American Education Week is a great opportunity to remember and celebrate the partnership between Iowa's Area Education Agencies and educators, students and families. A new video captures those partnerships and tells the story of how AEA services made a difference in their lives. Take a just a few minutes and view the video at http://iowapartnersineducation.org.
If an AEA has touched your life like the ones seen in the video, please share your story at http://aeas4iowa.wordpress.com/tell-us-your-story/.
Be sure to also view the new and improved website at www.iowaaea.org. Visitors will find a clean look and feel, improved navigation and easier entry points to valuable resources.Share these sites with others! When you do, you ensure that Iowa’s AEAs will be there to provide support and leadership for years to come.
Go to http://aeas4iowa.wordpress.com/ to read the latest edition of "Impacting Lives." The blog newsletter is a statewide effort to communicate AEA success stories and services across the state. The newsletter is sent to all school administrators, legislators (in-session) and AEA staff in Iowa. The issue includes:
We wanted to remind you that all Heartland AEA offices will be closed November 24 and 25. There will be no van delivery November 23-25.
The Colfax-Mingo district recently earned a Breaking Barriers award for raising their math proficiency among low-income students in eighth grade by 20 percent or more. Read more on the Iowa Department of Education’s website at http://educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2548%3A2011-breaking-barriers-awards&catid=666%3Ahighlights.
Videos from our Fall Autism Conference are now available on our Eduvision site. Do a word search for "Autism Conference" to find all nine videos. Click here to access handouts and other resources presented at the conference on September 9.
Districts are encouraged to send representatives to an I-ELDA training in December. The target groups for this training will include those who have not given the test before and those who need a refresher in the administration of this test. The primary focus of this training will be on building reliability on the speaking and writing tests.
Date/Time: December 2, 2011 from 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Location: 1917 Dean Ave., Des Moines, IA 50316 Training
Lead by: Lynn Tiemann and Amy White
For more information, contact John Scott, Iowa Department of Education, at john.scott@iowa.gov or (515) 281-3805.
Click here to register.
Any school district that sent participants to the Iowa Culture and Language Conference earlier this month should contact Pat Latham for the reimbursement claim form. Pat can be reached at platham@aea11.k12.ia.us or (800) 375-5073 ext. 11228.
Next week the school building secretaries of all Heartland area schools will receive an e-mail from the Heartland AEA Communications Department asking the secretaries to update each building's staff members for our PeopleBox database. Secretaries will be able to login to our database with a username and password and do the updating themselves. The PeopleBox database houses all AEA employee and school staff data and is a vital to us when we need to contact school staff about important news and events. The accuracy of the information is critical as it is used to support the I-CAT training for the Iowa Core alignment requirements.Please encourage your secretaries to complete this task for us. We would greatly appreciate their assistance in helping us maintain an accurate and up-to-date database. If you have any questions, please contact Lance Wilhelm, Director of Technology, at lwilhelm@aea11.k12.ia.us.
All Heartland AEA offices will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday on November 24 and 25. Heartland offices will also be closed December 26, 27, 29 and 30 during the holiday season. Please take note of the following schedule as you plan to send and receive items through our van mail.- November 23-25, 2011 No Van Delivery
- December 19-22, 2011 Regular Van Delivery
- December 26-30, 2011 No Van Delivery
- January 2, 2012 Regular Van Delivery Resumes
Additionally, there will be no Administrator Connection blog updates on November 25 or December 30.
The College of Human Sciences at Iowa State University through the Department of Curriculum and Instruction is recruiting students to enroll in its newly redesigned online Literacy Coaching Certificate Program. The literacy coaching certificate program consists of a series of new advanced graduate level courses (17 Semester Credits) and makes use of distance technologies to allow Iowa teachers to earn a literacy coaching certificate by taking courses online.The program is aimed at preparing eligible classroom teachers, instructional leaders and other school personnel to serve in literacy leadership roles with the goal of improving teacher practices and student achievement in diverse PreK-12 school settings. The Literacy coaching certificate program provides a unique opportunity to develop deep expertise in literacy research, policy and practice, as well as skill in leadership at a leading university supported by two outstanding programs within the College of Human Sciences at Iowa State University: Literacy Education and Educational Administration.If you are interested in finding more about this exciting opportunity, please check out the informative flyer found here. For more information please visit the Department of Curriculum and Instruction Literacy Program website at http://www.ci.hs.iastate.edu/literacy/index.php. The application deadline is December 1, 2011 for summer enrollment and March 1, 2012 for fall enrollment. For additional questions please contact Dr. Amy Hutchison at amyhutch@iastate.edu. The dissemination of information from external organizations by Heartland AEA does not imply sponsorship or endorsement of the information. It is being passed on to our stakeholders for its educational value.
Certiport is an organization that administers industry recognized certifications. It is the sole source provider of the Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) and Adobe Certified Associated (ACA) both of which are globally recognized industry certifications. Its certifications have helped many students obtain better continual educational opportunities as well as higher paying jobs.Certiport is running a campaign known as Rise to the Challenge under which CTE instructors and administrators are given the opportunity to take any of Certiport's industry certifications for FREE. There are no obligations when registering for this promotion and it's a great opportunity for instructors and administrators to use the certifications as a professional development tool in addition to the evaluation process. To register for this promotion, an instructor or administrator will need to go to www.certiport.com/rise and select the certifications they would like to take. Below is a full list of available certifications below. Registration for this promotion must be completed by February 29, 2012 and exams must be completed by March 31, 2012. - Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS)
- Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA)
- Adobe Certified Associate (ACA)
- Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC3)
- Quickbooks Certified User
- Autodesk Certified User
- CompTIA Strata Fundamentals
Questions can be directed to Justin Barker at jbarker@certiport.com or (888) 999-9830 ext 110.The dissemination of information from external organizations by Heartland AEA does not imply sponsorship or endorsement of the information. It is being passed on to our stakeholders for its educational value.
If you are interested in having the Administrator Connection sent to other personnel in your district in addition to the superintendent and principal, please contact the Heartland Communications Department at comms@aea11.k12.ia.us. Please include the name, prefix, title (assistant principal, curriculum director, etc.) and building that each person serves.
These interactive ebooks help students understand how to read non-fiction text. Students can access video/book titles from home and follow along with the quality read-aloud feature. Categories of content include: American Indians, Ancient Civilizations, Continents, U.S. Government, Westward Expansion, Disasters, Ecosystems, Extreme Nature, Human Body, Space. TrueFLIX is a perfect whiteboard application. Go to http://trueflix.scholastic.com and login using the online database username/password assigned to your school.
As winter approaches, we’re all reminded that inclement weather is around the corner. Check out the notification systems available through the Iowa Educators Consortium at http://www.iec-ia.org/vnews/display.v/SEC/School%20Administration.
IEC purchases allow schools to take advantage of aggressive pricing based on the purchasing volume of many Iowa schools. Always remember to check in on the IEC website at http://www.iec-ia.org/ to take advantage of the newest available cost-saving services!
Can you tell we have winter weather on the brain?! Heartland AEA has changed the way we communicate closings and cancellations to make sure the information is communicated correctly, consistently and in a timely manner. We will no longer broadcast closings via TV and radio stations, but through the following ways:
Website
We will post closing/cancellation information on the front page of the Agency’s website (www.aea11.k12.ia.us) at the top of the Latest News section.
Cancellation Hotline
We will record closing information on a “cancellation hotline” at (515) 270-0405 or (800) 255-0405 ext. 14041. When you call in, you will hear a recorded message that says the date and offices/classes that have been closed/canceled. If there are no closings/cancellations, the message will reflect that.Social Media
We will post closing/cancellation information on the Agency’s Facebook and Twitter accounts at www.facebook.com/heartlandaea and twitter.com/HeartlandAEA, respectively.
Districts are encouraged to send representatives to an I-ELDA training in December. The target groups for this training will include those who have not given the test before and those who need a refresher in the administration of this test. The primary focus of this training will be on building reliability on the speaking and writing tests.Date/Time: December 2, 2011 from 12:00-4:00 p.m.Location: 1917 Dean Ave., Des Moines, IA 50316Training Lead by: Lynn Tiemann and Amy WhiteFor More Information, contact John Scott, Iowa Department of Education, at john.scott@iowa.gov or (515) 281-3805.Register here.
The National Weather Service (NWS) Office in Des Moines recognizes that local educators through Iowa have a vested interest in the weather. NWS offices around the nation have joined Facebook. Their presence on Facebook will give school administrators a way to monitor real time expectations of weather for the current and immediate future.
Find and “like” the National Weather Service Office in Des Moines, Iowa on Facebook here and receive real time updates about the weather.
The NWS Des Moines Iowa office website is at http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dmx/.
The dissemination of information from external organizations by Heartland AEA does not imply sponsorship or endorsement of the information. It is being passed on to our stakeholders for its educational value.
American Education Week is a great opportunity to remember and celebrate the partnership between Iowa's Area Education Agencies and educators, students and families. A new video captures those partnerships and tells the story of how AEA services made a difference in their lives. Take a just a few minutes and view the video at http://iowapartnersineducation.org. 
