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Excited for the Upcoming Aspen Institute - April 7th & 8th in Providence, RI

The Aspen Institute

It's the weekend before the Aspen Institute in Providence, Rhode Island, and I'm looking forward to one of the best SIS/IMS two day conventions around. Each year the conference grows, and participants travel from districts nearby and far away.  I'm excited about this year's theme, "Unlock the Super Hero Within".


It really is the perfect metaphor for everyone connected with implementing Aspen in their district. Our district chose Aspen a little more than 5 years ago, because of its out of the box power as well as its ability to be customized. My department consists of both curriculum and traditional IT staff. We are involved in professional development, curriculum development, educator evaluation, and traditional IT functions. I know the people in my department understand the incredible responsibility we have in protecting our students and the adults that serve them.  When I talk with my staff about protection they know that  I'm not talking about the traditional sense of protection like hardware and software security that folks in IT usually think about. They know it's our job to ensure that we are able to tell the whole story about a student or adult's growth in our district. Collecting the right data connected to students and staff is our responsibility. It's vital that we use that data to help tell our district's story in overall terms, and specifically down to the individual student or staff member. So naturally I think of the members of our team as super heroes, because they protect members of our school district. 

Learning Your Superpowers

The Aspen Institute allows all of us to gain more insight into the power of what Aspen can do, and how we can use it to help tell our district's story. There are so many courses offered over the two days that help us to get more sophisticated with how to make Aspen sing. Pick an area that you want to learn more about and dive into it head first. You can jump into a fundamentals refresher, learn more about importing data into Aspen, learn about analytics, standards based grade books, or jump into curriculum mapping in the IMS. Find something that you know you're interested in learning more about, and jump into the topic. Make sure you get the contact information of the person leading your session, and don't be afraid to pick their brain. You'll be one step closer in learning your own superpowers.

Find Other Superheroes

Not only are we able to find courses that meet our needs, but we're able to meet up with our colleagues and learn from them. The Aspen User Groups that are located around country are a great way to continue your learning, and to connect with others that are dedicated to creating a sophisticated user base. Don't forget to join Steve Murphy's Aspen listserv. You can join the listserv by following these directions:

To SUBSCRIBE to this list, send an email to STServ@StephenPMurphy.com with the text "subscribe X2Users" in the BODY of the message.

Brian Ciccolo's has also started an online site and wiki dedicated to improving each end user's understanding of Aspen called Aspen Inside Out. Brian writes on the site:

"Together we can create an incredible knowledge base that will enable every Aspen user to know the product “inside out.” Welcome aboard. Thanks for being a part of the team."

These people represent the incredible Aspen user community that is dedicated to pushing the limits of the application, and improving the product. Seek them out at the conference, and sit down for a chat. These are some of the "superheros" that I plan to connect with over the two days at the conference. Brian Mikolazyk, Karen Pereira, Lynn Rowan, Kate Mills. Jim Dillon, Katie Miller, Mike Chandler, Josh Murphy, Brian Ciccolo, Brian Converse, and Toni Mouat to name a few. They always push my understanding of the application, and make me think differently of a problem we're trying to solve in my own district. I can't wait for Tuesday, and I'll see you there!

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