Posts by Braden
NAIS Recap: Technology for Independent Schools
The morning of February 29th marked a new and exciting journey for our team as four OrgSyncers headed out to Seattle, WA to attend our first National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Conference. We packed up raincoats and headed northwest, excited to try fresh seafood, experience winter (a mythical season to us here in Texas), and meet administrators from independent schools across the country.
Bill Gates gave the opening speech for the conference and the highlights he presented about his time at Lakeside School, a NAIS member, were both moving and inspiring. Mr. Gates spoke of the vast progress made in providing technology to independent schools as well as the future trends for technology, including providing digital portfolios and empowering student leaders with technology to assist with learning in and out of the classroom. To say the least, Mr. Gates gave a fantastic intro to many of the tools included in OrgSync and introduced some great talking points for us to discuss with school administrators during the conference.
We had a lot of great discussions with attendees from every position and level at independent schools. We discussed everything from tracking community service, engaging this generation of students in a private online community, collecting involvement information to generate student involvement transcriptions and digital portfolios, and even streamlining communication and operations online to go green.
The NAIS conference was a fantastic learning experience for us as we discovered many different ways that we can help independent schools . We hope that everyone else at the conference had an awesome experience at NAIS and we look forward to working with more independent schools across the country.
TABS 2011 – Talking About OrgSync With Private and Boarding Schools
Its has been an exciting few weeks for us as conference season is winding down for the Fall and the holidays quickly approaching. Exactly a week after Thanksgiving, Cayce and I attended The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) Annual Conference in Boston. This was OrgSync’s first opportunity to attend TABS, so it was a great learning experience for us and the perfect opportunity to network and create new relationships.
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| Cayce at our booth! |
During the conference, we had many great conversations with Directors and Administrators from various private and boarding schools to learn about their specific needs. The OrgSync booth was a big hit as always (although Cayce claims this is due to his charm, but we’ll let you decide that). Conversations focused on how OrgSync can help these schools go paperless and streamline their operations and how OrgSync can be used to plan co-curricular and weekend activities that keep their students engaged and involved.
In addition, we attended several sessions, two of which were open forum discussions focusing on Residential Life and Technology in boarding schools. We were all ears as we engaged in these discussions with Directors of these departments and learned a great deal from the experts themselves.
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| Lobster & Clam Chowda. Yum! |
In reflection, Boston is an incredible city to host a conference and the conversations we had were invaluable as we begin to work with more and more independent and boarding schools across the country. Of course, no trip to Boston would be complete without some New England clam “chowda’” and some variation of Maine Lobster. Overall it was a fantastic experience and we’re already looking forward to seeing everyone again next year.
If you’d like to learn more about how OrgSync can benefit your private or boarding school, take a look at our handout below or download your copy here.