I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in the startup of two services; Video and K-20 Interoperable Data Solution (KIDS). In both instances, our pilot phase involved a learning process that was made more successful by the involvement from our members and their willingness to invest time to help us improve the service. When we say we are your technology partner, it shines the brightest in pilot programs such as these, because we truly are learning together and improving the consortium together.
From bridging Higher Ed, K12 and dual credit daily classes to bridging virtual field trips such as the reenactment of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Glasgow Bridge project to live streaming Robotics and special events, it has been a continual learning process.
When I was in school, we had “Al Bell” visit every year and he’d tell us about the latest country he visited. He was a pioneer in taping and splicing film and re-enacting experiences for school assemblies and was highly sought after to visit schools in Iowa. He’d bring costumes, animals and artifacts from the countries he visited and intertwine them with his films. This left a lasting impression on me and many students in Iowa so during the time we hosted virtual field trips and educational live streaming events, I was very excited to be a part of it.
Being involved in the KIDS project has opened my eyes to the data and reporting work load on the school districts. Managing the student information system and the different software programs to combine and report on data is a huge time requirement.
The KIDS service benefits schools of all sizes. The number of technical staff are proportional to their size and from what I’ve experienced, they all have a full plate. Some examples of the KIDS service streamlining data integration are: automatically moving students to the next year in Active Directory instead of the schools manually moving them every year (a very time consuming process), automatically populating the username and other pertinent data from the student information system to library, reading and assessment, lunch, and many other software programs the schools use. This eliminates the delay to use the programs due to manually entering student credentials for each program. The KIDS service enables school districts to leverage their staff to focus on other projects instead of the “busy work” of data integration.
As I have two children, one in high school and one in college, I’ve seen them experience asynchronous dual credit classes, synchronous dual credit classes, using different LMSs, sending the appropriate records to colleges and scholarship committees and the communication required to accomplish this. I am dedicated to the Video and KIDS services to continually look for solutions for our members.
I am proud to work at MOREnet and am thankful for our member base, the support they provide, and their willingness to assist us in pilot projects. The staff at MOREnet are dedicated to improving technology for all members and I couldn’t ask for a better work environment!
Connie started at MOREnet in Technical Support in 1997 and moved to the Video Group in 1998. In 2018, she began supporting the KIDS data integration project. She can be reached at coy@more.net