I guess that the bigger question in considering something like this is, how committed are we to helping our students develop visual literacy, visual communication skills and actually practicing those design skills that are so prominently discussed within both the Academy culture and the culture at large?  When I heard Jeff talk this morning about spaces designed to encourage cross-germination of ideas – and in light of the fact that we are already discussing designing a media lab – I thought it would be a good time to share this video.  I also plan to buy the Stanford book.

Below is a link to the Stanford video, and the “Get more information about the book” on the same page is informative, also.

http://dschool.stanford.edu/blog/2012/01/18/make-space-the-book/

Horses from Kim Darling on Vimeo.

bit.ly/capstonevideo

If you attended the January In Service it would be appreciated if you took a few minutes to fill out the January In Service evaluation survey.

1,000 copies of the technology letter to parents are sitting on the stack of copy paper in the mail room. Please pick up a copy for each of your advisees and hand one out to each of them during chapel on Tuesday, 1/13. Tell them they only need to return the signed form which is a single page (the 2nd page). They should hold on to the other three pages. Also remind them to print their name clearly. Your advisees should return the forms to you to be placed in the collection box which is located at the back of the mail room. By Friday of next week I will distribute the first round of log in credential handouts to each of the students that have returned their signed form.

As you know classes and class rosters are not up to date on the school website. My goal is to make the first of many updates to those lists by the end of this week. Remember that your current rosters and class assignments can be found on AP Web.

Remember that I will be running supplementary training sessions every Wednesday from 3:30 to 4:30 in Severance 21. I will be able to provide a laptop to anyone that needs one.

One last note: I just received word from our web host that our calendar system is being upgraded to their new version tomorrow. Your existing events will not be changed. The calendar interface will change substantially. To learn about the new calendar system please take a look at this page.

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Hello everyone,

Registration for the upcoming January In Service is now closed. If you still need to register, please email me and I will add you to a group.

Instructor and room assignments are now posted right here:
http://tinyurl.com/inservicerooms

If you do not see your name on that list, please email me.

I know everyone is unbelievably busy, but it would be wonderfully helpful if you could do two tasks by the end of this week:

1) Start thinking about what materials you would like to post to your class websites. (You will have a separate web page for each of your classes.) This can include documents, links, discussion boards, and other files. At a minimum you will need to bring your syllabi in digital form, preferably in .doc or .pdf format. On the day of the in service you will need to bring (on a thumb drive or a cd) the materials you would like to post on your class pages.

2) Make sure you can login to:
http://docs.stjlabs.com
If you’ve already been using the system, you’re all set.
If you have never logged into the system, your username is firstname.lastname and your password is in the email I sent out. You will be forced to change your password the first time you login to the system. If you run into any login issues, please email me. Feel free to play around with the system once you’ve logged in.

In order to be fully prepared for the January in service training, you need to:
1) …be able to login to the school portal located at
http://stjacademy.org
2) …be able to login to STJLabs Google Docs at http://docs.stjlabs.com
3) …bring with you materials to post on your class web pages.

Once you’ve completed the first two tasks and begun thinking about the third, please complete this form:
http://tinyurl.com/inservicetasks

The time you put in completing these tasks is GREATLY appreciated.

Good luck with your week!

- Josh

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In order to make the best use of our time during the in service
training, I’m going to need everyone to complete a few simple tasks. It
would be very helpful if you could make sure you’ve completed these two
tasks by this Friday, 12/12. If you run into any problems, please let me
know.

1) Make sure you can login to the Faculty Portal. You can get to the
login screen by going to http://www.stjacademy.org and clicking on
“Portal Login” in the middle of the screen.

2) Please take a look at the sign up list for the January In Service
training sessions right here: http://tinyurl.com/inservicesignup
If you are not on the list, please sign up using the form located right
here: http://tinyurl.com/inservicesurvey

I will be sending out a couple more small tasks in the coming week. The
time you spend completing these tasks is hugely appreciated.

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SJA Department Chairs: If you’d like me to give this presentation to your departments, let me know. I can give the general presentation or I can focus on specific elements. Let me know what you’d like me to cover and I’ll customize the presentation to your needs.