Databus Issue: 2009 1 03/31/2008
President's Message
Russ Brawn President
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Custom dictates that with each new calendar year we adopt individual resolutions to improve ourselves and/or make changes to the benefit of our families and friends. And typically, each incoming CETPA President sets goals, targets projects and denotes the accomplishments to be achieved during her or his time in the office. As I look forward to 2009, my purpose is much the same – to do all that I can to improve CETPA and to empower the Board so that we can most effectively identify and deliver the greatest good that can be accomplished for the benefit of our CETPA family and its supporters. In doing so, I will be continuing the work of CETPA Directors and Officers that have served before me. I take it as a great honor to serve as CETPA President, doubly so as the successor to Warren Williams. As both an educator and a technologist, Warren has been a tireless champion within and beyond our K-12 community. In applying his vision, aptitude, skills, perseverance and most of all adherences to his values; Warren has enhanced our community as have few others. I look forward to his counsel in 2009 and to being a part of the energy and dedication of the whole Board as we build upon past accomplishment and progress towards more improvement within and beyond California K-12 education. 2008 was a year in which CETPA accomplished much consistent with our vision, “CETPA is the most influential and highly respected, visionary educational technology association that inspires innovation and provides leadership to the educational community and policy/decision makers, where individuals and organizations turn for educational technology leadership.” With the help of our CETPA family and communities, 2009 will mark ever more progress.
CETPA will endeavor to build upon past success to improve recurring services and provide new value:
• A redesigned web portal is in development and will be launched with increased resources for CETPA members: opportunities for podcasts, RSS feeds, webinars, RFPs database, technology job descriptions, spotlights on emerging technologies and new listserv capacity.
• Business functions of the organization will take advantage of new web functionality as well as benefit from external sources of expertise in serving client needs.
• The 2009 Annual Conference will be held during extreme budgetary crisis, and will deliver great value at a time of great need.
• More actively follow policy developments and potential legislative actions, collecting and expressing the concern and values of our organization and membership.
• Establishing a more formal relationship with our supportive vendor community, allowing greater service to membership without jeopardizing the neutrality of the CETPA.
CETPA has proven to be resilient, resourceful and resolute in attending to client needs, drawing especially upon the service of its Board. We look forward to the contributions of our newly elected Directors: Sandy Ching of Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District and Tim Goree of Norris School District.
This DATABUS issue focuses upon Technology Standardization. Contributors have sought to address examples of standardized technology within school districts and county office of education, so to answer questions such as:
• What standards have been put in place for the organization’s classroom hardware, LAN, WAN, video systems, software, and operating systems?
• What were the outcomes in terms of impacts on capacity to provide support, are multiple or single computer platforms in place, how have technology standards been received by administrative and teaching personnel?
We trust that readers will find value in the experiences of others and continue in the amazingly generous and collegial fashion of sharing experiences in future issues. A challenging future awaits us in terms of organizational, technological and budgetary challenge. We benefit by the shared expertise and insights of our community. Please have the best of fortunes and tend to the needs of others.
