4/16/2012-4/20/2012 Update

Monday - Met with heating/air guy about board room. turned out to be low freon in heat pump.  Emailed Belinda Kittrell. She said notices will be mailed out today regarding tech plans. Hopefully I will get one. :-)

Tuesday - Answered several phone calls/emails regarding tech plans. Worked on new web filter. Other normal daily tasks, as evident through email.

Wednesday - Attended Prescott Technology Committee Meeting.  Received Tech Plan Revision notice in mail. Made changes to tech plan, submitted.  System gives a relay error. Known issue, but updates still went through.

Thursday - Held area tech meeting. Notes are as follows:
1. Updates from State Level
---- State is rolling out a new, single sign-on system for the various data sources from one web site.  An area tech asked, "Why do have all these different data sources?" Since I did not know the answer, I promised to write Cody Decker and Jim Boardman.  I followed up with an email to those individuals.
---- As of last week, the state had only NINE respondents to the IT Readiness Survey for Common Core. I asked that the techs work with their Superintendents to get the information entered.  The survey, though optional, will provide critical baseline information as the CCSS assessments are created and rolled out.
---- IDEAS/iTunesU/Sandbox - Arkansas is rolling out iTunesU to the district levels in an effort and attempt to get more local content produced and uploaded.  Several techs reported that their teachers were using IDEAS for professional development.
2. Disaster Recovery Testing
---- Discussion regarding DRP testing. 
---- Two tests are required per year. They do *NOT* have to be technology-related.  I suggest that at least one be tech-related, however. 
---- One of the two required tests can be a serious round-table discussion in a "What If..." scenario.  Offsite backups can be brought to the co-op for storage and/or for recovery/restoration testing. 
---- Some techs asked for information regarding enterprise level cloud-based backup. I will see what I can find out and share it with the group.
3. Tech Plan Updates/Info
---- All the schools reported they had received notification of revisions.
---- Statewide issue regarding submission - system gives a "Relay Error."  I suggested techs send email to Belinda, including the LEA and date of submission.
---- Clarification: New signature pages are *NOT* required!  As long as ADE has signatures on assurance pages already.
---- Discussion regarding the methods in which revisions are communicated to districts.  We would prefer electronic communication (email, ideally).
4. Etherscope Update
---- A new grant to get EVERY co-op in the state an Etherscope is underway.
---- Techs were excited about that prospect.
5. Impero Demo showing updated/new features (approx 30 minutes)
---- New power management features
---- Enhanced remote desktop features
---- BYOD discussion ensued, Impero suggests policies for use of teh software on campus network, then automatic removal once machine leaves campus.
6. Working lunch included demo from Chad Brinkley with eInstruction
---- eInstruction has a new Mobi-based app
---- App works with ANY editable format (word, ppt, pages, google docs, etc)
---- Right now, app only works as a teacher program; working on student-side app
---- Works in conjunction with Mobi classroom clickers/pads.
---- New case holds iPad2, comes with stylus. Rugged. $59
---- Classroom, Building, and Site Licenses available
7. E-rate
---- PIA requests received by some districts
8. Asked if techs would like a PowerShell workshop this summer. Many said yes, so I will arrange that.
9. Group discussion reagrding a variety of topics including, but not limited to:
---- Lightspeed firewall
---- Fortigate firewall
---- Hot Springs Technical Institute
---- Job descriptions, employment openings at various districts
---- Other various topics

Friday - Revised Technology section of the SWAEC annual report.  Worked on filtering issues, contacted Fortigate for support.  Worked with Blevins tech staff on their tech plan revisions.  Other duties and communication as evident via email.

January 30 - February 3, 2012

Monday - Office
Tuesday - Office
Wednesday - Saturday - TIE Conference - Technology professional development

Monday's notes:

Monday, Monday, Monday...

Man, the advantage to focusing most of my attention on one project is that I got a bunch of it knocked out. Still a long way to go and a short time to do it (oh, I know what you THOUGHT I was gonna say). Converting revamped technology training modules into our new Moodle format. Whew!

Looks like overtime will be calling my name tomorrow evening! At least I should be able to finish things up from the house.

Why "most of my attention?" Spent the day swapping emails and phone calls with Sharon and Cari on various tech issues. CRAZY DAY! Despite it all, I am very glad to be employed! Oh yeah, and Verizon's area-wide blackout didn't help. Haha!

I helped Sharon at Blevins with various Tech Plan questions, E-Rate questions, and a few other technical issues.

I helped Cari with Exchange issues - her server ran out of drive space, so we freed up space and remounted the Exchange Store.  We also worked thorough some Active Directory problems as well.  We also covered E-Rate bids, RFP's, and other technical issues.

Verizon had a major network issue with their wireless network in our area this morning, so I spent some time on the phone with their support folks.

I am working on the Co-op's Tech Plan and the State Tech Coordinator Grant Proposal as well.

So, what'd YOU do today?!

Days go by

Tuesday - Traveled to Arch Ford Co-op for the monthly Specialists/Tech meetings and mini training sessions.  Bob Cochenour and I did a session on things you can do in Google Mail.  I had WAY too many things on the agenda, so we hit about half of those.  We may do another session down the road some time.

Wednesday - The techs had a work day to figure out our grant proposals and the state tech plan.  The meeting was held back at Arch Ford, but I attended over videoconference and Jana from Camden joined me here rather than drive all the way to Plumerville (2.5 hours+ drive each way).

Thursday - I've been working on my ISA server and looking at which servers can finally be put to rest.  So far, I shut down two.  I will move some resources from one of the servers and then either shut it down or consolidate resources from other servers onto it.  I have spent any time not working on my servers helping Bradley with theirs.  They have some weird email issue going on and I have been troubleshooting it remotely.  I was supposed to go there today, but with my server acting a little off, I needed to kill two birds from one pond - or something like that.

There appears to be some kind of email spamming/blacklist issue, but they do not actually appear on any public blacklists. It's a mystery.

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For those interested, here are the rough notes of the Google Mail session:

Google Mail Tips and Tricks
Priority Messaging - Mail Settings > Inbox > Inbox Type (Classic, Important, Priority, etc)

Importance Markers - Mail Settings > Inbox > Show/Hide markers

Chat (Hide the Chat box) - Mail Settings > Chat > Chat: On or Chat: Off

Conversation View - Mail Settings > General > Conversation View: On or Conversation View: Off

Labels - Organize your email, can apply multiple labels to same message

Filters - Apply labels and perform other actions based on content, sender, etc (creating rules)

Use Labels, Filters and Archiving to organize your mail:
Create a label (Ex: Director)
Create a filter (Ex: Label all mail from boss as "Director" - from the previous step)
Skip Inbox (Do not show this message in the Inbox, but apply the label to show in labels list)

Archiving is *NOT* deleting!  Archiving just 'hides' the message from your Inbox. Archived messages will still show up in searches and in labels.

Google Labs
Bob demonstrated/discussed several handy Google Labs items for mail:

• Auto-Advance (automatically move to next message)
• Background Send
• Default "Reply to All"
• Multiple Inboxes
• Preview Pane
• Right-side Chat
• Other Labs were covered as well, but time limitations kept me from keeping notes!

The following items were *NOT* covered in the session due to time, but were on the agenda:
Advanced mail searching:

Use quotation marks-  "meeting agenda" will return mail with those exact words in that exact order

Subject
- subject:Google Calendar *or* subject:"Google Calendar"
-- The first will retrieve subjects with "Google" or "Calendar"
-- the second will retrieve subjects that contain "Google Calendar" together

From (To: works the same way)
- From:<name> or From:<email@address.com> (Can also use quotes!)
-- From:David Henderson (All messages from any "David" or "Henderson"
-- From:"David Henderson" (All messages from David Henderson)

Find UNREAD messages- is:unread
-- Returns all email that has not been read yet!

Labels (Can use quotes!)
- label:<label name> <keyword(s)>
-- label:0_Lindy "pay raise"
-- label:"Disaster Recovery" approval

Filename
- filename:<filename.extension> *OR* filename:<extension>
-- filename:test.doc (all emails with test.doc attached)
-- filename:pdf (all emails with PDF attachments)

Attachments
- has:attachment (can be used with other search terms)
-- from:cooptc has:attachment

Use "AND," "OR," "-"- label:cooptc -has:attachment (all mail from COOPTC without attachments)
- from:"David Henderson" and filename:pdf (all pdfs from David Henderson)

Use "anywhere" to search ALL mail (including spam, trash, inbox, etc)- in:anywhere
-- in:anywhere from:phoebe (Searches all mail, labels, etc for mail from phoebe)

Specify special folders (inbox, trash, etc)- in:inbox
-- in:inbox subject:meeting (finds messages ONLY in the Inbox with "meeting" in subject)

Combine search areas and terms- label:e-rate OR from:becky.smith@somewhere.gov (All E-rate labeled messages plus all mail from becky)
- subject:e-rate from:becky.smith@somewhere.gov OR belinda.jones@somewhere.gov (Subject is E-rate AND the mail is either from Becky or Belinda)

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.