ATLIS Summit Holds Space for Important DEI Conversations

On December 8, 2021, ATLIS hosted a summit titled “DEI -- Understanding the Conversations”. The summit format followed a conversation, guided by panelists, surrounding the essential question “what do tech teams and their leaders need to understand about; DEI conversations in classrooms, DEI conversations at a systems or administrative level, DEI conversations from a cultural/historical perspective?”

Panelists included Dr. Jeffrey Morrison, Trinity School (Atlanta), GA, Dr. Beth Holland, The Learning Accelerator, Colin Samuel, Brearley School, NY, and Frances Cortez O'Connor, National Cathedral School, DC. Each panelist brought specific questions to the table from their own unique perspectives. 

ATLIS Virtual Town Hall, October 20, 2021

The Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools (ATLIS) hosted its monthly Virtual Town Hall on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 3:00 pm Eastern. The focus was a conversation for Google users during which attendees brought to the table their questions about Google functionalities for their school, answered questions about recent updates, and shared resources together to improve user experience. 

Our latest Virtual Town Hall introduced our audience to Will Richardson, keynote speaker for ATLIS 2021: Undaunted, and launched a discussion of the major shifts in our schools over the course of the past year.  Next we wondered what you think will stick after the pandemic has passed. We then ask what is the best vision of schools we can imagine for the future and how technology can undergird the vision we share. - SD [10-minute read; 1-hour video]

• May 19, 1 pm Eastern: Save the date for our next Virtual Town Hall. Registration is required for new Virtual Town Hall participants and is free and open to all. If you have previously registered, you will automatically receive an invitation to join. 
• Complete Virtual Town Hall Video Archive (Wakelet)

At a recent Virtual Town Hall, Damien Barrett, Systems Administrator and Ed Tech Integrator at Montclair Kimberley Academy in New Jersey, shared his philosophy for working with stressed colleagues and students as we all get through the challenges of this pandemic year. He shares more insights on this topic in this guest blog post. -- SD [10 minute read]

Guest Blogger: Damien Barrett 

When either my wife Alise or I have an obviously bad day, we have agreed to ask each other one simple, but powerful question: Are you seeking sympathy or solutions? 

This last Virtual Town Hall of 2020 provides numerous resources shared by our participants. Our conversation focused on assessments, content areas that may have been lost in the transition to online and hybrid learning (along with ways to recapture them), and a general accounting of the participants' well-being after this very challenging year. -- SD [10-minute read; 1-hour video]

Photo Credit: Ronjamin (Ronald C. Yochum Jr.), CC BY 2.5 

Our September Virtual Town Hall gave a glimpse into the realities of what school reopening has looked like for technology leaders across the country. We asked participants to share what school looks like for them -- whether it is fully online, hybrid/hi-flex, or face-to-face. Much of our conversation focused on providing the right kind of devices to teachers who are delivering content to both in-person and online learners. We ended with a number of nagging questions that still keep tech leaders up at night and some practical advice about how to deal with help desk overload fueled by pandemic anxieties and the new technologies schools are adding into the mix. -- SD [10-minute read; 1-hour video] 

Four schools from the ATLIS community have joined together to create a resource dedicated to using the Meeting Owl in a hybrid learning environment. The collaborating schools include Hathaway Brown School, OH; Montclair Kimberley Academy, NJ; Gilman School, MD; and Ravenscroft School, NC. The collaborating schools expect to grow these resources in the future. All of the resources can be used via a Creative Commons license. -- SD [5-minute read]

Our ATLIS Reads book series launches with this free webinar featuring Dr. Jennifer Williams sharing how her book Teach Boldly: Using Edtech for Social Good addresses "purposeful pedagogies for action" that provide a plan for teaching in in-person, fully online, or hybrid learning landscapes. In this post, Dr. Williams provides an overview to her book and a list of discussion questions to guide our conversation. -- SD [10-minute read]

Reposted from her LinkedIn post of 4 July 2020, Jennifer Carey's thought leadership assesses the value of "free" tools offered to technology leaders during the coronavirus pandemic. Carey, Director of Technology & Innovation at Temple Beth Am Day School in Miami, FL, and member of the ATLIS Board, provides guidance for a community that has been deluged with complications from the numerous offerings of online tools made to teachers and schools. [10-minute read] -- SD

Each week technology leaders from around the globe gather to discuss issues and concerns related to the challenges of the day. In this edition, we discussed ways schools are supporting parents who are working from home and helping their children attend school virtually. We also discussed how tech teams need the support of their leadership and schools to maintain self-care during this crisis. Other issues, such as repair and breakage policies, filled out the hour's discussion. -- SD

[10-minute read; 1-hour video]

ATLIS partnered with ISTE's IISN to launch a live chat of technology leaders from around the world to tell their stories and discuss strategies for school continuity in response to COVID-19. Among the many lessons learned was the need to create spaces for this group of forward-thinking technology educators, which is isolated from peers and colleagues even under "normal" circumstances, to create a space for connecting over the course of the coming weeks. To that end, ATLIS has created a weekly Virtual Town Hall tor the community to come together until further notice. Below we share the video from our first gathering, questions raised, and resources shared. -- SD

How would you design the future for independent schools?

[10-minute read]

We are thrilled to have Vidigami's support as a Platinum Sponsor of our Annual Conference in Crystal City, Virginia, April 15-18. We are reposting this March 5, 218 blog from the Vidigami website as an introduction to the workshops Vidigami will host at the conference (plus contests!) and to the photo portal they will provide to the ATLIS community for the coming year, starting at the conference. We look forward to sharing photos with you about the learning that is happening at your schools and in your own professional lives. -- SD

[10-minute read]

Dawn Jenkins Klus, Director of Accreditation for the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS), came to her position after a long career as technology director and senior administrator at a Midwest independent school.  Here Dawn shares her insights into the self-study guidelines she and her cohorts on the Technology and Accreditation Task Force for ATLIS produced last year. Whether you are taking part in a self-study for accreditation soon or reviewing your technology goals for next year, you should find this tool and Dawn’s insights helpful to your process. -- SD

(10-minute read)

In a post-Thanksgiving webinar, as part of our "How To" series, Sarah Hanawald interviewed Beth Holland on the topic of evaluating research. Beth is a doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and a well-known member of the independent school technology community,  During the interview, Sarah and Beth discussed the critical role that educators play in actively reading, interpreting, and analyzing research. They covered a host of disparate ideas, from determining the credibility of the source to questioning whether the results of a study can be generalized to other contexts and settings. On her "EdTech Researcher" blog at Education Week, Beth has written several posts about reading and interpreting research that may be helpful. Links to these posts are shared below the video.  -- SH

(5-Minute Read)

In September, Susan M. Bearden joined ATLIS for a webinar on Building Technology Infrastructure for Learning, the product of her year-long residency at the Department of Education. Now a private-sector educational consultant in Washington, DC, Bearden shared with ATLIS her goals for the project, the importance of envisioning the learning first, the significance of cybersecurity for education, ruminations on how public and independent schools can learn from one another, and a look forward to what the future holds for technology and education. We are happy to share Bearden's interview, also available in video format elsewhere on this website, in the blog post that follows. -- SD

ATLIS Leadership Webinar
Susan M. Bearden on Building Technology Infrastructure for Learning
Wednesday, September 13, 2017

(20-minute read)

This month, as part of our year-long program for aspiring technology leaders, ECATD, ATLIS convened on September 11, 2017, a panel of academic leaders to discuss the relationships between the academic programs in independent schools and technology. Sarah Hanawald, ATLIS Executive Director, interviewed Jim Foley (Assistant Head of School for Leadership and Innovation, St. Luke's School, CT), Marsha Little (Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs, The Lovett School, GA) and Derrick Willard (Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs, Providence Day School, NC).  An excerpt from that interview follows. -- SD

(5-minute read)

Lots of people have trouble turning their grand ideas or best practices into a presentation, even if they know their content backwards, forwards, and sideways. They freeze up despite the huge need the audience may have for what the proposal writer hopes to share. You may feel daunted by the writing, or you may not feel that you have put all the pieces of your idea together yet. This post can help you get started with the proposal writing process for ATLIS 2018. Remember, the proposals are due on September 30! -- Susan Davis, Professional Development, ATLIS

You can find a video of the webinar I made on proposal writing here. See a preview of what's on the submission form here.

July was jam-packed with learning opportunities through our ATLIS webinar series. We featured Amanda Cadran of Learn on how to make the most of the data you can collect about how your users are employing online tools; maker inspiration from Sean Justice of Texas State University; our regular G Suite User Group meet-up, which focused on starting the new school year; and ATLIS co-founder turned entrepreneur Stuart Posin on how our phones collect and share data completely unbeknownst to us while we are sleeping or walking or ... you get the picture. This post provides a summary of each of these webinars, along with links to videos and resources when available.

Amanda Cadran on “Optimizing Your Edtech Tools”
(July 26, 2018)

As we studied the responses of this year’s attendees to our annual conference held last month in Los Angeles, we were pleased to find that the data reinforced the positive zeitgeist we had detected from personal interactions with attendees. We saw that you valued the inspiration of both keynotes and that you sought information and new connections to stretch your thinking. You found your investment of time and money yielded important interaction with trusted mentors and colleagues. This was the magic of the 2017 ATLIS annual conference: a community abuzz with the opportunity to learn together.