Thursday, May 24, 2012

Tech Facilitator Meeting May 2012

 

  • Betty Weycker:  Next year focus by Bullying Committee will be on cyber bullying 
  • Ali Tomberlin will be here to share legal updates. 
    • New texting policy
Personnel Updates
  • Victoria from downtown school had a baby. 
  • Ruth Wilcox is transferring to Paisley Middle School 
  • No one new or leaving?

End of year wrap up on Connect your Community (CYC) --Computer distribution Program Cathy Davidson
  • Biggest computer distribution last Friday-- 112 
  • 1000 children now have computers at home, and many more parents are computer literate 
  • 1535 computer graduates 
  • Let parents and teachers know that there will continue to be free computer classes through Winstonnet  http://forsythcomputertraining.org/
  • Trainers have all been unemployed or under-employed

Carla Miller—technical updates
  • Printers:  auditing software is NOT in place now—so we can’t tell which computers printed to what printer at this point. 
  • End of year—try and leave printers up and plugged into the same port as they are currently plugged into now because of VLAN issues, and the printer management
  • Computers put up over the summer—up to schools at how to handle
Race to the top update:
  • Some trailers do not have access points—all trailers will have an access point in them—all parts have now arrived. 
  • E-rate schools—changing out switch gear—waiting until after staff leaves—she will be in contact with the school affected

Kevin: Printing issues:   
  • last year SSO,  this year windows active directory server 2008 
  • Now through print utility through print management console—it’s about 50%-75% successful 
  • Issues with printing and student printing? 
  • Found that there is basically no reason to use print servers 
  • The alternative is: "TCPIP" printing:  Each machine is set up on a  TCPIP printer port-- Nothing profile related. (Downs:  I already add printers this way when I could not get a machine to work right with print server:  http://tjmstechtips.blogspot.com/2010/04/printing-troubleshootingadding-local-ip.html )
  • Chris feels like it can be done through a script—It is the most basic, simple way to print 
  • It would be a one time script that runs on machines
  • The print management console will still be used to add printers this way. 
  • Will we be able to audit print jobs if we switch to this management method?  YES 
    • Print auditing: requires a third party piece of software that costs money 
    • Should DOT give you the tool?  But is there enough support for this—needs more discussion.  Maybe a principal meeting discussion if there is a high need
  •  Printing should not be this hard!  Maybe over-managed it? 
  • When we switch over, DOT will send out a team to schools

True guest wireless
  • How to get a guest on the wireless network 
  • We have controller based managed wireless network 
  • For guest access, each school will receive a guest access user name such as "516guest" 
  • They will issue temporary passwords—for 24 hours generally 
  • You can put in a ticket or call the help desk and they will email you the information for the guest log-in 
  • Users will have student filtering applied. 
  • No access to printers. 
  • Best policy is still probably for guests to have presentations on a thumb drive 
  • The guest will have to connect to WSFCS_GUEST not WSFCS_Managed 
  • This is for vendors, parents, presenters, etc. who come into your school for temporary circumstances—This will be live in August

Accelerated Reader/Renaissance Product:   
  • Are going to web-based only product.  The support of server client environments will continue for one more year, but after that, DOT and vendor will no longer support that AR product (server) 
  • Glenda Graham retired and Sherry Reich has been promoted to that position, so Sherry will not be working much with AR much anymore 
  • Marlo made the point that this might be a natural time to move away from this since the research shows it is NOT proven to be effective for student learning
  •  Kevin/Betty/Marlo have to discuss with instructional the best product that could be offered as an alternative
  • AR not going away, it’s just going to the web version, and you will need to buy the support for it. 
  • Server version of AR should still work, but don’t ask DOT if it stops working after next year.
AMTR:
Joan Proffitt: AMTR FAQ questions have been updated and will be uploaded to web-portal:

  • If you have password problems, put in a KACE ticket or Joan.  
  • Don’t forget to count cafeteria computers 
  • 101/102 Pentium questions:  Most with R are a four and higher 
  • Galaxy tabs go under 109—net-book or a mini 
  • 114:  PALM for dibbles 
  • New smart phones go under 124 DROID
  • CPS each clicker gets counted 
  • Number of teachers—certified classroom teachers 
  • 50% at one school verses another—you can count .5 
  • Guidance counselor and CC can be counted as a teacher if they go into classrooms and teach 
  • 409—Video streaming--Learn 360 and YouTube for education 
  • 604—WAN connection—MS/HS,  up to a 1000mb is 1GB 
  • 618 average RAM--kinda of a crazy question, but most schools probably average 512 MB of RAM though some schools with many newer computers may average 1 GB

Re-image machines—Help ?
  • If you are willing to do this with your principal's approval—volunteer?  Carla will have a team to help you—images will be the latest
  • Will not do classroom solution machines nor office machines 
  • T400—issue with monitor driver for CPS (Mike getting to Evan) 
  • Profile sweeps usually the third week of May 
 Lenovo coming out with a new version of mini
  • 4GB of memory with windows 7 
  • Pricing these out (just bought 60 of them) 
  • Ready to put on the price list 
  • About $40 more expensive 
  • A set of 24 with the managed cart is about $100 cheaper 
  • Cart for these holds 32
Thin Client machines—still testing the idea of turning old net vista into those machines—still viable—can’t go hog wild because of band width issues.

IE8:  Is available on AICP
  • You can also try a handful of machines using KACE—send Chris or Kevin an email if you would like to try that on a handful of machines at one time 
  • New images will have IE8

Debbie Harmon:  End of Year updates 
  • K2 assessment moved into SAS (link on teacher web portal—under links)   
  • brings them to SAS log-on screen—tied to their network user name and password 
  • What they learned, when more than 15 students on the main screen in order to refresh it was timing out in IE7,  but worked great in IE8 
  • Now, all students are on one page 
  • Problems really seem to happen when there are more than 16 students in on-screen view and IE8 should help
  • There is no requirement to print.  But they’re may be issues 
  • Harmon can provide all the data to CC’s
NCWISE, other
  • Tam document—departments/ncwise/tam user guides:  http://wsfcs.k12.nc.us/Page/45268 
  • There is an elementary end of year marks calculation 
  • Comments should be added to the final marks not 4th 9 weeks 
  • MS/HS document will be up next week
Policy change on the EOG counting as 25% (now is 20%) Ncwise can not change that percent--Principals said they had it "worked out"

Marlo:
  • Summer stuff—Promethian--July 17 and 18 Promethean Conference at Morgan 
  • SMARTcon12 July 19 and 20 at Speas 
  • June sweep on June 14th and 15th:  http://wsfcs.k12.nc.us/Page/56986

BYLD—"Bring your learning device"
  • Cherokee County, Georgia piloted this in the spring—was all voluntary 
  • Kevin—the instructional part is an important issue to address. What would you do with the devices? 
  • To put training in perspective, In Cherokee County, when teachers get a classroom solution, they have to attend 100 hours of training (our teacher balk at 3 hours) 
  • In terms of devices there, anything that can access the web is what this district allowed 
  • Parents would have to think about how they would help student get connected to the network at school 
  • Late this summer, Betty will share with principals, but will start with a pilot (not a whole lot to tell yet about how the pilot would look) 
  • Will look at how to teach, how to manage them, and then hopefully a district wide model later next school year 
  • Cherokee is very willing to share all their information including suggested ideas for teachers
Betty:
  • Marlo’s last instructional meeting—Thank you! 
  • New director of instructional technology—Steven Anderson 
  • Keep in touch with Marlo:  mgaddis@chccs.k12.nc.us
  • on twitter:  @
"Setting the Tone:  A Connected School Approach to Creating Bully-Free Classrooms"
  • Cyber-bullying has recently come on as a big issue— 
  • Glenn Smith is here today..works with inmates, instructor of applied control theory. 
  • President of:  www.be-print.net 
  • Wrote this book to continue to publicize bullying—it goes on not just in schools but at home and in the workplace 
  • Another reason other than awareness, is to offer ideas of what to do about it. 
  • Intimidating the intimidator or rescuing the victim is not always the way 
  • Hurting people that hurt people is not the way to change behavior 
  • Internal change comes from building relationships/setting the tone/ building a community /moving beyond tolerance to acceptance to honoring differences/ learning to respect differences 
  • Articles/documents on cyber-bullying will be made available by DOT: 
  • ¼ teens are bullied with 40% of it is happening on-line 
  • Disconnect between what parents grasp as a problem and what students face is large 
  • "RIP"—repeated, intentional, Power-based 
    • Bullying is repeated usually by the same person 
    • Intentional:  causes distress “a tone” –that transmits blame or shame 
    • It doesn’t matter how you hear yourself it’s how others hear that tone 
    • Power based -- to gain control in a negative way
  • What better way when the person can do it anonymously (on the internet) 
  • #1 abusers on the internet (60-65%) were conducted by women 
  • One way to give up anger is to give up caring
How are we helping people who make mistakes?
  • We can’t really “protect” the victims:  We can’t always be there for them—it’s to help them be who they want to be. 
  • Become a facilitator not a rescuer. 
  • Not going to catch all the cyber bullies—have to get students involved in policing themselves 
  • The schools that are more into punitive and reward systems have more incidences of violence and  bullying 
    • "What do I get if I do, what happens to me if I don’t" 
    • Punishment and Reward systems do not work too well?  Who can we can control?  Only ourselves.   
    • Its about agreements and accountability.
What is your school and what is your focus at your school? 
  • Punishment and reward vs Agreements and Accountability 
  • You want people to do the right thing when people are not looking. 
  • Setting the tone with agreements—facilitating self evaluation.
Rachel’s challenge is a good resource:  http://www.rachelschallenge.org/LearnMore/WhatIsRC.php

  • Continue to communicate and stay connected to students 
  • Taking pictures and distorting them is one of the most common things now. 
  • Create and discuss family agreements 
  • Educate that posting is permanent, sexting is a felony if under 16:

  • Hold teens accountable to the agreements 
  • questions to Glenn Smith, his email address is reactnot@aol.com.  Be-Print's web link is http://be-print.net 
Read the book over the summer:  Setting the Tone:  http://www.amazon.com/Setting-Tone-Bully-free-Classrooms-ebook/dp/B006WWGWK2


Ali Tomberlin, General Counsel to School Board:
 
Legal duties of teachers/acceptable use policies:  (Here is the Power Point she showed):
  • Legal duties: fall under NC general statue—applies to anyone in the classroom, period.
  • There is a duty to report
Laws:

  • “Make required reports” is the one that is a misdemeanor and can  constitutes the loss of a teacher license 
  • Take care of school building—watching kids abuse computers etc when teachers are frivolous about signing out computers
State Board of education Policy Administrative Code

  • If teacher is charged with a crime, you are required to report to a supervisor within 5 days—only exception is minor motor vehicle violation. 
  • WSFCS expands rules to all employees: 
  • Showed a past personnel discipline decisions

Intellectual Property
  • NC state law:  132-1
  • Admin regulation 6161.1
On personal advertising distribution of sales information on teacher websites is prohibited

Acceptable Use Policies 6161.1

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Year End Grades 2012


STEPS For Completing NCWISE YEAR END GRADES INCLUDING entering EOG’s

  1. POST your 4th quarter grades as usual.  This part of the process is the same as every other quarter, and Click here to see step by step directions for posting the regular end of quarter grades.  Click here for screen shots and more details on posting grades.
  2.  NOW, the process of completing your FINAL GRADES begins. From your Spreadsheet click on reporting REPORTING TERMS MARK.  This will show all grades for all quarters.  Make any necessary changes to your 4th quarter grades and then SAVE it.
  3. ****STEPS TO COMPLETE FOR E0G SCORES: (For Math, Science, and Reading teachers only):
    Before you enter your EOG scores we are adding a step because of the glitch in the NCWISE system that is calculating the EOG as 25% of the final grade as opposed to the school board policy that says 20%.  
      1. So, after your 4th quarter grades are entered and saved, CLICK ON CALCULATE final on the reporting term marks screen
      2. Print that screen by clicking on the Printer icon at the bottom (you will need this later when comparing the final mark with the mark after your EOG scores are entered and finalized)
Using the Conversion Chart linked here,
        locate the YL – EXAM column.
        Check your students’ raw scores on the chart,
        find the matching letter grade, and input the LETTER GRADE in the Post column of the YL – EXAM column.
  1. While you are still on the Reporting Term Marks Page
                                  Click on the CALCULATE FINAL button (This is the second time for folks calculating with EOG grades). 
                                This will calculate your final Grade.  You can make any necessary changes to the FINAL LETTER AVERAGE at this time. (For EOG folks, Compare the final marks to the ones you calculated earlier with only 4th quarter grades entered.  For those that are different you might use this grade calculator to make sure the 25% weight of the NCWISE setting is not throwing off the correct final mark according to school board policy.)
                               Click on the SAVE button. 
  1. Now, click on the GO TO MARK ENTRY SCREEN.  Click on the MARK ENTRY IS COMPLETE check box.  Save it and go out the door - ALL the way back to the original grade spreadsheet.
    ***REPEAT STEPS  UNTIL ALL CLASSES ARE COMPLETED

Finalizing YEAR END Marks (I know this seems redundant to what you just did!)Click here for Screen Shots of this process
  1. Click back until you are on the HOME SCREEN - Click on the MARK ENTRY button.
  2. In the middle of the screen you will see YL- 1st 9 Weeks. Click on the scroll bar on the right hand side and scroll down until you see “YL-Final EXAM”
  3. Click on the STUDENTS button.
  4. Click on the MARK ENTRY IS COMPLETE - SAVE - CLICK ON BACK ARROW (not out the door).  Do the Same thing for the "YL-Final"
  5. Click on the next one of your classes and follow steps 7 - 9 until you have done this for all of your classes.
  6. One final step, please click on  SETUP OPTIONS-- which is located on your home screen and make sure the DELETE ALL ASSESSMENTS AT YEAR END check box is CHECKED!!! (Click here to see screen shot)
  7.   You are done!!!  : )

How to Print out a copy of your “Marks Entry” report, which includes your comments for each class: ( for hard copy records)

  • From the main NCWISE Teacher Assistant screen, choose a CLASS.
  • Click on REPORTS. 
  • CHOOSE “Marks List.” 
  • Choose correct Reporting Period. 
  • Click on ADD. 
  • Click on Printer ICON. 
    • (Adobe should load the report) 
  • Choose the Printer Icon at the top of the ADOBE FILE report. Print it
  • Hit the X (upper right corner) to leave ADOBE. 
  • Back on NCWISE, go out the door to the main NCWISE Teacher Assistant Screen. 
  • Select another class. 
  • Repeat the process for every class (There is no way to do it all at once :(


Connect 5 Training: May 2, 2012




Lisa Mercer is the wsfcs account rep
Ava Palmer:  NCWISE team: with Department of Technology

Connect 5: is a joint effort between Alert Now and Blackboard messaging service


·        Two emails will come from blackboard support with activation information
·        Every user has own user name and password and security
·        Alert Now will go away by the end of the week
·        With activation you will get a second email with quick start guides and follow up information
·        Client care center is open 24/7 (in Raleigh)
Contact Blackboard Connect Client Care:  (888) 599-2720  |  support@blackboardconnect.com
 ·        Account information is more secure
·        System allows for a detailed email delivery report
·        Emergency messages only by district officials at this point
·        Attendance still out of alert now for now
·        Facebook, twitter, etc not available for now, maybe features added later
·        Data still connected from NCWISE for Faculty, and is updated once per week
o       Employee information comes from HR—
§        if employees want to change the number that they get blackboardconnect messages, they can for example place a cell phone number under the home phone number field
§        Go to wsfcs website
§        Click on employees
§        Click on resources
§        Click on personnel
§        Then choose “employee self service
§        Log in with active directory user name and pw

Custom groups

·        are easier to create now, and tied to NCWISE updates
o       This only works though if your information is tied to fields in NCWISE
o       But for custom email groups you still might have to upload the CSV file since only one field in NCWISE will populate parent email –First Mom’s email then Dad’s but not both!—will only pull from one or the other

o       When creating a custom group with mostly contacts from NCWISE, you can Create contact type of "other" to add a few additional contacts that are not tied to NCWISE

·        Pre-established groups will need to be recreated in Connect five

·        TO Edit a group, there is a little “pencil icon off to the right that allows you to edit

·        Current Alert Now groups are not tagged to a reference code, that’s why they have to be recreated in blackboardconnect

Recipient Search

·        Can search by phone, name, etc.
·        There is a drop down number for search results and show me the contact reference in NCWISE
·        Pencil will show where the number reference for example second  number
·        Message history tab shows all the calls that went out
·        Issue of long answering machine messages came up…
o       Brad Royal said you can hit # to end a long message on an answering machine.
o       Lisa Mercer will send out an FAQ for parents with suggestions for them having the best luck getting connect 5 now messages
·        Transportation issues: For example is it possible we could get groups by bus generated?
o        send AVA Palmer an email about the possibility of doing those groups

Message Center

  • Looks more like traditional email with out box, drafts, etc. 
  • Drafts, will save in the process of making a message unlike before in Alert Now where it would time out 
  • You can force save it to drafts too 
  • Outbox contains scheduled messages 
    • Click on magnifying glass on the right to see details 
    • You can also easily view detailed results to see who received the calls, etc 
Send Message

  • There is a Short cut on the upper right side,
  • Then choose outreach 
  • Give it a title 
  • Start typing the name of the group and it will populate that group, for example, "Faculty" 
  • Or click on the "TO" button to search more groups 
  • Or, you can "Select all" down below to see a list of all your contacts 
  • You can also Search to see entire contact base, you can "select all" and then un-select the ones you don’t want it to go to 
  • No auto translation is available because of the poor translations that occur with these.  Better to get a translator 
  • You can also enter "Direct contacts" to put in manual phone calls 
  • Everything to the right of the email is not working yet (twitter, Facebook, etc.) so just ignore those for now :)
Add audio

  • During the process of creating a message you will click on "Add Audio"
    • A box will pop up with instructions for adding the audio.
    • it generates a special message ID that you will use when you call the 800 number to record your message
    • That same box shows you your user ID
    • There is a benefit for entering your "script" (it can transfer then to an email message)
    • If setting up a message for someone else (like a parent)You can still do "dialing messages cards" 
       
  • Click on the calendar to add selected calls to multiple dates 
  • You can also "Add audio" for Spanish speakers, creates a new id for that record and you would record an additional recording in Spanish
  • There are Iphone and android app--Search for "blackboard direct"
  • You can set up the ability to to Direct call without having to use internet
    • Go to "your name" upper right corner 
    • Choose "account" then click on: 
    • Set up a five digit pin so you can send out immediate calls from the phone call in. (pin can't start with zero) 
    • You can also set up to nine groups that could be available for immediate dialing messaging