Our Mission

Department Technology Theory of Action

If we maintain a secure district-wide network/infrastructure, equipment and systems with 99.5% uptime, then the use of leveraging technology for the learning success of students and staff focused on the ISTE standards and 4C’s framework, will be ubiquitous.

Strengthening Infrastructure Maintenance & Improvements

As we continue to collaborate with each department on new systems and programs that require network and technology resources we strive to strengthen infrastructure maintenance & improvements to enhance the access and efficiency in organizational processes.  This work during the 2020-2021 school year will be to increase our bandwidth capacity, update/refresh our second phase of our cameras, collaborate with the Village of Oak Park on a joint fiber project and execute a transition of file storage and backup strategy.

Two-way staff to student and family communication

Throughout this year our team will be leveraging the feedback received from families during the equity feedback sessions to focus and enhance our communication streams to and from students and families. This work this year we will focus our work on streamlining our learning management systems with Seesaw for K-2/Google Classroom for 3rd-5th/Canvas for 6th-8th, provide multiple trainings for staff and families (as needed), expand on digital signage in three to five buildings during the 2020-2021 school year and work with district staff to promote Let’s Talk as a key two-way communication tool for district staff and the board of education. This important work will directly impact the use of communication tools on a regular basis that will assist in clearly and proactively communicating to our staff, students and families.

Professional Learning Plans

Through ongoing collaboration with the building administrative staff and building leaders, which will include reviewing various forms of data (Instructional Learning walk, BrightBytes survey results), we will plan out professional learning needs for the building as it relates to leveraging instructional technology for instruction.  This work will directly support the district’s pillar #1 of providing equitable access to rigorous, responsive instruction, through providing professional learning opportunities for staff that will lead to them providing opportunities for students to direct their own learning.  This work will also support staff in their work with students to work with other students on cognitively demanding, culturally, socially relevant real world tasks that require students to engage in discussion, questioning, exploration, research, make decisions and communicate their findings. As part of this work our teacher librarians and a group of teachers will participate in a cohort of leaders across the district to build upon the consistency of instructional technology usage in D97. This year a large part of the training will include support for staff on delivering high quality remote learning instruction.

Improve student and staff experience with instructional technology and IT services

For our staff and students to be successful, they need to have the high leverage resources to support their learning.  Our work this year will be centered around providing these resources that have a high potential impact on instructional practices, student learning and school culture.  This will include providing equitable access for all of our students and staff to the pertinent resources (for example, Internet access for all).  Our team will continue to work to provide access to resources for all students and staff in a way that they can access whenever they need and in a way that will support them, with one goal of empowering our students and staff to be more successful in the use of instructional technology resources. Our team will leverage the Learn Platform tool to complete rapid return on investment/return on value analysis to support decision making for strategy and budgeting for the following year. 

Stregnthen Network and Data Security

We are entering year three of our three year network and data security plan following our district audit during the 2016-2017 school year. In January-March 2020, we completed a network and security audit and penetration test. From that audit we have developed a new three year network security plan and we will begin to implement it during the 2020-2021 school year.  As we continue to leverage more and more online and instructional technology resources we will build upon our work to ensure our staff and student safety through these instructional technology resources.  Through this work we will be implementing consistent, accountable mechanisms that provide direct access for staff and students for the implementation of core instructional resources/tools that impact student learning.  With our focus on ensuring network reliability and efficiencies, but in a manner that does not jeopardize any student and staff security. During this year we will work with the district cyber security team to audit and develop processes with the goal to apply and receive the Trusted Learning Environment Seal through CoSN. We will continue to implement our weekly tech tips to staff that will support our education of best practices that align with our strategies of our overall network and data security plan.