Roughly a year ago, Bruce Friend, Director of SAS Curriculum Pathways, participated on a technology advisory team at a school in Raleigh, North Carolina: a place he described as a "technology-rich environment" that was not being maximized by teachers. During a lunchtime forum, he remembered one student pulling out his
In recent blogs posts, I discussed my tour of Mooresville Graded school district and the video project that we are working on with them. At that time I was only able to share the video interviews of Dr. Mark Edwards, Superintendent and Dr. Scott Smith, CTO from the project. The
Last week, I attended the International Center for Leadership in Education’s Model Schools Conference in Nashville, TN, where I learned about many forward-thinking education initiatives taking place across the country. My colleagues and I also had the privilege of facilitating a SAS(r) EVAAS for K-12 presentation from two principals at
As I write my first blog entry for SAS State and Local Government, I thought it would be prudent to provide a little personal background. I grew up in a family of artists- with 5 musicians, 2 painters, 1 sculptor, 1 dancer, and 1 composer. I studied business, became a
I recently had the privilege of working with Dr. Lane Mills, Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership program at East Carolina University, on a whitepaper about creating a data driven culture. It was great getting to know Dr. Mills on a professional and personal level as we having many conversations
In a recent blog post, I discussed how excited I was to tour Mooresville Graded School District (MGSD). After that tour, I remembered a Youtube video that I saw at an education conference that shows how bored students are, because they have to power down at school. I was thinking,
Where can you find an entire school full of students engaged in learning and creativity, and administrators and staff using technology and data to provide a quality education for students? Sound too good to be true? It’s not! It’s happening in Mooresville, North Carolina. Recently a colleague, Becky de Tenley,
This morning I delivered a talk to visiting high school students at the SAS campus. The topic: using SAS to analyze Twitter content. Being teenagers, high school students are well familiar with Twitter. But this batch of students was also very familiar with SAS, as they all have taken SAS
Goutam Chakraborty, Professor in the department of marketing at Oklahoma State University, said he begged, borrowed, stole and cajoled to get his students – 24 in all, ranging from first-year students to those in graduate programs – to SAS Global Forum this year. "This is my show of strength,” he
It never ceases to amaze me how and where Business Analytics can add value. While researching for this week’s post, I came across a story that used the title of this post as a sub heading (OMG, I LUV SCHL!). According to Timothy Darley, Superintendent Granville Country Schools “Our graduation
Tomorrow I'll be taking a few hours away from work to build something important: the self-esteems of a handful of middle-school-aged children. I'm volunteering as a judge in a middle-school science fair. And even though I'm not a scientist ("computer science" isn't a category), I understand enough about physical science
One of the best things about writing for the sascom blog is the amazing number of people, both internally and externally, that have reached out to share their stories and perspective, and ask more questions. It’s important for us bloggers to remember that while we may not see published comments
“Preparing more than 50 million students with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and careers is the greatest moral and economic challenge of our era.” So reads a new bi-partisan report on digital learning. Digital Learning Now! is a call to action for governors and state education leaders.
The buzz word in education these days is STEM, the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Across the United States, educators are stressing the importance of STEM and states are launching huge STEM initiatives. Most of these efforts emphasize science, engineering or math, but few emphasize the powerful “T,”
I recently had the opportunity to attend the VA Governor’s Education Summit “Innovate to Educate” was the theme throughout the summit. Speakers and panelists discussed both the challenges we face in today’s schools across America as well as innovative ideas and best practices being implemented in an effort to raise
The long awaited winners of the second round of Race To The Top were announced yesterday. Race To The Top is about education reform to improve schools and is based on four assurances: 1) Raising standards and improving assessments. 2) Recruiting, retaining and supporting effective educators and ensure equitable distribution
It's that time of year. Caps and gowns, photos and parties. Time to begin a career or go off to college. For those starting a career the learning is over, right? Well, for those of us in the work force we know first-hand, this isn't the reality if you want
I am not an educator. I don’t work in education administration, though I have sat in many principals’ offices. But I was motivated (which would surprise my former teachers) to write something after attending the HP/Intel Digital Learning Environments event Tuesday in Cary, NC. I sat in on a presentation
For a service organization like ours, there are few things more valuable, let me correct that, nothing is more valuable, than feedback from our users. We are really lucky in this regard; SAS users are not bashful about sharing their opinions when it comes to “their” software. We certainly benefited
I was intrigued by Ken King’s recent post regarding North Carolina telecom executives supporting Dr. Goodnight’s call for education reform.In fact, it brought to mind an education customer we’ve been working with lately. The school is in a rural community that has implemented a 1:1 laptop initiative and is using
My job allows me to travel around the country visiting different schools and speaking to teachers and students about their use of technology in the classroom. What I hear and see concerns me. The “technology” I see being utilized as part of instruction in traditional brick and mortar classrooms amounts
Recently, I watched an old TV show that had taken place in the 1980s. It was fascinating to watch, as it was a detective story and during that time there were no cell phones and the one computer they had was – by today’s standards – prehistoric. What I thought
We're working on an education piece for the second quarter 2009 issue of sascom. If that's an area that interests you, watch these videos to set the mood.
I’ve read - and heard - that SAS spoils its employees. I’ve been at SAS for six months, and it’s true. A great example is the training. Earlier this week, I was invited to attend a SAS® Hands-On Workshop. The workshop is actually designed for customers, but open to everyone.
As I have been at SAS for a while now, well 10 years, I started to reflect on my time with SAS. I went from being a data mining systems engineer (SE), to an analytical strategist, to now being the Global Industry Marketing Manager for Education. I started in the
