough "general access" computers in all the right places for students. Have 6 casual use labs campus-wide.

Technology committee: Used to have a large sprawing committee that had a hard time getting anything done. Have pared that down to four member group that makes building-level decisions.

Next year's focus:

• Equipment rotation = #1 priority: Weed out old computers, on a 5-yr rotation, except for the CAD lab. Look at number of hours to decide when to replace LCD projectors. Next year - 40 new, 24 out, 2 new projectors.

• Immersion: Bring up classrooms to "model" standards. Includes 20 sound systems, 16 LCDs, 6 more Smartboards.

• Teacher Generated Projects: Requests beyond the "model" above (eg, 7 computers in special ed classrooms)

Their Model Standards include:

• Class of the Future = LCD, DVD/VCR combo, SoundField system
• Interactive Classroom = all of the above, plus a SMART Board
• Labs = Science has all of the above, plus probes, laptops at all lab tables / Business Lab has 35 stations with all standard business solutions / CAD as described above.

New Initiatives for next year: Large screen motorized presentation panels in appropriate areas, flash recording with playback for immediate feedback, new things for the small auditorium.