New Challenges

I have made one of the most difficult decisions of my short lifetime and accepted a new job in a new location. I will be leaving the Marshall County School District as CIO in June, a district that has been my home, my family, my friend and my life for the past 30 years. I am thankful for the many relationships I have developed over that time and look forward to reading and watching how the faculty, staff and students of MCPS shine bright.

My new home will be Naperville, IL - specifically the Naperville 203 school district. I will begin July 1 as the Director of Instructional Technology working with a top notch administration, technology staff, school district and community. I am excited for this new chapter in my professional career. Naperville 203 is a highly respected school district in this country and I am honored to begin working within its walls.

Watch this blog over the next few weeks / months as I tell of my transition from CIO in Marshall County to my new adventures in Naperville.

JDS | CIO (guess I will have to change this, huh?)

Cool Tool - Repair My...

Image via Wikipedia

I came across a cool tool this morning in trying to find a quick way to repair a damaged .doc file. "Repair My Word" is a FREE tool provided by Get Data. It is designed to recover text from damaged or corrupt files that will not normally open. The recovered text can then be saved as an error free Word document.

Get Data also provides other free tools such as:

-Repair Excel
-Repair Zip
-Repair BKF

And for fees you can purchase some of their recovery tools such as:

-Recover Deleted Files
-Recover Deleted Email
-Erase Clean Hard Drive Data

The free tools are very easy to install and use. I highly recommend for anyone that deals with users bringing in files from outside sources. For IT operations looking at tools to recover files, Get Data might be a solution to consider.

JDS | CIO

Framework of Essential Skills for the K-12 CTO

CoSN (Consortium for School Networking) recently put together a Framework of Essential Skills for K-12 CTOs / CIOs. CoSN, widely recognized as the leading organization for educational technology leaders, worked with technology leaders from across the country to assist in the increase of knowledge and skills.

The four main areas identified within the framework are: Leadership & Vision, Understanding Educational Environment, Managing Technology & Support Resources and Core Value & Skills.

For more information on CoSN's Framework of Essential Skills for K-12 CTOs / CIOs - visit their website at: http://www.cosn.org

You can view the entire framework here.

JDS | CIO

21st Century Pedagogy

This is a video by Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Schools, Catholic Diocese of Parramatta. Greg talks about the need to develop a new DNA for schooling in today's world in order to break from the past.




JDS | CIO

Internet Safety Event - A Success

While our attendance may not have been exactly what we had hoped for - it was an excellent group represented by district administrators, teachers, students and community members. At the end of the evening, the group seemed eager to continue the sharing and dialogue, along with making arrangements for follow-up sessions in the fall. That is the type of buzz we were hoping to generate last night.

We had an outstanding lineup of speakers from the KY State Police, KY Center for School Safety, KY Department of Education and Marshall County School District. Each speaker offered their unique insight into various topics that raised awareness amongst those in attendance.

We certainly hope to continue this trend in the coming months as we raise awareness on Internet Safety, Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying in our school district.

Update: Here is a link to a press release about the event: press release


JDS | CIO