Tech Liaison Meeting 03/22/2011
Minutes
Welcome Kyle (DataTeam Technician),
Welcome! Kyle is working thru the awarded competitive grant up until September 30, 2011. This ARRA
grant will help the district continue the Data Team procedures. He is also helping us out in Technology
Services so you might see him at your school sites.
Projector Grant,
This Fall we will be doing PC schools. WE will ask for your feedback on what your site tech needs are and
would be a good grant.
HP All-in-one Computer,
WE have a loaner to check out for testing and play with it, one of the good things is the room for it, no
wires to deal with, it comes with wireless keyboard and mice. If we do go with making this standard we
will probably not go with the wireless components. Normally we have two PC options.
Tech Help Desk 786-TECH,
Tech Help Desk is now here! Dial 786-TECH for a quick fix, technology problems. Our two District tech’s
Ovidio and Saul are managing this, encourage your site to use this. This is support for District technology
ONLY. If you know that your technical support request cannot be addressed within 10minutes, please
enter a help ticket.
EdTech survey,
EdTech Survey, some of you have already done this, for the Elementary folks, Ylda Nogueda asked to
hold off for now. There are some issues if you are doing it with your entire staff please let G. know to
make sure it is all working properly.
PVUSD Net Safety Plan - Pilot,
Ed Safety Plan, we are looking at piloting it in May. The procedure will be if your site decides to do it,
you will watch a video and move from there. We are trying to hold this off for now. Hoping to get some
sites on board – G. will be sending out an email on this. One thing you can do as Liaison’s is do a mini
lesson on it.
Spring Institute and upcoming opportunities Staff Dev,
Spring Institute flyer going to your site this week, please encourage your staff to sign-up. It’s a more in
depth class and they will get a lot of help. There are also other classes on Staff Dev Web Site pass it on
to your teachers. North Zone sites talk to G. if you would like classes taught at your site but we would
need a good chunk of people to attend.
NetCeterra CyberSafety libros for secondary,
Cyber Safety Libros en espanol for parents, we got them donated to us and we want to pass them on to
your Spanish speaking parents, only high school and middle school. We will pass them out if you would
like more let G. know.
HAC (Home Access Center) Support,
HAC, Home Access Center for eSP, currently just Secondary sites, parents and students can log in ans see
grades and homework assignments. Parents need an account and there is a process to get them set-up.
It really needs to be managed at the site since parents are going to their child sites asking for it. For this
to be successful we need the site to know how to reset passwords or how to access it. We have some
How To documents and are here to support sites. There really needs to be someone full time at sites
that is there when parents are walking in.
Repurposing Computers to Other Sites,
We are repurposing computers form sites that purchase new computers; we want to send them to sites
that need them the most. Our plan and the process is if a site is PC is gets PC’s if it’s a MAC its gets
Mac’s. We identify machines that need repurposing and move them to the appropriate site.
Wide Spread Outages: Kbox Announcement & Help Desk recording,
We have the ability with KBox to send a little pop-up message to users. All the users have to do is click
on the X to close it. It’s not a two way communication. As people become aware it we will push out the
pop-up message. Also in the HELP DESK we can record a message alert such as “we are experiencing
email issues…”
DeepFreeze Update - Help to identify machines that need it,
We purchased the new deepfreeze it will now run on Win7. Identify all machines that are to be frozen
are indeed frozen and are up to date with the newest software; this is useful for computers that are
used by students. If you have computers that show a DeepFreeze desktop but is not frozen please call
the help desk to get it corrected.
Wireless Password change: pvusd831,
Wireless password will change – we will have the new password changed every 6 months or so, but we
are trying to time it so it does not interfere with Testing or Spring Breaks or so. This rule will go for all
password resets, they will get warnings, then it will force them to change the password for PC’s, for
Mac’s it will not force but we will send a link for Mac users and if users don’t change it then they will
have issues.
School Loop for all secondary next year?,
SchoolLoop even though its Erate funded there is still a cost of $2 per student for each site. Grades
change constantly as it emails parents on a daily basis. We are applying for school loop for next year
except for Alianza Charter. Once it’s underway it is such a huge change. Can you imagine the next
generation that is used to technology not paper? SchoolLoop gives the parents the ability to get involved
in this digital world. It’s well worth it.
Bandwidth increases for all schools in the district,
We applied for more bandwidth for every school in the district. The process of centralizing services is
the key that we want to move towards.
iPad2 and new OS,
The new iPads came out and there is a huge backorder on them. They are also rolling out a new OS for
current iPads. There are some new features on the new OS. Many are fixes. It’s pretty important to
connect it and update it.
Tech Equipment,
If people are leaving sites (pink slipped) we need to make sure you turn in your equipment and update
your loan agreement, we want to identify someone else in your site to keep your equipment but we
need to update the loan agreement.
Purchasing Deadline (April 1st),
It’s a loose it or use it! Sites need to spend the money or it will go to district generic funds. Get resources
for technology that is needed and can be purchased NOW!
Liaison Program Next Year,
This is very early in the year to have the last tech mtg. of the year, but we wanted to plan early, we
always struggle with funding for the following year, there is a plan to continue the program for next
year. We want to know about your feedback of what is good and bad or follow-up on the Tech Liaison
Program. There are certain schools that rule over the Tech Lia Program, each year we deal with funding
with layoffs and budget crisis.
Thoughts on next year? Current experience?
It’s working – disseminate information to sites.
Training opportunities at our site for Tech Lia’s?
Most of time is spent in troubleshooting, having the same contact person as Tech Lia is helpful
Leadership Team at Sites – would be a good resource for the Tech Lia to be part of it or come in
every once in while
Is there a way to let Administrators know we would like a little time at staff meetings?
As Tech Lia we have to hold the hand of those that are not technology savvy
Extra Units for Certificated Staff is also a good incentive for teachers, like the Institutes.
Mentoring and Shadowing
Release Time for Tech Lia’s?
Incentives help – like for the Laptop/Camera Grant you attend classes and you get some
equipment to use and learn more.
Other-eSchoolPlus
eSchoolPlus feedback on this transition; teachers are loving how easy it is, mixed reviews, main
complain it’s that the grade scale is not accessible by teachers/school; It’s not flexible. The other
complaint is the graph and charts are not as robust. In Master Scheduling it’s been awful (E.A. Hall). A lot
of key strokes involved. One thing that is nice is the accessibility of student records and information
from home. Parallel classes issues in the beginning but we get glitches with new students coming in,
information that is incorrect or not showing up in new teachers roosters. There have been issues with
Mac users. Please keep an ear out for any issues positive or negative on eSP and send any feedback to
Tim.
Extending Learning - David Slavin - Education City and Collaborize Classroom
--TeenBIZ free for the rest of the year, unlimited. But they must be trained, they need to sign-
up. It’s K-8 but it can be used up to grade 12.
--Free Education City Trial (email D.Slavin if you’re interested) It’s all cartoon and looks a little
funky but it has great resources. Rep is willing to come down to train a group of teachers.
--Collaborize Classroom it’s a free online learning platform, allows teachers to extend their
classroom discussion to a structured and private online community.
Digital Footprints - Linda Uhrenholt/ATT
Your Digital Tattoo
If you wanted to remove a tattoo it would be really hard. Information you put online is like a
tattoo.
Have you googled yourself? Are you google-able?
Google alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your choice of
query or topic (web, news, etc.)
How many people twit in here? (Twitter) There are bots searching out there for any key words
such as Tmobile/Verizon/AT&T etc. Kids will even post their own names on Twitter.
chatRoulette – you can talk to the person on the other side, students would get on there at
parties, and blackmail pictures of each other.
Augmented Reality from Hallmark – kids are starting to create them.
Digital Dossier – how at age 0 this person has already footprints
Should you be yourself online or should you create an ‘image’ you want a recruiter to see? –
Branding yourself
More information on this on the following URL:
http://dcwebinar.pbworks.com
A very small school district in Ohio for iPads, check this URL:
http://technology.wgschools.org
Student Password Change - Develop the plan for each site
Students know each other’s birthdates so they use each other login. We will set the complexity
at a higher level. All students will be prompted to change their password and can reset it if they
forget it. Each site will need to handle the process for their passwords resets. We will give the
rights to office managers and Tech Lia’s for student resets. Once the password is reset, the
students will get a temporary password then will get instructions on how to reset it. NOTE this
is for Secondary sites for now ONLY. We would like you along with your administration to set-
up this plan.