Lost My Password!?!
27.August.2010 06:53 Filed in: Tech Tips
We cannot see your
password. We can reset it, though. Actually, you can
just call the Help Desk (847.934.8100-press 2), and
they can reset it for you.
...BUT... Your next step then is to go to a school Computer Lab, LMC Lab, or one of the silver teacher workroom iMacs, and log-in with your username (firstname.lastname) and the default password that the Help Desk will give you when your password has been reset. When you do that, you will have to create a new password, which meets the following requirements:
From there, using your new password, at home, school, or anywhere, you can use a web browser to access your email, calendar, and contacts at:
http://webmail.ccsd21.org
Likewise, this password can be used to access your home directory by simply logging in to an up-to-date/modern computer at school as well as for any wikis for which you are a member.
...BUT... Your next step then is to go to a school Computer Lab, LMC Lab, or one of the silver teacher workroom iMacs, and log-in with your username (firstname.lastname) and the default password that the Help Desk will give you when your password has been reset. When you do that, you will have to create a new password, which meets the following requirements:
- Minimum of 8 characters
- At least 3 of the 4 following types of characters: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and/or punctuation
From there, using your new password, at home, school, or anywhere, you can use a web browser to access your email, calendar, and contacts at:
http://webmail.ccsd21.org
Likewise, this password can be used to access your home directory by simply logging in to an up-to-date/modern computer at school as well as for any wikis for which you are a member.
From Staff Listservs to Mail Groups
26.August.2010 12:26 Filed in: Tech Tips
“Our
servers should be younger than our
Kindergarteners.”
This adage is one that school districts aspire to achieve and maintain.
In our quest to provide the best possible tools for students and staff members within our existing resources, we have moved to the Enterprise-class Microsoft Exchange email, calendar, contacts productivity server. Rather than move everyone in a single, sweeping, over-the-weekend transition is as often-the-case with such a change, we have taken a different approach. We have slowly moved groups of people over during the course of the last three years. On Friday, August 27th, the last current CommuniGate user will be moved to Exchange (and celebrations will ensue throughout District 21)!!!
The CommuniGate server will be shutdown this coming Sunday evening, August 29th, after 7.00 PM. After that time, messages on CommuniGate will no longer be available to be retrieved. Most staff have had at least three months to clear these messages from the CommuniGate server in the event that they wanted to retain the messages.
From Listservs to Groups
With this move, we are also in the process of enabling the groups in Active Directory as Mail Groups. These function a little differently than listservs.
First, Active Directory is designed to control most functions within our school district related to computers for each student and staff member. It provides a map for each individual’s electronic life in CCSD21, connecting you with your files, your email, etc. When someone is hired, she is put in to Active Directory, and when she leaves CCSD21, she is taken out, and all of those permissions vanish with her!
Another feature of Active Directory is that we can make groups, and then, we can use that same group for multiple purposes. For example, each school has a Staff group, and that group has permissions on the school-wide staff wiki on the teams.ccsd21.org server and that group will now also be the school’s staff email group.
So, what do you need to know in order to use the new email groups?
With this change, all of the new teachers, who were only included in Exchange and never entered in to CommuniGate will start receiving school staff emails. So, beginning next week, the staff email group (Remember, it’s not a listserv anymore!) for each school should be complete.
Finally, as with all of the users in Active Directory, the group names are searchable in Entourage 2008, Outlook 2007 and 2010, and Outlook Web App, so you can look up a group if you don’t know its name. To make this transition as easy as possible, nearly all group names match those that were previously used in CommuniGate!
This adage is one that school districts aspire to achieve and maintain.
In our quest to provide the best possible tools for students and staff members within our existing resources, we have moved to the Enterprise-class Microsoft Exchange email, calendar, contacts productivity server. Rather than move everyone in a single, sweeping, over-the-weekend transition is as often-the-case with such a change, we have taken a different approach. We have slowly moved groups of people over during the course of the last three years. On Friday, August 27th, the last current CommuniGate user will be moved to Exchange (and celebrations will ensue throughout District 21)!!!
The CommuniGate server will be shutdown this coming Sunday evening, August 29th, after 7.00 PM. After that time, messages on CommuniGate will no longer be available to be retrieved. Most staff have had at least three months to clear these messages from the CommuniGate server in the event that they wanted to retain the messages.
From Listservs to Groups
With this move, we are also in the process of enabling the groups in Active Directory as Mail Groups. These function a little differently than listservs.
First, Active Directory is designed to control most functions within our school district related to computers for each student and staff member. It provides a map for each individual’s electronic life in CCSD21, connecting you with your files, your email, etc. When someone is hired, she is put in to Active Directory, and when she leaves CCSD21, she is taken out, and all of those permissions vanish with her!
Another feature of Active Directory is that we can make groups, and then, we can use that same group for multiple purposes. For example, each school has a Staff group, and that group has permissions on the school-wide staff wiki on the teams.ccsd21.org server and that group will now also be the school’s staff email group.
So, what do you need to know in order to use the new email groups?
- Composing an email--To send an email to the entire staff, just do what you’ve done in the past--send an email to the group. For example, in the screenshot below, I am sending an email to the iTech and Principals groups. If I wanted to send one to the staff at London, I would enter london_staff in the TO line of my email. Then, everyone in the London Staff group in Active Directory would receive the email.
- Replying to an email--This is one of the biggest changes from a listserv. Now, when you hit reply to a message that was sent to the entire group, it will only be received by the original sender of the email, not by the whole group. The benefit is that this eliminates the possibility of accidentally sending an unintended response to everyone, as so often happens! If you want everyone to see your response, you simply hit “Reply to All” instead of “Reply”.
With this change, all of the new teachers, who were only included in Exchange and never entered in to CommuniGate will start receiving school staff emails. So, beginning next week, the staff email group (Remember, it’s not a listserv anymore!) for each school should be complete.
Finally, as with all of the users in Active Directory, the group names are searchable in Entourage 2008, Outlook 2007 and 2010, and Outlook Web App, so you can look up a group if you don’t know its name. To make this transition as easy as possible, nearly all group names match those that were previously used in CommuniGate!
New Staff Members Commit to Relevant Learning
16.August.2010 14:03 Filed in: Instruction
| Assessment
As we began the 2009-2010 school year, we asked
new
teachers and
administrators to consider what it meant for
learning to be relevant in our classrooms in order to
best prepare students for their futures. As we now
begin the 2010-2011 school year, this year’s new
District 21 staff members are also considering what it
means to make learning relevant.
New certified staff members to School District 21 believe that authentic and relevant learning is:
New Staff Orientation Podcast 2010-2011
New Staff Orientation Wordles 2010-2011
New certified staff members to School District 21 believe that authentic and relevant learning is:
- Content is meaningful to students
- Students make connections between new concepts and those that they already know
- Learning that can be generalized across many different environments
- Focused on problem solving
- Learning in which students are not only consumers, but also producers of, knowledge
- Practical and applied
- Learning in which students and teachers are all learners
- Collaborative
- Learning that inspires questioning and creativity on the part of students
- Learning that connects the past, present, and future
- Learning that teaches and requires empathy
New Staff Orientation Podcast 2010-2011
New Staff Orientation Wordles 2010-2011
Relevant & Authentic Learning
As
we began the 2009-2010 school year, we asked
new
teachers and
administrators to
consider what it meant for learning to be relevant in
our classrooms in order to best prepare students for
their futures. As we now begin the 2010-2011 school
year, this year’s new District 21 staff members are
also considering what it means to make learning
relevant. Specifically, three guiding questions are
providing direction for their thoughts:
During the workshop, we will use multiple tools to help us capture and organize our thinking. Among these, groups will be using Wordle to summarize the thoughts of the group:
Finally, participants will create a podcast articulating what they will do to ensure that their students benefit from relevant and authentic learning throughout the school year! This podcast will be posted on The Modern Pen following the workshop.
Other Resources discussed for teachers to consider include:
- WHAT is relevant and authentic learning?
- SO WHAT? Why is it important for learning to be relevant and authentic?
- NOW WHAT? What are you going to do to ensure that learning in your classroom and/or with your students is relevant and authentic this year?
During the workshop, we will use multiple tools to help us capture and organize our thinking. Among these, groups will be using Wordle to summarize the thoughts of the group:
Finally, participants will create a podcast articulating what they will do to ensure that their students benefit from relevant and authentic learning throughout the school year! This podcast will be posted on The Modern Pen following the workshop.
Other Resources discussed for teachers to consider include:
Troubleshooting Your Computer
07.August.2010 11:27 Filed in: Tech Tips
Staff
members can and should begin the troubleshooting
process by first doing some basics:
If all of those basic items are working, continue troubleshooting by seeking out information from the following sources:
If, after doing that, you are still having difficulty or if you are prompted for an administrator password, please call the Help Desk (847.934.8100--press 2).
Some might ask, can I simply take the computer to The Apple Store? The short answer is “No”. The long answer is that Apple is one corporation, but they are one giant corporation. They are a corporation that, while increasingly focused on the enterprise market (large organizations--like CCSD21), continues to be primarily structured for consumer sales and support. While we are all familiar with The Apple Store and The Genius Bar, these are not tools that are designed to support School District 21 computers for a variety of reasons. Additionally, CCSD21 is also a large organization and part of the government. As a result, we have made specific decisions about the hardware that is deployed and how it is deployed. The Apple Store is unaware of those decisions.
We have worked with our Government/Education Apple representatives and the small business associates in local Apple Stores to support us on certain small hardware purchases. Those rare instances are handled directly by the District 21 Technology Office.
Otherwise, as a rule, District 21 Apple computers are not purchased from or taken to the Apple Store by District employees. Rather, sales are handled through the CCSD21 Technology Office and Apple Education. Troubleshooting and maintenance should be addressed by the individual staff member through the Help Desk (847.934.8100-press 2). From there, when a computer is under AppleCare and needs repair from Apple, we initiate that via the internal processes that we have in place and that Apple has set-up for enterprise customers like CCSD21.
- Restarting the computer, if possible
- Ensuring that the computer is plugged in to power
- Ensuring that the computer is connected to a network (Ethernet is ideal. If you’re having problems with a wireless network at home or elsewhere, the issue could be with that network, not the computer. Are other computers working on the same network? Will your computer work on another network?)
If all of those basic items are working, continue troubleshooting by seeking out information from the following sources:
- Atomic Learning
- The Modern Pen
- Your Computer’s Built-In Help in the Menu Bar
If, after doing that, you are still having difficulty or if you are prompted for an administrator password, please call the Help Desk (847.934.8100--press 2).
Some might ask, can I simply take the computer to The Apple Store? The short answer is “No”. The long answer is that Apple is one corporation, but they are one giant corporation. They are a corporation that, while increasingly focused on the enterprise market (large organizations--like CCSD21), continues to be primarily structured for consumer sales and support. While we are all familiar with The Apple Store and The Genius Bar, these are not tools that are designed to support School District 21 computers for a variety of reasons. Additionally, CCSD21 is also a large organization and part of the government. As a result, we have made specific decisions about the hardware that is deployed and how it is deployed. The Apple Store is unaware of those decisions.
We have worked with our Government/Education Apple representatives and the small business associates in local Apple Stores to support us on certain small hardware purchases. Those rare instances are handled directly by the District 21 Technology Office.
Otherwise, as a rule, District 21 Apple computers are not purchased from or taken to the Apple Store by District employees. Rather, sales are handled through the CCSD21 Technology Office and Apple Education. Troubleshooting and maintenance should be addressed by the individual staff member through the Help Desk (847.934.8100-press 2). From there, when a computer is under AppleCare and needs repair from Apple, we initiate that via the internal processes that we have in place and that Apple has set-up for enterprise customers like CCSD21.
