Technology Update

New Professional Development Public Calendar
A new “Professional Development” calendar has been added to the Public folders in Kerio. This provides a quick and easy method of seeing what Professional Development Catalog classes are taking place on a given day. The calendar event also includes the location, name of the instructor and activity number.

The activity numbers for Lunch & Learn and Cultural Competence sessions have also been added to the Internal Public calendar. This provides easy access to the information necessary to register for these activities. Since internal activities are not available for people other than our staff, these events are not published in the online Professional Development Catalog.

Wireless Network Update
You may have already noticed that there are two additional wireless networks that appear in the wireless network list when you are in the 6500 and 6445 buildings in Johnston. These two networks were created to accommodate the increasing number of wireless access computers in the Johnston offices.

Staff and guest users should consider the following wireless options when connecting to the network:
You should connect to the “haeanet-a” if it is displaying in your wireless network list instead of the “HAEAnet.” The “haeanet-a” has better performance than the “HAEAnet,” but only computers equipped with the right wireless card can access the “haeanet-a” network. The password is the same for both the “HAEAnet” and “haeanet-a” wireless network.

If you are conducting workshops or large group meetings and using wireless connections in the ICN classroom, conference rooms 3 and 4, meeting room 14, 6445 Board or Cabinet meeting rooms, please ask your guests to connect to the “haeanet-public” wireless network using the password “education0309” (no quotation marks).

We are in the process of evaluating different wireless solutions to keep up with the changes in the ways we are connecting to the network in the Johnston and branch offices. We have more guests visiting our facilities than ever before, and they all prefer wireless network access. To make wireless access easier for our staff and clients, we have decided to only change the wireless password twice a year instead of quarterly. As always, please contact one of the Technology Support staff if you have any questions or problems connecting to our networks.

Online Technology Assessment Pilot
One of the objectives of the North Star Technology Infrastructure plan is to have a comprehensive technology staff development system in place. The technology competencies committee is working on a plan to identify, assess and provide differentiated training on the technology competencies appropriate for all staff and for each Heartland work group. Several work groups recently participated in a pilot of a free online technology assessment to help determine if this might be a method of determining staff skills and areas for growth. Participants included representation from management, secretaries, program assistants, special education clerks, professional learning and leadership staff, technology support and others. The Technology Team would like to say “thanks” to everyone who took the time to participate.

Over 100 staff members participated in the pilot. Each participant was given an anonymous username and password and the participant’s workgroup was the only identifiable information collected. The online assessment took about 30 minutes per person and each participant had the same set of 60 questions. A score of 80% or better was considered “passing.” Approximately 44% of the participants “passed” the assessment. After reviewing the results and discussing the instrument, the committee decided that there were at least two questions that had more than one correct answer and that the test items did not correlate closely enough with the basic technology competencies that had been identified as important for all Heartland staff.

Where do we go from here? We need a better way to assess the technology competency skills of staff, and we need to tailor the test items to our required competencies. The Technology Competencies committee has identified skills required of an incoming employee at Heartland. They have also identified basic technology competencies that all Heartland employees should have. The committee is working with individual workgroups to determine additional technology competencies needed by that workgroup. For example, a secretary will have much different technology skill needs than a school social worker. Next steps include developing our own assessment instrument and training methods.

Heartland staff members currently have access to a couple of training tools that can be used to improve technology competencies on their own. Through the Iowa Educators Consortium (IEC), all Iowa K-12 educators and students have access to the Atomic Learning database. Atomic Learning (http://www.atomiclearning.com) breaks down your favorite software programs into fast-loading tutorials played right over the Internet. This training database fills a real need for skills-based training. There are hundreds of programs available, including Macintosh computer basics, Microsoft Office Suite, Creative Suite 4 and nearly everything used at Heartland. You may want to consider incorporating the learning into your professional growth plan. Special accounts can also be set up which will allow you to track your use.

Another training tool, lynda.com, is available with special pricing negotiated by the IEC. Go to http://www.lynda.com. In the middle of the right side of the page is a button that says ‘try now.’ This gives you a 24-hour pass to try out this Web site. This resource is more in-depth and addresses more technical applications than Atomic Learning and is a great online resource for professional development needs. From Microsoft Office to Adobe Photoshop titles, to Web site development and creative inspiration, lynda.com has more than 37,000 easy-to-use video tutorials in over 550 courses.

Feel free to try both of these learning tools and send your feedback and suggestions for the technology competencies committee to techsurvey@aea11.k12.ia.us. We need your input and ideas as we decide what learning opportunities to invest more resources in.