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8/31/13 TECHTIPS

Home Departments Schools Parents & Students Employees Community Teacher Sites School Committee

August 2013

Consolidation of School Department and City IT


Our New Techs:
On July 1, 2013, Pawtucket's School Department and City IT departments consolidated, leading to the restructuring of both IT
departments. The “new” Technology Office, under the direction of the School Department's Chief Information and Innovation
Officer, Hersh Cristino, now serves:
Sixteen (16) Schools City Hall
School Administration Building Public Works
Parks and Recreation Senior Center Paul Masse
Planning Emergency Management
Water Department Fire & Police (as needed)
Both the City and School Department have been under-staffed, and it was the recommendation of the IT Consolidation
Committee that, in order to improve efficiencies and offer a higher level of support, four technicians be employed to support the
Joshua Pereira
users in both organizations.

Meet our IT Team:


Hersh Cristino - Chief Information and Innovations Paul Masse - Computer Technician (massep@psdri.net)
Officer (cristinoh@psdri.net) Josh Pereira - Computer Technician (pereiraj@psdri.net) Brien Ramsey
Paul Abbott - Systems Engineer (abbottp@psdri.net) Brien Ramsey - Computer Technician (ramseyb@psdri.net)
Ernie Morgan - Network Supervisor (morgane@psdri.net) Steve Thibert - Computer Technician (thiberts@psdri.net)
Jennifer Agin –Clerk III Technology (aginj@psdri.net) James Legner - Chief Computer Systems Programmer for City
Stephanie Bonner - Data Specialist (bonners@psdri.net) (jlegner@pawtucketri.com)

Steven Thibert

What can teachers expect this year for their classroom?


“Technology is just a tool. In terms
Elementary classrooms receive upgraded computers... of getting the kids working together
and motivating them, the teacher is
Last spring we began our upgrade to our elementary classrooms. We replaced the computers and monitors in grades 3-6 with the most important.”
newer computers and 19” monitors. This first wave allowed us to upgrade over 500 computers. Our second wave of classroom - Bill Gates

upgrades will happen in the next two months and will complete grades K-2. These upgrades have allowed our teachers and
students to better utilize the web as well as allow them to use other online software. All regular elementary classrooms will have 4
computer stations and our self contained classrooms will have 2 computer stations.

Teacher Laptops…
Our first widespread implementation of teacher laptops took place last year with teachers at Shea and Tolman receiving laptops to
use for instruction, made possible through a Transformation grant.

The IT department worked very hard this summer to configure over 200 laptops for teachers to use in their classrooms. These
Ziggy-HD
laptops will not only allow teachers to better prepare for their lessons, but also allow teachers better access to student data during
their planning time. The professional quality USB camera

Over 8 years ago Pawtucket bought

During the August 26 & 27 Professional Development days, our K-6 elementary homeroom teachers will be receiving laptops. it's first document camera, it was the
ELMO TT-02. It did not take long for
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8/31/13 TECHTIPS
ELMO TT-02. It did not take long for
Our goal is to continue to supply laptops to teachers in the encore subject areas as well as teachers in our middle schools. ELMO to become very popular with
teachers. Unfortunately when ELMO
Projection Devices for Classrooms…
breaks, there is no efficient repair
Last year we were able to add digital projectors to all of our instructional classrooms at Shea and Tolman. This year we will equip
method and it is very costly to repair.
all K-6 homeroom classrooms with a digital projector for instruction. Along with a digital projector we also want to equip each of
Purchasing a new ELMO costs over
these classrooms with a document camera. Some classrooms will have the well-known “ELMO” while others will receive my new
$500.
favorite - the “ZIGGY HD” document camera.
We have found that the ZIGGY-HD
camera is a much more cost efficient
Teacher Accounts (Novell goes away)…
camera and costs under $100. We have
been able to package this camera with
We are moving away Novell and converting our user accounts to Microsoft Active Directory. Part of our conversion this summer
a laptop for less than the cost of an
involved creating new accounts for our teachers. We are doing this conversion in stages. Last spring we recreated all of our
ELMO TT-12 camera. This gives our
elementary classroom accounts. This summer we started on our elementary teacher accounts. Unfortunately, we could not do this
teachers a better option, it’s a 2 for 1
without assigning a new password to all of our elementary teachers. This requires a login to our system using a temporary
deal - a camera and laptop. This is a
password and choosing a new password. We have copied all of your files over to our new servers. As soon as teachers are assigned
high quality HD camera with awesome
their laptops on August 26/27, they will be given directions to set their passwords.
resolution. Lookout for ZIGGY he will
be in over 100 classrooms this
Those teachers not receiving laptops (support professionals, encore teachers, etc.) will receive their login information at school.
September.
We will continue with the accounts in our secondary schools late October.

Shared Teacher is now Online...

In an effort to make it easier for teachers to access the information they need, we have web-enabled our Shared Teacher folder.
You can now access this folder on the web by going to www.psdri.net, hover on the Employees link at the top of the page and

then click on Resources. In the Shared Teacher folder, you will find curriculum resources, tasks, evaluation information and Apps gone free -
much more. http://appadvice.com

Occasionally paid APPS are offered for


Teacher Websites… free. This website has a daily listing of
Our new website allows for all teachers to create websites to use with students and for communication with parents. Over the those APPS. Developers can end these
summer over 150 teachers have attended one of our professional development sessions on website creation. We have heard many free promotions at any time so grab
comments on how easy it has been to create a teacher website. Teachers have been working very hard on their websites and they these APPS while they are still FREE.
are looking great! A sample Professional Growth Goal (PGG) will be posted on the district Evaluation website (go to www.psdri.net You can also find an APP in the ITUNES
and hover over Employees) for teachers to adopt or tweak for the 2013-14 school year. store that will search this site.

Any teacher can sign up to create their own website. Teachers wishing to create a website can go to our website (www.psdri.net)
hover on Departments, then Technology and then Teacher Website Resources. You must use your psdri.net email address to
register. Once we receive your registration, we will contact you via email telling you your account is ready.
Flipped Lessons - http://ed.ted.com/
On this page you will also find video tutorials about the various modules that you can use on your website and a link to a live chat
Would you like to try a flipped lesson
helpdesk that is open Monday-Friday 8:00am-6:00pm EST.
with your students but don’t know
where to start? This is a great site
Website Spotlight - Look at what our teachers are doing...
which will allow you to use some
flipped lessons and tweak them for
your classroom. Engage your students
with videos and then check for
understanding by adding your own
"If you can dream it, questions. This is a great way to get
you can do it." your students writing as well as
- Walt Disney sharing their opinions.

Things to do... A new Student


Information is coming...
Add your Signature to your GMAIL Account... Our next issue of our newsletter will
focus on our new Student
Information System. We will give you
An email signature consists of a few lines of text placed at the bottom of outgoing mail. It is automatically added each time you
all the details including training
send out an email. I would recommend that everyone add an email signature. This helps the person you are emailing identify you.
opportunities, new features and a
Sample Signature:
detailed timeline. This is such a big
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8/31/13 TECHTIPS
detailed timeline. This is such a big
Name
event that we will be dedicating our
School
next issue to "The Skyward move"
Grade

To set up a signature in Gmail:


1. Open Gmail
2. Click the gear in the top right
3. Select Settings
4. Scroll down to the “Signature” section and enter your new signature text in the box. You can format your text
using the buttons directly abov e the text box.
5. Click Sav e Changes at the bottom of the page.
Upcoming Professional
Our new helpdesk is now open... development
opportunities:
Creating Teacher Websites
Our new helpdesk trouble ticket is here. We have implemented a new helpdesk. Not only will we be offering a simple way
Advanced Teacher Website Tricks
for you to report issues but we will also be offering online remote assistance. This will allow us to diagnose and fix some Microsoft Word
of your computer issues without disrupting your classroom. Microsoft Excel
Using Google Apps in the
Classroom
Where can I find the helpdesk link? Take control of your Email
It can be found by going to our main website (www.psdri.net), then hover on Departments, then click on Technology. You will and many more...
find a link to the helpdesk here. You will need to be logged into your Gmail account in order to access our helpdesk.
All of our Professional Development
opportunities will be listed on the
District Professional Development
Website.

Give us some feedback on our


newsletter and you may win a prize
for your classroom.
Click here to provide
feedback.

Teacher device configuration...


In past years we have configured devices (laptops, Kindles, etc..) for Pawtucket School Department staff to connect to our wireless
network. Unfortunately, we have reached a limit on our network which may not allow us to join any additional devices to our
network without major upgrades. We will be adding over 300 additional district purchased laptops and devices to our network this
year with the teacher laptops that we are handing out. We must reserve the wireless connections which we have left for district
devices therefore we cannot configure any additional devices on our network at the present time. We will be monitoring our

network over the coming weeks and determine if we can add any additional devices. If we feel that we are able to add additional
devices then we will send out an email with scheduled times for configuring devices.
Last year we submitted our eRATE application for over $4 million in network upgrades. We do not expect to hear about our
application until late October but we are also working with RIDE to get funding through the
WCI (http://www.ride.ri.gov/FundingFinance/SchoolDistrictFinancialData/WirelessClassroomInitiative.aspx). We will keep you informed and
apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

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