Week of December 13-17, 2010

Over the weekend, I worked with a district to help them pull video from one of their security cameras.  The original plan was for me to head to their district on Monday.  I called them ahead of time, and they had recovered all the video they needed.  I spent the day cleaning the tech office closet - a feat of great undertaking, considering it was a mess from the move back in August!

I also worked on (and submitted) my grant evaluation for my program.  We are required to submit a grant evaluation of how we (the state techs) are doing.  there are a series of questions we have to answer, then upload the finished form to the wiki developed specifically for this purpose.  Hopefully, everything is in place and I will continue to be employed following the legislative budget meetings in the Spring.

Tuesday - met with my area techs.  Discussed IDEAS, tech integration, budgeting, e-rate

Wednesday - Worked on several issues, most of which were located on one machine:

1. Anti-virus would not update. Turns out the public SOPHOS server is offline or had a url change or something.  It is a known issue experienced by users all over the US, evidently.
2. Livescribe pen would not sync with desktop.  This is also a known issue. I solved it by moving the existing data and running the program as if it had never had a pen. The new data transferred and I removed it from the pen after the transfer.  Since there is not an easy way (or any way that I have found) to bring the old data back into the program, I found an application that allows the user to switch data locations. Now, when the user needs the information, they switch data locations. Not pretty but it worked.
3. Printer was acting up. After swapping printers, i determined the printer was the culprit and ordered the user a new printer.

Another user had an issue where the Outlook 2007 window would not open.  The solution is to start Outlook from the START/RUN line with: outlook.exe /resetnavpane

I took several phone calls for tech support (Blevins, Harry Dickens)

I performed other regular duties throughout the day.

Looking ahead for the week: Thursday will be more office cleaning and general tech duties as usual.  Friday is the company's Christmas party, then we are off for two weeks during the holiday break.

December 10, 2010

Took a personal day on Friday the 10th.

Monday and Tuesday

Monday, I spent the morning working on several projects at once.  We had a demo of a very cool Okidata LED printer that prints banners, thermal transfers, etc.  To top it off, the demo model was being offered up for a quite attractive price, and we snagged it up!  I think this will create a wonderful opportunity to add services in the Teacher Center!

While the demo was going on, I spent time running back and forth to meet with the heat/air guy.  Evidently, a heating strip (whatever that is) came loose, was knocked loose, something - and it was shorting out the heating unit in one of our offices.  The heat/air guy was able to fix the problem and now the heat and air work perfectly!

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Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I am taking a training for Windows Server 2008 along with other state tech coordinators.  We are learning a lot and having a good time in the process.  I love trainings that allow for free conversation and examination of our various situations.  We can then bounce ideas off each other and the instructor can help try to solve the problems or offer suggestions!

Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday, I had to duplicate 24 usb-hard drives with the TIA Math resources application.  That program is 5GB of incredible math resources discovered by various folks around the state and then culminated into a user-friendly format for (mostly) offline use - just plug in the drive and go! Very cool.

While doing that (I can copy two master drives to five empty drives in just over an hour or so), I took time to add a phone to the APSCN Mini Lab, as per a work order request.  I also booted all the Dell computers in the lab and updated/scanned them for malware etc. 

Other regular office activites took place as well.  Oh, I also did some extensive troubleshooting on one of the locks to an outside door.  It would lock, but then not let anyone back in!  Sure, that's great for security, but not so great for folks standing in the cold and rain trying to get in.

I also created a one-stop resource page for my area techs, thanks to Christy Trantina's sharing of HER page.  I tailored mine for my folks: http://etsp.k12.ar.us/technology/

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On Thursday, the state techs met with Dr. Bobbie Davis regarding budgeting, E-rate, and school web site requirements. 

We then met with Debbie Coffman regarding Common Core Standards and other related topics.

After a lunch break, we met with Cathi Swan regarding various distance learning issues and then conducted our regular monthly meeting. 

The official notes for the day will be made available once they are approved by the state technology coordinators.

Handouts and notes will be shared with my area techs at our next meeting.