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California Educational Data Processing Association |
DataBus - Vol. 38, No. 2
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Past and Future Successes: Celebrating where we've been, but continuing to look forward.
Russ Brawn, WestEd
This is a great time of year. Not that any time of the year has to be considered as inherently lacking, but this time of year is GREAT! Consider please, that I am writing this at the figurative sunrise of a new year, having just enjoyed a holiday season and from my perspective as your new CEDPA President. In each of our lives, we're driving into another year of the calendar. Hopefully, each of you were able to take the time to reflect on past plans, on those tasks that fell just where you'd wanted them to, as well as, upon those unexpected experiences. Just completed are measures of the anticipated to the startling, of the unsuccessful to the surpassing, of the irksome to the rewarding. Most importantly, the past several weeks have been a time to celebrate successes--with friends and family and with colleagues.
As your CEDPA Board, we're pleased that last year was a successful one for us and for K12 technologists throughout California in general. This time of year is when we build on those past successes, welcome new colleagues (more on that later) and apply in earnest our plans for the new year. We've completed our review of last year's Conference, having considered where we met the mark, as well as a few misses. We are well on the way to bringing you the 1998 Conference in Palm Springs, themed "Reaching The Classroom". We anticipate your continued support as attendees, and participants. Please consider presenting at the Conference, an invitation is extended to you in this publication.
With December's exciting SIG meeting in Irvine, we've already launched a new year of special interest group meetings practically before completing our review of last year. We've also taken a look at the quality of this publication and of our website. We expect that you will find both to be of increasing value to you and your colleagues. Certainly through our listserver, we are hosting some of the most active dialogues in this, and likely any state. We continue to seek opportunities to represent California's educational technologists whenever possible. In this issue of the DataBus you'll find evidence of some of these reflections, as well as, articles that should assure you that we've not lost our collective eye to the future.
None of our plans will be successfully realized if pursued in a vacuum. As Board members, we try to listen at least as often as we speak. Please feel free to contact any of us with ideas and concerns.
Speaking as personally as this medium allows, I wish to thank my fellow board members and each of you for the help given me and for the confidence extended in making me the new President. About that new member to whom I alluded earlier in this column--this year's Board includes a new Director. We're pleased that Oswaldo Galarza, Director of Information Systems at ABC Unified has joined us. A familiar face at many Conferences and SIGs, Oswaldo has been in our K-12 community for some seventeen years. You may know of his extended activities beyond his district, either through CEDPA or perhaps through his involvement in the South East Educational Technology Consortium (SEETC) in Los Angeles County. Welcome, Oswaldo!
To wrap this up, know that each Board Member appreciates the support that you the CEDPA membership continually extends to us. Accept my sincere wishes that you each experience a rewarding New Year and that we continue to share in future successes.
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