MacBooks and Microsoft Office

In September, I sent out some communication that you shouldn't upgrade your staff MacBook to the newest operating system - Catalina - due to some changes that Apple is implementing with installed software. Thanks to a majority of you that followed those directions and have stayed the course for now.

As we look at the future, there is one major roadblock that needs to be resolved to move forward with where Apple is going with their operating system. Microsoft Office. We have licenses for an older version of Office that will not work any longer on Apple's new operating system. Thus being the case, a decision needed to be made on what will we do... As we are a "Google School, you all have access to a free solution to do word processing, spreadsheets, etc... Google Drive, Docs and Sheets. Being that these tools are free, very operational, and collaborative, we will not be providing Microsoft Office to teaching staff unless they can demonstrate a significant need for those tools. A few factors that will be taken into consideration, are these tools used in daily instructional use? Are these tools necessary for significant data analysis?

With that being said, you can use Google to upload and convert all Office documents that you have and use. Here's a step by step guide that will not only allow you to upload them, but also convert them into a format for editing and further use. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-convert-microsoft-office-files-to-google-docs

At this time, feel free to update your operating system if you understand that Office will no longer work. If you wish to request Office on your computer, please email me with specifics of the reason you need it for your job.

Comments

When I leave the district - Using Google Takeout

I actually took this picture myself at a lake my family visits each summer.. quite the sunset! Any who, this post is targeted at folks who are planning to leave the district , whether that be due to retirement or another opportunity. When you leave our district, we suspend your Google account. This usually happens after our last teacher contract day or when we are notified of you leaving the district over the summer. When the account is suspended, other users will be able to access all shared documents with your account as normal. One year after the account is suspended, the account is then deleted. Then all documents will be deleted that the user owned. Other users will no longer be able to access those shared documents and they will be gone forever. Please make sure you move any needed content to a Shared Drive that your team will need in the future. Please see this POST on how to do that. If you want to copy any or all of your "content" "see Google docs and email&

Passwords - oh passwords!

We just recently sent this message to our staff: Greetings! In our continuing efforts to create a more technology secure environment, we are going to begin to enforce the following rules for STAFF passwords in Google. All passwords must be a minimum length of 12 characters. We recommend passwords that are passphrases, for example “ilovechipsandsalsa”. While we are enforcing a password length requirement, at this time we are not requiring complexity through special characters, or symbols, or upper case letters. All staff will be required to create a new password every 180 days. We will begin enforcing these policies on Wednesday November 16th. When you log into your Google account, you will be prompted to update your password. A few other items regarding this change. Infinite Campus passwords will not be affected. Teacher MacBook logins, office staff’s windows logins, any business office/HR logins, or other website logins will not be affected. Para tablets, chromebooks, or other items

Shared Drives - when folks leave our district

At this time of year, we see some staff leave our district. We know that happens for a variety of reasons, spouse job change, moving to administration, etc... In preparation for that, I'd like to send a friendly reminder about shared Google Docs. When a staff member leaves our district, we suspend their Google account. This usually happens after our last teacher contract day or when we are notified of the staff member leaving the district over the summer. When the account is suspended, users will be able to access all shared documents with that person's account as normal. One year after the account is suspended, the account is then deleted. Then all documents will be deleted that the user owned. Other users will no longer be able to access those shared documents. One way to work around this issue of losing shared documents is to create Shared Drives . These change ownership of documents to our domain rather than just a user. By adding multiple users to the shared drive, m

CCSD Tech Hawks

Search This Blog