2007 Conference - Mix It Up @ The Mountain
Session Descriptions
Thursday, 11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Supporting Student Devices
Increasingly, students are bringing web-enabled cell phones, game computers and PDAs to school. The lack of quality instructional tools and concerns about how to support these devices, along with differing opinions of school boards, has limited their broad deployment as learning tools. This will be a facilitated session to discuss experiences and opinions of attendees.
Understanding Electronic Document Retention
There is renewed interest in electronic document archival and retention. Most districts have document retention policies in place. New guidance has been provided by the Washington Attorney General's Office on key issues of including electronic documents in these policies.
Good to Great and the Public Sector
It can be difficult to translate Jim Collins' leadership recommendations from Good to Great to a public education setting. He recently published a monograph that applies those principles within the public sector. The session will draw upon this new information to extend the principles of Good to Great to technology leadership within the enterprise of public education.
Data Center Security
Discuss how districts are meeting the facilities challenges as the demand for technology and data increases. How do you maintain the IT Infrastructure to handle the demands on power, air conditioning, server rack space and network storage? A panel will share examples of solutions, planning, costs, and return on the investment.
Keynote Followup: Guidelines for Increasing Resiliency in Yourself and Your Work Teams
The pressure is on to get more work done, of higher quality, in less time, with fewer people, less budget, while managing constant, disruptive change. In this session Dr. Al Siebert will provide practical guidelines drawn from the emerging field of resiliency psychology.
Thursday, 1:30 - 2:45 p.m.
Barbarians at the Gate! - Opening the Network
The onslaught of alternative computing devices has made firewalls a less reliable security strategy. A panel of technical staff from higher education will discuss how they are hardening enterprise systems and implementing strategies for the physical separation of computing resources and users.
Digital Records Management
Can digital records be used to meet record archival standards? This session features a panel of districts doing just that--and will explore the state digital archival rules for Oregon and Washington. How do you record it, store it, and secure it? Come find out!
Supporting Leaders in the Use of Technology
Technology offers great opportunities to enhance productivity, to aid communication and to accomplish complex tasks. Unfortunately, many K-12 leaders are unaware of the possibilities and are intimidated by the technologies themselves. Learn effective strategies for bridging the gap between possibility and reality and discuss funding strategies, communication and ways to present evidence to make the case for technical solutions to practical problems.
Data Warehousing
In this interactive session you will have an opportunity to see projects and hear first-hand the experiences of districts rolling out data warehouse projects. Discuss how to involve key stakeholders, manage expectations and mitigate risks to build a flexible system providing information to the enterprise.
Workstation Auditing and Security
This session will cover what is 'out there' for controlling program execution. Are you ready to release admin controls back to the user? Also data gathering--application compliance, installed apps, patches, etc. Do it with free stuff? Do it better with not so free stuff? Attend this session to get information about how and what data you can gather and other aspects of the different approaches.
Thursday, 3:00 - 4:30p.m.
Business Continuity
Any organization can experience an unplanned event that disrupts its functioning. Business continuity plans take much time to develop and often are never fully implemented. This session examines this topic from the "80/20" rule perspective--what are the 20% of the tasks you need to do to keep your district running after a disaster?
Technology Solutions That Work
The Metiri Group (www.metiri.com) has created databases on early literacy and middle school/high school mathematics that provide an in-depth, unbiased analysis of research on technology solutions and software designed for K-12 schools. Learn how this works and how to share this research with administrators, teachers and curriculum coordinators.
Web Design: AJAX & Ruby on Rails
The web development tool set is always growing--two of the most popular recent additions are AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Ruby on Rails. See how districts across the region are using these technologies in practical web-facing applications.
OS Shootout: Linux vs. Leopard vs. Vista
Let the religious wars begin! With recent major releases of all three platforms, we'll explore the management, maintenance, and security implications of each. Come see devotees of each OS sitting together on one panel -- and maybe even some low blows along the way...
Friday, 10:45 - 12:00 p.m.
Technology to Support School Safety & Security
In response to growing concerns about security in schools, technology departments are helping with the identification and deployment of technology based security systems. Providers of security systems continue to move toward network based security systems. At this panel discussion you will have the opportunity to learn about the types of solutions being used and how they are impacting infrastructure design and planning.
Integrating Open and Active Directory
Open Directory and Active Directory, sometimes seen as competing technologies, often have to work together in a single environment. At this session, hear from districts who have made the integration work, and the challenges they faced along the way!
NCLB Data Requirements
Learn about the process for identifying new data elements to be collected under NCLB. Discuss possible new elements to be included in state reporting in the next few years. Dennis Small of the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Washington and Doug Kosty of the Oregon Department of Education will join Pat Sherrill of the US Office of the Chief Information Officer in this discussion.
Moving an Organization to Open Source
Integration of diverse data systems is a complex problem facing all educational institutions. In this session, some readily available open source tools will be demonstrated as effective solutions at many different levels for common integration problems such as single sign on, user management and web based reporting from data warehouses.
Keynote Speaker Follow-up: One to One Computing
Join in this follow-up session to the thought-provoking keynote presentation. Presenter: Bette Manchester, PhD.
Friday, 1:15 - 2:30 p.m.
Online Help and Web Shadowing
This session will cover the issues related to and the creation of an online video help and implementation of effective web shadowing. Included will be an overview of the available tools with a focus on the best ROI. Learn how to plan and develop a comprehensive online support strategy that has the potential to deliver both technical support and professional development at a lower overall cost.
NCLB Requirement (Tech Integration - Literacy)
NCLB legislation requires all 8th grade students to be proficient in the use of technology as defined by their state. Hear representatives from OSPI and ODE discuss the approaches developed through statewide consultations.
Internet Security
Explore the changing landscape of Internet security and learn what other districts are doing to protect users, systems and information. Discuss a holistic approach to security including user education and systems deployment to protect the enterprise.
Leadership Round Table Sessions
Our popular round table sessions will feature leadership topics of interest to IT managers and give you the opportunity to talk to your peers about common issues. Please make suggestions for topics you would like to discuss when you register online.