21 Day Aspen Challenge Introduction

Why a 21 Day Aspen Challenge?

I really have to credit this idea to my colleague, +Paul Barrette , from the Smithfield Public Schools. Paul has a great blog called the Drive 21 Day Challenge. There's a popular notion that it takes 21 days before the neural pathways are in place to cement a ritual as a habit. I would like to take advantage of that premise, and use the next 21 days to help teachers and administrators to learn more about using Aspen. Teachers in my district love Paul's 21 Day Drive Challenge, and have made the same requested challenge for Aspen.

Aspen is our district's Instructional Management System, IMS. It is a comprehensive, rich instructional management system. Our district uses Aspen for almost everything. We keep track of educator evaluations, staff attendance, local-student assessment data, student demographic data, and anything connected to curriculum development. There is a lot of data that we keep in Aspen, and unfortunately it can be difficult, or there's a high degree of complexity to get to the data. The screenshot below shows the district view and the district landing page of Aspen.

Over the next 21 day challenge I will try to share some useful tools with teachers and administrators to get to the data, as well as different ways to communicate and collaborate within the Aspen portal. I'm hopeful this blog will be a useful resource for the teachers, administrators, support personnel, and parents in the West Warwick Public School community.