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THORNTON TOWNSHIP DISTRICT 205 NEWS ON TECHNOLOGY Issue 3
Thornton Township District 205 News on Technology
March
2015
YOUR PERIODIC TECHNOLOGY UPDATE IN THIS ISSUE
The District will undertake mission to transition from our Microsoft Outlook email to Gmail for faculty. In addition, we will be offering students their own Gmail accounts.
Why transition? Improve reliability, increase functionality, and reduce operating costs.
Google is currently offering schools a low cost hosted solution for their email, calendar, and chat through Google Apps for Education (GAFE). GAFE is an integrated communication and collaboration solution. It is a platform that is supplemented with dozens more third party applications that are designed to enhance your ability to educate and collaborate amongst your students and fellow faculty.
With the core suite of apps Docs, Sheets, and Slides one can create dynamic reports,
presentations and analytical spreadsheets. With your Google Drive, users can effortlessly store documents, pictures, music, etc. and access them from work or at the convenience of their homes. Storing your work on your H: Drive will become a thing of the past.
Additional Benefits Other features that will prove beneficial to our user community:
• Security and Privacy – robust security features enable users to determine who has access to their information
• Stay Connected From Anywhere – everything is automatically saved in the cloud. Access and edit content from any mobile device or tablet (anytime, anywhere)
• Bring Students, Teachers and Teams Together – Google’s website and document creation tools offer real-time editing, powerful sharing controls, and seamless compatibility
Google for Education An update on the current state of the District’s wireless access network
Page 1
Help Desk Portal An update on the current state of copier and printer use
throughout the District Page 2
PARCC Assessment Prep An update on re-engineering core business
processes Page 2
THORNTON TOWNSHIP DISTRICT 205 NEWS ON TECHNOLOGY | Issue 3
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• Get Stuff Done Faster – GAFE helps streamline academic tasks like essay writing. A group of students can work together on a piece of work in Google Docs, seeing changes in real time rather than waiting for versions to be sent via email.
Next Steps We started this GAFE project by establishing a pilot consisting of teachers, administrators, and librarians from each campus. This group of early adopters were tasked to explore this platform and identify issues and opportunities. Their feedback regarding this platform has been overwhelmingly favorable. There will be a notification sent out soon announcing the transition process and Google account activation date. In the meantime, check out the links below to get closer look at what’s to come.
Additional Information
Sneak Peek! Possibilities!
Support Tools
The IT Department has recently upgraded its helpdesk system to a robust solution by Solarwinds Inc. This app will aid each technician to better track incidents at each campus. Additional features include:
Automatically convert email service requests into IT tickets in the help desk system
Automate ticket assignment, routing, and escalation to the right technician at the right time
Associate problem tickets with IT assets and track the history of asset service requests & complaints
Generate ticket status and technician performance reports
User Benefits For faculty and staff requesting technical support, this system provides transparency into your ticket status. Thus enabling each user to track the activity surrounding their issue. Finally, no ticket can be closed without the end user signing off on the service performed. To access the help desk portal click on the link: Help Desk Link and use your network credentials to log in.
This month the District will deploy the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) online test throughout the District. Over 400 workstations in sixteen labs will be used to conduct the testing. Each of the workstations had to undergo a rigorous test to ensure its compliance with PARCC testing requirements.
New Frontier
The PARCC testing Leads have worked hard to prepare the proctors and developing testing schedules to ensure smooth running. The preparation to get ready for PARCC has been an excellent lesson in partnerships between all departments involved. The lessons learned from the March testing will provide a roadmap for improving testing that will occur in April.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPT
• TekSystems
o Noel Zambrano - Thornridge
• Peters & Associates
o Network Support
• Altura
o Phone System Support
• Kirtley Technology Corporation
o AS400 Support
• Veronica Zambrano – Help Desk Command Center
• Jarvis Jackson – Tech Support Manager
• Jesus Quinones – Thornwood
• Tyrone Richardson – Tech Specialist
• Darrell Hudson - Thornton
• Vanguard Technology Group
o Terrence Roberts – IT Management
o Bill Bradley – Project Manager
• Chicago Office Technology Group
o Mario Romero – Print/Copy Support
Help Desk
Portal
PARCC Testing
THORNTON TOWNSHIP DISTRICT 205 NEWS ON TECHNOLOGY | Issue 3
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On Friday, February 27, 2015 the IT Department completed the upgrade of the Alexandria library management system. Until recently, our library management systems across all three campuses existed in an unstable environment. As a result, many challenges plagued the librarians which forced them to suffer through issues of temporary loss of data, stoppage of work, and redo requests for book checkout. All of which have frustrated the librarians to no end.
This system is yet another enterprise solution used by the District to move to the cloud. Joining the ranks of PowerSchool, our student information system, Applitrak our HR management system, and the soon to come Google Apps for Education our new email and collaboration platform.
Feature Rich Solution
Besides being accessible to students from anywhere, this upgraded solution offers some convenient features such as:
Patrons have the ability to add their own item reviews, create book lists, renew books, and place holds and reservations
Manage the access to eBooks seamlessly
Title Assistant makes it easy for you to locate and obtain complete, rich, and up-to-standard MARC records by searching across hundreds of Z39.50 servers, or by specifying your own favorite sources
Alexandria’s free Cover Art utility brings the District’s collection to live by displaying book jackets for items in our collection
Perform a comprehensive analysis of your collection with Alexandria’s powerful Super Summary reports.
Thornton Township High School District 205 is among the first schools in Illinois to develop its own mobile app now available on both iPhones and Android based mobile devices.
So what can this app do? The app provides information regarding events through out the District. By signing up to an event you can receive push notifications specific to that event. Each Campus can create their own events that pertain to student or faculty. Sporting events, Chess Club, Prom Committee, National Honor Society, etc will be able to post content and interact with students who are involved or have an interest in the these events. Surveys can also be issued to those signed up for an event and the reponses are tallied in real-time and could be displayed to participants when ever or where ever the survey creators desire.
In the case of emergencience this app can be used to push notifications to everyone alerting them to school closings or other relevent safety information. This app will complement information provided on our websites, yet enable more interactive opportunities with the District community.
How to get the app? Simply go to your mobile device app store and search for District 205.
More information will be provided in the upcoming months regarding this app and how to leverage it for the benefit of the students and staff of the District.
TAKE YOUR DATA WHERE EVERY YOU GO. UPLOAD IT TO YOUR GOOGLE DRIVE!
Online Library Management System
D205 Mobile
App!
THORNTON TOWNSHIP DISTRICT 205 NEWS ON TECHNOLOGY | Issue 3
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PROJECT UPDATES
90% Of the District’s Desktops have been migrated to Windows 7
100% Time and Attendance clocks installed at each campus
92% Percent help desk tickets closed out of 1,200 tickets
SCOPE OF SUPPORT
725 Number of Desktops in
the District 300 Number of copiers and
printers in the District
289 Number of smart boards
in the District
Graphite Bulletin Boards When students can bring or access devices for learning, teachers want to figure out the best resources. To do that they have Graphite™. Graphite is a free service from Common Sense Education designed to help pre-K-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from their active
community of teachers.
Teachers can get on Graphite and create boards of the best learning resources for any subject. They can start by checking out the boards created by Common Sense Media for K-12 in the list below:
K-12
Special Needs & Learning Differences
Research
Formative Assessment
Parent Communication
Classroom Management
Want to share your favorite online resources? Sign up for Graphite.org and get started!
FOR MORE INFORMATION
VERONICA ZAMBRANO 708-225-4172
Tech: Bits & Bytes
