Illuminate BlogIlluminate Spotlight: Gary Collins (Victor Elementary School District)
Meet Gary Collins, a Technology Support Specialist at Victor Elementary School District. His role involves dealing with data and administration surrounding state and local assessments, report card administration, and support for Illuminate users in the district.
We asked Gary a few questions to learn about what’s happening in Victorville.
What led you to teaching/education?
When studying in college, I was told on a number of occasions that I should go into teaching. As a bit of an introvert, this seemed odd to me. However, I believed God was leading me in this direction so I changed course. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience.
Tell us about your Illuminate Data and Assessment implementation. Please share challenges, lessons learned, and successes.
I must give credit to my predecessor, Mark Staggs, for his out-of-the-box thinking on this. Mark created a report card that our 5th grade teachers use to submit data for the California Physical Fitness Test. The PFT requires very specific formatting for data entry, so we needed to be able to limit what users can enter to accommodate the formatting requirements. We saw the Report Card module as the perfect solution for this, and it has worked remarkably well in the three years of implementation. We have since built a CUM insert in the Report Card module, which has saved our teachers hundreds of hours.
What is your favorite Illuminate feature?
I know this isn’t a true “feature,” but I’d have to say tech support. I would often call and everyone I speak with is very patient, kind, and helpful. I almost always get a hold of someone on the first try.
How has Illuminate helped your teachers in their work with supporting students?
My mantra has been to take what burdens I can off the classroom teacher so that they can focus on students and their learning. Whether it’s ease of attendance, report card entry, or custom reporting to give teachers real time data, Illuminate helps me do that.
Illuminate Education is a provider of educational technology and services offering innovative data, assessment and student information solutions. Serving K-12 schools, our cloud-based software and services currently assist more than 1,600 school districts in promoting student achievement and success.
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