It’s been awhile.

A few changes since I’ve last posted – one being a new job for myself! For the last 3 years I’ve been working at Osseo Area Schools as tech support working with equipment and software like Moodle, Google Apps, WPMU amongst others. It’s been a wonderful experience at Osseo as they have been and continue to be a forward-thinking district with many successfull implementations and initiatives.

An opportunity came to me from Blooming Public Schools as a Database and Web Integration Specialist, where I’d be working with implementing School Fusion, Moodle and integrating other software and applications into the system. Along with working with software I’d also be working with databases and transferring data between systems.

Although I loved working in Osseo (the district I went to school in from 1st-12th grade) it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. My top priority to start is to help get School Fusion up and running. We will be re-doing the district’s main site, building sites and creating teacher and course pages. After that, I will probably be working with Moodle and trying to integrate it with School Fusion.

I’m new to School Fusion and look forward to learning the ins and outs of it. The only issue is it’s not open-source so learning those ins and outs may be a bit hard! One thing I’m excited to learn more about is the database and data side of things. I enjoy working with databases but I haven’t had much experience.

Oh, and one more thing… Bloomington is a “Mac District”…90% Mac….I’ve never used (for more than 30 minutes) a Mac. So um, any Macs for newbies articles?

On a different note . . .

• I recently did a book review on Moodle 1.9 Theme Design on MoodleNews.com
• I’m currently reading Moodle 1.9 Extension Development and I’ll be doing a review on Moodlerific.org
• I’m heading out to the ISTE 2010 Conference next weekend in Denver!

Denver… ISTE 2010… here I come!

I was recently told that I would be able to attend the ISTE 2010 Conference in Denver, CO along with some of my colleagues.

ISTE is the premier membership association for educators and education leaders engaged in improving teaching and learning by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education. ISTE is home to the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS), and ISTE’s annual conference and exposition, (formerly known as NECC). ISTE represents more than 100,000 professionals worldwide.

I will be attending with an awesome group of people from the Osseo School District. This will be my very first ISTE Conference, the only other bigger conference I’ve been to was TIES (the last 3 years) but this conference will be much, much “bigger”.

I hope to attend some good sessions and write up a few quality blog posts this summer. I will most likely attend sessions about Moodle, mobile devices and other software or web-based tools.

I’m assuming Twitter will be blowing up with #ISTE2010 and #ISTE10 tags around June 25-27 and you can check out the ISTE 2010 Ning.

Can’t wait! If you’re going I’d love to network! My Twitter handle is @mebenson.