SISD October Technology Report

As this year continues to present an ever-changing and evolving environment for our teachers and students, our team has been working hard to keep up. PowerSchool, our student information system, is a wonderful system that helps us with everything from student grades, to medical issues, to lunch servings. It takes a lot of time to keep the system updated. This year our team included a lot of new members, which presents training challenges. The team has risen to the occasion and is working hard to keep up with the ever-changing situations in our schools.

As our Student Count period comes to a close, and report cards come close our team is working harder than ever to make sure PowerSchool matches the changes being made to better accommodate our student body. In a normal year, this is challenging, during a COVID year it is even more of a challenge.

This is helping our team make plans for the future to help streamline the process for parents and students. SISD has been working with PowerSchool since 2019 to implement digital registration, the previous implementation was canceled last year.

The current PowerSchool team is laying the groundwork for digital registration in the 2021-2022 school year. This will allow easier registration for our parents while giving our team more time to attend to students during the beginning of school. It will also get the most updated information in our teacher's hands early in the year.

While many local districts are having difficulty staffing PowerSchool positions we are lucky to have a team that is dedicated and has enough experience to improvise as we face an unprecedented level of continuing changes in student enrollment and course registrations.

New wireless AP's (Access Points) are on their way from GCI. They will be installed by the SISD Technology Department. This will give a generational upgrade to our wireless infrastructure to match the newest wireless standards, security, and give a digital dashboard to monitor our network. This upgrade is a part of our GCI Contracted Services and a part of a normal hardware rotation.

Smoothwall is being removed from the network and we will be utilizing fully the already implemented PaloAlto Firewall as the network filter as other districts do. This will provide more reliability and predictability for our teachers and students. It will encourage learning conversations to help our students grow.

SKC and SISD Tech have finished the VTC (Video Teleconferencing Capability) upgrade to the district's conferencing systems. The final bugs are being worked out in the systems and the mode they will run in. (I.E Polycom Mode vs Zoom Rooms Mode) these systems will give us next-generation capabilities on-site and allow 4k video from point to point. The install went wonderful over a two week period all sites received white-glove treatment during the setup process.

Google Management License purchasing has been completed, and small group testing of the HP devices purchased by the ASTRIDE grant has been completed. Devices will be going out to sites in the next two weeks. These devices are replacing failing Chromebooks that are at the end of their life and keeping our students ready for whatever the year may have in store.

To facilitate student activities during an unusual year due to COVID-19, the district has looked in to alternative activities. E-Sports is a popular activity among our current student body. The Technology Department and the Activities Department have been working together to ensure there are activities for our students that can transcend whatever this unique year brings.

Using Computer Systems as a class to learn the practical Computer Science students will be building the gaming computers to support E-Sports at SISD. This helps create a culture around technology and show students a fun and engaging implementation of critical work skills.

The team building and community this creates will leave a lasting impression on the district and the community of POW. The goal is to show students how to be self-sufficient in their computing world and how to support those around them. The success of building the computer will then lead to team building on the "Digital Field".

Hydaburg, Craig, and Petersburg are our close neighbors who are also competitively playing this year nearby.

For more information on the ASAA Sanctioned Activity:

https://asaa.org/esports/