Monthly Area Tech Meeting

We held our monthly area tech meeting today, covering the following topics:

• ArkansasIDEAS, specifically the new commoncore site: http://www.arkansasideas.org/commoncore/


• Arkansas iTunesU


• NetQos offering from the state dept


• Various iPad/iPod apps (listed below)


• Apple TV demonstration (wifi features and AirPlay demo while showing apps listed below)


• Tech plans, erate


• Dirty Santa gift exchange (4 participants, made for a quick game)

Apps demonstrated (and some I remembered after the meeting)

• Presidents vs Aliens - Learn about Presidents, knock out aliens. What's not to love?


• Moxie 2 - Use randomly offered letters to build on/change existing words.


• StoryCubes - Shake your iPad/iPod, roll the dice, and build a story!


• Word Ball - Touch letters to build words. Forget to use certain letters long enough and they disappear!


• 7 Little Words - Use clues to build words with letter tiles


• Chicktionary - Make words using, well, chickens and eggs


• SparkleFish - Use the microphone to record verbs, nouns, etc and create funny adventures


• ToonTastic - Create cartoons, while learning the keys to good storytelling!


• Find My Friends - Pretty much what it says.


• ABC News - Again, pretty much what it says


• FluentNews - A news aggregation app


• Google - Yes, there is an app for Google. Give it a whirl!


• iCard Sort - Create word decks, sort into categories and more. Take snapshot of a worksheet then make it interactive as an iCard sort!


• ACE Multiply - Learn about matricies and find ways to solve them


• Calc Made easy - Very handy and advanced calculator with note-taking capability!


• http://www.techchef4u.com/ - Recourse for all kinds of apps, reviews, etc


• http://www.iear.org - Reviews education apps

Enjoy!!

Thursday

Had the November area tech meeting. We covered IDEAS, MyEvent updates, new wireless in Co-op main building, iPads and bulk purchasing apps, had a vendor discussion/presentation regarding maintenance and E-Rate. This was done over CIV with a direct connection to the vendor's system.

After the meeting, several techs stayed to work on disaster recovery and/or tech plans.

I adjusted the time and timer settings for our parking lot lights. i also installed a new access point in the "attic"

Friday's plan: upgrade the active directory on my 2003 servers in order to prepare for the move to the new 2008 server. Once that is done, I plan to fire up the new server and start moving data to the new box.

7/12/2011

I have to go back and post Monday's work info.

Tuesday, I taought a six-hour workshop on Arkansas Ideas portal. It went VERY well (after we fixed a few logins) and the participants loved the online courses available to them. Many said they would take classes outside of required credit hours just for the knowledge and info alone! Awesome!

May 19, 2011

On Thursday, May 19, 2011, I met with the Director and Asst Director regarding the future of TIE (Technology Infused Education).  It looks like the program will continue one way or another, which is great news for teachers in Arkansas.

I had my area tech meeting starting at 10am, so before that, I installed Impero Client on a couple workstations in the lab for a demo.  Once the meeting started, I discussed the Arkansas Digital Sandbox, ArkansasIDEAS, and Arkansas iTunesU.  We had a demo from Xirrus Wireless (more a presentation, really).  We discussed summer workshops, summer tech workshops specifically.  We also went over the changes to the tech plan inventory requirements along with AUP templates/guides provided by the state education department.

After the meeting, I worked with Blevins on their transition to Google Apps for quite some time.

Near the end of the day, I went to the Asst Director's house to work on a data transfer issue between the iPad app called "AudioNote" and the computer.  Turned out to be a much easier process than I was trying to make it. Basically, AudioNote will let you copy the recorded files through iTunes' file-sharing feature.  This serves to back up the data so one can free up the space on the iPad.  The audio files play in Quicktime, and rumor has it they can also be converted using Audacity.  If that's true, I never hit the right combo of import settings to get the audio to play in Audacity.  The format, according to Quicktime, is IMA-4, 16 kHz, Mono.  Audacity has only one IMA setting and it would not let me pull the file in.  I tried a variety of other options and still the file came in as a screechy mess.  To me, it sounded like the scene in 'Strange Brew" where Bob and Doug play a floppy disk on their record player.  In any case, we found a workable solution.

Tuesday

NOTE: This was actually created on Tuesday, January 4, 2011.  I don't know why it never posted.  Gotta love technology...

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Wow, you would think by now that I'd have some cool, creative naming scheme for my daily entries.  No such luck, my friends!

Tuesday started off with setting up the CIV room for a small conference between our co-op and a handful of others.  That was followed by a weird phone situation in which I had managed to connect the wrong extension for one of our offices.  That was readily fixed, though.  I love our new phone system layout: go into the tech closet, move a jumper from one extension to another and voila!

We've got a big Common Core preso here on Friday, so I set up with triple-wide room so that the computer image would be displayed on three projectors at the same time.  The units we have feature a "piggy back" option and I think it may be time to look into making that a permanent feature.  As it is right now, I come out of the presenter's station into a 4-way splitter.  The signal is then split between the three rooms by cables running across the floor.  It looks ugly.  I am generally more of a "function over form" kinda guy, but this setup is starting to make me cringe a little.  I'm adding the changeover to my 'to-do' list!

The Director asked me to help with some half-fold note cards, so she and I worked together to get the right feel and fit.  That was pretty easy to do in Publisher.  I'm not a pro at Publisher by any means, but simple things are fun to generate when the program makes it easy to handle.

Evidently, there are going to be after-work aerobics classes on the third floor.  This means that I needed to install a DVD/VCR attached to the big screen TV we brought from the old building.  Easy peasy.

I fielded several 'helpdesk' phone calls from a couple of the area schools.  Once of these regarded login issues with the Ideas portal.  I offered to call the AETN helpdesk to get the logins fixed, but the administrator said she wanted to see how far she got, but that she would employ my assistance if she hit any snags. 

Another phone issue came up regarding several machines showing a BSOD.  The only way to power down was to unplug the machine from the wall.  After a bit of conversation, we determined that several folks had left their computers on during the two-week holiday and that power surges during that break mostly likely contributed to the BSOD.  (A snarky aside: perhaps someone was lighting fireworks too close to the school, thus sending the computers into a tizzy... /re: thousands of birds falling from Arkansas skies/)

I helped that same tech with a wireless issue - namely, we downloaded the Linksys WAP54G setup spftware so that she could find wireless devices on her network and manage those from her office without needing to physically visit each one.  It's nice in theory.  The problem is that the software doesn't give enough time for the units to respond during the initial launch.  The software then only sees a handful of units at a time.  It is a bit frustrating.

After the PIA review with USAC for E-rate, I received a letter extending our refund request deadline.  I now have to submit a BEAR form in order to get my discounted funding from our phone bills.  I've never done BEAR before (we usually just get the discounts and do not fuss with reimbursements), so that is adventure unfolding before me.

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.

Catching up on the week

Monday - Frankly, I don't remember.  I know I installed a new printer in the Mini Lab and worked on cleaning the tech closet.  I talked several times on the phone with Sharon at Blevins.

Tuesday - Helped get a workshop under way, then spent the afternoon in Prescott working on their distance learning equipment.  The issue (noise) seemed to be isolated to one of their microphones.  Once I unplugged it, things cleared up.  Will explained to me that it was most likely a problem with the phantom power that drives that mic (especially since the problem started after a power surge/outage).  At least it seems to be working now!

Wednesday - The day started off with a call from a woman whose daughter was having trouble with the ArkansasIDEAS site.  After a bit of conversation and troubleshooting, I had told her that I thought the daughter could find the info in her profile, but I could not remember how to get there. I told her to call AETN.  I also sent an email to colleagues and they offered up some suggestions.  I asked the woman to call me back later in the day, but if she did, I missed the call.

The rest of the morning was spent with the area techs as we participated in a videoconference for E-Rate.  There are some welcomed changes to the 470 Form, making it streamlined for entry.  There are also changes to the 471 Form. There are other changes as well, all presented in a handout provided during the conference.

The afternoon had us checking out various apps for iPads:

• DisplayOut app after jailbreaking for display help
• VPN - General, Network, Connection, put in info.
• Jump - Remote desktop $20
• Good Reader - open documents, file manager, Web Downloads, Connect to Servers (DropBox, Google Docs, Box.Net, etc), can turn on wifi and share ipad via web address
• Reeder - feed reader
• iNet - network scanner
• VTrace - visual tracert
• HeyTell - touch-to-talk - wifi or cell
• PhotoWall - collages, upload to FB, etc (print 11x17) text
• Flipboard - look at FB, twitter etc as a magazine
• iFlux - Flux Capicator
• Cydia - Jailbreaker - Wifi Analyzer
• Backgrounder - run in background
• Wi-fi Sync - sync iPad to Mac via wifi
• To jailbreak - 3.2.0 or 3.2.1 - www.jailbreakme.com
• i-prompt - teleprompter -
• Facetime - now out for mac
• phoster - create posters
• app shopper

We also talked about FireSheep - a proof-of-concept add-in for Firefox that is making waves in the wireless community.  It allows people to steal info via unsecured wireless locations.  

I also shared various topics with the area techs:

• DIS will launch a new bandwidth aggregation tool to help schools get more bandwidth. It is a combination of hardware devices allowing schools to band their T1s, DSL, Cable, etc into one box to share bandwidth.  Cost for schools sits between $4000-$8000.
• DIS will launch a program that allows Co-op techs to view status etc on school routers to help in the troubleshooting process.
• DIS is working on a statewide AD structure (secondary) to allow global addressing, etc
• I asked area techs to help with getting all of our certified teachers registered in the ArkansasIDEAS portal.

08/10/2010

8:30a - 9:45a - Worked with Prescott schools during their Pinnacle software update.  The update was performed via remote desktop session from tech support with Pinnacle.  Ran into a couple snags during the configuration phase, but between the three of us, figured everything out and the software is ready for the 2010 school year rollover!

10:00a-12noon - Taught teachers how to access their new classroom portals, including posting announcement, events, photos, etc.  Also discussed adding students and creating groups based on class periods, dropping students into those groups, then setting permissions so students could only participate in their assigned period discussions, etc.

12:00-12:15p - Talked to AT&T about moving the T1 connections.  He had mistakenly been told to move the lines TODAY! Whoa! I am glad he called me!  He said he would put everything in place and then we would be able to "flip the switch" on Friday to get connectivity to our new building.

1:00p-2:00p - Helped user recover distribution list that had been mistakenly deleted.  Talked with Phoebe about the upcoming move, the convo with AT&T, and other issues related to the new building.

2:00p-2:20p - Talked with Bradley administrative assistant regarding her limited access to perform certain functions on her computer.  Walked her through the process of adding her to the local admins group.  Once done, she had access to all the software she needed to run (signage, Office, etc).

2:40-3:45p - Worked with Bob Cochenour at Western Co-op regarding a business-facing Facebook page.  We set up the page then spent a considerable amount of time trying to lock down the page to meet their needs.  Evidently, there is some 'super-secret' to getting Facebook to "let" you do that.  Apparently, there is a "whitelisting" process that can provide this.  Of course, actually getting support from facebook is impossible to find.  It amazes me that we, as a society, allow ourselves to post and host personal information on a site that provides no easy means for contacting the people that run the show.  There is something not right about that, I think.

During this process, I also helped one of our users with her login and password.  I anticipate several folks needing that help as they return to schools after being off in the summer (and not checking email).

3:45p-4:00p - Called Bradley schools to talk with HS Principal regarding the IP addresses for their video systems.  Apparently, DLC had to cancel a few of their classes at the last minute.  Luckily, ASMSA stepped in and will provide the needed classes.  I also gave her the phone number to ArkansasIDEAS because she has a teacher that could not log in. I tried to locate the teacher with the STIN lookup tool that state techs have access to, but she did not appear in the database.