Date: March 19th, 2013 To: Michael Green From: Steve Rippl Subject: Tech Dept. Executive Summary
The State came out with an updated version of the MSP testing software at the end of last month which we duly deployed. We had some heightened anxiety (to say the least) for a day as the Linux version seemed to suddenly not work at all! The support folks at DRC were responsive and took our error logs and diagnosis reports but in the end we found the fix before they did! So, currently the software is out and working and I think the Intermediate and Middle Schools are on the verge of starting to put the students through the practice sessions that are available.
The Vancouver school district is surplusing us some of their old projectors, I think a couple of their building have recently switched over to wall mounted interactive ones. While these will be older models, just running them for the remainder of their builds lifetime will still be worthwhile for us.
We’ve been having problems in the library with the bank of computers set up as a mini lab. The floor ports are in the wrong position for the table rows and students (through no real fault of their own) keep damaging the cables and drops. Over the spring break we’ll bring in electricians to rewire those ports (the cabling is old and now unreliable) and then we’ll rearrange the tables to better fit in with the floor ports and keep them protected.
We’ve just released a “one-stop-shop” for teachers who need to manage labs and student accounts. Previously these staff have had to have 2 tools for resetting passwords (network and Google accounts) and they had no feedback on whether the account was actually active or was locked due to password errors. We now have a single web based tool where they can reset all passwords, unlock accounts and see clearly if the account is disabled for some reason, thereby hopefully getting students back on to computers more quickly if they’re experiencing problems. The initial feedback has been very positive.