Mercy IT Dept
Mercy High School, Farmington Hills, MI USA
Welcome
This is the Mercy Information Technology (IT) Department site. Mercy High School is an all-girls Catholic High School in Farmington Hills, MI USA. We have a one-to-one Tablet PC program that has been in place since 2005. On here you will find useful information regarding the issues, challenges and successes of our innovative program. This site is and always will be, a work in progress.
Order your Mercy iPad package now!
May 16th
The Mercy iPad Package is now available for purchase to all students registered for the 2012-2013 school year. You will need your Mercy student ID to place your order which can be found right next to your name when you login to PowerSchool.
The package includes:
- 32GB iPad w/Wi-Fi (black or white) w/2-year AppleCare+ (discounted from retail price)
- Apps for use at Mercy (50% off retail price)
- Mercy iPad Case (50% off retail price)
Total cost of the package is $754*.
In order to ensure delivery for next school year please submit your order prior to July 1st, 2012. iPads will be delivered to students starting the week of Jul 30th, 2012 more details to follow
If you’d prefer to pay by cash, check, or money order, please download the printable invoice (pdf). Mail or deliver form and payment to Mercy High School Business Office.
Click on the iPad graphic or here to order your iPad!
All incoming 9th graders are required to buy the Mercy iPad Package from Mercy. iPads purchased from another source will not be allowed for school use. Currently enrolled students who will be in grades 10-12 for the 2012-2013 school year have the option of buying an iPad. Please note that the HP laptop which will remain fully supported until the graduation of the class of 2015.
If you have any further questions please feel free to call the Mercy IT Dept at 248-893-3590.
* If you ordered your Mercy iPad package prior to May 16th you were inadvertently charged sales tax. If you were charged sales tax, you’ll be issued a refund upon picking up your iPad.
Just the facts on the FAQs!
May 10th
Here is a document we put together for our iPad Open House
event that answers some of our most frequently asked questions about Mercy 2.0. We hope to see you there !
The Case of the Perfect iPad Case
May 6th
Who would have thought that with all we were tackling with Mercy 2.0, that one of the most challenging tasks would be finding a great iPad case to include with the “Mercy iPad Package”.
The first consideration of course was whether to include a case at all as part of the package. We were persuaded to do so by two compelling arguments: 1) Giving each girl an Mercy branded iPad was very appealing. I have already discovered at carrying the iPad in a Mercy case is a great conversation piece for our school and a source of personal pride. A classy case signifies a classy program. 2) More importantly, we wanted to hand over the iPads to our kids in a protected condition. No one wanted to see a screen break in the parking lot the first day of ownership.
As we investigated cases, we were immediately challenged by a lack of availability. Since we were among the very first adopters of the 3rd generation iPad (which are shaped slightly differently than the iPad 2), we could not get our hands on 3rd generation cases. Nevertheless, our Marlin Shop manager did a terrific job of rounding up samples. After looking over dozens, we exhibited the samples of those which our IT team considered sufficiently protective. Students and staff then voted on the samples.
At this point, we realized we had blundered. Due to some miscommunication, we had exhibited some very expensive products among those which fit our Naturally, the #1 choice was about $30 too expensive.
This story has a happy ending, however. Though we continued to research possible cases diligently, we also did some hard-nosed negotiating with the producers of the more expensive cases. In the end, we agreed to terms for a large order of our #1 choice of cases at nearly 50% off the retail price.
The Mercy case is the Powis iCase. It features a gorgeous, classic logo that everyone who has seen it loves. It has an “academic” book-like encasement. As the Powis site will tell you, it also is camera ready. It features, a stylus holder, hand strap, as well as nine different prop-up positions.
I believe we have found an iPad case worthy of Mercy 2.0!
The Latest News on Mercy 2.0
May 3rd
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| The New Mercy iPad Case for Students |
The adoption of the iPad as a 1:1 device for new ninth graders is the featured piece of Mercy 2.0. While the staff has unboxed their devices, we are not selling the new iPads to our students until May 14. Nevertheless, more quietly, other major elements of Mercy 2.0 are underway or have already been completed.
A New Multimedia Lab will be built this summer and has been almost completely been paid for by donations. ”Witte’s Wish” and a generous donor have purchased the 26 new iMacs. The Mom’s Club is buying the furniture and the Dad’s Club is paying for the new cabling. This state of the art lab will be available to all students when school starts in August.
A Required “Fundamentals of Design” course for ninth graders will be using the new lab and will provide a baseline curriculum for the 21st Century skills. This course and a revamped Speech curriculum will give students hands-on experiences with video, audio, slide, and web design.
Moodle & Power School have been moved to the Cloud allowing us to down size our IT Department through retirement. More importantly, these essential applications (Moodle for the Curriculum and Power School for our student data) will receive regular updates and state of the art back-ups. The new versions also integrate with each other and Moodle has Google App features.
Google Apps for Education are now hold an essential (and branded) place in our instructional development. These powerful, plentiful and free apps will be completely deployed this July after all of us have switched to Gmail.
Professional Development proceeds apace. After our two days with Lucy Gray we decided to immediately institute a series of after school workshops on specific “apps”. Forty teachers and staff stayed after school for the first one on Tuesday. What is more, staff will be investigating iPad and Google apps through the summer and reporting back to the collective through Google Groups. The next big in-service is then scheduled for August 23.
Coming Soon to MHS– Lighter Student Bookbags!
Apr 27th
Two disappointments related to books have accompanied our 1:1 computing program. The first is a hopeful fantasy– that books would be pre-loaded onto our laptops or iPads and included with the purchase of the device. Since traditional textbooks are notoriously expensive, I have never quite understood why one might presume the digital version would be “free”. But it is reasonable to hope that something made of bits and bytes would cost less than their print counterparts.
The second disappointment is more grounded in reality– digital textbooks have to date been unavailable or inferior. The publishers have been incredibly slow to adapt to modernity. So the students have lugged their books around our school along with a fairly heavy laptop.
The good news is that change is at hand. The Kindle, Nook and iPad have made digital reading for enjoyment commonplace. And the number of titles available for these devices has exploded. What’s more, consumers pay significantly less for the digital books. Finally, we are seeing many of our textbooks appear in outstanding digital formats (and for less cost than their print counterparts). With the iPad, it is easily imaginable that members of the class of 2016 will have significantly lightened those book bags by the time they graduate.
Since we are in the midst of a sea change, a universal standard for texts has not been established. Parents will discover that some books might be available from Apple, Google, or Amazon, etc. Consequently, Mercy has resolved to be as helpful as possible under these circumstances. We are asking teachers to identify all available forms of their books to the the best of their abilities. Then we will publish this information for parents. Personally, I have a strong preference for my Kindle texts (which I read on my iPad). However, teachers like me will not be forcing our preferences on students and parents. We will give them the information and let them choose.
But, oh, how nice it is to have a choice! — Larry Baker
Traditional and iPad Kindle app versions of my 2012-13 text.
Got Questions?
Apr 20th
If you have questions about the iPads or the Mercy 2.0 Technology plan don’t forget to visit our FAQs page! If your question is not answered there feel free to contact the Mercy IT Dept. at any time:
Larry Baker, Associate Principal/Operations, phone – 248.893.3587 email – lrbaker@mhsmi.org
Tom James, Director of IT, phone – 248.893.3590 email – tfjames@mhsmi.org
Mercy iPad Open House
Apr 19th
Explore the Mercy iPad Package on Monday, May 14 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm in the Media Center. Try the new iPad model and registered students in the classes of 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 can place their order. CLICK HERE for all the event details.
Unique Professional Development for a Unique School
Apr 17th
I have been researching for Mercy 2.0 since July of ’11 and I still have not found a school which matches our educational technology profile. Most schools who are considering the iPad as a 1:1 device (1 device for each student) are going to this model for the first time. Mercy, on the other hand, was a pioneer in 1:1 computing. We have invested several years of experience with technology and it is is already a fundamental feature of our school experience. Consequently, most of the “packaged” presentations and workshops that we might investigate for training are ill-suited to our staff’s needs. Nevertheless, our experience has taught us that professional development (PD) is crucial for a successful technology roll-out. Therefore, we are putting investing considerable time and money in customized PD that will position us to be leaders in iPad 1:1 instruction.
I thought members of our community (and visitors!) might be interested in seeing an outline of this plan:
April 2 & 3 - Staff iPads Deployed. Just days after the new iPads were announced by Apple, our technology wizards– Tom James and Gary Bank — had devices in the hands of our staff so that they could become acquainted with them at their leisure over Easter Break.
April 17 – Unboxing the iPad Staff members became acquainted with their new iPads with an after school orientation program by Dean Haratsaris from Macprofessionals of Novi .
Lucy Gray
April 23 & 24. Department PD with Lucy Gray. Lucy will meet with departments separately to discuss how they iPad may enhance their “Workflow”. In anticipation of these meetings, Lucy has provided shared documents, so that everyone will be thinking about our conversations before she arrives. (Too often, I think, PD takes the form of an expert presenter attempting to “Wow” a passive audience). This portion of the professional development is a critical attempt to view her visit as an interactive process that will evolve through the end of this school year, into the next, and beyond. Her stay will conclude with an all-staff presentation on Google Apps, a critical component of our Mercy. 2.0. At this point, Lucy will be firing out lots of application features for teachers to explore this summer.
August 23 – iPad & the Curriculum Lucy will be joined by Cheryl Davis,the curriculum and instruction technology specialist for the Acalanes Union High School District. Based on the input our administrative team gives Cheryl, she will customize a presentation that focuses on how the iPad can increase our productively and be leveraged as a remarkable instructional tool. She and Lucy will help us develop a set of workshops for the day that they and some of our more proficient staff members will lead.
Cheryl Davis
Very exciting stuff. Of course this is just a beginning. But we want everyone to know that Mercy 2.0 is first and foremost about education and people, not machines and software.
The “Buy Back” Program for HP laptops
Apr 9th
After further research the tablet buy back option is not advantageous. We were disappointed in learning the amounts are not of significant value:
class of 2015 $200.00 HP EliteBook 2740p i5-12.1” 2.53ghz 4GB/160/wifi/ ac adapter 65W
class of 2014 $150.00 HP EliteBook 2740p i5-12.1” 2.4ghz 2GB/160/wifi/ ac adapter 65W
class of 2013 $50.00 HP Tablet PC 2730p C2D-12.1” 1.6ghz 2GB/80/wifi/ ac adapter 65W
Please be assured Mercy faculty, staff, and I.T will continue to support the HP/Windows tablet platform for the next three years.
Contact the Mercy I.T. Department at 248-893-3590 or tfjames@mhsmi.org by June 1 if you wish to trade in your HP. We will begin taking orders for Mercy iPads on May 14.
Unboxing the iPad!
Mar 31st
As we roll out Mercy 2.0 we are trying to communicate online with transparency. We also want to give members of our community face to face opportunities to learn about and explore our new 1:1 device– the iPad. We have scheduled some exciting events and activities
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| Flickr CC photo by ~Brenda Starr~ |
April 17 - Unboxing the iPad. Any staff members who want to become acquainted with their new iPad will have an opportunity to stay after school for an orientation by Dean Haratsaris from Macprofessionals of Novi .
April 23 & 24 – iPad and Google Apps professional development for Mercy Staff by Lucy Gray.
May 14 – An evening event at school which will allow current and new families to explore the iPad and place an order through our web site. Macprofessionals will also be exhibiting (and selling) optional accessories like keyboards.
Summer 2012 - The IT Team will be providing iPad orientations to students on designated pick-up dates.
