Information

Constitution Day Resource

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Live Tour of the National Archives and Up Close Look at the Constitution

September 17 at 1:00PM ET

Join David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, on a tour of the National Archives and a short lesson about the Constitution.

Constitution Day provides a great opportunity for classrooms across the country to learn about the document, as well as the National Archives. Students will take a short tour of the National Archives, learn about their document collection, and how historians are actively using primary source documents in their research. Students will also learn about the Constitution through a document analysis strategy that reinforces the skills needed to read, write, and think like a scholar.

Sign up HERE.

More TBA

No special equipment is needed to view this event online. All you need is an internet connected computer (and a way to share with students – projector and speakers). Students will have the chance to submit questions online to be answered live.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need to register all my students or just my classroom?
A: You only need one ticket for a location or classroom. All your students are covered by the one ticket.

Q: My classroom can’t make this time, will there be an archive?
A: Yes, classrooms and teachers registered for the event will be notified when the archive is available soon after the live event.

Network Upgrades

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We are very excited to have begun the process of upgrading the network. Part of this upgrade is replacing the network switches in every building. In order to replace the switches, we must physically remove the switch that is in place and install the new one. This means that the network is unavailable at that time. We begin the process at 4:30 p.m. on a specific day. We complete the process before school begins the next morning. This affects buildings in two ways:

  • Anyone in the building will lose internet, web and network access.
  • Anyone calling into the building will not be able to complete the call.

We will be sending out notification to each building prior to replacing the switches.

We appreciate your understanding as we improve the capability and reliability of our network.

New Feature – Badges for Professional Development

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Who doesn’t like a sticker for doing a good job!

Badges are a new feature that we are rolling out as part of our employee online training in iLearn.  When you complete a set of criteria you are awarded a badge for completing the task.  The criteria can be anything from getting a certain grade on a quiz to watching a video.  When complete you will be rewarded with a badge!

There are three main employee training courses that we will be issuing badges: Bloodborne Pathogen Training, Office of Civil Rights Bilingual Training, and Response to Bullying Behaviour.  When you have completed the course objectives you will receive one of the three badges below:

BBP_award   OCR_award   RBB_award

You can view your badges in iLearn

*Please note that it may take up to an hour before your badge will be displayed. 

Bond Update

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We’ve been hard at work beginning the implementation of the Bond work that was passed by the voters. Some of these are crucial, but remain unseen by users (at least when they are working). These items are absolutely crucial to using technology throughout the district. Many of these are roughly equivalent to getting a tune up or an oil change for your car. You may not really notice a big difference, and certainly your neighbor won’t stop over to admire the new 10W-40 that you put in, but not taking care of these items will eventually result in your car not working. We are starting the implementation of new edge switches and core switches. These are well underway.

Some of the changes will be noticed. We have installed almost 100 access points at McCollough/Unis. We’ve installed even more access points at Lowery School. These will allow us to provide a robust wireless environment for students, staff and parents.

Saving Data

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Data is important. Having a single copy of data is a concern. There is an adage, if you only have one copy of your data, you don’t have the data.

We are working on refreshing lots of computers (starting with the high schools). Any data left on a computer will be deleted upon the installation of the new computer. Naturally, no important data should ever only exist on the hard drive of your computer. Saving multiple copies of important data is important.

Please save all important documents to Google Drive or another safe location. (Your H:drive and network  drives are also a “safe” location since we back those  up.)
Google Drive is backed up. You have 30 GB of data through Google Drive (and any documents that you create in Drive don’t count against that 30 GB total.)

PERSONAL Purchases of Technology

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The Tech Readiness Project, TRIG, SPOT device purchase program has an option for personal purchase.  Here are details on the discount program. Do compare the prices offered with others that you find. Feedback is appreciated on what you discover.

Device Purchasing Opportunity

 

To Staff & Students:

Do you or a member of your immediate family need a desktop computer or mobile learning device for PERSONAL use?

As part of the TRIG statewide device purchasing program for schools, Netech (Dell) and Sehi are offering great discounts on desktops and mobile learning devices for personal use.

•To access information and to place an order from the Dell Member Purchase Program, go to https://Dell.com/22itrigmpp.

•To access information and place an order on popular HP and Samsung devices through the Sehi Staff and Student Purchase Program, go to https://www.buysehi.com/system_dept.asp?dept_id=SD-005. 

Discounts end on 7/31/2014!

eBay

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If you use eBay (either for personal or work use), eBay is asking all users to change their passwords due to a cyberattack that compromised a database.

 

eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) said beginning later today it will be asking eBay users to change their passwords because of a cyberattack that compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data.

 

https://blog.ebay.com/ebay-inc-ask-ebay-users-change-passwords/

IE

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Please do NOT use Internet Explorer except for sites that won’t work with anything else. Internet Explorer has a zero day exploit that makes it vulnerable.

New Michigan Moodle User Group

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If you are currently using Moodle or are interested in using Moodle, please consider joining the new Michigan Moodle Users Group on Google Plus.  We are building a community of support and collaboration to help teachers be successful in blended learning.  Feel free to ask questions and share this group with others.  Everyone from the classroom teacher to the techy types are encouraged to join.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/113077058997214337239

MMU

Secure Passwords

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Creating good passwords that you can actually remember can be difficult. Here is a great site to create memorial, secure passwords:

Secure Memorable Password Creator

A couple of tips:

  • You can make lots of adjustments.
  • To make is easier to remember, reduce the number of digits used.
  • Also reduce the padding (or set to zero). This will make it a bit less secure than having it, but more secure and memorable.
  • Click the “generate password” button until you get one you like and can remember.

You’ll still have a secure password that is memorable.

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