Phoenix is proud of its history of having a strong technology program, investing in infrastructure, and supporting innovative teaching and learning. Alongside the District’s capital project completed in 2010, the Information Technology team was able to upgrade the entire district network infrastructure. We have been able to support the investment in multimedia classrooms that incorporate audio, video, and interactive whiteboards. Most recently, we have been working to train our teachers in the area of flipped learning. Each year, new groups of teachers attend flipped learning training offered by our CiTi BOCES trainers. Teachers learn how to best use technology to deepen their students’ understanding of content. Teachers who participate in the flipped learning training are provided with a class set of Chromebooks, enabling them to implement flipped principles in their classrooms daily. It is our goal to equip every classroom in the District with this engaging and interactive technology.

We have focused on increasing communication and collaboration within the District, with parents, and the community. We have trained all faculty members in working on Microsoft SharePoint, our “intranet” system. We have put in place Blackboard Mass Notifications, a parent notification system for attendance, informational, and emergency notifications.

Last, but certainly not least, we have established ourselves as a regional leader in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). We have consolidated computing resources into the data centers in order to share computing resources among system users, reduce the costs associated with expensive desktop replacement cycles (and the power they consume), better manage these resources, and enable anytime, anywhere access to the District-provided digital learning environment.

Please take a look at our Technology Plan for more information on our plans for the road ahead. Technology is challenging us to approach things in new ways, and I am very proud of the work that our IT staff has done and will continue to do to provide a high level of service to the staff and students of the Phoenix Central School District.