MAEDS Spring PD Day 2025: Full Schedule

You will be able to validate your attendance (Check-In to sessions) using your personal schedule.

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8:15am EDT

Check-In, Networking & Continental Breakfast LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 8:15am - 9:00am EDT

MMCC Community Room

Wednesday May 14, 2025 8:15am - 9:00am EDT
MMCC Community Room 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

9:00am EDT

AI in School Tech: Practical Uses, Pitfalls, and Future Potential LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am EDT

MMCC Community Room

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the education technology landscape, offering powerful tools for automation, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making. However, with great potential comes critical challenges, ethical considerations, and the risk of misuse.
This panel discussion will focus on the practical applications of AI specifically for school technology technicians, exploring real-world use cases, best practices, and the risks to avoid. Attendees will gain actionable insights into how AI can optimize their work while ensuring security, compliance, and ethical integrity.
Topics Covered:✅ AI-Powered Troubleshooting & Support – How AI can assist with automating helpdesk requests, predictive maintenance, and system diagnostics.
✅ Cybersecurity & AI – How AI enhances threat detection, anomaly detection, and automated response to security risks.
✅ Data Management & Privacy – Balancing AI-driven efficiencies with student data privacy laws and ethical concerns.
✅ AI for Efficiency – Automating software updates, patch management, and network monitoring to reduce workload.
✅ The Risks & Pitfalls of AI – Understanding bias in AI models, security vulnerabilities, and over-reliance on automation.
✅ AI Uses You Haven’t Thought Of – Unexpected ways AI can assist technicians, IT teams, and school districts in their daily operations.

Speakers

Eric Kerbill

Executive Board Member, MAEDS

Brandi Reynolds

Director of Technology, Northwest Education Services

Brandi Reynolds is the Director of Technology at Northwest Education Services, where she leads innovative technology initiatives to support K-12 education. With a passion for enhancing digital learning environments, improving cybersecurity, and optimizing IT infrastructure, Brandi... Read More →

Wednesday May 14, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am EDT
MMCC Community Room 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

global Y

9:00am EDT

Controlling and monitoring AV equipment from scratch LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am EDT

MMCC Auditorium 1

If you've attended my past MAEDS sessions talking about bringing AV equipment into IP environments, this is a next step deep dive into some practical methods of controlling and monitoring your AV equipment over IP. We'll use free tools such as PacketSender, Companion, and Stream Decks to control various equipment using TCP, UDP, HTTP, or API commands, how to find these commands and do basic control commands. We'll then dive into Q-SYS and write a simple control and status monitor in LUA script using the best practices we've learned and how to bring IT observability and monitoring to your AV environments, and how that can integrate with other room controls to make the end-user experience better.

Speakers

Steve Van Dyke

Data Center Systems Specialist, Portage Public Schools

I'm in my 19th year of serving the needs of Portage Public Schools - Not only as a key member of the technology department handing day-to-day operations of our systems, but also as a leader in the Southwest Michigan area of audio/visual/lighting design & engineering, and controls... Read More →

Wednesday May 14, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am EDT
MMCC Auditorium 1 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

9:00am EDT

You have your IRP, now test it. LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am EDT

MMCC Auditorium 2

This session will give you the oppurtunity to test your Incident Response Plan. We will provide two scenarios to walk through. Bring your team and use your plan to respond to the incident. Identify weaknesses and ways to improve the plan.

A plan is only a document until you have tested it.

Speakers

Nicholas Hay

Director of Information Services, Monroe County ISD

Matt McMahon

Director, MiSecure | MAISA

Former Associate Superintendent for Technology at Gratiot-Isabella RESD, Matt is now part of the MiSecure team established in 2023 to help defend K12 against cyber threats.

Nick Morse

Cybersecurity Consultant, Kent ISD

Wednesday May 14, 2025 9:00am - 10:30am EDT
MMCC Auditorium 2 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

10:45am EDT

Controlling the Variables: Hosting a local LLM LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am EDT

MMCC Community Room

Building your own AI platform for your district.

Speakers

Matt Bell

Network Administrator, Dexter Community Schools

Wednesday May 14, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
MMCC Community Room 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

10:45am EDT

Defending the Backbone: Securing MiSEN’s Network Against Modern Threats LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am EDT

MMCC Auditorium 1

At Michigan’s Statewide Educational Network (MiSEN), securing our infrastructure against evolving threats is critical. This session explores MiSEN’s technical landscape, focusing on DDoS mitigation, network resilience, and best practices for safeguarding connectivity. Attendees will gain insights into current challenges, solutions, and proactive strategies to ensure the future of the SEN and its benefits for Michigan’s schools.

Speakers

Kurt Torok

Network Integration Manager, Michigan Statewide Educational Network

Merri Lynn Colligan

MiSEN Director, Michigan Statewide Educational Network

Dan Allen

Wednesday May 14, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
MMCC Auditorium 1 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

10:45am EDT

How ISDs and LEAs can use MiCloud for backups and datacenter modernization LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am EDT

MMCC Auditorium 2

Discover how MiCloud empowers schools to modernize and secure their IT infrastructure and enhance disaster recovery through cloud-based solutions. We will explore how ISDs and LEAs can leverage MiCloud's services for reliable disaster recovery, cloud-hosted backups, and seamless datacenter modernization, including migrations to AWS.

Speakers

Mike Coats

Infrastructure Manager, Kalamazoo RESA

My current role here at KRESA is the Infrastructure Manager. I keep the following teams rollin' along: Server/Cloud Team, Network Team, and Information Security Team. I started out in IT back around ‘99 (technically, I was doing it as early as ’96 when a friend of mine and I... Read More →

Wednesday May 14, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
MMCC Auditorium 2 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

global Y

11:45am EDT

Lunch LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT

MMCC Community Room

Wednesday May 14, 2025 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT
MMCC Community Room 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

1:00pm EDT

ABC's of ACL's LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT

MMCC Auditorium 2

Overview of how I deployed ACLs at my district on the core switch to tighten up our network security posture. While I'm by no means an expert nor do I hold any relevant certifications, I have over 20+ years in IT experience (mostly at K-12 level and mostly in the systems engineering/network engineering space). My goal would be to attract participants who currently have a core switch environment with VLANs configured in the default scenario - a scenario where all networks can talk to each other. I hope for people to be able to walk away with some basics to get started writing ACLs and work toward securing their networks.

Speakers

Phil Rowley

Director of Information Technology, Jenison Public Schools

Wednesday May 14, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT
MMCC Auditorium 2 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

1:00pm EDT

New Tech's Guide to Surviving LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT

MMCC Community Room

Speakers

Damian Koob

Director of Technology Services, Van Buren ISD

Rick Munir

Wednesday May 14, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT
MMCC Community Room 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

1:00pm EDT

PowerShell - You Should Use It LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT

MMCC Auditorium 1

Unlock the potential of PowerShell and transform your workflow. This session will take you from PowerShell novice to confident user. We'll start with a clear, concise introduction to the PowerShell environment, covering basic commands and syntax. Then, we'll transition to intermediate topics, including scripting, loops, and conditional statements. We'll focus on real-world K12 scenarios: automating user management, quickly gathering information, and streamlining application installs. Get ready to learn how to save time and improve consistency with the power of PowerShell.

Speakers

Chris Thomas

Desktop Engineer, Ingham Intermediate School District

Chris Thomas has supported technology in K-12 public schools for the last 23 years and now serves as the Desktop Engineer supporting Ingham Intermediate School District, Eaton RESA, and 5 local education associations. He is also an active member of the Configuration Manager community... Read More →

Wednesday May 14, 2025 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT
MMCC Auditorium 1 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

2:45pm EDT

Lightning Talks LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 2:45pm - 3:15pm EDT

MMCC Community Room

VM Ware, Google & Microsoft, To the Cloud and Beyond, IPV6, and others from the crowd. Bring something to share.

Speakers

Dan Allen

Wednesday May 14, 2025 2:45pm - 3:15pm EDT
MMCC Community Room 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

3:15pm EDT

Closing Remarks & Feedback LIMITED

Wednesday May 14, 2025 3:15pm - 3:30pm EDT

MMCC Community Room

Wednesday May 14, 2025 3:15pm - 3:30pm EDT
MMCC Community Room 2600 S Summerton Rd, Mt Pleasant, MI 48858, USA

MAEDS Spring PD Day 2025

From $60.00