For The "Tech Team Coach", Louisiana High School Online Technology Challenge

For The "Tech Team Coach"

This competition requires a Tech Team Coach, an adult who works at a Louisiana high school as teacher, administrator, or staff member and has a school email account. Every high school in Louisiana is entitled to enter a single team composed of 5 to 15 students, under the guidance of a "Tech Team Coach" who is designated by the Principal. (If there are "co-coaches", please flip a coin to see who is the single "key contact person" for registration and for all email communication.)

As Tech Team Coach, submit the team registration well before the deadline.

You will enjoy organizing students who will work together on Internet Search questions and completing some challenging tasks during the morning of a school day on the scheduled date of the Technology Challenge. No travel is involved.
You will lead a team that represents your school in an annual state-wide online competition.
You will have the opportunity to win a team trophy and prizes.
Be a "shaker and mover" at your school and influence, by example, the way technology can be used to enhance learning.
Have a great time encouraging and rewarding student excellence.

As Tech Team Coach, What Do I Need To Do?
Expect to commit a total of about 10 hours of time. The time and effort is roughly equivalent to organizing a field trip; however, no travel is involved.

1. Contact the principal of your school in order to become the designated Team Coach.
2. Be aware of the deadlines.
3. Select a team list of up to 15 participating high school students.
4. Register your team electronically with the online registration form. Only you can do that.
5. Reserve a room with Internet-accessible computers for the entire morning of the Technology Challenge.
6. Arrange to have participating students excused from their classes during the competition, just like for a field trip. In this case, the field trip is "virtual".
7. Set up a scheduled block of an uninterrupted time period from 8 AM to 11:59 AM on the day of the Technology Challenge.
8. On the day of the Technology Challenge, students should work on their tasks without direct assistance.
9. You should only provide minimal, if any, technical support, You may assist in accessing files for the Technology Challenge during the first 10 minutes and submitting the files during the last 10 minutes.
10. There is a very stiff penalty for incomplete submission after 11:59 AM. For every minute late, one point will be deducted from the overall team score. Incomplete team submissions more than 30 minutes late, for any reason, are NOT judged.
11. While not required, we do recommend that your school pay for a noon "pizza party" following the Technology Challenge. We do recommend that you consider rewarding the students in this way. There is a sense of accomplishment in working together as a team. Nearly all participating schools, in fact, do this!
12. As Team Coach, you should assist only when technical problems arise. Otherwise, only participating students should touch the mouse or keyboard during the competition, not you, or anyone else!
13. Your school's computers should have Microsoft Office software or software that can read and write Word, Powerpoint, and Excel files. Your lab should have the capability to edit media files (image files, mp3 audio files, and mp4 video files). When your team creates files, the files should be in a "common format" so that the many judges who are judging entries online, on their own computers, will have no trouble opening the files.
14. As Team Coach, you are expected to spend a few minutes to fill out an online evaluation form on the day of the Technology Challenge event.
15. Every Team Coach receives confirmation of registration by email by the Monday before the event. That email message will include detailed instructions for accessing your team online "Moodle" account and visual directions. If you you don't receive that email, contact us by phone. In previous events, some high schools had aggressively filtered email; while those teams could send email to us, they couldn't receive email from us! If you do not receive an email message, as described in this schedule, please contact us.

What Do I Need To Know?
You are not required to have any special technical knowledge other than being able to communicate by email. You should check your email for confirmation of registration. Once your team is registered, you will get a detailed email message with visual instructions for accessing your team's password-protected online "Moodle" account. Please check your email regularly.

As Tech Team Coach, you should be the only person from your team to contact us.

Your main responsibility is forming a team; collectively, the team members should have enough technical knowledge to complete challenging tasks on their own. No one student has to know everything. In fact, it's a very good idea that students divide tasks during the first 15 minutes of the competition... on their own.

After your team is registered, you will receive complete directions by email for accessing a password-protected online site that will be used to exchange files electronically for the competition. You may provide the login and password information to one of the student team members so that he/she can access and upload files for the Technology Challenge.

Please allow the students to work on their own. They may use any references they like that they can access on their own, without adult assistance. In fact, no adults should help or assist students to prepare answers or complete tasks. Adults may only provide minimal technical support assistance.

What Are The Rules?

Only registered high school students can participate. Please note the deadline for registration.
While you, as the Team Coach may interact verbally with the team, you should not touch or use a keyboard or mouse during the actual competition. You should NOT assist students as they work on the Challenge.
This is a team effort with a deadline. For every minute late in electronic submission, for any reason, 1 point is deducted from a possible score of 100 points. Keep this in mind and encourage students to budget their time accordingly. The final deadline for all submissions is 11:59 AM on the day of the Technology Challenge; team submissions that are late by more than 30 minutes will NOT be judged.
As in the real world, technical problems may occur, for any reason. It can happen. It does happen. It may happen. For extraordinary circumstances regarding any issue or problem during the competition, the volunteer organizers reserve the right to make a final decision regarding any matter or issue. This is explained clearly on the application form when you register the team.
Only the Team Coach should communicate on behalf of the team, using email, whenever possible, for communication.

Is The Technology Challenge For Me?
As you consider being a Team Coach, please ask yourself these questions:

Do you believe that we need to encourage opportunities for using technology in our classrooms for instruction?
Is teamwork the type of skill we should actively encourage in high school?
Would you like to see students get interested in technology-enhanced instruction and projects?
Do you wish students had the same enthusiasm for learning as they have for sports?
Should we actively acknowledge the skills of outstanding students?

If you answered yes to most (or all!) of the questions, you should consider participating in this year's Technology Challenge as a designated Team Coach, designated by the principal of your high school. We invite you to encourage student learning with technology by recruiting a Technology Challenge team in your high school. The mission of this challenge is to provide enthusiastic support for more active involvement of students in using technology in active learning opportunities. We want to improve the quality of high school education in Louisiana with this mission:

To create a passion for learning through teamwork.
To improve the quality of education through the active acknowledgment of excellence in students and the distribution of their work to the general public.
To celebrate and recognize outstanding student achievement with school trophies and, hopefully in the future, scholarships.
To promote partnerships for supporting learning with technology.
To promote higher levels of achievement through recognized excellence.
To attract more students, particularly females and minorities, to professional and technical careers dealing with technology.