Recently, the TAC announced a Chromebook Raffle. The raffle was to award a cart of 30 Chromebooks to classrooms. The idea behind the raffle was to seed great teachers with Chromebooks so that they can blaze the trail to develop great lessons and procedures to share with other teachers. These teachers needed to agree to share their experiences and help others in the future. Clearly, Dearborn has a wealth of great teachers. The TAC received over 100 applications. The TAC agreed to limit the awarding of Chromebook carts to one per building.

The TAC put together a committee of classroom teachers to carefully review each and every application. This was a very onerous task given the high quality of applications. The committee worked very diligently to narrow the choices down to only 15.

Here are the names of those awarded a Chromebook cart:

Congratulations to the teachers and schools above. Thanks to all who applied.

Beginning April 2, 2015, we will be returning to shutting down teacher computers every night. We strongly encourage all users to shut down computers at the end of the day. This saves electricity and wear and tear on the computers.

However, not all users shut down computers. Thus, we will be instituting (actually returning) a nightly shut down of all computers. This shut down will occur at 11:00 p.m. This is to prevent anyone losing valuable material. We strongly encourage all users to shut down before that time.

Thanks.

The Chromebook Cart Raffle was met with lots of applications. The committee is now at work reading and rating all of the applications. Since all of the evaluators are working teachers, they will be working through as quickly as possible. Once the awardees are selected, we will post the names and schools on this blog.

A quick overview of the process. All applications were done through Google Forms. Some of the data (respondent names and entries times were stripped out) responses were then merged into separate Google Document for each applicant (if you are familiar with Mail Merge in Word, it’s like that). Those documents were then shared with the evaluators. Additionally, the data was copied into a new spreadsheet (again applicant name and entry date were not copied) and access to that document was given to the evaluators.

Please remember that the Chromebook Carts will be limited to one award per building. As soon as the process is complete, a posting will be made here.

Cheers.

We are currently working on transitioning to our new filter. The new filter will give us much more flexibility and security for the network. However, there are also literally hundreds of settings and check boxes to “get right”. Thus, we are hard at work “getting things right”.

This means that there may be some temporary bumps in the road. Well, actually, it means that there will be some bumps in the road. But we’ll work through those bumps as quickly as possible.

Our end goal is to balance easy of use, ubiquitous access, appropriate access and security for all users. This is quite a challenge. First graders should have a different experience than a senior in High School. The senior in High School should have a different experience than a teacher. Please remember that there are federal laws that govern some of the choices that we make.

Thus, things may be working differently on a day to day basis. Once we have everything worked out, we’ll roll out the new filter to all users. We’ll probably then have to make some adjustments. In fact, since technology and the web is ever changing, we will need to continually make slight adjustments.

Thank you for your patience.

We are hard at work updating the network, back up, connections and security. As you can probably imagine, this is an absolutely huge task. We are putting a new filter in place and implementing lots of security measures to help keep everyone safe. You have probably read or heard about the numerous data breeches that other companies have faced. This is a major concern for all of us. I know that changing a password is not at the top of everyone’s “to-do” list. However, it is currently a necessary evil. With that in mind, we will be enforcing a password change for all users. We are also updating our password policies. 

The new password requirements will be as follows:

• Passwords must be different than previous passwords.
• Passwords must be at least 5 characters long.
• Passwords must contain characters from three of the following four categories:
  • Uppercase characters
  • Lowercase characters
  • Number (0 through 9)
  • Nonalphanumeric characters: ~!@#$%^&*_-+=`|\(){}[]:;”‘<>,.?/

Passwords must be changed between Friday (February 27th) at 8:00 am and Tuesday, March 16th at 5:00 p.m.

Any user without a password change during that time will be locked out from EMAIL and signing into a computer.

There are two ways that you can change your password:

1. Simply go to the Staff Page on the Dearborn Schools website, click on Staff, then click on Change your Password (under Productivity). Follow the prompts of entering your Login (User name only – the stuff before the @ sign), current (old) password and the new password twice. *Note that the new password MUST meet the new criteria – see below.
2. Sign on to a Windows computer that is on our network. Depress the CRTL | ALT | DELETE keys. Select Change password from the Task manager. Follow the prompts of entering your current (old) password and the new password twice. *Note that the new password MUST meet the new criteria – see below.

Some tips:

The easiest way to create a secure, memorable password is to use a phrase or multiple words that create a picture. 

TLDR: Please change your password. New criteria is in place.

Please be aware that NWEA Knowledge Academy will be undergoing maintenance/updating starting Friday, January 30th. It will return on Monday, February 2nd by 9 a.m. The updates will include a new URL and Name Change. The Knowledge Academy will become Destination PD.

The site updates will include:

• Name change: Destination PD
• URL change: https://DestinationPD.NWEA.org
• User’s existing logins will continue to work and your course completion, progress and history will not be affected by the change.
• The existing URL will continue to work for the foreseeable future
• Interface change:
• Improved look and feel
• Added functionality including filters by course type and progress, course search, and learning path tools.  

The bad guys keep getting better. Please be aware of a couple of points.

There are several scammers sending around notices about appearing in court, or court proceedings. These will include a .zip file. Do NOT under any circumstances open the attachment. It contains malware and will ruin your computer.

We now know of a couple of users who have become infected with the CryptoLocker malware. This one is particularly ugly since it encrypts your entire hard drive. There is absolutely no way to decrypt the hard drive. They will ask for money to send you the keys. (Sending money doesn’t work, it just gives them even more information – and money).

Of course, you should always have a back up of your data. Having one copy means that you don’t have it at all. If you only have one copy and the hard drive goes bad, your data may be completely lost. You should always have at least a second copy in another physical location.

TRIG Professional Development – At NO COST

January 19, 2015- February 8, 2015

Participants will explore and apply aspects of technology integration, blended learning and data collection toward the creation of a classroom-ready assessment that is grade-level and subject area appropriate.

Educators will understand and facilitate Michigan’s vision for Next Generation Assessments by learning and applying appropriate strategies, structures, and support practices through these six-hour virtual courses. 

Depending on your experience level, you can sign up for the Introductory, Intermediate or Advanced session. For detailed course descriptions, click on the title of the course below:

3 Week Virtual Courses offered on three levels:

• Introductory
• Intermediate
• Advanced

(*SCECH’s also available for $10 fee – 6 SCECH’s can be earned).

Sign up at GoMIEM.org