Message From Venu

YATI YATA is 5 years old! YATI YATA’s mission is the same today as it was 5 years ago. Here are excerpts from my intro 5 years ago:

Welcome to YATI YATA - Yet AnotherTechnology Initiative, Yet Another TechnologyApplication - the Technology Services Newsletter.

We are advancing technology at a rapid pace in this district and we wanted a better way to share these initiatives with you. The purpose of YATI YATA is to inform and educate.

We want to know if Technologies we are implementing are helping you. We want to know how we in Technology Services can serve you better. We solicit your feedback.

Cody Wallace (x2278) in Technology Services is the editor of YATI YATA.

Let me know how technology can help you be more effective in what you do for our kids. Thank you.

Venu Rao 

Chief Information Officer

713-251-2249

Click here to find prior issues of YATI YATA. There is a wealth of information here. The  SEARCH button (top right) can quickly find what you are looking for.

Let me know how we can make YATI YATA more relevant. Thank you.

…Venu (x2249)

New and Noteworthy From EdTech

In order to showcase and reward our amazingly creative students in May, we must start coaching them today!  See the website for details and assist students with registration as needed. The deadline for entries is April 10, 2015.

Code Camp 2015

SBISD Educational Technology is bringing CODE back into the district again this year with expanded offerings to accommodate students who have attended in the past as well as invite new students to participate!

Registration will be available beginning April 1st on a first come, first serve basis. Check the website for times!

Calling All K-5 Teachers!

Interested in offering your students opportunities to extend their computational thinking? SBISD Educational Technology is bringing a Code Studio workshop to Spring Branch on June 10th at the Technology Training Center. We have some spaces available! Register online here!

TEN Easy Procedures to Protect Sensitive Data—How Many do You Practice?

As school district employees, we are all given access to some type of sensitive or confidential data. This data may pertain to students, parents and/or employees. Regardless of what type(s) of, or how much data you can access, it is your responsibility to protect this data and make sure it is not shared with or accessed by unauthorized personnel. Below is a list of 10 simple procedures that will go a long way towards protecting sensitive/confidential data.

CONVERSATION
1.  Don’t discuss sensitive data in the presence of unauthorized personnel. If they are       not authorized to view sensitive data, then they are not authorized to hear about it either.

PAPER DOCUMENTS
2.  Don't share sensitive documents with unauthorized personnel. This includes        allowing them to view documents as well as giving them copies of documents.

3.  Store sensitive documents in a lockable file cabinet or drawer.

4.  Shred documents before disposal. Simply throwing away documents makes sensitive data       subject to unauthorized viewing.

COMPUTER
5.  Don’t allow others to view your computer programs unless you’re there to monitor       activity and operate the computer. This could lead to unauthorized viewing of sensitive data as       well as misusing sensitive data under your name.

6.  When away from your desk area, lock your computer. This will keep unauthorized        personnel from accessing and using your computer.

7.  Don’t save sensitive data directly to your computer. This includes places such as your       desktop, My Documents folder or your hard drive (C-drive). If your computer is stolen, any       sensitive data stored there will be accessible by the thief and anyone else who touches that       computer. Also, do not save sensitive data to external storage devices such as thumb drives, CDs       and “clouds.” Thumb drives and CDs can be stolen  and "clouds" can be hacked.

8.  If you have to save sensitive data, save it to a protected folder on the SBISD      network. This includes your SAN Folder (H-Drive) as well as your shared folders.

PASSWORDS
9.  Don’t share your passwords. In fact, it is a direct violation of district policy to do so. If a        substitute (or anyone else) needs access to programs such as Skyward or MUNIS during your        absence, arrange with Technology Services to get them their own password.

10.  Don’t store your passwords on your computer or any locations where others can        see them.

Accessing Your SAN Folder (H-Drive) from Your Smart Phone or Tablet

In our last edition of YATI YATA we showed how both you and your students can access your network drives from home on your own computer. Well, as the old saying goes, "There's an app for that!" Yes, an app that will allow you to access your network drives from your tablet or smartphone! This app is available for iPads and iPhones as well as Android tablets and smartphones. The instructions below were written using an iPad but should work similarly on other devices.

1. Tap App Store.

 2. Type "vmware horizon." When you see vmware horizon client, select it.

 3. Tap GET.

 4. Tap INSTALL.

 5. The app is installing.

 6. When the app installs, tap Open.

 7. On the Server Setup screen, type in "https://sbvdi.springbranchisd.com".

 8a. Employees, enter your SBISD network username and password, make sure the Domain is set to SBM1 (if you need to change the Domain, see step 8c) then tap Login.

8b. Students, enter your SBISD network username and password, make sure the Domain is set to SBS (if you need to change the Domain, see step 8c) then tap Login.

8c. If you need to change the Domain name, tap the Domain name and choose another Domain name.

 

9. You will then see this screen.

 10. The Windows desktop screen will appear.

 11. Once the icons are displaying on the desktop screen, tap the folder icon located at the bottom of the screen.

 12. Tap Computer.

 13. Tap your SAN Folder (H-Drive).

 14. Select the file you wish to open.

 15. The file will open and can be viewed/edited. If you open a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file, it will open in OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. You can make changes but when you save, it will save as an OpenOffice document instead of a Microsoft Office document. OpenOffice documents can be edited by Microsoft Office so no need to worry when opening the file later in Microsoft Office when on a district computer.

16. When finished, please be sure to log out.

17. To use this app later, tap this icon and repeat the steps for logging in and accessing your SAN Folder (H-Drive).

YATI YATA Archives

Miss an old edition of YATI YATA? Need to refer back to an old YATI YATA article? Well, you can. Archives of all of our previous editions are available online!

There are several ways to access the YATI YATA archives:

1. Click here.

2. You may also click either of the Archives buttons on the Technology Services Homepage.

3. Or you may click the link titled YATI YATA Archives located at the bottom the YATI YATA newsletter.

Articles are organized by the edition in which they appeared. Editions are organized from the most recent to the least recent. To view an archived article, click the link for the article you would like to view.

To view the entire edition of an archived newsletter, click the link in the heading for the edition you would like to view.

To search for a topic or article, click your mouse in the search box, type in a keyword(s), then click the search button.

You will see your search results. Click a link to view an article.

You can now view the article.

Check Your Gradebook Categories!

Attention Secondary Teachers. Please check each of your gradebooks to ensure your categories/percentages are set up properly. If they are not, it will cause your gradebook to not calculate properly which will lead to additional problems as we go through the semester.

Since the first progress report period of the semester has closed, the category screens are locked on all gradebooks so you won't be able to make these changes directly. If you notice a problem with any categories or percentages in your gradebook, please contact Skyward Help at x2248 or skywardhelp@springbranchisd.com.

Message From Venu: Friday Maintenance Window

We have 450 computer servers at SBISD serving 40,000 users (35,500 students plus 4,500 staff). Our wired and wireless data network connects these servers to our computers – desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc. The data network makes it possible to access several hundred different programs we collectively use across the district. The network provides access to the Internet and provides content filtering (for our kids) and firewall protection (for viruses and malicious hacking).

To maintain this extensive infrastructure takes time and effort. Computer software goes through periodic updates to fix problems, introduce new features and stay current. Updating takes time and while the update is taking place, the computer or software is not available for use. I’m sure you’ve experienced this with your smartphone. With this many servers and programs something is always being updated – to fix problems, to apply security patches, to upgrade to a new version.

Instead of scheduling each upgrade individually, we accumulate all the updates for the week and do them all on Friday evenings. That’s the time most of us are taking a breather from work. This is our “maintenance window”. It is from 6:00 PM Friday to 6:00 AM Saturday. During this weekly Friday “maintenance window” which system goes down depends on what maintenance we are doing that week. If we are upgrading a major network component, everything will go down. If we are upgrading one application, just that application will go down. Please do remember the program you are trying to access may be down Friday evening. You will not see a warning. If it is being updated, it will just go down abruptly.

By instituting the concept of a “maintenance window”, updates become a routine thing. We don’t have to “schedule” each upgrade with all the affected users. And, you don’t see a bunch of emails about various systems going down at various times for maintenance.

To summarize, any computer system may go down on any Friday after 6:00 PM without warning. (During football season, we postpone email, network and Internet upgrades to after 10:00 PM.)

...Venu