Play Ball!

Okay, I know a million people have said, "Welcome Back," so I had to borrow from my favorite past time for the title . . . but you get the idea.

• First, I'm planning to use this space to convey information to you regarding computer use and technology integration. I encourage you to create an account here so that we can share ideas. (That means you can post comments in response to what I write. Nice comments.)
• Next, here are some changes for this year:
  • New Internet filter:
    • We are now using Content Keeper as an Internet filter. When someone goes to a blocked site, a red screen appears. That's kind of cool because the red will reflect in the face of the person at the computer, so if a student's face turns red, you know that he or she went to a blocked site.
    • As always, if you need a blocked site for a lesson, please send the URL to either Erik or me along with a brief justification, and we will submit a request to have it unblocked.
  • New drive:
    • In My Computer, you will see a new drive listed under network drives. The name of it begins with "Teacher workspace."
    • This is a direct link to your Sharepoint site. Anything you save in that drive goes to your Sharepoint site.
    • Students also have the drive, but I'm assuming (because I'm so incredibly intelligent and can figure out really hard puzzles like this) that the name for their drive begins with "Student workspace."
    • You need to remember that any file you save in that drive goes to your Sharepoint site, not the class site, and any file a student saves in that drive goes to his or her site, and not the Class Inbox.
    • You will still need to go to the class site to upload assignment directions and so on, and students will have to go there to submit assignments to the class inbox.
  • Sort of "new" computers:
    • Many classrooms contained only computers that are now six years old, and you know how fun it is to run Pinnacle on a computer that old. Those old computers will not be replaced.
    • Therefore, in order to make using Pinnacle more bearable, we moved computers to make sure that every single classroom has at least one newer one (as in a computer with at least 256 mb of RAM).
    • That means some of you will suddenly see a newer computer in your classrooms, while some of you will have fewer newer computers in your classrooms.
  • Printing:
    • When you print a file, please make sure you check the printer dialog box to see where the job is going.
    • If no printer is installed (which will be the case with the computers we moved) you can quickly and easily install the correct one from the Shortcuts folder on your desktop. Every user will have to install the printer because it goes to the profile of the user who is currently logged on. (Click on "Tech Tips" at the top of this page for printer installation instructions.)

Okay, so I guess I was a true Polonius because I rambled on and on, but this is important stuff for you. If you have any questions, post a comment.