Presented by Michael Nicolaides, CIO of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction; Jim Peterson, CTO for the Bloomington Schools District 87; Michael McKerley, Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, ENA; and Gayle Nelson, Senior Vice President, Customer Service, ENA
Hosted by Christine Fox, Deputy Executive Director, SETDA
Hosted by SETDA
Sponsored by the Education Networks of America (ENA)

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This edWebinar is the launch of SETDA’s latest resource, State Leadership for K12 Wi-Fi Implementation: Extending the Broadband Imperative II. This new paper explores the steps states are taking to address the wireless equity gaps that exist among their schools. States are uniquely positioned to provide both policies and funding to help ensure all students have equitable access to reliable Wi-Fi throughout K12 campuses. State leaders from Illinois and North Carolina share their unique approaches to Wi-Fi implementation and support statewide including statewide partnerships, regional consortia and policy initiatives. This edWebinar benefits state and district administrators, CIOs, IT directors, E-rate Coordinators, network leaders and tech coordinators.

About the Presenters

Michael Nicolaides has been the Chief Information Officer for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction since March 2014. Michael is responsible for the Technology Services team at NCDPI and oversees the statewide technical infrastructure and software applications common to the North Carolina Public Schools by providing strategic direction, guidance and support to the 115 local education agencies and more than 150 charter schools in North Carolina.

Before coming to North Carolina, Michael served as Virginia Beach City Public Schools’ Technology Director for 10 years where he led a large team of technology professionals in maintaining, supporting and enhancing the technical infrastructure for the school district that served 87,000 users. In addition, he led the implementation of enterprise application systems. Prior to that he was Vice President for Information Systems for Orbit Satellite Television and Radio Network in Cyprus and Italy.

Michael graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Government as a Certified Government Chief Information Officer (CGCIO). Moreover, Michael is a graduate of Old Dominion University and holds two bachelor of science degrees (in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) and a master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Jim Peterson began his K12 career as a middle school teacher and is currently the CTO for the Bloomington Schools District 87. He leads the IlliniCloud – a cooperative of school districts providing innovative cloud-based services for K12 districts and other non-profits. He is also a leader within the K12 Federation, an organization of state-wide and regional K12 operators working with P-20 partners and various service providers to broker and develop IT solutions by K12, for K12.

Jim has 20 years of experience implementing technology solutions; designing curriculum and instructional systems; brokering shared technology infrastructure; and innovating professional development programs to better match K12 needs. While he has the privilege of working with several innovative P-20 project spaces, his greatest interest is collaborating with like minds to drive adoption of standards-based, openly developed, federated tools within K12 – collaborating with traditional silos of K12 operators to “fix dumb K12 problems” together.

He has degrees from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, and the University of Illinois with an emphasis in Curriculum, Technology, & Education Reform.

Michael McKerley is ENA’s Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Technology and Innovation. Michael joined ENA in 2000 and is responsible for managing ENA’s current suite of products and services, including the underlying technology architecture that enables them, as well as envisioning and delivering ENA’s future product and technology roadmap. He oversees the efforts of ENA’s architecture, R&D, product management, systems engineering, and software engineering teams. Michael is passionate about designing, developing, and deploying cost-effective, scalable, and reliable solutions that enable digital transformation in today’s K –12 schools, higher education institutions, and libraries.

Gayle Nelson is ENA’s Senior Vice President of Customer Services. Gayle joined ENA in 2004, bringing over 20 years of experience in sales, operations management and customer service with her. At ENA, she is responsible for sales, customer-relationship management, and business-development activities nationwide. Gayle actively participates in several regional, state, and national education technology associations to ensure that our customers’ needs and expectations are always met.

About the Host

Christine Fox is the deputy executive director for SETDA. As Deputy Executive Director, she collaborates with the executive director in charting strategic direction, administration, planning and financial decisions involving SETDA. She also facilitates the members’ professional learning opportunities including planning and implementing the content for SETDA’s virtual and in-person events and newsletters. In addition, she manages many of SETDA’s research and product development projects from conception to publication. The management of such projects includes coordinating data collection from all states, supervising consultants and staff, ensuring member input and supervising the publishing process. Recent publications and projects include Navigating the Digital Shift, Digital Instructional Materials Acquisition Policies for States, OER Case Studies: Implementation in Action, The Broadband Imperative and From Data to Information. Christine’s background includes experience in education and consulting. She has worked as an educational consultant and curriculum developer for a national whole school reform model, ESOL coordinator and 3rd grade teacher. Christine has a Masters of Science in teaching English as a second language from Florida International University and received her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Florida State University.

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The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit membership association launched by state education agency leaders in 2001 to serve, support and represent their emerging interests and needs with respect to the use of technology for teaching, learning, and school operations. Our current work is guided by a strategic plan, Leading, Inspiring and Empowering: The 2013-16 SETDA Strategic Plan, adopted by the SETDA Board of Directors in October 2012 after extensive consultation with the membership. The SETDA mission is to build and increase the capacity of state and national leaders to improve education through technology policy and practice.

ENA delivers robust and reliable broadband, Wi-Fi/LAN, communication, and cloud services to K–12 schools, higher education institutions, and libraries across the nation. We work side-by-side with our customers to ensure they have the connectivity, communication, and collaboration solutions they need to be successful.

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