I’ve recently added a new tool to the Campus Index for everyone.
The Campus Community is a resource center created by Infinite Campus for all of
its customers across the nation to interact.
The site contains instructional videos, print documentation, a
searchable knowledge base, and a very active set of user forums. These forums are really nice. They are grouped by interests and moderated
by Campus support personnel. It’s a
great place to ask a question and to get answers. The video library is right below the Forum
section. You’ll need to scroll down to
see it. The News section will display
release notes on new features in upcoming versions as well as other company related
information.
To access the Campus
Community, you’ll need to login to Campus.
The link to the site is located near the bottom of the Index next to the
Account Settings and Log Out links. When
you hit that link, you’ll be redirect to the Campus Community site where you’ll
be prompted to login. If you haven’t
been there before, you’ll need to set up your account the first time. Just follow the onscreen instructions. It’s very easy. Just provide them with an email address and a
password and you’ll be set. I strongly encourage every staff member to create a
Campus Community account. It is really a
wonderful tool for learning more about Infinite Campus. As always, don’t hesitate to drop me a note
or give a call if you have any questions.
We put in a new filter last summer. For the most part it has worked really, really well. However, it works differently than what we had last year. The first major difference is that we’ve set it up so it gives out filtering policies based upon who you are. In other words, staff members get less filtering than students. When you login to your Byte Speed laptop at start up, the filter automatically knows you are a staff member and gives you the staff filtering policy. For, staff, very little is filtered. The only categories we block for staff are pornography, gambling, dating, and virus/malware. If you can think back to last year, we only had two filtering levels: it was on (everything filtered) or it was off (nothing was filtered). If you were out surfing and got blocked, you had to login to bypass the filter. However, what I’ve discovered this year is that with the new, more permissive filtering policy staff are forgetting they still have this as an option. This is very understandable.
One of the things that any filter has trouble with are keywords. There are a lot of searches and websites that are just fine and even educational, but might have some keywords that would be a red flag. My screenshot example is not very educational, but it’s also certainly not pornography either. Again, because so much is not filtered for staff, it can be jarring when you get a block for a keyword. But, it’s really no big deal. When this happens, just click the “Login as Different User” button on the block page. A popup window will appear. Enter your email username (not your full email address) and your email password. Be sure to keep this popup window open as it is what keeps you logged in and bypassed. When you do this, all filtering is removed for 20 minutes or until the popup window is closed. One thing you will notice is that unlike or old filter, you will not be automatically redirected to the site you blocked from. So, you will manually need to go back to the blocked site to access it.
Another common thing that happens is that when staff encounter a blocked site, they create an exception request. This a form at the bottom of the block page. All of these request come directly to my email. So, if there is a site you regularly access that’s blocked and really shouldn’t be, please do fill out this form. However, if it’s a site that you only plan to visit periodically, please just by pass the filter.
One of the best things about our new filter is that it really does allow us a ton of flexibility. We’ve set it up so kids in grades K-4, 5-6, 7-9, and 10-12 have their own differentiated filtering policies. So, we can have kids access the content on the internet that is appropriate for their age. We are also looking forward to deploying the mobile filter and using scheduling for filtering as we look at giving students in grades 9-12 laptops.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions on anything related to the filter.
One of the
necessary evils in today's world is email filtering. I'm sure all of
you have noticed that you get a message from Spam Blocker Services each
day. The folks at Spam Blocker are the service we use for our email
domain -- PrairiePride.org -- for spam. This keeps them pretty busy.
Spam is still a huge problem today. We typically block just over half of
all the incoming email. However, I've even seen te block percentage go
as high as 90%. So, the Spam Blocker guys do a reasonably good job of
getting the spam before it gets to us. Without them, we'd be swamped.
However,
they also give us some pretty cool tools that I'm guessing not a lot of
people know about. Besides getting that email each day which shows you
what's been blocked, they also include the following features:
Setting up your own white list (accounts that you don't ever want blocked)
Viewing your quarantined emails in real time in Outlook
Search and retrieval of 10 days worth of quarantined email
Here's how
you use these features. Adding an address to a white list is a really
good feature. This allows you to ensure that the white listed address
will never be filtered when sending to your account. This white list
just works for your account. So, this address may get quarantined when
sending to other Prairie accounts. I would recommend using a personal
white list for personal or professional contacts. If it is a parent's
address or someone else who might send to a lot of other people at
Prairie, you'll probably want to send that on to me so I can white list
it for everyone. Here's how you setup a white list. The first thing
you need to do is to get you account credentials (password) from them.
Locate the login area -- enter your full email address, i.e. cbarnum@prairiepride.org, in the username
Click the "forgot password" button. They will have you verify your email and send your password to your email
Once
you get the password (it should only take a minute or two to arrive)
login to the site. Once you are in, you can change your password. I
would strongly recommend changing it to the same one you use for Campus,
email, etc...
Click the button on the left side of the page that says "Your White List."
Enter the address you wish to not be filtered and click the "Add To White List" button.
One thing to
remember about the SpamBlocker Services password, however, is that it
is a completely stand-alone system. So, if you update your email
password, this change will not automatically. If you want to keep your
passwords consistent, you'll need to update it manually.
Another cool
feature is that you can check your quarantine at anytime, without
logging in by setting up a folder in Outlook. This is a real time
saver. Here are the steps for that. I gleaned most of these
instructions right from the Spam blocker site.
Login to the Spam Blocker site
Click the "My Preferences" button
Scroll down until you see the instructions labeled "Add Quarantine Folder to Outlook.
The following are instructions from that site:
Copy the Outlook URL above (this will be shown right above these instructions once you are logged in) by
highlighting
the entire entry and then copying to clipboard.In Outlook, create a new folder. Choose "Mail and Post
Items"
as the folder type when asked, and give it a name like
"Spam
Blocker" or "Quarantine
Once created, Right-click on the new folder and choose
"Properties"
Select the "Home Page" tab, and paste the URL above.
Check the box
on that same tab marked "Show Home Page by default"Click OK to save changes. Then open the folder.
Hopefully,
this will help you better use some of the tools in the spam filter. As
always, drop me a note with any questions you might have.
As I came around and did my talk at each building this year, I referenced a research study done about recall of factual information and how it relates to technology. Here’s the source article. This reinforced the idea for me that the value of information is deteriorating rapidly. It’s really the same phenomenon that we see happening in our everyday lives. How many of us bother to remember phone numbers of addresses anymore? I can only speak for myself, but I find that I do a lot less of this. My iPhone does all of this work for me now. I just enter the number once, look through my recent calls, or look up the address. When I admit this, my initial inclination is to feel somewhat guilty about this fact that I’m relying so heavily upon a machine. It feels lazy. Of course, this is a function of my age more than anything. I’m pretty sure younger people who have always had devices to store and access this information have no qualms about it. When I really reflect upon it, it seems like a pretty silly thing to feel bad about. After all, technology has been doing this in human society throughout our entire history. While there are tons of examples, the one that always strikes me is alphabet. Really, that’s just a technological invention, too. Before we could capture language in written format, we had to rely upon the oral tradition to relate ideas across time. Reflect for a moment how much richer and sophisticated our thinking and ideas are now that we can capture them in a timeless state. Before written language, all knowledge had to be rigorously standardized so it would not be forgotten or changed. A great deal of effort was exerted to commit the full, standard version to memory as well. Individuals could add very value in this process. Deviance from the standard was noise in the system. With the advent of the written word, individuals had a method to quickly expand upon knowledge. What was once noise was suddenly of great value. This is essential premise of all academic pursuits – adding to existing knowledge. Of course, all of the effort to memorize was no longer necessary either. We could use those thought cycles for new and different things.
It sure looks to me that we are in the middle of another tremendous change. The Columbia study just reinforces it for me. It’s not lazy to utilize a tool. It really makes me wonder what will be next in an era when static information will be so devalued. What’s also interesting is that, like invention of written language empowered the individual, we are also clearly moving that direction again. Everyone can now publish to the world. And, while there is a lot of noise being created. We’ve also seen concretely how this new individualism can be used for good and ill. The Arab Spring and recent violence and chaos in Britain are examples. But, putting all of the big picture stuff aside, what I really wonder about is how this next phase of things this impact teaching and learning. What does effective instruction look like when information is essentially worthless? It’s easy to bandy about terms like critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, etc... Of course, the conundrum is, as any good teacher will tell you, that it’s impossible to teach processes like critical thought without high quality content. And, content requires context. The kids need to know something about the content and have certain depth of knowledge before the learning will be meaningful and rich. So, of course, as common sense would dictate, a balanced approach is necessary. But, the devil is in the details. This takes a different approach to instructional design. And, to me this would be the real, new work of the 21st century educator: creating learning experiences that are simultaneously rich in content and process skills. Project, problem, or challenged based learning designs are one of the ways to do this. Of course, that it’s not the only design that will do this. But, I think it’s pretty clear that using the same models for designing learning experiences for kids that we did even ten years ago are now very out dated. With every change like this, there’s also a significant opportunity as well. I’m so excited by the prospect of working with our 21st Century Learning Institute and Total Instructional Alignment groups on creating some of these new experiences for kids this year. We had some great successes last year. I’m sure we can keep that momentum up this year as well. I’m looking forward to sharing some of our successes.
