IT s for You Newsletter

Transcription

1 IT s for You Newsletter Spring Forward Tech News!!! Information Systems Department Over the last few months we have been upgrading our I.T. infrastructure to help us prepare and adapt to the changing world when using technology in our schools. These upgrades are essential for moving forward with 21st Century Learning. The new infrastructure will also assist us with managing wireless devices, assuring application performance, enhancing security, and improving the end-users network experience. As we journey towards 2020, the foundation we build today will help us achieve our vision tomorrow. Page 1 In this Issue Secondary Class Markbooks Module in Maplewood Maplewood News Data Warehouse News Page 2 Windows 7 Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) Wireless Plan Journey Towards 2020 Planning Page 3 LMS Update Adobe Licensing Privacy Statement and Reminder Page 4 FirstClass Updates PD Place Upgrade Elem. Safe Arrival Pilot Page 5 Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) IS Outage Protocol School Newsletter Protocol Page 6 Call Centre Call Centre Website Secondary Class Markbooks Module in Maplewood: Maplewood s Class Markbooks is incorporated within the ConnectEd website that secondary school teachers currently use to record period attendance. Without additional licensing costs, Maplewood s Class Markbooks is fully integrated with Maplewood s Ontario Provincial Report Card achievement program. It allows for teachers to record KICA, CPT, Exams, Summative assessments and evaluations. Teachers can generate individual student reports as well as mark entry verification grids. We are currently piloting the use of Maplewood s Class Markbooks with three elementary schools and two secondary schools. The Asylum Markbook program will no longer be supported from the Information Systems budget for the 2013/2014 school year. We believe Maplewood s Class Markbooks provides a suitable alternative for schools. If schools wish to continue to use Asylum Markbook, they will be responsible for purchasing a site license which will cost approximately $ per year. Information Systems is in the process of developing a Maplewood Class Markbooks Toolkit for school Principals. This toolkit will provide all the necessary information on how to implement Maplewood s Class Markbooks at your school. Maplewood News: The York Catholic District School Board Student Information System User Group (YSUG) was established approximately 2 years ago. This group was formed to share good practices amongst the SIS user community, address and/or communicate mutual concerns to the Maplewood Vendor, establish future priorities, consider and influence future development of the Student Information System (Maplewood) products and gain feedback on user experience using SIS related products. The YCDSB User Group will meet 3 times per year in October, February and May. Please refer to the YSUG General Information FirstClass conference for more information about the YCDSB SIS User Group, Maplewood news, Maplewood Updates and upcoming events. Page 1

2 Windows 7 Information Systems staff have developed a strategy which will allow for the introduction of Windows 7 into the Classroom/Office environment. The challenge to date has been dealing with a wide assortment of outdated hardware. It was necessary to develop a strategy which would accommodate a mixed environment (i.e. computers running Windows XP and Windows 7), until older systems are replaced by newer hardware which is Windows 7 ready. This new Mixed mode environment is currently being tested in a number of schools and will be ready to roll-out to all schools by the beginning of the 2013/14 school year. Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) Announcement: During the March break a new Firewall, Internet filter and Wireless portal was installed into the Board s network infrastructure. The purpose of the Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is to ensure the Board s core systems continue to be protected while developing a more flexible, efficient and more manageable environment for the Board s Wide Area Network (WAN), Local Area Network (LANs) and Wireless Network (WLAN). Information Systems will be adjusting the new firewall to accommodate the needs of various stake holders over the next few weeks. Along with the upgrade of our Firewall, we are introducing a new way to connect to our Wireless network. The new network called "EDUNET" will provide an easier way of connecting (no proxy needed) and allow us to provide more flexibility for accessing content and applications. As this network becomes available to your school, we will communicate the necessary information needed to transition. Wireless Plan (In Progress) The first phase of the wireless plan is to provide basic coverage throughout all schools. Basic coverage is defined as having a wireless signal in most locations within the school and CEC. Note: Due to wireless limitations, coverage may not be available through some barriers such as block walls, dense locker coverage, etc. The first phase of the wireless installation is to be completed by the end of the school year. A detailed schoolby-school schedule is currently being developed. Steps for the Phase One Wireless Plan : 1) Technician or other Information Systems staff will request a drawing of your school from the Principal. 2) Information System Wireless team plot/design a basic wireless coverage plan for your school. 3) Information Systems staff provide a quote for the data drops for the access points. 4) Work is scheduled and the school will be contacted by a representative from World Wide Enterprise (WWE), who will develop an installation plan specific to your school. The second phase of the Wireless Plan would be to increase the density of the wireless coverage. This phase will be developed based on the Board s 21st century learning strategy as it becomes available. Journey Towards 2020 Planning: As technology continues to transform society, teaching and technology professionals are facing overwhelming pressure to adapt. E-Learning, technology in the classrooms, social media, wireless, BYOD and other teaching and learning tools require critical planning to ensure success. The planning required will take time to develop but we are committed to finding a framework that will ensure we move forward when technology is used or needed for teaching and learning in the 21 st Century. Page 2

3 LMS Update: The Ministry has signed a contract with Desire to Learn to provide a learning management system to all students in the province of Ontario. The province has set a goal that all students (K-12) in Ontario will be using the LMS within the next several years. The current goal is that 25% of the student population, in each school board, is using the Provincial Learning Management system. The LMS provides a number of tools to teach and support learning in a face-to-face class or through an online course. Through blended learning, K- 12 students can access high-quality course materials, course calendars, and assignments during and outside school hours. Students can also take part in face-to-face lessons and communicate with their teacher and classmates using a number of secure online tools inside the password-protected LMS. These tools help students learn or review key concepts, stay organized, show what they have learned, submit assignments, track their achievement, and communicate with others. The LMS online secure tools include: Blog Calendar Checklist Content Discussions Dropbox eportfolio Grades Journal Locker News Pager Progress Quizzes Survey There are no costs to use the LMS. Adobe Licensing: Over the last few years we have been able to secure funding for the annual renewal of Adobe Master Collection. This ensured we always had the latest Adobe products for this collection which contained products such as Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, InDesign and others. We are unable to continue this annual renewal and will need to look at alternative ways to upgrade products on an individual product basis in the future. We will continue to monitor the version releases to identify appropriate times to upgrade products. Privacy Statement and Reminder: Any confidential information should not be stored on any portable device (Laptop, USB or PDA) without properly encrypting and securing the technology. As technology advances and easier methods of exporting and saving information to mobile devices become more instinctive, it is critical that information is protected. Some tips to ensure privacy are: 1) Password protect your devices such as ipads, PDA s and tablets. 2) Be aware that not all wireless connections are equal. YCDSB provides you with a safe and secure network but most public wireless networks do not encrypt traffic. Unencrypted traffic means that a malicious user could potentially sniff your or web data as it is delivered to your computer. 3) Cloud computing allows you to store data remotely and easily access it from your mobile device, think critically about what data you store in the cloud. Our Privacy Committee will be communicating best practices for respecting privacy and safeguarding data. Page 3

4 FirstClass Updates: The following changes occurred to FirstClass due to the recent upgrade. Conference Flags: Upon uploading a file or to a conference, the user will not see the red flag, however other users of the conference will. Desktop Button: Some users are not seeing the desktop button in the left panel. To correct this issue, right+click on the panel as indicated and choose Reset Toolbar. If you are experiencing any other issues with FirstClass, please contact the Computer Call Centre. PD Place Upgrade: A PD Place upgrade is planned for Wednesday, April 3rd. As a result of this upgrade, an outage to PD Place and ConEd will occur for part or most of this day. Updated documentation and information on the new features will be provided in the PD Place Conference which is located on your FirstClass desktop. Stay tuned for further details. Elementary Safe Arrival Pilot: The York Catholic District School Board piloted a new Elementary Safe Arrival Program at 2 Elementary schools last December This Safe Arrival Program is a new SchoolConnects/Synrevoice module. SchoolConnects/Synrevoice is currently used at our Elementary schools to communicate with the school community. We are pleased to provide a more efficient and accurate way to report student absences for parents, streamline attendance processes for schools, and ultimately promote student safety. The Safe Arrival program allows: parents to report their child s absence by calling the toll free Safe Arrival phone number, and/or by logging onto the Safe Arrival Parent Portal website, and school staff to retrieve daily absences using the Safe Arrival Parent Portal website. School staff is pleased with the time savings the Safe Arrival program provides, and their parent community appreciates that they can report an absence in advance. Due to the success of the Safe Arrival pilot we plan to implement this program in the remainder of the Elementary schools on a graduated basis. Please stay tuned for further information on this valuable initiative. Page 4

5 Forefront Identity Manager (FIM): Password Complexity Last fall, we implemented software to help keep our employees secure while using computers systems at YCDSB. The software is called Forefront Identity Manager (FIM). By implementing this product, it helped us update our security protocols and enabled us to implement strong/complex passwords that expire every 90 days. It also provided employees with the ability to manage their own passwords if they enrolled in the Password Self Service tool by answering security questions. We experienced a large volume of calls prior to March break due to the 90 day rule implemented for expiring of passwords. We are working on ways to provide notification to employees before their password expires and hope to have a solution in place ASAP. In the meantime, if you require information about password complexity requirements, information on how to reset your password or register to manage your own password, please visit the Call Centre webpage at help.ycdsb.ca and select Employee Self Service under the Knowledge Base. Information Systems Outage Protocol: Information Systems is developing a protocol where schools will be contacted by phone to inform them of a computer outage that affects their school. These announcements will only be sent when there is no method of contacting the school electronically. An automated system is being developed using SynreVoice, where Schools will be contacted by phone in the event that any of the following situations occur: School Network is Down Board Network is Down School Intranet and/or Internet is Not Working Board Intranet and/or Internet is Not Working FirstClass is Not Working The details of this valuable initiative will be communicated through a system memo upon completion of this protocol. School Newsletter Protocol Information Systems would like to reiterate the YCDSB protocol for the communication of School Newsletters to the School Community. In the past, schools would Newsletters directly to parent addresses using FirstClass or SynreVoice. With the development and enhancement of our School websites, YCDSB has implemented a protocol for providing the school community access to the current School Newsletter. The protocol is that Schools: should post their Newsletters to the School website, and may inform the school community when it is available, using a SynreVoice phone and/or announcement. It is important for Schools to maintain the Parent/Guardian addresses in Maplewood if they are using SynreVoice to communicate with the school community by . The purpose of this protocol is to enhance school staff productivity, as well as effectively manage computer system resources. Page 5

6 Call Centre: Over the past couple of months, our Call Centre staff has been extremely busy helping employees with various applications such as MyPortal, FirstClass and Passwords. Call volumes have been difficult to manage as we help employees transition to online pay statements, T4's and changes to the new complex password requirements In February of 2012, we had 888 phone calls and 3,408 Issue Tracker Tickets to process. This past February 2013, we had 3,376 phone calls and 4,866 Issue Tracker Tickets. This increase in volume taxed our resources more than we had expected, however we are once again operating in a normal timely fashion. We would like to thank everyone for being very supportive during this time. Call Centre Website: Our Call Centre website communicates information on technology related current events such as "Reported Outages" and frequently asked questions. This site also allows you to submit a ticket and access "Knowledge Base" articles for applications such as: Password Reset and Password Complexity Requirements - (information can be found under Employee Self Service Knowledge Base) MyPortal information - (information can be found under Employee Self Service Knowledge Base) FirstClass Maplewood Rapid Web Design Synrevoice To see the website, visit us at This newsletter will also be made available on this site under "Headlines" for future reference. Data Warehouse News: After showcasing the Beta version of the new Data Warehouse to school staff, our Information Systems Data Warehouse team has been working on adding new and exciting features to the application. The new features will be released by the end of May along with additional reports. Top Technology Trend for 2013: Technology Tidbits Did you know there is no such thing as an IT project; there are only school or business based projects that are enabled by IT. IT professionals worldwide are becoming more attentive than ever to schools/business and the role end users play in the ultimate success of the technology. More then ever we need your help in planning for our future. IT, YCDSB staff and students, can make a big difference if we plan together and look toward setting goals that take into consideration intangibles such as Technical Support, Professional Learning, Business Requirements, Infrastructure, Budget and Pedagogy. Call Centre Information: Monday Friday Website: help.ycdsb.ca 8:30 am 4:45 pm Phone: Page 6