Blog - Five Star Technology Solutions

As an educator, there are many different trends and words that seem to make the rounds through our world of education.  The same seems to be true of “STEM” which has definitely been quite the buzz for the last 5 years or so, but is it just a trend?  

I’m here to say, it most definitely is NOT!

It’s 2008 and you just deployed wireless access points in all the hallways and common areas of your schools. You apply a simple password and give it out to all the staff. Voila! You have a wireless-accessible network.

At this point, most IT staff were content with the setup. It was a simple solution to a simple problem. Device density was not an issue since most schools only had a handful of laptops or wireless devices. Every kid and staff member did not need to stream Netflix or Youtube throughout the day. It was easy. It was simple. It was the past.

The Problem: Time Management

Time management is a problem many IT departments face; often there is just not enough time to complete all the requests in the time they need to be completed by. This is especially true between the times of student registration and the first student day of school. The IT staff is burdened with making hundreds, if not thousands, of Active Directory user changes and new accounts. Active Directory serves as the central source of user accounts for a long list of applications including G Suite for Education, Microsoft Office 365, PIVOT, Canvas, Student Information Systems, Content Filters, and many more.

The Windows OS Lifecycle

Windows 10 is the next major version in the Microsoft Windows operating system family, seeing its initial release in July of 2015. As part of Microsoft’s OS lifecycle, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will stop receiving updates and support in January of 2020 and 2023, respectively. In addition, 7th Generation CPUs from AMD and Intel are already requiring Windows 10 for driver compatibility, so anything released after early 2017 excludes compatibility with the earlier OSes. Since Windows 10 has matured considerably since the initial release, and with the end of life of Windows 7 less than a year away, it’s definitely time to begin migrating!

In this guest post, TIS Brooke Hall (@BrookeHallTIS) describes her first encounters with CS First by Google. Brooke attended a workshop to learn more about the curriculum and to discover ways to use the lessons with students.

Guest contributor Amber Anania (@msanania) is a 7th grade language arts teacher at Westfield Middle School who recently became a Google Certified Educator Level 1. In this post, she shares her experiences preparing for and taking the qualification exam.

Indiana’s graduation pathways empower students to focus their efforts in high school on a range of careers while acknowledging that there are multiple ways to demonstrate postsecondary readiness. Overall, this initiative promises to bring significant benefits to students, families, schools, and communities. However, counselors and administrators may be left wondering how they will track every student’s pathway considering there are so many options. That’s why the Pivot team has developed an intuitive solution with several time-saving benefits.

Over the last several months, Indiana legislators and policymakers wisely amended the requirements for high school graduation to better reflect the varied and valid pathways that students pursue as adults. Rather than mandating that all students pass the same high-stakes standardized assessments to earn a diploma, students are now free to demonstrate their postsecondary readiness in ways that better reflect their interests and goals.

PyxisEdu is our “go-to” professional learning platform at Mishawaka Schools. PyxisEdu is a professional learning platform that has 201 content categories with593 videos, 513 other learning resources, and 60 collections/units. Content is created by a group of edtech pros that are25+ licensed educators with 60+ edtech certifications and 200+ school years. Teachers in Mishawaka Schools use it to harness the power of technology to move from theory to practice and fuel any time learning. PyxisEdu has professional learning resources for everyone such as blended learning, using G-Suite, telling stories digitally with Book Creator, or using Skype to invite guest speakers into your classroom. Most importantly, however, is the fact that at the core of this platform is learning. PyxisEdu is grounded in a strong learning theory that goes beyond just integrating education technology. Our teachers immerse themselves in resources like learning style theories, universal design for learning, and leadership strategies while getting credit for their learning with the PyxisEdu Professional Growth Point (PGP) tracker.

Your school has a shiny new PyxisEdu subscription. Congratulations, you’ve taken the first step in providing your teachers a personalized approach to professional development! As a building leader, you understand the powerful benefits that PyxisEdu provides for your teachers. You know about the resources rooted in strong pedagogy, the professional growth tracking, and the digital badging that helps your teachers display their strengths and interests. You can’t wait to see how your staff uses this new program to amplify their professional learning.