Documenting our work within the department and going back to cleanup old configurations in systems that have been around a while (and evolved with time) are both tasks that can be neglected while we push on with all the current, new and urgent things we tend to deal with day to day. But every now and again we go back to things like this, and now is one of those times.
Our internal and public departmental documentation lives in an old Google Sites website that is being forced to be upgraded to their new version of Sites, and rather than just auto-upgrade the whole site we’re using it as an opportunity to force ourselves to revisit what is there. We’re combing through all the material, removing what’s no longer needed and updating things that have fallen behind but are still helpful. Staff “how-tos” are moving to a new Google Site while our internal documentation on our systems is moving to a Team Drive in Google Docs.
At the same time we’ve begun an audit and cleanup of our Microsoft Active Directory policies and Windows logon scripts. Every few years we try to assess what’s still needed and what can be removed so that configurations don’t become too cluttered with old, inactive settings.
Both of these will take some time to work through, but they are things we can be getting on with in between the urgent “must do now” stuff!
We’re also going to take a look at ChromeOS tablets which have recently materialized. Google have made it possible to run Android applications on compatible ChromeOS devices, and the tablet form factor is advantageous in a few cases, for example our youngest students, in Sped, and for specific multimedia projects. The potential of having this be wrapped into the ease of management we benefit from with ChromeOS is attractive, but we’ll have to evaluate if they really live up to the potential.