Tech eNews January 16, 2014
1. Elections and Use of School Resources
2. iPads, Auto Updates, and Battery Life
3. Identifying Surplus Equipment
4. Need Help? Please Ask!
5. Wish you had Excel/PowerPoint/Word/Anti-Virus at home?
1. Elections and the Use of School Resources
As the renewal of the Technology Levy and the Maintenance and Operations Levy approach, it's important for school staff to remember that school staff and volunteers cannot use district resources for elections purposes. This includes your district e-mail, your district phone, and your district equipment like computers, iPads, and photocopiers.
Any work to promote the Levy needs to be done outside of district work time, and not using district equipment or resources. There's a great guide from the Public Disclosure Commission on what school districts and their staff can and cannot do, linked here:
2. iPads, Auto Updates, and Battery Life
Linda Henderson, Tech Support Staff at Cape and Canyon Creek, provided this guidance on increasing your battery life for your iPad.
If you are experiencing shorter battery life on your iPad you may want to try these simple tricks to improve it.
A. Disable Background App Update
iOS 7 allows apps to continue updating while in the background. Turning this feature off will help your battery last longer:
Settings > General > Background App Refresh > Off
B. Turn Off Auto App Update
Having apps automatically update can be convenient but it tends to drain batteries.
Click Settings > iTunes & App Store > Automatic Downloads > Updates to OFF
C. Turn Down Display Brightness
Keeping your screen bright looks great but it is one of the most common reasons for batteries to run down quickly on many battery operated devices.
Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and turn down brightness, even if you only turn it down a bit you should see increased battery life.
A version of this with screen shots is posted on the Tech Blog here:
3. Identifying Surplus Equipment
Do you have old, unwanted, or unused equipment in your classroom that you don’t want to keep? Let your building's inventory designee (
list here) know you want to get rid of it. The deadline for identifying items as surplus is January 31.
Doing this removes items from your room inventory list at the end of the year - simplifying things for you!
4. Need Help? Please Ask!
As always, Sean Elkinton, Kenneth Mai, and Linda Henderson are all available to answer tech questions via schooldude, e-mail, or the phone from 8:00 - 4:30. Even if Sean, Kenneth and Linda are not in your building, you can get help from them over the phone or via e-mail.
If possible, please use the School Dude system to track your request. You can find a link to it on the District website, under “For District Employees.” Click on the link in the left hand sidebar to get started. Contact your building's tech support person to get the submittal password.
5. Wish you had Excel/PowerPoint/Word/Anti-Virus at home?
Some of the software products that WSD licenses are available for district staff to use at home. Microsoft Office (the same version as on your work computer) is available for use on work-related projects at home. Inspiration, a graphic organizing and visual concept mapping software, is available for use at home with no work-related restrictions. Sophos Anti-Virus is available for use on your home computers for free. To get any of these applications, please download the Take Home Rights Agreement form on the District’s Technology webpage, and send it to Les after filing it out. Make sure you note which application you’re after.
