July 2020 Technology Update

New Chromebooks: We received a shipment of 500 chromebooks. The chromebooks already have our asset tags on them, are enrolled in our domain and are setup on the WiFi. They are ready for students when they return in the fall. Students in grades 1, 5 and 9 will get new chromebooks.

Chromebook distribution: Chromebooks and adapters are ready for distribution on the first day of school for grades 5-12. There is a label with student name (last, first) and grad year in the upper right corner where the cart tag sticker was previously located. I will start work on the elementary building chromebooks on Monday. Each student will be assigned a chromebook and will have a label, just like grades 5-12. The only exception is adapters will remain in the carts. In the event that we need to go to blended or online instruction for grades K-4, we will remove adapters from the carts. My plan is to have all chromebooks completed by the end of July.

Copiers: We have new copiers! We have added PaperCut software to track our copier usage. PaperCut uses your active directory username/password for authentication. To speed up the process of logging in, we purchased proximity cards. I will distribute cards to each building and principals will distribute cards to their staff. Programming the card is very easy. Simply walk up to any copier and place your card in close proximity to the reader. The copier will display a message that the card needs to be programmed and asks you to login. Enter your username/password. After a successful login, you will receive a message that your card is programmed. The next time you walk up to a copier, simply swipe your card to use the copier. If you send a print job to the copier using the "Print to ANY copier" driver (devices joined to active directory), you can pick up the job at any copier in the district. This will be very helpful for personnel that travel throughout the district. We do not have any labels or markings on the cards, other than the pre-printed number in the corner. Please let your supervisor know if you lose or misplace your card! The reason for not placing any identifying labels on the cards is we may be able to use them for access control in our new building.

Blocksi: I will be purchasing Blocksi this month. Blocksi has five components. The first is for systems administrators to track chromebooks and provide details on the chromebook inventory. The second component is for teachers. It allows you to view and control student screens. They have added a video conferencing solution that is very intuitive and you can control/interact with your students much easier that with Zoom or Meet. The third component is for principals. They can get reports and monitor usage. The fourth component is for students. They can join classes and view their activity on their chromebook. The last component is for parents. They can setup access control (how long their child is on their chromebook and forbid logins after certain hours), enforce a stricter filter (i.e. block YouTube) and view their child's web history.

Zoom: Zoom offered their paid version of their software for free during the pandemic. That ended on July 1. We have been moved to the Basic version, which is limited to 40 minutes and no cloud storage. We have three products you can use in place of Zoom. They are Google Meets, Microsoft Teams and Blocksi. 

Directions on using FMX:1. Go to https://loganelm.gofmx.com. 2. There are 2 login boxes. Click on the "Log In with AD FS" gray box. 3. Enter your email address (first.last@loganelm.org) and your password that you use to access your email. Click on the "Create Request" button in the upper right corner and choose the type of request you need to add.

The site is very intuitive to use. If you have any questions or need assistance, click on the "Help & Updates" link in the bottom left. There are training videos and a FAQ.