Our Mission
To
provide services and leadership, in partnership with families, schools
and communities, that improve the learning outcomes and well-being of
all children and youth.
Our Goals
• Increase learning growth for students
• Decrease the gap in achievement
• Increase annual graduation rates
• Increase gateways to post-secondary success
The February 2016 issue of the Each and Every Child newsletter from the Iowa Department of Education is available. In this month’s issue, read about how two different schools are tackling the Iowa Core through a special education lens.
- If you haven’t yet done so, you can still complete your biometrics. See a Hy-Vee dietician at no cost or contact your doctor’s office. Then enter your numbers in the WebMD portal.
- Keep working on those challenges!
- Once you get to 500 points, you will receive a “Team Heartland AEA” wellness t-shirt.
- For more information, visit the Healthy Express Wellness site.
Each week during the Iowa legislative session, we will bring you an AEA Legislative Update from the AEA system’s lobbyists, Tom Lane, Matt Eide, John Pederson and Kate Walton.
Heartland AEA’s Parent & Educator Connection will hold its annual Diverse Learners Resource Fair for families, educators and others who support children with special needs in February. The Resource Fair is a free event that focuses on linking families of children and youth with special needs to valuable community and agency resources.
Feb. 20, 2016
Heartland AEA Johnston Regional Education Center
9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
A wide variety of community and agency providers will be on hand to provide information about the programs and services they have to offer. There will also be five breakout sessions:
• Managing Your Child's Challenging Behavior
• Section 504: Separating Fact from Fiction
• Seizure Recognition and First Aid
• Helping Youth Develop Work Skills
• Transition to Post Secondary Education
Beginning at 10:00 a.m., over 40 community and agency providers will be on hand to provide information about the programs and services they have to offer.
If you work with families who may benefit from this fair, please pass on the word!
The Internal Technology Department has noticed more and more agency computers with full hard drives. Why is this a concern? When a hard drive starts to fill up, any number of unfortunate things can happen--from running slow, to being unable to run system updates, to losing data due to a crash.
Many times it’s a surprise to people that their hard drives are filling up, in part because they don’t realize that some types of files (such as movies, photos, music, etc.) take up a lot of storage space compared to, say, a Word document. In some cases, much of the hard drive is taken up with personal files, particularly music, photos, and movies.
While our agency policies and procedures allow for limited personal use of agency computers, we need to make sure you have adequate room on your computer for your operating system, your applications (such as Firefox, Chrome, Office, Boardmaker, etc.) and your work files. There also needs to be “extra” space left over so that you can run updates to your software. With that in mind, we recommend no more than 50 GB of personal data be stored on your agency computer.
To help you from getting to the point where your computer is too full, Internal Technology staff will notify you when your hard drive has reached 80% or more of capacity. At that point, we recommend you reduce the amount of data on your drive. For example, you may choose to delete unneeded files, empty the Trash after you delete files and/or move files into Google Drive. While it’s acceptable to put some personal files in Google Drive, we would like to keep that limited as well since the Agency pays to back up our Google Drive files.
If you want to know how much space you are using and how much you have available on your hard drive, you can go to the Apple menu in the upper left hand corner, choose “About this Mac” then click on the “More Info” button, and you will see a screen similar to this:
Choose Storage, and you will get a screen like this, showing the space that is used and the space that is available on your hard drive.
These same general guidelines are true for agency iPads, as well. There will be additional guidelines and reminders about iPad storage in upcoming issues of The Connection.
It has come to our attention that many staff members are accidentally taking the wrong Digital Citizenship trainings. Please remember that our Heartland AEA staff Digital Citizenship Modules are titled:
• Heartland AEA Digital Citizenship: Digital Literacy Module
• Heartland AEA Digital Citizenship: Digital Netiquette and Digital Footprint Module
• Heartland AEA Digital Citizenship: Digital Security Module
and can only be accessed by reading and following the instructions below. If you are ever prompted to enter credit card information or asked if you want to take this course for credit, you are in the wrong place. All of our technology trainings are non-credit and free.
Q: How do I log in to the AEA PD Online Learning System?
A: First, you will need to have an AEA PD Online account. (If you have an account, but don’t remember your login information, contact Shelley Christensen for assistance. This is the same system that you’ve used to take Bloodborne Pathogens, Mandatory Reporter, etc.)
If you haven’t created an account, follow the steps below:
1. Begin on the AEA PD Online Learning System.
2. First time user??? Click on Register here.
3. Enter your first and last name.
4. Enter your email address.
5. Enter your BoEE folder number
If you don't know this number, you can look it up at the BoEE Website.
If you don't have one, indicate N/A.
6. Click Yes to indicate that you are an AEA or District Employee.
7. Locate Heartland AEA from the district list.
8. Enter the District Password - aea11
9. You may complete the other fields, but they are not required.
10. Click on Submit Registration Info.
11. The screen will not appear to change, but you will see a Continue button under the Submit button.
12. Click on Continue.
Q: Once I login, how will I know where to start?
A: Once logged in to the AEA PD Online Learning System, you will choose the catalog link in the upper left hand sidebar. Then, click on district modules, and all of Heartland AEA’s content for our capacity building training will be listed. Begin by clicking on the course you want to take. You will need to take the Heartland AEA Digital Literacy, Heartland AEA Digital Security and Heartland AEA Digital Netiquette and Digital Footprint modules. When you have completed each module, please print out your certificate of completion.
Q: Whom do I contact if I have questions about the learning system?
A: You can contact Lynn McCartney, Instructional Technology Consultant, or Mande Gamble, Technology Training Specialist, for help with Heartland AEA-specific technology trainings. Continue to contact Shelley Christensen for help with the Bloodborne Pathogens, Mandatory Reporting and other statewide trainings.
To print a certificate of completion:
1. Go to the training system homepage.
2. Log in using your email and password.
