In Episode 1 of Season 2, we talk with an interdisciplinary group of staff from Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia, which has been working on their single-district Ed-Fi implementation since 2018. Joanna Kaylor (Supervisor of Enterprise Support and Analytics), Kara Bane (Supervisor of Data Science and Digital Solutions), and Jana Griffith (School Improvement and Accountability Specialist) share with us the pros and cons of doing an Ed-Fi implementation completely in-house; the absolute necessity of scoping a narrow use case at the beginning; and the benefits of having both the technical and instructional side involved in both technical implementation and rollout to users. 

Resources mentioned in episode:

In this brief introduction to season 2, Molly and Rosh discuss changes to INsite over the course of the last year and what is coming in the future!

Our guests this week are Dr. Shane Fairbairn and Sherod Keen from the North East Florida Educational Consortium, or NEFEC. NEFEC is a regional nonprofit educational service agency established to provide cooperative services to small and rural member districts. Through membership in NEFEC, districts are able to meet educational goals and objectives more effectively and affordably. They offer a wide range of programs and services, but today we will primarily be discussing their implementation of the Ed-Fi data standard. NEFEC was the first local education agency consortium to implement the Ed-Fi data standard, beginning in 2013 and serving 15 member districts. Shane, Sherod, and their other colleagues at NEFEC were instrumental in helping guide INsite’s own implementation of the Ed-Fi data standard. During the episode, Shane shares his love of metaphors, Sherod predicts the future of Ed-Fi, and we learn that Rosh is chock-full of dependencies.

Episode links:

NEFEC (North East Florida Educational Consortium): https://www.nefec.org/

FLCODE (Collaborative on Operational Data for Educators): https://www.flcode.org/

CELT (Center for Educational Leadership and Technology): http://www.celtcorp.com/

“Everything we do supports the teacher-student relationship.” Adam Love, assistant principal at Decatur Middle School in the Metropolitan School District (MSD) of Decatur Township in Indianapolis, was one of the first school-level stakeholders to work closely with us on utilizing interoperable data to make a difference in the lives of students in his building, and his work ultimately resulted in the establishment of data-driven decision making processes across the district. His dedication to his students and teachers inspires us every day, and we are so pleased to share his story and vision with the DatabasED audience.

Show notes:

https://www.kotterinc.com/8-step-process-for-leading-change/ Kotter’s model for organizational change.

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In this episode, we talk with educational consultant, data scientist, book author, podcast host, and former educational psychologist Ryan Estrellado about living in the Venn diagrams of overlapping professional communities and finding your (our) place in those intersections. We talk about practical strategies for working with educators who have a wide variety of interests in data and specifically tools for data analysis, and about breaking down common misconceptions about data analysis or data science as it can be used to answer real questions in local educational settings. Although we had planned to focus the episode on Ryan's new book, we accidentally ended up spending an entire hour discussing about unusual professional trajectories and how data and coding have influenced all of us (for the better). Some day we will do another episode where we actually talk about Ryan's book, but in the meantime, we recommend that you go ahead and check it out! The content is truly accessible to all educators, wherever you happen to be in terms of your data journey (whether that journey was embarked upon voluntarily or otherwise). Check out the link below to get a 20% off code for the book!

Abbreviations:

IDE: Integrated development environment https://www.codecademy.com/article/what-is-an-ide

Show notes:

Go to ryanestrellado.com to download a free chapter of The K–12 Educator’s Data Guidebook and a 20% off code

The K-12 Educator's Data Guidebook: Reimagining Practical Data Use in Schools

Donuts in the Lounge: A Podcast for Educators

Follow on Twitter & Instagram @ry_estrellado 

Data Science in Education using R (free open-source book with hands-on activities to learn R using real-world education contexts): https://datascienceineducation.com/

Strategic Data Project at Harvard: https://sdp.cepr.harvard.edu/home

South County SELPA at the San Diego County Office of Education: https://www.sdcoe.net/special-populations/selpas/scselpa

Chase Jarvis, Creative Calling https://www.creativelive.com/class/creative-calling-chase-jarvis/lessons/amplify-your-community

About Practice podcast (Ryan Estrellado & Joshua Rosenberg): https://open.spotify.com/show/4TzYLKTen3ZiJxiiKdHAsa

R Studio (free download): https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/

Tidyverse: https://www.tidyverse.org/

Hadley Wickham’s website and list of books: https://hadley.nz/

Julia Silge: https://juliasilge.com/about/

Kieran Healy: Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction https://socviz.co/

Rosh's favorite vending machine video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMW6JKNop1Y

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In part II of Episode 10 (or technically Episode 11, because Anchor does not recognize decimal points), we dive even deeper into the challenges and potential solutions to balancing the need for increased linkages between individualization and standardization of special education data, as well as the possible integration of compliance and accountability processes. Sarah has a data epiphany as well as an idea for a new grant proposal, Joel confesses his newfound love for data science, and Jennifer crosses "podcast guest" off her bucket list.

Part II episode resources:

SEA: State education agency

Results-driven accountability (U.S. Department of Education): https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/osep/rda/index.html

Results-driven accountability Indicators (Indiana): https://www.in.gov/doe/students/special-education/results-driven-accountability/

Discussion of federal policies increasing equity: https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/advancing-education-2020-brief

Music:

Music: Exploring The World by Vlad Gluschenko is licensed under a Creative Commons License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://soundcloud.com/vgl9 Support by RFM - NCM

Today we bring you the first segment of a very special two-part episode in which we get to speak with three guests representing all three of the focus areas that we've been working to bridge in this podcast: Joel Boehner, Assistant Director of Exceptional Learners at South Bend Community School Corporation, Dr. Sarah Hurwitz, associate professor in special education at Indiana University - Bloomington, and Dr. Jennifer Meller, Associate Manager for Special Education Consulting Services at PCG (Public Consulting Group), the vendor providing the statewide Indiana IEP (IIEP) software for managing data and documents related to the education of students with disabilities. In the first segment of this episode, we discuss how the connections among these individuals' work came about, as well as several relatively recent trends in the federal requirements for educating students with disabilities, such as the move from a focus on compliance to results-driven accountability (RDA) and the challenges and opportunities for utilizing a data standard with very individualized education goals and progress data. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed recording it! Stay tuned for Part II next week.

Show notes & abbreviations

Joel Boehner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelboehner/

Dr. Sarah Hurwitz: https://education.indiana.edu/about/directory/profiles/hurwitz-sarah.html

Dr. Jennifer Meller: https://www.publicconsultinggroup.com/leadership/education/dr-jennifer-meller/

Equity in Action: https://education.indiana.edu/community/aac-in-action/index.html

Autism Research Collaborative: https://www.iidc.indiana.edu/what-we-offer/autism/

INSOURCE: https://insource.org/

PCG (Public Consulting Group): https://www.publicconsultinggroup.com/

Indiana graduation pathways: https://www.in.gov/doe/students/graduation-pathways/

RDA: results-driven accountability

NWEA (MAP - Measures of Academic Progress test from the Northwest Evaluation Association) https://www.nwea.org/the-map-suite/

LEA: local education agency (school district/school corporation)

IDEA: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: https://sites.ed.gov/idea/

IEP: Individualized Education Program (a requirement of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)

IIEP (Indiana IEP): software program to manage IEP data in Indiana (statewide)

FAPE: Free, appropriate, public education (a requirement of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act)

FBA: Functional Behavioral Assessment (part of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; https://www.pacer.org/parent/php/php-c215a.pdf)

LRE: Least restrictive environment (a requirement of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act)

Music: 

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This week we talk with two leaders from the Metropolitan School District (MSD) of Steuben County in Angola, Indiana, Chantell Manahan (Director of Technology) and Dr. Schauna Relue (Curriculum Director). Over the past two years, our guests have worked as a close, cross-sectional team on the district’s use cases for student and district improvement as part of their implementation of the Ed-Fi data standard. In the episode, we discuss their strategies for data governance, the importance of professional development and support in changing data practices, and ways in which technology can enhance data-driven improvement processes such as “data war rooms.”

Show notes and abbreviations:

Metropolitan School District (MSD) of Steuben County - https://www.msdsteuben.k12.in.us/

CETL certification from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) Certified Educational Technology Leader https://www.cosn.org/careers-certification/cetl-certification/

NWEA (MAP - Measures of Academic Progress test from the Northwest Evaluation Association) https://www.nwea.org/the-map-suite/

CSV files: https://www.howtogeek.com/348960/what-is-a-csv-file-and-how-do-i-open-it/

SIS: student information system

RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Matrix: https://cio-wiki.org/wiki/RACI_Matrix

WIDA: An assessment of academic English levels for non-native English speakers (https://wida.wisc.edu/)

Eidex: https://www.eidexinsights.com/

Michigan DataHub: https://open.spotify.com/episode/43wLYDeU6Mi73ViGnW2d2u?si=3MmlfGVUTzC2hA1yY4_qoQ

Music: Exploring The World by Vlad Gluschenko is licensed under a Creative Commons License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://soundcloud.com/vgl9

Support by RFM - NCM

In this episode, we reminisce with Tim Pritchett, Technology Director at Monroe County Community School Corporation here in Bloomington, about our experiences moving through the early and difficult stages of implementing Ed-Fi and how we all ended up safely on the other side. We touch on personal and professional development, having faith in big ideas, and the power of multiple sectors being focused on one goal.

Episode Resources:

Sample Data Generator (Ed-Fi Tech Docs):  https://techdocs.ed-fi.org/display/SDG/Sample+Data+Generator

Music: Exploring The World by Vlad Gluschenko is licensed under a Creative Commons License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... https://soundcloud.com/vgl9

Support by RFM - NCM: https://bit.ly/2xGHypM