Wikis & Blogs

Just an FYI,
We will be deactivating & removing the outdated New Ulm Schools local Wiki & Blog server in the next several weeks.

If you still want to use Wikis and Blogs, wich is a great resource for many classroom projects, we recommend you use wikispaces.com to create Wiki's, which is a free education tool that works wonderfully to create and collaborate through wikis.

To create a blog, either as a teacher or as a student, check out blogger.com, which is a huge part of our Google Apps for Education suite of tools, and sign in with your New Ulm Apps account. 

If you need assistance on how to create or setup the wikispaces or blogger please contact the Technology Office, EVEN DURING SUMMER BREAK, and we will help you out!

1-21-2013 Network Upgrade: NEED TO KNOW

Our entire network is having a new Battery Back-up System system installed on Monday. 

Monday, January 21st is not an ideal day for this to happen, but this is an important upgrade we need done as soon as possible for more prevention of future internet outages during student-contact instructional days. 

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Installing new battery back-ups is a little like replacing the power strip between the wall and your tv at home... a little. 

The internet in your building will be down for around 15-30 minutes at some point on Monday. The vendor installing this system the will check into the office and have an announcement sent over the PA before turning off the power to your building network, which will then shut down your access to the internet. 

We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience this causes during grading. 

For those interested and a much more amateur version of what is being installed, we found "Jim" on YouTube Demonstrating a smaller application of this process

Technology repairs and requests through SchoolDude

We have been using SchoolDude.com for two years as a place for any staff member to submit Building and Grounds work requests. Now you can submit technology related requests as well at SchoolDude.com.

The technology department has adopted this workflow system to stay in front of regular repairs and maintenance throughout the district. We want to make sure we follow-up with technology needs and have a way to track persistent problems and make sure we fully resolve problems.
Your building Media Specialist can be you first point of contact to help you request and resolve technology issues.

To enter a work request yourself, there is a link on our district website under Departments, and then SchoolDude Work Request, or you can go to the link from this post here.

It will first ask you to type in your full school email address, and then give you a few menus and options to help specify what type of request you need.

At the end of the work request, it will ask you for a password. Your password for both Buildings & Grounds requests, and Technology IT requests, is fixit . 

ISD 88 Is Going Google

Google offers a suite of tools for collaboration, creation, and communication available at no cost to K-12 Schools called Google Apps for Education. Google Apps functions a lot like a personal Gmail, or Google account, but provides us with many more learning tools and a secure place to expand and collaborate with students, staff and beyond. Your Administrative Team met a number of times in the past few weeks to assess the benefits of these tools here in New Ulm Public Schools, and we are now in the first few stages of planning how and when we roll-out Google Apps for Education. I have much more I want to share in the near future, but you can find out more about Google Apps for Education by clicking this link.

Google Apps for Education is a large range of online tools, some of which are:

• Google Docs (or Google Drive) is a ‘cloud-based’ word processor you can collaborate in real-time with other people in the same document.

• Google Sites and Blogger.com are both places to create and share work online in a variety of ways.

• Gmail is Google’s email application that I believe to be easier to use than the current Kerio email.

• Google Calendar is a calendar system that is easy to share and access from almost any device or computer.

Switching out of Kerio email and into Gmail for our email is part of this process, and I will be working with teachers and staff in the upcoming weeks to formulate a plan to implement and learn these tools that we can all be comfortable with.

Wireless Internet

Wireless internet is being installed in all buildings and is scheduled to be up and running after MEA Break on October 22nd. When complete, we will have both a ‘Guest’ network and a ‘Secure,’ or password-protected, network. The guest network will be similar to the WiFi you find at a hotel or McDonalds with no password and will have all the same content filters as our student computers. The password-protected network is for staff and will be available for you to use on your computers and devices. 

Some of this work is happening behind the scenes as you currently go about your daily business.
Our October 22nd completion date is a large goal dependent upon many internal and external variables, so I will keep you updated as we work toward this wonderful upgrade and hope you can stay patient.