Technology Support
Just a friendly reminder to our staff, if you have a technology issue, please submit a Helpdesk Ticket through the SchoolDude system. If you’re unable to submit a ticket due to any reason, please ask a colleague or someone in the office to submit one on your behalf. It is imperative that a ticket be submitted since we only have two technicians to service the technology needs of the entire school district.
Technology Upgrades
There were a number of routine and bond related technology upgrades implemented over this past summer, some of which are still in progress even as the school year has gotten underway. Aside from infrastructure upgrades that are in the walls and/or above the ceilings, below are a few highlights of projects that are both visible and can be felt, or will soon be.
Nearly 95% of our computers district wide have been upgraded from the old Windows 7 operating system to the latest version of the Windows 10 operating system. The remaining 5% of the computers that haven’t yet been upgraded are computers that are scheduled to soon be replaced. This operating system upgrade was necessary due to Windows 7 becoming end of life and also not being supported on computers that have been acquired within the past 12 months and into the future. Our staff and students have been very receptive to this necessary upgrade and any reported bugs of glitches have been quickly resolved.
Our previous district wide phone system that was beginning to have a lot of technical issues was fully replaced with a new state of the art voice-over-IP system that is much more robust and flexible. All of the telephone handsets district wide now have caller ID and a missed call history. While these may seem like minor features, they are a huge improvement for our classrooms and staff. Previously classrooms didn’t have these features and if a teacher was across the room, helping a student, or in the hallway and heard their phone ring, they would have to run and try to grab it before the call went to voice mail. In this example, now they can simply press the history button to see who called and return the call right away.
A new swipe card access control system is still being implemented. This project has been a rather large undertaking and is still being rolled out. There are numerous external doors at the school buildings throughout the district that, once the project is complete, will allow our staff to badge in with a swipe card. Card readers, some door hardware, and programming still need to be completed at the buildings, as well as configuring the permissions and printing out badge swipe cards for all of our staff. While this project is more of a facilities function, there is a technology component because of how it interfaces to the network which is why it is being mentioned here. More information to come in a future update!
Lastly, as part of the bond initiative, all of our teaching staff will be getting a district laptop. The order was placed late this summer and the technology department is awaiting delivery of the various pieces to arrive. Once everything arrives, the technology team will begin to image and load each laptop, inventory it, and then work with the building principals on a deployment plan to get the laptops into the teachers hands. As a reminder, these laptops will not be replacing the classroom desktop computers that are connected to projectors, SMART boards, document cameras, etc. Due to the wide range and age of said equipment, there isn’t a way to integrate laptops with ease to our end users without causing problematic glitches, errors, blue screens, crashes, etc.
The long range plan is to remove the old classroom desktop computers at a time that we can begin to replace the projectors, SMART boards, document cameras, etc. with equipment that supports wireless connectivity in a standardized way that allows our teachers to move between rooms and buildings without the need for special software, configurations, etc. In the mean-time, once the laptops are deployed, our teaching staff will be able to utilize the flexibility of their laptops as supplemental technology in the classroom (attendance, gradebook, resources), for staff meetings, professional development, PLC meetings, etc. More information to come in a future update!
