Distribution Lists are groups of individuals (or groups) that you want to email. If you find yourself emailing the same people repeatedly, there is a more efficient way to make that happen. Let’s say that you are working on a new project and there are 40 other teachers working with you. Instead of typing in the 40 other names every time you want to email them some information, you could create a Distribution List (group) and type in one email addess instead.

You can create a distribution list directly from the recipient list of the message but depending on your Outlook version and settings, you might need to take some additional steps.

Outlook 2010

In Outlook 2010, creating a Contact Group (as distribution list are called in Outlook 2010) from the recipient list of a message goes quite quickly;

1.Right click on a recipient in the message header in the Reading Pane.

2.From the context menu that pops-up, choose; Select All

3.Now that all the recipients are highlighted, press CTRL+C to copy them or right click on the selected addresses and choose Copy.

4.Open your Contact Group or create a new one via;

New Items-> More Items-> Contact Group

(or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+L)

5.Press the “Add Members” button and select “From Address Book”.

6.Place your cursor in the field next to the “Members->” button.

7.Press CTRL+V to paste the copied addresses.

8.Press OK and the addresses will be added to the Contact Group.

You can repeat the steps above if multiple addresses have been added to both the To and CC fields.

You can easily copy addresses from a message in Outlook 2010.

Outlook 2007 and previous

The above trick will not work in Outlook 2007 and previous as the copy command there will only copy the listed names and not the actual underlying email addresses. Unless all these addresses have been added to an address list in your Address Book already, this will result in unresolved names.

You can still achieve the same via a slight detour;

1.Right click on the message in the message list and choose “Message Options…”. 2.In the “Internet headers” box at the bottom, scroll down until you see the list of email addresses for the To or CC field.

3.Select all the names and addresses but make sure you do not select the “To:” or “CC:” text itself (don’t worry about any extra spaces though).

4.Press CTRL+Copy them.

5.Open your Distribution List or create a new one via;

File-> New-> Distribution List

(or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+L)

6.Press the “Select Members…” button.

7.Place your cursor in the field next to the “Members->” button.

8.Press CTRL+V to paste the copied addresses.

9.Press OK and the addresses will be added to the Contact Group.

Note: If you get an error when pressing OK and Outlook complains about not being able to resolve a contact, the issue is most likely caused by your system not allowing the comma ( , ) as a separator character. You can enable this option via;

Tools-> Options…-> button E-mail Options…-> button Advanced E-mail Options…-> option: Allow comma as address separator

In Outlook 2007 and previous, carefully select the addresses from the Message Options dialog.

This is cross posted on our Professional Development site as well.

https://dearbornschools.org/pd/troubleshooting/email-issues/distribution-list-in-outlook-groups 

Recently a SPAM email made it through our filters. In today’s world, we all need to be wise about how we use computers. If you went to the site in the email, sign into a computer and change your password to something different than what you entered on that site. To change your password:

• sign into a computer
• depress the keys CTRL, ALT, DELETE (all three at the same time)
• Select Change a password
• Enter your old password and then a new, different password twice.

 A quick note. We do have you change your password for security reasons a couple of times a year. However, this is set up so that you change your password when signing into a computer. We do NOT send you to a web page to change your password.

A little knowledge can help keep you safe:

• Please see the posting from November 8th
  (https://blog.dearbornschools.org/technology/2012/11/08/phishing/)
• URL’s will give you valuable information (a URL is a web address, it is what you type in to get to a web page- eg. https://www.google.com is the URL for Google). The truly important part is the .com (or .org. or .us) and the part before that.
• Hovering over a link (without clicking on it) will reveal where the link is really going. For example, a link may say https://www.bankofamerica.com, but if you hover your mouse over the link (without clicking on it), it will reveal that the real link is https://www.iamstealingyourinformation.com. (Note that the bad guys have gotten even better at this and it will now frequently say https://www.iamstealingyourinformation.com/bankofamerica.com or something like that.)

With the Holiday’s approaching, more of these SPAM and Phishing issues will arise. Those who attempt to steal your information get better and better at this each year. It is important for you to learn to be safe.

Some people have experienced trouble accessing MI-STAR from home. While we can’t support every different computer and computer set up that is out there, here are some things that you can. These are the things that most often help people fix their problem.

• Update Flash – https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html 
• Update Shockwave – https://get.adobe.com/shockwave/
• Update Java – https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html
• Update Adobe Reader – https://get.adobe.com/reader/

*Note that all of the links above open an additional tab and link to an external site. 

The steps for these vary based upon what type of computer that you have, what operating system, etc. However, please see the step by step directions below for some general guidance. These should help you  and give you very valuable tips on what to uncheck during the installation.

Adobe Reader Install

Adobe Flash & Shockwave updates

Eastern Michigan University has issued a nice reminder about Phishing scams and SPAM. I’ve received permission from them to repost that information here.

With the holiday season upon us, we are seeing an increase in the volume and the quality of email phishing scams.  Phishing is an attempt, usually made through fraudulent email, to steal your personal information.

Phishing emails usually appear to come from a well-known organization and ask for your personal information, such as, credit card number, social security number, EMU ID or password. Some recent phishing attempts have gone so far as to use the EMU logos to give them “authenticity.”  Other phishing attempts may appear to come from sites or companies with which you do not even have an account.

In order for Internet criminals to successfully “phish” your personal information, they must get you to go from an email to a website. Phishing emails will almost always tell you to click a link that takes you to a site where your personal information is requested. Legitimate organizations (including the EMU IT Help Desk) would never request this information of you via email.

Here are some things to look for in an email that may indicate a phish:

 

• Generic greeting. Phishing emails are usually sent in large batches. To save time, Internet criminals use generic names like “First Generic Bank Customer” so they do not have to individually type all recipients’ names. If you do not see your name, be suspicious.

 

• Forged link. Even if a link has a name you recognize somewhere in it, it doesn’t mean it links to the real organization. Roll your mouse over the link and see if it matches what appears in the email. If there is a discrepancy, do not click on the link. Also, websites where it is safe to enter personal information begin with “httpss” (the “s” stands for secure). If you do not see “httpss”, do not proceed.

 

• Requests personal information. The point of sending a phishing email is to trick you into providing your personal information. If you receive an email requesting your personal information, it is probably a phishing attempt.

 

• Sense of urgency. Internet criminals want you to provide your personal information now. They do this by making you think something has happened that requires you to act fast. The faster they get your information, the faster they can move on to another victim.

You should change your passwords often. A good time is when you reset clocks. At that time, change your important passwords. Also, don’t use the same password for multiple sites. The most popular passwords are:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty

Advanced Tip: If you hover your mouse over a link (without clicking on it), it should show you the real URL that you would go to. (See below). Notice that there is no real name. Also note that holding the mouse over the link www.att.com/managemyaccount really leads to a totally different site (which I won’t type out here, but starts with issueswith….

Chris and Troy had the opportunity to spend the day at Bryant Middle School. Ms. Shannon Peterson took us up on our offer to come to the school and hang out all day. Teachers can come down and get answers to their questions on using technology. Specifically, we focus on iLearn, iBlog and Promethean.

Here are just a few answers, tips, tricks, and solutions where we were able to help:

Promethean:

• Creating a draggable copy of an item on a Promethean flip chart
• Calibrating a Promethean Board
• Putting a Timer on a Promethean toolbar
• Scanning an item and placing it on a FlipChart page
• Toolbar basics
• Importing SmartBoard resources into Promethean
• Editing SmartBoard resources in Promethean

iBlog:

• Setting up an additional page on iBlog
• Setting up an iBlog page to post from an iPhone
• Connecting an iPhone to iBlog
• Reestablishing a blog
• Posting to a blog
• Setting up a new blog
• Adding Links to a blog
• Adding categories to links on a blog
• Deleting default links on a blog

iLearn:

• Enrolling in an iLearn course
• The basics of using iLearn in a classroom
• Kids voting for President online
• Sorting Student responses by last name
• Grading student responses
• Book reviews through iLearn
• Students using Personal Dropbox to save files

Other:

• Using the Professional Development site to set up an iPhone to check email

We are always looking for ways to be more efficient and to provide the best possible service. To that end, we have developed a HelpDesk Ticket. This helps us be efficient by making sure that we get all of the information that we need to help you. Quite frequently, some will email us “my printer won’t print”. This doesn’t help us very much as we don’t know where the printer is or what won’t print (is there a paper jam, does the printer not turn on at all, etc). In order to help with this, we’ve added the HelpDesk Ticket under the Staff tab on the Dearborn Public Schools Web page. This will allow you to fill out a form to receive assistance. The form helps collect all of the information that we need to help. We hope that you’ll find this HelpDesk Ticket easy and effective. Please below for a visual representation of the links.   We will continue to strive to make sure that we provide the best possible service for you and the students. Thanks.

Our email servers are filing up. You can help.

This is where you can help. Simply delete your “deleted items”. [That’s right, when you “delete” something, it doesn’t really “delete” it. This is analogous to throwing something away in your kitchen trash bin- eventually you have to take the kitchen trash bin out to the garbage can. ]

Please follow these simple steps:

• On Outlook 2003 –
  • Open Outlook
  • Right Click on the “Deleted Items” folder
  • Select “Empty Deleted_Items Folder”
  • Click “Yes”
• On Outlook 2010 –
  • Open Outlook
  • Right Click on the “Deleted Items” folder
  • Select “Empty Folder”
  • Click “Yes”
• From the Web Site-
  • Open the web site (https://email.dearborn.k12.mi.us/ )
  • Sign into your account
  • Right Click on “Deleted Items”
  • Select “Empty Deleted Items”

Please note that this should be done weekly. However, right now is a crucial time.

{This would also be a terrific time to clean out your inbox, delete those items that you don’t need, and then delete your deleted items again.}

Thanks.

I have been experimenting a little bit more with Moodle and LTI.  I truly believe this is HUGE.  I mean this is incredible stuff.  LTI which stands for Learning Tools Interoperability is a new way for systems like Moodle, WordPress, Joomla, MediaWiki, and other websites to communicate and share activities with each other.

For instance, I can create a really great lesson in Moodle and then I can share it with other LTI compliant systems and it will automatically populate my gradebook with their results as well as return results to the other system.  This is going to usher in a whole new way of thinking and sharing in education.   I can share an entire course, section, activity, you name it and I can share it outside of my Moodle.

Last week I was able to connect to ChemVantage and bring in Chemistry resources into our Moodle using LTI.  This week I am exploring the ability to share moodle activities and resources outside of my Moodle install.  I also am trying to get WordPress and Moodle integrated.  So far, not looking promising.  I am stuck on something  Wordpress LTI settings.

Check out this growing catalog of LTI Tools:  https://developers.imsglobal.org/catalog.html

Setup your Moodle to be a provider: https://docs.moodle.org/22/en/LTI_Provider

As you are aware, the district is required to provide a filtered Internet experience. By federal law, we must filter access. However, the law has different scopes. For example, the filtering that we must do for students is different than the filtering that must be done for staff.

To that end, we have been working on providing appropriate access to all of our personnel. This is a much larger task than it sounds, but something that we have been working diligently on. We had previously opened up access to teachers to YouTube. We have continued to work on our filters and settings so that teachers have much wider access to the internet. I’m happy to report that we have made some substantial changes that allow teachers access to appropriate sites.

One of the challenges that we face is to communicate to teachers sites that are available to them, but blocked for students. Essentially, we don’t want teachers to create lesson plans that revolve around students accessing particular sites only to discover that those sites are blocked for students (but not teachers). This is why you may have to authenticate to get to some sites. Then we face another issue. Teachers don’t want to authenticate constantly. So we need some balance. For this reason, once a teacher authenticates, that starts a clock whereas the teacher won’t have to authenticate for a bit.

We are working extremely hard to provide the very best experience for staff and students. We do block a wide variety of sites that are inappropriate for the educational process. We are required to do so by federal law. It is also just the right thing to do.

Please note that we rely on algorithms for web site filtering. Occasionally, I get asked

“How could you block….”?

or

“How did you let …. get through for …. grade”?

We really don’t spend all day just looking at web sites to see if they are appropriate or not. We rely on complex rules and algorithms to make determinations. We then intervene as necessary.

*By the way, the same issues revolve around SPAM. Yes, occasionally a piece of SPAM does make it through our filter. However, we don’t read each piece of email prior to you receiving it. We eliminate literally thousands of SPAM emails for every single one that does make it through.