Alden CSD Tech Moodle

July and August are two of the busiest months of the year for the Technology Instruction Support Services Department. Myself, Mike Kempster & Ryan Willard worked many long days to get the District ready for the 2010-11 School Year. Both Ryan and Mike configured over 1,000 new & older computers getting some ready for recycling.

Updates -

• Portable Workstations
  -Focus on acquiring portable workstations for all teachers, teaching assistants and teacher aides K-12.
  

  
  
  
• Printer Upgrades - replaced twelve printers in district
  
  

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• ARRA iPad Grant Training Completed
  
  Melissa Evingham & Frank Rizzo worked with Iroquois, Depew & Pioneer to write a grant for stimulus funds. The four districts were awarded a total sum of $200,000 back in May of this year. We will be utilizing 60 iPads for use with regular and special education students at the Alden High School. More information to follow.
  
  

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• Exchange 2010 -
  updated Outlook email client
  
  - advantages of this new version include a new conversation view in which you can condense messages on a topic, dynamic Smart Art graphics, and now utilizes the ribbon interface
  Outlook 2010 on AtomicLearning.com
  

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• Outlook Web Access - Exchange 2010
  New website version of email now works with Firefox and Safari. Macintosh users can experience the same as Internet Explorer users
  
  

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• Office 2010 Professional -
  update to Office 2007 now installed on all computers K-12
  
  
  
  
  Office 2010 - what's new in the Interface, Word, Excel & Powerpoint on AtomicLearning.com
  

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• Office 2010 - Home Purchase Program
  We are in the process of entering a School License Agreement with Microsoft. Faculty/Staff will be able to purchase home license for Microsoft Office Professional Suite for $9.99
  replacement install DVD - $12.99
  
  

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• Microsoft Communicator
  
  
  
  - software is a faculty/staff collaboration tool for internal use (instant messaging with individuals or groups and video chat) We are currently piloting this software and not all features are ready for "prime time"
  
  Take the tour of Communicator and view training materials
  
  

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• Barracuda VPN (Virtual Private Network) Appliance Installed
  - allows faculty/staff & students to access their H:> drive documents from home. The ability to upload documents back to the h:>drive is also available
  
  To login to the VPN - look for this icon on the District Website:
  
  
  

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• Sharepoint Services Update
  - Continue to use last year's Sharepoint Server
  - Added a Shared Documents folder (Employee Handbook, Phone Directory Listing, other internal forms)
  - Installed Sharepoint 2010 Server - needs to be configured. Will migrate from Sharepoint Services later in the year
  
  

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• FitnessGram moved to Web
  - FitnessGram server updated to host on the internet instead of client/server model.
  Can be accessed at: http://fitness.alden.wnyric.org
  
  
  

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• Networking & Other Updates
  - 2nd Domain Controller added (should help with slower login times during peak hours)
  - Symantec Anti-virus replaced with Microsoft ForeFront Security
  
  
  - System Center Configuration & Deployment Server to be added
  
  
  

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• Technology Inventory data collection started
  
  
  - new labels on hardware - number matches inventory in Web Help Desk
  - gives us the ability to match Web Help Desk requests to hardware inventory
  
  

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• Mobile Website Configured
  (iPhone, iPod Touch, Android)
  - when accessing http://aldenschools.org from an iPhone, iPod Touch or an Android phone's web browser you will see a mobile interface. Users can read the latest news, view a calendar, get school contact information and search for staff email addresses and school phone numbers.
  
  
  
  

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• School Website Updates
  - Re-organized website to meet the needs of individual groups (faculty/staff, students, parents & community)
  - Quick Links area re-organized for parents & community
  - Buttons for Faculty/Staff added to main page
  - New "In the Spotlight" section added
  - Drop down menus now include specific link areas for parents, students & staff
  - Staff Directory information updated
  - Teacher Website Directories flows from the Staff Directory (teachers control the name of the website as it appears on this list)
  
  
  
  
  

During the 2009-10 School Year we had two options for video streaming services. One paid (Discovery Streaming) and one free (EdVideo Online from PBS).

For the 2010-11 School Year we no longer have access to either service one due to budget cuts - and the other in that PBS is no longer funding EdVideo Online.

However, New York State’s public television stations already provide an array of educational services to students, teachers, and parents and they are committed to continuing to do so. Through THIRTEEN (WNET) and WLIW, all New York public television stations are now providing free of charge VITAL New York, an online library of digital media resources for the K-12 classroom as part of our new NYS branded statewide multimedia service.

VITAL New York features public television video and interactive content and is fully aligned to the state’s learning standards. VITAL NY offers all state educators, students and their parents access to free, online video-based instructional activities to more than 2,000 resources, including 300 developed to support the New York State core curriculum in English Language Arts and mathematics for grades 3-8, as well as more than 1,000 that are aligned to the New York State Regents curriculum in Global History and Geography, Living Environment, Earth Science, Physics, and Chemistry. In addition to VITAL NY, Teachers Domain supported and developed by WGBH in Boston, MA provides additional teacher and student resources for free. Finally, PBS is working to launch their Digital Learning Library (DLL) services utilizing all the PBS content into formats teachers expect sometime in 2010.

Access VITAL New York here: http://vital.thirteen.org/vital2td.html

Sign up for your FREE account by clicking on the Register Now button.

If you have difficulties in getting an account, please complete a web help desk request http://aldenschools.org/help

Thanks,
Frank