Meeting+Minutes+October+26,+2011

** Wednesday October 26, 2011 ** Members present: Kent Sauls, Jentry Byelveld, Kyle Tammen, Heidi Dudley, Diane Frank, Jill Schrader Matt Keenan, Barb Bolen, Kevin Keena We have received some new netbooks from the district to replace 3 of the oldest eee carts in the building. The new eees are being changed out with the old eees on the Social Studies Cart, the Science Cart, and the World Languages Cart. They do contain a new version of Ubuntu. The previous newer version on the eees was 10.04. The newest image appears to be 11.10 (released October 13, 2011). These new eees will make a big difference in the departments where the oldest eees have been. One thing that we have noticed is that these new ones will open to a network connection screen automatically, but you must wait for a couple of minutes after startup.
 * HHS Technology Committee Meeting Minutes **
 * 1) **** Netbook Carts **

*Will they keep the mail for staff within this .org side???? -At this point we are not sure.
 * 2) **** .org versus .us ** Heidi didn’t have enough time during the last staff meeting (during the October 13th in-service day) to talk about the .us (@lps.k12.co.us) side of this, so she brought up her PowerPoint presentation from that meeting. The @lpsk12.org address is where you would keep student related work and communications. If you want access to the .org side* (@lpsk12.org) you have to contact Joe Burnham. You’ll get more storage and you can upload non-Google files.

The student server will eventually go away so kids will want to make sure they are saving to their Google.org accounts more and more. Students get their log-in information by going into their portal account. Teachers can look up student log-in information by going under the technology tab in IC. You can also make a query (we can show you how). Kevin has done it. It gives you all your students’ passwords and log-ins so you can import student addresses into your email message and send to your class all at once (to share documents). Teachers can have this account (.org) through Joe Burnham. Barb asked if you have to change your password (in @lps.k12.co.us). Heidi said the way network passwords currently work you can click on Outlook and you are already signed into your email because of something called active directory. That is also why your password is saved and changes in both places (network and email). Once the email moves to the Google servers (over the winter break) you will have to log-in to your computer and then go onto a Google page and log-in to your email (active directory will prompt to change every 365 days, so your network log-in will still prompt you to change it once a year). If you want your Google password to be the same as your network password you will need to go into your Google account and change it. Will Google let you change it a bit… (like one digit?) We don’t know right now, but you can try it.
 * A Note for Students- ** The lpsk12.org link on our school web page already has the last part of the address (@lpsk12.org) plugged in. Students would only have to put in the full address if they were going through a regular Google page. The new eees log right into the lpsk12.org start page (through Google Chrome after you accept the conditions).


 * Staff-Google email migration ** (@lps.k12.co.us) At our last tech meeting members logged in to activate this account. Tech members who did this have completed the activation portion and are ready for January 2. Everyone needs to ask their people if they have done this. **We REALLY need to make sure all staff have activated their Google accounts before November 15** (the district deadline). Ask, “Did you follow the Dan Maas directions?” If they haven’t done it and they don’t know what to do, help them to do the log-in or have them contact Heidi or Diane for help.

Do you use Outlook Calendar? SPED uses it a lot with Debbie Honeker. Randy Stall will meet with her and find out how that department uses it. Most people should be fine to use the Google Calendar and will not need to use the Outlook Calendar after January 2. On Jan 2nd we should get an email from the district on next steps. We will also find out about exporting distribution lists and we will get instructions on that date on how to make desktop shortcuts for Google Chrome and Gmail.

We will send an email on this and members can then paste in the address link and then do the install. (You should be able to install on any classroom computer and your office computer because all HHS-Staff have administrative rights. Once it’s installed, launch it. You will then see the shortcuts appear once it is opened. You can go into Chrome’s settings (under the wrench) and set the home page and other preferences. The district will send out email on Jan 2 on (if you are) using Chrome, here is what you can run… it should include shortcuts to mail within Chrome, (you can run this utility). Chrome shortcuts should include mail and calendar shortcuts that will take you right to those places when clicked. An advantage of using Chrome with Google Docs is that it will print right from the browser (instead of having to open in a pdf first to get a correct print within other browsers). Chrome and Google work well together, so we need it on the computers. If tech committee members could do their departments’ classrooms and their desks that would be huge, then Heidi and Diane would just have get Chrome (Enterprise) on in the communal areas (labs…)
 * 3) **** Google Chrome Enterprise edition ** Heidi sent the link to all of the committee members. We are going to ask members to help us install this special version of Chrome on their departments’ computers. This is a version that is supposed to help anyone on that computer get to Chrome (more of a network/multiuser version). Once Chrome is installed on the computer, instructions for students (or other teachers) would be “if you want to use Chrome and you don’t see the shortcuts on your desktop, go to Start>All Programs>Google Chrome>Google Chrome and you will then see the shortcut appear.” This version of Chrome installs the program into all users’ programs but many users won’t know it is there, unless they go find it in the program list.
 * However, Heidi warned us that *__Google Chrome is not supported by IC!!!!__ ** For IC you must use either Internet Explorer or Firefox.
 * __ Our slogan; “IE for IC!” __** (or Firefox). That means we’ll be using two different browsers- one for mail and calendar and another for Infinite Campus.


 * __ *Update: We have noticed that classroom computers have Chrome on them, but it is not the correct version of Chrome Enterprise __**** . ** We will be looking at how we can uninstall Chrome and then re-install the correct version. Once we have the logistics figured out on how to proceed we will send an email out to you with the instructions***.
 * __ *** __**__ **//For now, do not attempt to install Chrome on the classroom computers. You can go ahead and install Chrome (Enterprise) on your department’s office computers if you use the link provided by Heidi.//** __


 * 4) **** iGoogle page ** We talked about how everyone could set-up their own homepage in the lps.k12.co.us address within Google using iGoogle. Log into the lps.k12.co.us Google account. Choose iGoogle. It should come up the first time asking you how you would like to set-up your Google page. You can add gadgets (or little windows) to your page that can display things like Google Calendar and Gmail (gmail will not display anything in its window until the district moves our mail during the winter break).


 * 5) **** We Asked: Do you think teachers want training in this? ** We could have a before school time, an after school time and a during school time. We could do a during school training on Tues the 15th periods 3,4,5,6; a before school training on November 16; and an after school training on November 17. The response was, “YES, offer the classes!!!”


 * *Next meeting Wednesday, November 30. **