Questeq Team Members Provide “App Therapy” at JNUC 2022

Just east of Pittsburgh, PA, you will find Norwin School District. Norwin serves over 5,100 students from the communities of North Huntingdon and Irwin, PA. In late 2019, the administrative team at Norwin partnered with Questeq to manage the district’s technology program. I joined the team in August 2020, eventually becoming the Application Support Manager. It is my job to oversee the district’s Application Analysts who manage all software used by the students, faculty, and staff of the district. In July of 2021, Joe Potocki joined the team as an Instructional Application Analyst, helping to manage all the software and applications used in classrooms throughout the district. Together, Joe and I are also responsible for the management of the district’s Apple ecosystem.
 
Each September, Apple administrators from around the world gather at the Jamf National User Conference (JNUC) to learn and exchange ideas on how to manage their Apple ecosystems. Due to COVID restrictions, the 2020 and 2021 editions of JNUC were held virtually, and free of charge to all Jamf customers. During these years, our team at Norwin began attending the conference to gather knowledge and best practices for deploying and maintaining our new fleet of 1-to-1 iPads. Each year, we would leave the virtual conference energized and full of ideas on how to improve our processes here at Norwin.
 
As things began to return to ‘normal’ it was announced that JNUC would be returning to an in-person event and would be held in San Diego for 2022. While it was exciting to see things return to normal, Joe and I were saddened to think that we would no longer be able to attend an event that had proven to be so fulfilling and motivating for us in the past. During a Jamf Heroes user group meeting a few months later, the initial call for presentation proposals went out. Many members of the group spoke about how fulfilling of an experience it was to present at past JNUCs and encouraged newbies to enter a submission. Joe and I threw around the idea of submitting a proposal and began thinking about what would have been helpful for us to know in the beginning. From there, the ideas flowed easily.

Within a week of submission, we got a response from Jamf, accepting our presentation “App Therapy”. From that point, the team at Jamf provided all the resources necessary to be successful. We were given feedback at every step and provided a community of other presenters should we have any questions. The Questeq Marketing team helped us with our slide deck and offered sage advice along the way. In June, we worked with a remote team (as well as our local AV guru at Norwin, Todd) to record our presentation. The hardest part? Not seeing the final product until we presented it in San Diego. The whole process, from submission to presentation, was easier than we could have imagined, thanks to the support of the team at Jamf, Questeq, and here at Norwin.

JNUC was an experience we will not soon forget. Joe and I had the opportunity to meet and work with K-12 admins from around the country. We have already begun to implement some of the new things we learned at JNUC and are investigating how to roll out additional changes in the near future. We cannot thank Jamf, Questeq and Norwin enough for the opportunity afforded to us at JNUC. It was truly an amazing experience!

Jacki Walker, Application Support Manager
Norwin School District