October 8, 2014 at 1:30 PM - Technology Committee Meeting

Discussion:  Call to order at 1:30 pm. Staff: Dave Ludwig, Scott Isaacson, Rhonda Eis, Deb Hericks

Discussion:  Scott Isaacson gave an update. There will be a committee meeting in Lincoln next month. There are about 10 committee members. A decision will be made about how many systems the ESUCC will support. All systems are either moving to the cloud or they are already there. So, in the future, ESUCC will not be “hosting.” Schools will get a catalog of options, and they will have support for those that are listed within the catalog. The standard for any supported system will be “LMS Global” which allows the movement from one system to another.

Discussion:  Brian Gegg shared information about PowerSchool. The information will be “cloud based.” ESU 5 currently has numerous schools and they are looking Pierson charges $4 dollars per student and $8K to migrate. ESU 5 has created a sliding scale regarding cost based on number of students. The current servers can not address certain requirements such as NeSA. Updates to the system keep coming. For example, Powerschool 9 will require all new servers. The possibility of running the service through “Coop” on a per seat basis was discussed. Specifically, it was hoped that this would save some money (strengths in numbers). At this time, Powerschool can support Blackboard and Schoology. Conversations with Canvas will be had in the near future.

Discussion:  An LMS Survey has been created and distributed. The results from area schools is beneficial.

Discussion:  All ESUs tackle numerous areas of “support.” The past NOC meeting addressed a more “efficient” way of addressing areas of need. A “team” concept was addressed. The NOC forwarded a motion to start to coordinate a better system. This should move forward in conjunction with the Federated Identity Management system. Bob Uhing shared that resources have been an issue that have precluded forward motion regarding this issue. A motion was created to move this issue from the committee to the full ESUCC. It reads: “Recommend the ESUCC authorize staff time and resources to develop and produce a IdM project with a budget and defined project deliverable and ongoing contributions.”

Discussion:  Scott shared a collective vision for the system. ID Management is the umbrella. Issues such as “new employees” and automatic account creation was discussed. During PDO meetings, a “search” for other professionals was addressed. This would allow the sharing of information and tools. Scott also shared information about the ability to integrate with the Data Dashboard system. The current Data Dashboard pilot schools will have access in the next few weeks. This is the beginning of getting other “groups” on the system. Authenticating users will be on a district by district basis. So, if a school is using Google, the system will be set up to “authenticate” through the Google system.

Discussion:  Currently, there are nine (9) school districts participating. They will be able to see “live data” in the near future. Other districts have expressed interest. Dean Folkers is addressing a system to add other “early adopters.” Further implementation will be addressed in the future.There have been discussions about how this works with NSSRS, possibly alleviating some of the required reporting. Safari: EdCast is working. Large EdCasts can only be done around a thousand at a time. There will be a meeting on October 13th with Safari Montage to talk about contracts. With the state contract, there are certain features available. Some ESUs have purchased additional options. Scott shared that we should invite the Illini Group so they can give us an update regarding their project.

Discussion:  There is interest in learning more about other Safari Montage features and to obtain statewide pricing for those features that ESUs are interested in adding.