1. Get a clean start to the new year by surplusing
old junk
2. NCCE Tech Conference 2015 in Portland
3. Preparing equipment for Winter Break
4. Bad elves are phishing for your info
5. Limited Support for Beta Software
6. Tech Blog Has Archive of eNews and other Tech
Related Articles
1.
Start the New Year Fresh by Clearing out Junk
If you have old,
unwanted equipment in your classroom that you no longer have a use for, you can
use the surplus process to get rid of it.
Your building’s inventory designee (Darlene Enockson at CCMS, Deborah
Mansfield at Cape, Marlene Leifsen at Gause, Kathy Stanton at Hathaway, Debbie
Leifsen at Jemtegaard, Deana Degrande at Excelsior, and Misty Young at WHS) can
help you process paperwork to dispose of the item appropriately, and remove it
from your classroom’s inventory. There
will be a surplus run in January, near the end of the month, so work with your
inventory person now to make sure you don’t have to hang onto those old items
until June.
You can read more
about the inventory and surplus process here,
including finding forms to dispose of equipment.
2.
NCCE Tech Conference 2015 in Portland
Are you interested in
seeing what’s out there in the world of Technology in the classroom? NCCE, the largest education focused Technology
conference in the Northwest, is back in Portland for 2015. The event takes place at the Portland
Convention Center March 18-20.
Watch for an
invitation to apply to attend with a buddy, with the goal of brining back cool
technology integration tips and strategies to share with your peers during a
tech class or next year’s Tech Symposium.
3.
Prepping Equipment for Winter Break
Before you leave for
some much deserved fun and relaxation with family and friends this holiday
season, please turn off your computers and other electronic devices.
If you have an iPad
cart, please work with your students to make sure they are all turned all the
way off, and put back in the cart without being plugged in. This will help prevent overcharging of the
batteries during the two week break.
Make sure you lock the cart, too!
If you have laptops or
iPads that will remain in your classroom, please consider storing them
somewhere out of sight, and away from windows or doors where they might attract
break-ins.
Doing these simple
steps will keep your devices safe and sound over the holiday, and also save
energy and battery life.
4. A Christmas Letter from the North Pole for you? Sounds Phishy!
Or, how about Millions
from the Nigerian Lottery for me? I didn’t even buy a ticket!
An Esteemed Gentleman
who wishes to make you part of his estate?
Wow!
Keep in mind the
saying that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is! When
looking through your e-mail, you may find messages from people claiming that
you’ve won the lottery in another country, even though you didn’t enter it. All
you have to do is send them a “down payment” and you could have millions! There
are many, many schemes going on to try to get access to your bank account,
e-mail accounts, and your hard earned cash.
This type of activity is called “phishing” for information. Be a wary web surfer and e-mail user, and
keep an eye out for offers that sound unbelievable; they probably are!
Here is a list of
current phishing schemes you might see in your work or personal email:
Past Due Invoice for
products you bought from an online retailer
iCloud security – your
Apple ID is locked
Netflix account
suspended
Ebola news – urgent
updates about the virus
Letter from the North
Pole (if you fall for this one, please tell us your kid did it)
Watch out for fraudulent
messages from banking, online merchants, Santa Claus, or other big businesses;
many of these are from identity thieves trying to get you to click links in
e-mail to get your username/password so they can empty out your bank account!
It is far safer to type in the address for your bank or other financial sites
(into the address bar) than to click links in e-mail to get there.
If you think you’ve
fallen victim to a phishing attack, please let your Tech Support staff know, so
we can help you limit what the attackers can get.
5.
Limited Support for Beta Software
Recently, many
teachers have been experimenting with a number of software products for
computers, laptops, or tablets which are in Beta, meaning they are a
“pre-release” version of the software intended to help developers understand
usage, common issues, and resolve problems before the first official version of
the software is launched. While teachers
are free to use these tools, there are limits to how much support is available
for them, and it is important to make sure that you understand these limits if
you plan to use Beta software in your lessons.
Using a preview or
beta of software means you need to be willing to put up with a fair amount of
quirks and bugs, and that your tech support staff may not be able to help you
resolve every problem you run into. Please keep these limits in mind so you don’t
find yourself saying “Bah humbug!” as you work with these products.
