Welcome to the 2023-2024 School Year!!!

Welcome back! As I said yesterday morning, I am really excited for the school year to be and to have the opportunity to collaborate with you. You are all some of my favorite people. I am honored to work somewhere that I truly feel that. 

Well, without any further delay, welcome to this year’s first Tech Tuesday message! I know you have been eagerly awaiting these rich nuggets of technology-related wisdom flow into your inboxes again! All kidding aside, there is a lot of important information below so let’s dive in. 

Tech Tuesday Messages

Most Tuesdays you will recieve an email from me with important technology-related news and/or information. I understand your time and inbox are precious and will only send something when the information is important to have. 

Wrenthamschools.org's Bookmarks Folder

As we move toward working in a Chrome environment we have moved some of the important links you previously accessed through your desktop to the Chrome browser through a bookmarks folder. If you are logged into the Chrome browser with your WPS Google account and have elected to show your bookmarks bar by clicking the three vertical dots in the upper-right corner of the Chrome browser, hovering your mouse over Bookmarks, and clicked to have a Check appear next to Show bookmarks bar, you should be able see the bookmarks folder. If there's a website we all generally access that is not there please let us know and it will be added. 

Lunch Ordering

For this school year the Food Services department is going back to the EZ School Lunch Counter for taking lunch counts. You should have recieved a flyer with the login instructions in your mailbox. This includes the teacher password for entering your lunch counts. All teachers have the same password. The username is the homeroom teacher's email address. The link to the EZ School Lunch Counter appears in the bookmarks folder I mentioned above.

New Copiers & Para Printing

The new copiers are installed and so far seem to be working well. The experience should be similar to what you have experienced before. If you are a member of the professional staff and haven't connected with Scott to get connected to the new copiers please submit a Help Desk request get that done. Once you are connected you can refer to these directions for printing/scanning/copying. 

If you are using a Chromebook (Paraprofessionals or those piloting a Chromebook) you can follow these directions to connect your Chromebook to the new copiers for printing/scanning/copying. 

Printing on a Chromebook or laptop can be done from any location, including home, and retrieved the next time you are in the school building providing it is not over 48 hours from when you pressed print. 

Cyber Security Training Grant

With the support of the other building and district administrators I applied for a grant from the state to provide training opportunities for professional and paraprofessional staff to participate in cybersecuirty training. We were awarded the grant and will be participating in two cyber security training sessions as well as a pre and post assessment. Time to complete the assessments and trainings will be embedded in professional development days or faculty meetings between September and December. You'll be provided with specific information ahead of each date. 

The training will also include four phishing campaigns that will present you with an email in your inbox that may seem real but is meant to trick you into giving away secure information. If you fall for the trick you will be directed to information that will help you make a better decision in the future. Participating all of this will be very helpful in securing our district for years to come. 

2-Step Verification & Passwords

2-Step Verification adds an extra layer of verification to confirm the person trying to log into your Google Account is actually you. Thank you to everyone for enabling this last year. Please remember that it needs to remain enabled in perpetuity. If you are new to the district this year, please enable it as soon as possible. These directions will guide you in doing that. I recognize there is some inconvenience invovled in this but it does make our information more secure. Also, please do not share your passwords with anyone. 

Web Help Desk

If something technology-related is not working as expected we want to know about it! The best way to get a member of the technology staff to attend to it is by submitting a work order to our Web Help Desk system. If you are using an interactive panel or PC you can use the Web Help Desk icon. You must be on the school's network for this to work. If you are using a Chromebook, interactive panel, or PC you can email helpdesk@wrenthamschools.org. If all else fails, dial HELP (x4357) to leave a message in our tech voicemail. This helps us get the request to the technology staff member that can help out most quickly and efficiently. 

Google Classroom Auto-Rostering

After issues with last year's new Google Classrooms, the import process was changed to create all new classrooms for this year. You can share whatever content you wish from previous classes with this new one instead of deleting previous assignments and posts.

Enrollment is ongoing, and any additions/withdrawals will appear automatically if you accept the new class. Declining will mean you prefer to maintain your Google Classroom roster on your own. You may request we stop updating your classroom roster at a later time during the year, but we do not have a way to sync with an existing classroom when the original class was declined.

The system appears to be over-sharing. Emails from littlesis@amplifiedlabs.com will appear in your inbox each time there is an update to your roster. There have been cases where instead of one email, three identical messages arrive within seconds of each other. Little SIS technical support has been contacted, but we hope this is a one-time event as we just set up the new school year. 

Assigning Student Chromebooks

Students should be assigned a specific Chromebook from your cart at the start of the year that they will use for the entire year. That helps to keep students responsible for caring for the device and what websites they visit. This will also hold students accountable if something goes wrong.

Chromebooks For Learning At Home

While we do not send the Chromebooks we use in classrooms home with our students we do offer families the opportunity to borrow one for use during the school year. They are available to any student. If you have a family that is interesed in one you can provide them this link to complete the loan agreement and one will be sent home with their student. 

Grade 5 & 6 Student Google Password Changes

Over the last few years students have begun memorizing each others passwords. Since they have had them since Kindergarten this is not a complete surprise. To counter that tred we are going to be changing the Google password for all students when they enter 5th grade. This year the passwords for students entering 6th grade will also be changed. Below is the process we are using:

Monday, August 28th - Passwords were changed 

Tuesday, August 29th - Cards with the new password will be provided to teachers to hand out to students on the 1st day of school to help them login. You will also be given a sealed envelope that includes the student's updated password to send home with them to help them login at home.

Wednesday, August 30th - students will begin logging into Google with their new password and password envelopes will be sent home.

- To maintain password security the best practice will be to collect the password cards and re-distribute them anytime a student needs to login until the password has been memorized.

Device Care

• Turn Off and/or Restart Laptops: In order for your laptops and Chromebooks to receive critical updates and installs they need to be turned off or restarted on a regular basis. See this previous Tech Tuesday message for additional information. 

• Improving Laptop/Chromebook Battery Life: Unfortunately, no matter what we do a battery’s life will only get worse over time. This previous Tech Tuesday message will help make the most of your battery life. If your battery’s performance has degraded over the summer or cannot stand to be unplugged from the charging adapter let us know through the help desk so we can replace it. 

• Start of the year Chromebook Slowness: As students log into their Chromebooks for the first time you may notice they are running more slowly than at the end of the year. That is not unexpected. The first time a student logs into a new device extra information is pulled onto the Chromebook. When a whole class, grade level, or school is doing this at the same time it will slow things down. Just be aware that if you want to use the Chromebooks first thing on Wednesday it may take some time for them to be ready for action. 

Substitute Access to Devices/Google Stuff

Never share your passwords with anyone ever! If the situation arises where you need a substitute to access your interactive panel or a Google resource we will be able to give them access to the panel through the substitute network login and the grade level substitute Google account. In order for the substitute to access specific things in Google those things will need to be shared with the substitute Google account. The login information will be the same as last year. If you need a referesher please let me know and I will provide you with the login information.  

Tech Task Force

The Tech Task Force will once again be forming in mid-September to support effective intergration of technology throughout the Wrentham Public Schools. There are some exciting things planned for this year that I can't wait to share in a couple weeks. 

As always, please let me know if you have any questions! I hope Meet & Greet goes well and the school year kicks off smoothly!