CCSD Tech Hawks

All, A few weeks ago, I sent an email regarding our plan for upgrading all staff MacBooks this summer. I wanted to provide some further guidance and some steps you can begin to take to plan for this changeover.   1. As I shared earlier, we are not planning to install Microsoft Office of our staff devices, unless there is an instructional need. An example is our secondary math curriculum at Point and the HS requires that use. An application type process will be shared in the upcoming weeks with you for requesting this. In preparation for this change, we have created steps you can take to begin to move Microsoft Office files over to Google Drive. Here's directions on how to do that: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x-33PVroyghpOESOertOPWfaxcqbSdIctRUXUnv7RH0/edit    2. Many of you have shared how you currently use Mimio technology in your classrooms, whether that be a Mimio tablet or their whiteboard technology. This technology is old and their company has no...

Greetings Prairie Hawks! I’m excited to share that we are in the works of creating a plan for a FULL certified staff and Administrator MacBook replacement. Yes, you read that correctly, if you currently have a MacBook provided by CCSD you will be getting a new MacBook Air this summer!! The technology department has decided to upgrade everyone at the same time. We are doing that for a few reasons: To have all staff on the same make/model for troubleshooting and consistency. With our current fleet, we are currently supporting 4 different versions of Mac OS which makes problem solving issues more complex. To have all staff MacBooks “managed” with our management system, so we can push OS upgrades when we have tested them, keeping web browsers updated to the newest versions automatically, etc. The new MacBook Airs have USB-C connections only, so we will also be mass replacing all adapters for connections to projectors/monitors/etc. There are a few important items to pass along...

  As the end of the year 2020 draws ever closer, we in the tech department felt it necessary to deliver this breaking news. Adobe Flash player is reaching end-of-life December 31, 2020 Literally, it's news about something that will be breaking. Is this cause for panic? Y2K, delayed by twenty years?? Not at all! However, this may have some impact on the educational space and as such we felt it necessary to expound, educate, and elucidate somewhat on the matter. What is Flash, and why should I care? History lesson!  From the first youtube videos, to angry birds, to early online banking, flash has been a part of our lives since time immemorial... if time immemorial was, oh, say twenty years back. Adobe Flash was used as a software platform to create (at the time) innovative and interactive web experiences, from viewing flash animations and videos to playing Virtual Knee Surgeon or Dolphin Olympics 2: Fish Out of Water (You only wish I was making these names up) Chances are, ...

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...

I hope that you are doing well during this unique time in history! I can't tell you how much I miss being around our staff and students. Anyhow, we've received a few questions on some issues staff are having when accessing Hangouts Meet on their MacBook.  Charlie has created some troubleshooting steps outlined here: 1. In Chrome: Pull down the Chrome menu from the menu bar on the upper left side of your screen and choose “Preferences.” 2. A “Settings” page will open up when you do this. On the left side of the page click “Advanced” and then “System.” 3. Where it says " Use hardware acceleration when available” cllck on the slider button to the right of that to turn off hardware  acceleration and then click the relaunch button. If this doesn’t seem to work well for you  i t is also possible to use the  Firefox browser for Google Meet sessions. To download the latest version of Firefox go to the following link: https://www.mozilla.org...

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 ...

We've been getting a lot of questions about my last post and Securly Certificate installation and personal cell phones/mobile devices, so I want to provide you with a few of the more prevalent questions and answers to those.  1. Do I have to have Securly on my phone.  No, you do not have to have the Securly Certificate on your cell phone. You do not have to connect your cell phone to the CCSD network here on Campus if you don't want to. Also, if you do want to connect to the CCSD network, you should still be able to access email from a mail app (gmail, apple mail, etc) or a calendar application (Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, etc) from your phone without the Securly certificate installed. 2. Some of us have noticed recently that we are unable to do a search on chrome when connected to the wireless. It says connection not private or something like that. Any idea why? Will this update help?  If you want to connect to the CCSD network and do searches on Safari, Chr...