DIBELS Import to HEART

Within the next few days a new import process will be available in HEART for data from the DIBELS Data System. The DIBELS Data System will soon discontinue the existing export for DIBELS data. The new import will be able to read DIBELS-6, DIBELS Next and EasyCBM Math data stored in the DIBELS Data System. In order to have the best quality data, it will be important to do some additional setup and cleanup work inside the DIBELS Data System. Directions for this process can be found on the what’s new page of the HEART manual.

https://sites.google.com/site/heartmanuals/home/what-is-new

For questions on this process, contact your regional assessment consultant or Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us.

Reminder: HEART Training for Administrators, Oct. 31

There will be a HEART for Administrators class on October 31, 2012. This workshop is intended for those who will have responsibility for managing HEART or leading it's use in the school. Topic covered will include managing security, cleaning data, importing data, as well as a full presentation of the various data displays available within the system. Participants for this workshop may include district administrators and other leaders. It may also be appropriate for technology or clerical staff with primary responsibility for managing the system.

Date: October 31, 2012
Time: 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Location: Heartland AEA, Johnston REC, Computer Lab

Click here to register or register through the Heartland AEA Professional Development Catalog and put activity number AS003792111303 in the correct field.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us or (800) 255-0405 ext. 14506.

HEART Training for Administrators, October 31

There will be a HEART for Administrators class on October 31, 2012. This workshop is intended for those who will have responsibility for managing HEART or leading it's use in the school. Topic covered will include managing security, cleaning data, importing data, as well as a full presentation of the various data displays available within the system. Participants for this workshop may include district administrators and other leaders. It may also be appropriate for technology or clerical staff with primary responsibility for managing the system.

Date: October 31, 2012
Time: 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Location: Heartland AEA, Johnston REC, Computer Lab

Click here to register or register through the Heartland AEA Professional Development Catalog and put activity number AS003792111303 in the correct field.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us or (800) 255-0405 ext. 14506.

Fall 2012 HEART Training

Is one of the below situations true for your school/district?

• Needs to have someone trained to manage HEART
• Is losing a key staff person who is currently running HEART
• Has a key staff person in need of a refresher
• Needs a backup person trained (We always recommend you have a backup)

If your school needs to have someone trained for any of the above reasons, please contact Connor Hood. Once we know who is interested in training, we will work out a date in August before school starts. If you have any HEART questions, contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us or (800) 255-0405 ext. 14506.

Spring 2012 HEART Classes

We will be offering a HEART for administrators and HEART behavior module class March 6 in the computer lab of the Heartland Johnston Regional Education Center (6500 Corporate Drive).

If you are interested, you may register for either one or both sessions. Register through the Heartland Professional Development catalog on our home page. Copy the appropriate activity number and paste it into the search box on the registration page in the browser.

HEART Overview
The HEART Overview for Administrators class is intended for school leaders new to HEART and those who want a refresher. In this training we will cover the use of HEART, security setup and cleanup, as well as general Q&A. This class is intended for building/district leaders who will be responsible for local implementation of HEART. Among others, this may include superintendents, principals, technology and/or curriculum coordinators, but may also include building/district clerical personnel who provide major support for HEART.

March 6, 2012 from 8:30-11:30 a.m.
Activity Number: AS003792111204

HEART Behavior Module
The HEART Behavior Module class will cover the setup and operation of the behavior module as well as some discussion of its use in a building/district setting. We recommend the behavior training be attended by at least one administrator and another person who will assist with technical support (primarily building data files for import). We also encourage the school to invite members of the AEA team such as the School Psychologist and/or School Social Worker, as they may be able to assist in the implementation of the behavior module in your building/district.

March 6, 2012 from 1:00-4:00 p.m.
Activity Number: AS003692111201

Questions can be directed to Connor Hood at (515) 270-0405 ext. 14506 or chood@aea11.k12.ia.us.

HEART and Using the New Iowa Assessments

After some delays, reports and data files for the new Iowa Assessments are starting to be delivered to schools. Naturally, there is some urgency to view the data in HEART and to start using the new reports from the Iowa Testing Program. Here is how the Agency is approaching these issues.

Unfortunately, it will take some time to rewrite the upload, import, storage and reporting features in HEART to handle the new data. The preliminary design ideas have been worked out based on the limited information previously available. Now that we have sample data files, the programming work can begin. Please be aware that it will take at least one to two months to take care of all of the new programming.

Based on what we know so far about the new data, a few changes in HEART are likely. There does not appear to be established proficiency cut points for any tests other than reading, mathematics, written expression, science and social studies for grades 3-11. Without cut points, proficiency graphs cannot be generated for any other tests of the Iowa Assessments or any grades outside of 3-11. Also, we do not have access to the necessary statistical data to build new growth charts which means these graphs will be unusable with the new Iowa Assessment data.

Finally, the individual student report and multi-test display will need some reworking to handle multiple score types in a way that helps prevent misinterpretation of the data. Thank you for your patience with the delays while we make all of the necessary changes.

If you have any further questions about HEART and the transition to the Iowa Assessments, please contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us.

As you work with the new Iowa Assessments reports, please remember that Heartland AEA has several resources available to help. There are videos from Iowa Testing Program workshops, handouts, PowerPoint presentations and the support of our Assessment Consultants. Check with your regional director for more details.

Bookmark HEART’s New URL

In September 2011, the HEART database was moved to a new address. We recently discontinued the redirect messages from the old server addresses. All HEART users in the Heartland area now use this address: https://heart1.aea11.k12.ia.us to log in. If you haven't already, please update your bookmarks to this address.

HEART Training to be Offered in Adel Office

We will be offering a session on HEART on Tuesday, November 1 from 8:30-11:30 a.m. in the meeting room at the Adel regional office (600 Visions Parkway). The class is intended for the newly tapped HEART users (and those who would like a refresher) who will need to understand how to run HEART and retrieve data in the system.

To register for this class, click here or go to the Heartland Professional Development Catalog and enter activity number AS003792111203 in the correct field.

Participants for this class will need to bring a laptop. If you do not have a laptop of your own, please reserve one by contacting Jennifer Swanson at jswanson@aea11.k12.ia.us or (515) 270-0405 ext. 14560.

HEART Training for New Administrators

Has a change of leadership left your school without a HEART administrator? We will be offering a session on HEART for new administrators on August 24 from 8:30-11:30 a.m. in the computer lab at the Johnston Regional Education Center (6500 Corporate Drive). The class is intended for the newly tapped school HEART administrators who will need to understand how to run HEART, get set up as users and retrieve data in the system.

To register for this class, please click on this link: https://prodev.aeapdonline.org/4DCGI/AS003792111201INV&*

If you have questions about HEART, contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us or (515) 270-0405 ext. 14506.

Test-drive the New HEART 2.0 Before its Launch

We are very close to declaring the next version of HEART “done.” We hope to put this new version into production within the next few weeks if possible. There are just a few loose ends and bugs to attend to. If you want to take a test drive, you can log into the development server and try it out. Use your regular login information and the following address: https://heart2.aea11.k12.ia.us. The data in the system are up-to-date as of July 1.

You may also use the North Overshoe login to try this server:
District: North Overshoe
UserCode: Try HEART
Password: tryme

If you encounter any problems or bugs, we’d like to know about them. Please send contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us with specific information about what you saw, where, and what you expected to happen instead. (One known bug affects the login page. If it doesn’t draw completely, click the refresh button on your browser.)

Here are a few comments about the new system:

• A lot of the work is behind the scenes to make things faster and more consistent. Hopefully you'll notice the speed and not something odd.
• The look and feel has been standardized, and some things have been moved around.
• The lists are sortable in both directions. Click the column header to sort one way, click again to sort the other way. You can also download lists if needed.
• User setup should be similar to what you are used to.
• Class setup is changed fairly dramatically and we still look for ways to simplify and improve it. If any of you set up classes in the current system, your feedback would be appreciated.
• The management control panel has had a complete makeover to reduce confusion; there are some new features and some redeveloped ones.
• The cleanup interface has also been upgraded. You can try it out, but be aware that any work done will not be permanent as we are still in the development stages of the server. Upgraded features include the status column that helps spot new records that need attention, duplicate State ID search and sorting/cleanup enhancements.
• Additional data error search tools have been added. They are intended to help find and clean up some of the common errors in student records.
• Individual student reports should behave much like they always have.
• All the graphs have been recreated using newer graphing technology. One new feature is the return of a high-resolution graph version (made possible by making the graph shrinkable as needed) without the need for the GraphViewer application.
• Flexibility has been added to view data that are collected more than once a year (MAP, DIBELS, etc.). The default option will behave as you are used to in the current version of HEART.
• There are more options in the growth chart with one new feature that allows the selection of the student data to display in average and percentile ranks (names of these options might be reworked later). The average rank display shows the average for the selected group. The percentile rank display adds two lines which are calculated from the selected data based on the percentile ranks of the comparison lines. (For example, if 25-50-75 is selected, the 25th percentile, 50th percentile and 75th percentile for the selected group will be calculated and displayed along with the growth lines.
• Student scores now have a format selector. One can view scores by tests administered in a building and scores by students currently in a building.
• Behavior entry and analysis work a lot like they always have.
• Most other displays should work and appear familiar, but with slight tweaks to the layout and functioning.

Additional Spring HEART Training

We have scheduled several additional HEART classes specifically to help with schools that will have a change in leadership, schools that are in need to train a backup HEART administrator and those that would like a refresher. The class will cover using the HEART achievement and behavior reports, as well as all of the tools and tricks needed to manage security, cleanup and entering data into HEART.

Space is limited, so if interested please register for the class that fits your schedule:

April 21 from 8:30-11:30 a.m.
Activity Number: AS003792111107
https://prodev.aea11.k12.ia.us/4DCGI/AS003792111107INV*

May 9 from 8:30-11:30 a.m.
Activity Number: AS003792111108
https://prodev.aea11.k12.ia.us/4DCGI/AS003792111108INV*

May 12 from 8:30-11:30 a.m.
Activity Number: AS003792111109
https://prodev.aea11.k12.ia.us/4DCGI/AS003792111109INV*

Each class covers the same content as previous HEART Overview for Administrators classes. All classes will be held in the Computer Lab at the Johnston Regional Education Center (6500 Corporate Drive).

If you have questions about HEART, contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us or (800) 255-0405 ext. 14506.

Additional HEART Training Opportunity

Is one of the below situations true for your school/district?

• Needs to have someone trained to manage HEART?

• Is losing a key staff person who is currently running HEART?

• Has a key staff person in need of a refresher?

• Needs a backup person trained? (We always recommend you have a backup.)

We have heard that there are some schools that would like another chance to come to a HEART for Administrators training session. If you need to have someone trained for any of the above reasons, please let Connor Hood know by email no later than April 8. Once we know who is interested in training, we will work out a date and location among that group, (hopefully within the next month or so). If you have any HEART questions, contact Connor Hood at chood@aea11.k12.ia.us or (800) 255-0405 ext. 14506.