Minutes of Technology Committee
Date: 4/24/2012
Members in attendance: Scott Hildreth, Ramona Silver, Lynn Klein, Gordon Watt, Norman Buchwald,
Tim Dave, Carlos Enriquez, Lisa Ullibarri, Minta Winsor, Zarir Marawala, (Chair)
Guests: Katherine Tollefson (ITS Helpdesk) & Ken Agustin (ITS Network Management)
The meeting was called to order at 12:05 pm. We had special guests in attendance: Katherine Tollefson
and Ken Agustin. Katherine is our “triage” person who handles the help requests that come in my email
and phone and works on both campuses. She gave TC a demo on how the new online service would
work for the faculty and provided us with a handout outlining the procedure for faculty, staff or
administrator who wants to use this service in the future. The phone and email conduits are still in
force, the direct online ticket generation is one more avenue of communicating a need.
Ken Agustin gave a brief commentary on wireless access points that have now blanketed the campus.
The newest wireless connection has been made in building 4000 (new PE building), 1st and 2nd floors.
This sparked suggestions from TC members re: specific areas like bldg 400 having spotty wireless
service, and bldg 2100 that may have signal strength issues which Ken took notes to investigate.
This semester we in TC were charged by Dr. George Railey (academic VP) with formulating a procedure
where TC would be integrated with other college committees and services to bring about facilitation of
technology for improved learning and education for our students. Pursuant to that project, the final two
votes were taken:
1.
Making the Request for Technology draft form, to now be the official form (which would be
available online in multiple areas on the Chabot website) presented by TC to the VP for college
wide review/approval and adoption.
2. Approval of adding the online help request (which would be available online in multiple areas on
the Chabot website).
NOTE: the approval to formulate a basic algorithm for how a technology request would proceed
through the system was done earlier in the semester.
Both of the above votes to proceed with the items were unanimously affirmative.
The Chair sought and received unanimous approval to now present our work to the VP so that the
Accreditation process would reflect the TC work. Upon approval of the VP and/or his comments, the
chair (or designated rep) will forward the procedure to PRBC, BC and any other college entity as
recommended by the VP.
The other key agenda items were addressed as well.
The concept of a standing budget for TC was discussed as was the idea of looking into grant
opportunities to help further education through technology. The important message here was that the
funding was not sought to reimburse any TC member but rather address/support innovation by faculty,
staff or administration that may require some start up funding to pilot a program which if successful
could be pursued further with more grant requests. Tim Dave pointed out that the BC does have a small
amount of money that is judiciously awarded to requestor/departments who make the most assertive
argument for their cause. Gordon Watt announced that the Classified Staff has also offered/suggested a
limited funding to be used for educating faculty/staff in various aspects of technology.
The idea of how and where we would find technology funding was discussed further with re: bond
measures. Should a bond measure be proposed, then TC-COOL committees would like to have their
suggestions counted as part of the bond measure. With re: existing bond measure, if there are monies
available that can qualify as being used for technological use be it facilities or pedagogical, then we
would like to explore that avenue as well. Future meetings will have these issues as our agenda items.
In the interest of bringing the best technology, i.e. powerful in education but user friendly, at a cost that
is affordable, the Chair asked if we had looked into other avenues besides Blackboard such as Canvas or
Moodle, etc. Apparently, many in the group were familiar with various kinds of LMS. In fact, this is will
be one of the topics of discussion in the joint COOL-TC meeting to be held on 5/15 in room 506. The
agenda for this joint committee meeting will be sent out to COOL and TC members as soon as it is
crafted.
The meeting ended at 12:58 pm.
Next meeting: 5/8
Last meeting: 5/15 (joint meeting TC-COOL in room 506)