Technology Updates

Good morning everyone. As we get ready for the start of the 2022-2023 school year, we just wanted to share some friendly reminders: 

• HELP! If you have a technology need, please submit a ticket through incidentIQ, logging in with your Google (ga) account using the "Sign in with Google SSO" button on the top left. As you can imagine, as people come back from summer, our ticket count is growing. Please know we are working through tickets as quickly as possible. Remember that you can login and check the progress of a ticket you have in at any time through incidentIQ by clicking "My Tickets" on the left-hand toolbar. 
• Phishing Emails: If you see an email that appears "fishy," don't hesitate to press the Phishing Alert button on your email (). This does populate a list for us to review. 
• Logging Into Websites: As you begin to plan curriculum, please remember that any website requiring you or your students to log in needs to be reviewed for data privacy by our department. Check our Digital Tool Privacy Vetting List to see if a site is approved or denied. If it isn't on the list, you can use the Digital Tool Request Form in SchoolFront to request we review it. Please keep in mind that at times we must contact a company multiple times to attempt to get them to complete the process with us, which sometimes takes a bit. 
• Department Communications: We have started to build a repository of communications that have gone out district wide or to large groups within the district. Feel free to refer to that at any time using this link.
• Auto Lock on District Devices: Beginning August 1, as another layer of cybersecurity, we implemented a 20-minute auto lock on all district devices. This means that after 20 minutes of inactivity on your device (mouse movement, typing, etc.), your device will go to a black screensaver that you will need to use your password to unlock. The email communication sent to everybody on July 28, 2022, with more information regarding this can be viewed in our department communications folder.
• Restart Weekly! If you typically Shut Down or close your device at the end of each use, please remember to Power - Restart once a week to keep your device up to date!
• New Department Staff Members: Please join us in welcoming Karen Frear and T.J. Wright to our department! They both started with us this summer and are great additions to our already awesome team!
• Instructional Technology Support Specialists: Jacquie, Jason, and Jess are excited and ready to "reset" this year in their roles. As part of this, they will be restructuring who they support (see below). Their focus will be on helping plan for ed tech use around instructional objectives and standards, co-teaching and supporting implementation, co-planning, brainstorming, etc. As part of this, they won't have set days and times they are in a building but will instead be arranging their schedules around the work they are doing. Keep your eyes out for an email from them during September as everyone settles in with more details, ideas, opportunities etc. for their work with you in the upcoming school year!

·         o    Jess - K-4 Classroom; K-6 Special Areas, Counselors; etc.

·         o    Jason - K-8 Special Education, 5-6 Classroom; 7-8 All 

·         o    Jacquie - 9-12 All (with Special Education support as needed from Jason)

Have a great day, and as always, don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.  

 

Kristy Shafer

Director of Technology and Data Protection Officer 

 Hello all,

 

Welcome back from the tech team!  We wanted to reach out to everyone on a couple of things as you’re coming back into the district.

 

1. First and foremost; as soon as you can upon arrival in district, restart your machine.  This will install any pending updates and get you our newest policies and software.  

2. We’ve tried our best to get rooms ready but there are some that we haven’t been able to address yet.  Understand we’re still making rounds but if you see a need please us know via Incident IQ.

3. If you have a Promethean board please do not move it without consulting with us first (via Incident IQ).  We have a new management system that will allow more functionality and it is necessary that they remain plugged into the network (more details on this will be coming out very soon).  Again, if you’d like to make a move, please submit a ticket via IncidentIQ and we’ll evaluate if it is possible.

4. We’ve had a lot of questions on charging stations.  These were purchased for a different project that was halted due to the district shifting to 1:1 chromebooks for all grades.  We are trying to outfit them with used chargers from grade level swaps but this process is slow.  

 

Teacher Aides and Teacher Assistants; if you didn’t receive a device at the end of last school year, please stop into your building tech team member to have a device assigned starting on September 6th.

 

As always if you need help please submit a ticket via Incident IQ.  Our entire team keeps track of the system and when one member is busy others are here to help!  

Thanks,

 

Justin Radford

Help Desk Manager

Hilton Central School District

585.392.1000 x7022