About+Nathan

For the past 12 years I have worked with the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board within the information technologies department in some capacity. I started with the ALCDSB as a system administrator responsible for many of our centralized applications as well as our school servers. A few years ago I was on a secondment to our curriculum department to work with data analyst and teachers on classroom portfolios and dissemination of student data. Currently I am in the role of Computer System Supervisor Academic in which I am responsible for the technology that has been deployed within our schools.

My roles in the UDL project at JJ O'Neill has primarily been that of a technical observer and adviser although I have also enjoyed working with students on projects in the classroom. The UDL project allows me to observe how technology is being utilized by teachers with different teaching styles and allow me to better understand how the I.T. department can better offer their services.

This project has allowed me to break down how I.T. can look at the use of technology in the classroom into three different areas:

Infrastructure:
 * Wireless access - Investigate our current wireless solution and to make recommendations to central about steps we need to make to better continue to serve wireless access to our schools
 * Internet access and proxy services - Allowed for input from teachers and students on the use of proxy services within the school and to take that information back centrally to discuss
 * Bandwidth - observed students and teachers frustrated over the speed of our bandwidth and sometimes even abandoning certain technologies because of lower speeds at schools

Communications:
 * Helps I.T. in how to best communicate central decisions around technology with principals and teachers
 * Allows I.T. to take discussions and issues from within classrooms (from both teachers and students) back to the central office so they can be discussed within our central meetings

Training:
 * Allows I.T to evaluate the level of comfort that teachers and students have integrating technology in curriculum
 * This information can be used to help develop training material for Administration/Teachers/Support Staff/ and Students

Additional Information About Me: Linkedin Twitter Personal Website (shift8.ca)

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