2008 Conference - IT Happens at ACPE
Wednesday Seminars and Session Descriptions
Wednesday, 4:00 p.m. - 4:55 p.m.
Adobe: Communicate and Collaborate Effectively
with Adobe Solutions
Discuss ways that Acrobat Connect Professional and other Adobe eLearning tools empower educators to deliver rich web experiences, professional development and live online collaboration. See how Adobe solutions can enhance communication and training throughout schools, districts and extended education communities. See how to create and deploy blended eLearning curriculum for real-time and self-paced training, ways to author and distribute professional web presentations and audio conferencing capabilities using VoIP.
INX: Unified Communications:
Using technology to solve school safety issues
Forest Grove School District will describe and present how they implemented a solution that leverages their communications architecture to provide a safer environment for their students and staff.
Right! Systems: Today's Wireless LAN Solutions
WiFi RFID Location capabilities, how to effectively and easily secure wireless clients and guests, WLAN design considerations, centralized management of WLAN, IEEE 802.11n update, planning for growth, mobility services for voice, video and multimedia.
Wednesday, 5:00 p.m. - 5:55 p.m.
Ciphaus: Intelligent maintenance, filtering, and sharing of information in a school district: Real Life solutions of how to present and work with complex scheduling and document libraries.
Evergreen Public Schools tackled three problems with respect to sharing, filtering and maintaining the integrity of information in the school district: 1. Delivering information to the user that is easier to find. 2. Managing the information without duplication of work and resources. 3. Maintaining the integrity of the information that is delivered. See how they were able to accomplish these tasks for maintaining the expanding number calendars, as well as updating a large document library.
SynreVoice: Unlocking the Hidden Potential Behind Your Calling System!!
Traditional flat messaging, attendance calling, fines, overdue books, emergency broadcast messages are all good things, but what else can your calling system do for you? Utilizing the hidden or unused features of your dialer can save you time, money, and pain. Vancouver and North Shore school districts in conjunction with SynreVoice technologies will present some of these unique, hidden, and underused technologies of their calling system.
Verizon Wireless: Mobile E-mail Solutions
Learn about Blackberry mobile e-mail solutions on the Verizon Wireless Network and the ability to wirelessly synchronize district e-mail, calendar, contacts and phone for administrators and district officials. Get ROI calculations for IT departments and how to present it to gain budget approval. North Clackamas SD will present on e-mail, calendar, contacts and phone integration into an all-in-one solution. Focus on the Blackberry as a platform to run third party applications, e.g., WIC for Education from Wallace Wireless.
VersiFit: A K12 District Data Warehouse 1 Year Later. From Both a Districts Point of View and a Vendors Point of View
Viewpoints from a district and the vendor on a K12 Data Warehouse Implementation one year later. With the influence of NCLB, The Oregon "KIDS" project and more importantly the pressure for school districts to improve overall student performance, see how the Hillsboro SD has implemented a K12 Data Warehouse solution to address the need for consolidated data and reporting to address these important needs. Discussion will include: 1. What we know now that we would have liked to have known going in. 2. Pitfalls and Pratfalls. 3. Political vs. Technical issues 4. Ultimate successes 5. What VersiFit holds for the future.
Thursday, 11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Keynote Follow-up: The Ins and Outs of Vista
Vista has been around for awhile, but many are still waiting on the sidelines to see how it works in real life. Come and hear from David Pogue, author of The Vista Missing Manual, about the hits, the misses and the "what-were-they-thinkings."
Data Analysis
Now that most of us are working with data warehouses, who is using all that information and what does it mean? Steve Carlson, Jim Harrington and Blair Loudat will share ideas for working with your school administrators and teachers to make good use of the information for data driven decision making.
Computer Forensics
How do you deal with reviewing the contents of a computer for a suspected employee? During this session, the discussion will include strategies for conducting investigations, tools that can help you insure that your findings can be defended in court, and some ideas about policies that will help your organization manage computer abuse issues.
Instructional Program Influences on Technology
K-12 IT organizations must adapt to changing needs in education. Currently, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is a focus for our districts, as the emphasis on these areas is increased in federal, state and district initiatives. Come listen to ways that these initiatives are impacting the need for IT services.
Directory Services: A practical discussion about directory design and management
Active Directory, Open Directory, eDirectory...the design and management issues are the same. Organizations use directory services to authenticate users, provision services and manage resources. Come and hear about directory services strategies meeting the need for flexible and functional architectures.
Thursday, 3:15 - 4:45 p.m.
Featured Speaker Follow-up: Chris Lehmann
Description TBA
Building Resiliency into Critical Systems
Has your organization been hit by the "Google" syndrome where users want all resources dynamically available, all the time? Clustering? Virtualization? What options exist for different systems and requirements? This discussion will focus on scalable strategies for identifying, designing, deploying and managing resilient systems.
Web Design and Management
A panel will present strategies that can be used to create and maintain a district website. The discussion will guide participants through web design, content refreshment and daily management. The districts presenting represent different product development approaches including purchased, as well as, in-house development. Audience participation is expected to enhance this session.
Sharing Open Source Utilities
This is an opportunity to pick up some great open source utilities from your colleagues. This session is a result of several requests from last year's conference evaluation to share good utilities. Come prepared to learn some new tricks and helpful hints.
Friday, 11:00 - 12:15 p.m.
Keynote Follow-up: John Kuglin - The Expanded Web 2.0 World: The Digital Toolkit for the 21st Century
To be effective today, teachers must utilize tools that stimulate, motivate, and challenge students. Enter Web 2.0 and other advanced technologies - the language of today's students. Participants will learn about new tools that have been classified as next generation web services. Learn how students have moved from traditional consumers of information to innovative producers of knowledge. See first hand how this transformation has taken place and what it means to teachers today. Students today are the generation destined to compete in a completely global work environment. Learn how to provide them with the knowledge, tools and skills to compete in a world where Web 2.0 technologies eliminate the traditional boundaries of time and distance - A 21st century world.
Scripting Success Stories
Information from those in the know! This session will provide specific product/process input from ACPE membership regarding the tools utilized for scripting. What they are, why they are utilized; good stories with positive endings!
Converged Networks
What happens when you add more and more applications to your network? You started with data...added VOIP...streaming video...video surveillance. What's next? What tools can you use to keep all of the packets from colliding?
Virtualization
The technology to allow efficient virtualization of operating systems and applications has matured over the past years, becoming simpler to deploy and more efficient of system resources. Virtualization is now at the point that it holds tremendous promise for server consolidation, support for multiple OSs and new opportunities to deploy a wide range of tools and instructional programs for classrooms. This session will feature NW districts now using virtualization for a variety of purposes. Presenters will share costs, strategies and success stories.
Data Analysis
See description under Thursday, 11:15 am.
Friday, 1:15 - 2:30 p.m.
Web 2.0 and Beyond
Web 2.0 has produced a powerful browser based digital tool set that closely align with our academic learning and technology literacy requirements for students. Join the conversation among IT professional that would like to learn how these tools work and ways to deliver their potential to the classroom.
Email Archiving
Meeting the requirements for the archiving and managing of email and other digital information involves an integration of policy, cultural and technical change. This session brings together policy experts and IT staff from Oregon and Washington to discuss the topic from policy through implementation.
Critical Partnerships for the 21st Century Classroom
What does and will the 21st Century Classroom look like? How can IT staff support this learning environment? In order to build the ideal learning environment, a close partnership involving technical staff, instructional staff, and a resource vendor is critical. This session will explore planning, communication, expectations, and agreements for the successful implementation of the 21st Century Classroom. Please join us as we share a vision of building the 21st Century Classroom and turning the dream into a reality.
Inclusive Network Management
Do you know what's going on with your network? Will your network notify you of a problem before your users experience an outage? This session will feature how NW districts are using proactive network management techniques to maintain services.
Storage Solutions
20 MB of storage once seemed to be enough storage for an entire lifetime. Districts had massive storage capability exceeding a gigabyte. A few picture files can now break those barriers. Applications are now marketed in light of their ability to integrate and store text, video and audio. Video production, personal movie-making and streaming video feeds captured to local storage are all new and growing thrusts in classroom instruction. Fortunately, new storage solutions are available and falling cost. A variety of new solutions and different deployments that can work in Districts of different sizes will be discussed.