Immersion 360 (EdTec 360) has finally come to an end. Presentations today went very well. I presented my project of using a Mac OS X Server to support and administer a school system with the tools to provide greater connectivity and explore possible uses of technology in the classroom. As I look back at this project I am really interested in the capabilities that are provided by the server and its range of options. I think that as technology is integrated more into the curriculum that these server technologies will be used more. As of right now, however, schools are limited in what they can do with their servers because they either lack the support system necessary to keep the hardware running and the faculty informed of the updates. They are also suffering from lack of support staff to train faculty to use the system. But most importantly, teachers are struggling to balance the use of technology while still meeting the barrage of standards that they must meet (i.e. INTASC, NCLB, etc.). In the end, I feel like I learned a lot by just getting my hands dirty and actually working with some of the technology on the back end of the system. I want to continue to learn how network and server technologies can enhance not only the students' learning experience but also for faculty and administrators.

As part of the course work for Immersion 360, my professor, a fellow classmate, and I traveled to Carroll High School to present BookPod, a project created by Sam and Van Hnem in EdTec 485, as a system to engage students in active reading and analysis of books they read. In Immersion 360, the class worked to refine and polish the concept behind BookPod with the intent to bring it closer to implementation in a school. While Carroll High School is mainly interested in exploring the blogging concept as a tool for learning, BookPod uses this core technique as its foundational technology. We met with the assistant principal and received some useful insight into the things that they were looking for and possible issues with this kind of solution. Since BookPod is built on the technique of blogging, we focused on that aspect. But we wanted to get away from the notion that blogging as a whole is bad. In this case, the blog provides a way for students to interact through a medium that they are comfortable with and able to teach themselves how to produce the content and put it on the web. The concept behind BookPod is strong and given the opportunity could become a very useful and powerful learning tool.