SISD January Board Report

Friday, January 7th, one of my mentors from over the years, Ryan Stanley, will be joining our staff through Zoom. During this 2-hour session, staff will be receiving a refresher course on all that Google offers.

The Alaska Society for Technology in Education has been a long-standing organization in Alaska supporting technology at all levels of education. This you for the professional development of our teachers SISD has been able to send staff that requested the training.

The Alaska Society for Technology in Education presents the 22nd Annual iDidaContest.

ASTE recognizes the best photos, movies, documentaries, podcasts, music, books, apps and things through its annual digital media contest. This year, ASTE is partnering with the Alaska Council for Social Studies to offer several Social Studies themed categories.

The Technology Committee will be meeting starting Jan 11 to help plan for the district's curricular needs in the future based on updated Computer Science Standards and Technology Use Standards.

This hybrid committee will also be working to plan the Technology Department's future operations plans. Creating a 5-year SISD District Technology Plan that will be driven by instructional and organizational needs.

SISD has presented for hire to the SISD School Board, Everett Cook for the position of Technology Assistant. This is a part-time position to assist in executing the district technology plan.

Provided Bio: Everette Cook

For those of you who don’t already know me, I have history in Thorne Bay since 1999

with the Y2K panic and the unpaved roads to Klawock. My parents both worked in

Thorne Bay as Teachers and my father was the Tech Director for quite a few years as

well. I have always loved learning new things to apply to my life. I found myself following

in my parents footsteps as I received my BA degree in 2011 for Elementary Teaching. I

had no luck getting a job Teaching where I wanted to live so instead I decided to apply

for Community Connections. I have enjoyed working for them for over 7 years now and

have seen a whole different perspective of the needs of children for growth and

learning. Besides my work with kids, I also have two of my own. My son Auron who is

10 and Meliah my daughter who is 12. Both of them attend Thorne Bay school and

seem to be enjoying this year. During the last few weeks, having the opportunity to work

with Matt who is so dedicated to sharing his knowledge has been really enjoyable and

insightful. Besides having diverse knowledge with significant depths in areas of

Technology, he see’s his job with the needs of the students in mind and if it’s not to bold

to say, your lucky to have him. Thank you!

ThrillShare, our website hosting platform provided by Apptegy has been great in helping onboarding staff with knowledge of how to use our website. Our representative Elvie has been training our new Activities Director and soon our new Technology employee.

This platform has had great success with parent notification. Staff is becoming well versed at sending these notifications out due to weather or other emergencies.

Currently, the staff is working on improvements based on feedback from increased use while using logs to help work out any remaining issues.

Future project will help this platform become more effective for staff notifications as well as Parent.

There are multiple generations of old equipment stored in the SISD Tech Office. With the help of new staff, we have begun sorting through the 30 years or more of outdated and defunct equiptment. This will help SISD Tech become more nimble and ready for future projects.

The Technology Department and the Activities Department have partnered for the second year to help Thorne Bay have a team. The team of 7 will be playing League of Legends for the Spring Season.

Worksession Presentation on CyberSecurity Board Training

AASB Proposed CyberSecurity AR and BR

Presentation packet to be added to the work session agenda.

Using the Emergency Connectivity Fund to provide service to Davidson landing for community safety, education, and general use. The Torne Bay Library filed for the grant while SISD will provide technical expertise to bring internet to Davidson Landing.

We presented to the December 7th Thorne Bay city council meeting the successful execution of this project.

With hundreds of power outages due to weather, the Tech Dept has been working hard with GCI to help keep connectivity up at sites. This is no easy task with our remote sites. A special thank you to site staff who also help keep the internet on by completing resets when on site.

All schools have connectivity as we begin school after the Christmas Break.

Data Unavailable for network connectivity due to Aerohive Access Points still being in service.

Due to a family emergency this project was put on hold.