2007
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| Mrs. Vikki Childress Assistant Vice Principal Northside High School's 21st Century Academy Onslow County, Jacksonville, North Carolina ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Mr. Donnie Hamlett Solutions Specialist: Core Infrastructure for State and Government Microsoft Corporation NY/NJ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Northside High Launches 21st Century Academy in 2007-08 The 21st Century Academy has a strong emphasis on technology. Students in the academy are taught by teachers who integrate technology in every lesson. The students use web pages, blogging, on-line chats and email as a means of communicating with their teachers. After completion of the requirements of the academy and the school, the students will graduate from high school with a diploma, Microsoft and other IT Certifications in several areas. The students are grouped together as a cohort and will stay together for 6-8 classes during the freshman year. They will remain together, as much as possible, as a cohort throughout high school. The academy students share the same curriculum, teachers and assignments. This enables the students to gain an appreciation of team work while working towards similar goals. Many students feel overwhelmed in high school today and so team work plays an invaluable part of this development process. Members of the academy are immersed in a family like atmosphere from the very first day to cultivate a comfortable learning environment needed for the motivation and success of the students. The 21st Century Academy will turn the typical high school experience into a virtual interactive high school experience. Teachers and students will be better equipped to be competitive citizens in the global 21st Century. The IT Security Suite Network, TITSSN, has partnered with the Northside High School’s assistant principal and academy director, Vikki Childress to help develop and implement these technology curriculum and technology initiatives being pursued by the 21st Century Academy. As a team, we have spent numerous hours collaborating on the curriculum and the goals of the academy. As a result of this partnership, TITSSN has donated laptops so that students in the academy would have connectivity at home, copies of Microsoft Office 2007 Professional for the academy staff and students to enhance their collaborative productivity and efficiency, mobile devices so they can stay in touch and collaborate on up-to-date critical business and happenings, a new IT Security scholarship program to help motivate and inspire the academy students towards this specialized area of IT and customized training and development for the staff members. Through their vast network of vendors and associates, TITSSN has helped us increase our development of this program and our initiatives tremendously as they are able to provide everything we need to make this successful. Their extensive network fills every niche of the academy’s needs and thus securely positions us for tomorrow’s professionals needs. They have also integrated two new customized certifications into the curriculum, the Microsoft Small Business Server Security Specialist “MSBSSS” and the Information Technology Defense-in-Depth Security Specialist “ITDiDSS”. The two certifications adds a unique layer to our curriculum and enhances its focus on this very important area of IT, IT Security. Because of her hard work and dedication to her students and school, TITSSN has selected Mrs. Vikki Childress and the 21st Century Academy as our featured organization and recipient of our North Carolina Adopt an Institution Program for 2007. The 21st Century Academy will also receive our IT Security Scholarship Program going forward. TITSSN would like to extend our gratitude to Mrs. Childress and the 21st Century Academy committee for allowing us to help in building out their vision and initiatives. We look forward to continually working with you all. Thank you. |
Ever since our inception, Mr. Hamlett has been an avid supporter of the organization and its initiatives. He has worked with us in providing the needed integration and resources within Microsoft to facilitate the effective use and availability of the local office resources. Through his continued support and vigilance, we have seen a lot of focus being driven to the organization from within the Microsoft Corporation surrounding our security initiatives.. It was for this continued support and efforts that he was awarded the Microsoft IT Pro Community Advocate Award in February 2007. The IT Pro Community Advocate Award recognizes TSs and SSPs that go above and beyond their day-to-day responsibilities to engage and strengthen IT Pro communities in their Districts. The criteria for nomination is sustained or deep involvement with local User-Groups which has had significant impact Microsoft’s relationship with IT Pros in the Districts. He has most certainly fulfilled this role and for that we're eternally grateful. TITSSN has named Mr. Donnie Hamlett as our Person of the Year for 2007 and we look forward to his continued support going forward. This is more of an honor for us to nominate him for this award as he's always there for us. Thank you and congratulations Sir. |
| The 21st Century Academy will host our North Carolina Annual Mobility/Endpoint Security Summit "MESS" on (new date and time to be released soon). -= This event has been cancelled and a new date will be released soon =-  |