October 1, 2019
AESA Working for You!
Cyber Security Webinar
AESA wants to make sure that our members have the information they need to protect their organizations from vicious cyber attacks. 

USI, an AESA Business Partner, is inviting all AESA members to attend a free informational webinar on cyber security . 

This event is October 24 at 1 pm EST, Noon CST, 11 am MST, 10 am PST via Zoom.  

Check out this resource:
Affinity Groups are Adding Up!
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Business Office Professionals

This group is for educational service agency business office and human resources staff. The main focus will be on sharing best practices related to business office operations. The group will explore several topics including budgeting, costing, contracts, the management of staff, data collection related to services, customer service feedback and more.
 
Lead Contacts:
Mike Koltes, Director of Business Services

Dave Van Spankeren, Assistant Director of Business Services

CESA 5, Portage, WI

Meeting Schedule: TBD

Technology Used: Zoom and Google Drive
 
Visit the " Business Office Professionals " Online Community (must be a community member to access the site). Contact Mike or Dave for more information.
Teaching and Learning

 Has your ESA provided an amazing professional development opportunity for teachers that you would love to share with others? Have you wondered what ESAs are offering to ensure schools are aligning curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices? If so, then the AESA Teaching & Learning Affinity Group is for you!
 
Participants in this Affinity Group will have access to other professionals that support or have a passion for curriculum and instruction. Members can post questions, offer suggestions, share innovations, explore challenges, and provide resources. Join us in creating an online community that assists in the development of outstanding teaching and learning practices in our local educational service agencies.
 
Lead Contact: Heather Fish, Director of School Improvement Services, CESA 5, Portage, WI;  fishh@cesa5.org
 
Meeting Schedule: TBD

Technology Used: Zoom and Google Drive
 
Visit the " Teaching & Learning " Online Community (must be a community member to access the site). 

If you are interested in joining, contact group leader, Heather Fish.
Join the AESA Online Community
If you haven't already joined, it's easy!

You must be a staff member of an ESA that is also a member of AESA to join the community.


If you want to join an Affinity Group contact the leaders listed here .

Affinity Groups are great place to post questions, network, and connect with ESAs across the country! Give us a try . . . who knows what you will learn!
AESA Annual Conference
Exhibit Hall:
Showcase Your ESA at the Annual Conference
How to Get Involved
AESA's Annual Conference features an Exhibit Hall where ESAs can showcase products and services to other ESA member

Check out the website today! Please note there is limited space available, so please act fast!

Business Partner Spotlight
MindShine
HAVE YOU EVER BOUGHT YOUR SOFTWARE SOLUTION AND THEN…

  • It does only 80% of what you need it to do?
  • Maintenance fees went up?
  • The small company was swallowed up by a large company?
  • The company went out of business or discontinued it?

Have you ever considered building your own software?

  • You own it.
  • Your software does 100% of what you need.
  • You can enhance it as your needs grow.
  • There are no maintenance fees.

MindShine Technology owners, Igor Babushkin and Bob Darby are proud to be AESA Business Partners. We believe in what AESA members do for the vast majority of public schools in our country. We are excited by the opportunities that AESA members have given us to develop software for their use with their school districts.

Our business model allows for AESA members to get discounted software development prices. We also ensure that there is an opportunity for the service agency to create support offerings around their software solution. And if one of your districts is thinking about purchasing a new software, you can help them find us and save them money!
We have worked with AESA members on small projects, providing one software engineer for a month so that the project meets its timeline and budget. And we have worked on larger projects that require a dedicated team for a year or more, and anything in between.
Our focus is on K12 education technology.

Our process is simple. If you have an idea for a software solution, STOP BEFORE YOU BUY and have a conversation with us.

Here are three case studies:

Listen to what John Bass, Chief Operating Officer, AESA, has to say:
           
"AESA contracted with MindShine Technologies to develop our registration software. They helped us with the design and specifications, sent us prototypes and we went back and forth until we had exactly what we wanted for conference registrations. The company assigned a project manager who stayed with us the entire time. We could have purchased a 3rd party software solution for our conference registrations, but we are glad we chose to work with MindShine.  I would strongly recommend you talk with Igor Babushkin or Bob Darby, owners of MindShine Technologies, before purchasing any new software."

Listen to what Geoff Craven, Executive Director, NAMTC, has to say:

“Our financial software is in use in over 350 school districts throughout the state. I recently retired from the CSIU after 35.5 years of managing the Technology Group, and we had gone through various revisions of our administrative software from a mainframe, to Unix based, to Visual Fox Pro and finally to Dot Net through MindShine. We realized with our final release of software that there was no way we could possibly find and allocate the programming resources to complete this project. Our programmers are still busy supporting clients, and it would take a lot of retooling to get them retrained and effective in Dot Net.  
We did a pilot project with MindShine with a small module of the new software to evaluate their services and it was very successful and met the approval of our programmers and clients. As a result, we decided to contract the design, programming and testing to MindShine for our financial administration applications and were able to take what would have been a 3-4-year development cycle and shrink it down to 8-9 months.  
Our programmers communicate regularly with MindShine staff and we do final acceptance testing of each module. Honestly without MindShine we were in danger of losing our entire client base because of the age of the Visual Fox Pro software.”  

Finally, here is a comment from a CEO before the launch of his new K12 software company, a product that we built for Dan Brown, CEO, EdLogix.

“Dear Bob, John and I wanted to thank you for the excellent work that MindShine has provided us. Launching new software projects is challenging in so many respects and MindShine has made it much easier, faster and more cost effective than we anticipated. We also appreciate how the K-12 experience informs the communication with our project manager and translates to better design and faster deployment to our customers. We look forward to working together for a long time to come.”

Thank you for the opportunity to work with AESA members.

Igor Babushkin
Bob Darby (c-602-369-4011 or bobdarby1020@gmail.com)
MindShine Technologies
www.mindshine.com
Perspectives Journal
For in-depth articles about issues, innovations and the impact of ESAs!

Did you know that as a member of AESA you have access to an online journal that discusses the needs, policies , research and other issues affecting ESAs? These articles focus on the work of ESAs today. 

This is your go-to source for detailed articles on the types of services and the impact that your colleagues are having on student learning from around the country.

For 'Perspective' join us at the blog!   https://www.aesa.us/blog/  
AESA Connect  
If you are looking for a user-friendly registration system, this one's for you! 
 
AESA Connect provides a streamlined, user-friendly process for event registration. The program automatically sends a registration confirmation email to both the registrant and the system administrator. If credit card payment method is used, a credit card transaction receipt is generated and emailed to the user. Users are provided easy access to event participation history. System administrators can track registrations and produce reports to aid in invoicing and other event management tasks.

For more details, contact AESA Chief Operating Officer   John Bass.