Today is Sunday, September 16, 2018. If you find you must be out in this lousy weather, please be careful!
On these pages, you'll find:
- A 3-part update as we rocket toward technological greatness,
- 2 answers to your questions about the digital classroom, and
- 1 short lesson on how technology works at CSD.
WHOA.
This week could be the week!
We received word last week from our WiFi contractor that our project has finally made it to the top of the schedule. Work is expected to begin sometime this week at the High School and then continue into the coming weeks at K7. First step: cabling. Because the cabling work at High School allows only for some additional cable runs, we are starting with the simplest part of the project first. Remember that K7 will receive a complete rip and replace on all cabling. You will likely see us focus my site visit to K7 on Thursday on identifying where cables should be located classroom to classroom.
First comes cabling, then . . .
The contractor will begin to install and test access points—all of which have been preprogrammed at the contractor’s work site. Our existing WiFi network will continue to operate, and it is the one you will continue to use until we are satisfied with testing and set up.
What about our closures and this rain?
It is possible that the installation schedule will slip a bit, depending on the contractor’s availability the first part of this week. I will be at school tomorrow to accommodate the contractor’s team if they are ready to roll.
Thank you for being so patient with this change over. I was beginning to doubt it myself. That glimmer of light you see is the end of the tunnel.
Your Questions
- Is this 3-2-1 the only way I can count time for Tech PD? In short, no. We are working to schedule some targeted sessions for upcoming workdays. As we settle on topics, we will send them out to you. These sessions will be voluntary of course, but we do encourage you to attend—both so that you can begin to build some deeper skills with the devices you have in the classroom and so you can rack up some additional time for licensure renewals.
- Whom should I contact if I have a problem with a school-owned Apple device in my classroom? For now, please send a support ticket to Nucentric. We will work with Nucentric staff to triage and target internal support to Apple devices.
Tech @ CSD 101:
Connecting to the Internet, Hurricane version
Putting aside all of the boasting we did in the last edition about the capacity of our Internet connection, let’s take a look at how a power outage can sabotage the connection itself.
Last night in the midst of the storm, power went out at the high school and in the surrounding neighborhood for a couple of hours. When that happened our network and server room rolled over to battery back-up power. The brief outage, however, often means that we need to go back and do manual restarts for legacy systems like the current WiFi network and our phones. I’ve already send a request to Nucentric for that restart, which in itself is redundant because Nucentric receives a direct alarm when our power goes down. Without those restarts we find that the WiFi doesn’t always get all of our APs back online automatically, and because I can think of nothing nice to say, I will say nothing about our phones.
What’s your point?
On stormy days (for now) please be patient and have a back up plan when you come into school. You are likely to find we have some general tech issues that we’ll need to work through if we’ve had a power outage. Trust that we are on it and are working as fast as we can to recover.
Don't forget:
Support@nucentric.com: wired pcs and laptops, CSD.local domain, wireless or wired Internet connection, etc. AND SEND A SCREENSHOT!!!!!! (Know that we will poke back and insist on a screenshot. It is the most efficient way to help us diagnose what's up.)
Tech Team Students are available for triage and diagnosis ONLY. Please do not tempt them to make changes to your device! They remain on provisional licenses only!
Please know that we know that Dan and Joe are two of the nicest guys in the world, but if you just resort to calling out randomly for help when you see them, you will likely be taking them from an already scheduled task to help a colleague. We promise to churn through support requests as quickly as possible, but please help us maintain a queue.
