Introduction
Welcome to the January Tech Report. It feels good to be back in the building as there are a number of projects here requiring my attention. Hopefully everyone returned from Winter Break healthy and well rested. It’s been two months since my last bi-monthly report and I only have a few things to discuss.
January Tech Topics/Issues
Title 1 Printer
Over Winter Break a new printer was delivered to our Support Services wing for our Title 1 teachers. The printer is only to be used by Title 1 teachers and allows them the freedom to print from within their suite while assisting students. Each of the Title 1 teachers had the software installed this past week.
Spam Emails
Over the course of the school year we have seen the amount of reported spam increase exponentially in our Google console. Many of these instances involve students reporting teacher emails as spam. Further investigation revealed in most of these instances the student was putting read emails into junk instead of deleting them. Students should be careful not to move emails to junk as this is how spam is reported by users.
Additionally, the increase in emails being sent has started to trigger Google’s spam filters and is also marking some teacher emails as spam. This has resulted in a few teacher emails getting suspended after sending out emails all day. This has also caused our reputation with Google to trigger outside spam filters and some emails to parents to be sent to their spam filters.
In order to help remedy this situation, I have set up two authentication services for our email:
- SPF helps servers verify that messages appearing to come from a particular domain are sent from servers authorized by the domain owner.
- DKIM adds a digital signature to every message. This lets receiving servers verify that messages aren’t forged, and weren’t changed during transit.
These two authentication methods will also help prevent email spoofing scams coming from HAST emails.
Phone Switches
On January 11th we replaced our old phone switches with new ones. This allowed us to add a couple additional phones and fixed an issue we were having with limited ports available. Besides a few phones needing new cables or settings changed, it was a smooth install.
Tech Audit
In the next couple weeks, Mr. Dupras and I will be going around and auditing all staff technology. We will be looking at projectors, Sharp boards, smart boards, laptops, iPads, pod printers, and phones. We are hoping to purchase new laptops, iPads, and phones this year for staff. This audit will help us see who needs a new phone and gives us time to repair or replace broken tech.
iPad Charging
I have spoken and written about this often in the past few years. Many of the issues we receive regarding iPads involve the use of non-Apple certified chargers or iPhone chargers. Using a non-certified charger has the potential to damage the prongs inside the charging port. It also has the potential to ruin the iPad battery with inconsistent charging. An iPhone charger is not strong enough to charge an iPad. iPhone chargers are 5w while iPad chargers are 12w. Using a smaller wattage charger will never fully charge the iPad and conditions the memory on the battery to think “full” is much lower than it should be. This will consistently bring the time between charges down until the battery can no longer charge.
Please ensure you use an Apple Certified charger for your iPad! All students were given a brand new charger this year, so there is no excuse. If you need to replace your charger or lost it, please look for an Apple Certified charger on Amazon or you can purchase one from us through the Tech store.
Support Ticket Breakdown
Lost/Broken iPads
We did not have any iPads go missing in November or December. We did replace a few iPads having issues; however, no official form was filled out as the devices were not broken.
Reminder you MUST fill out the iPad insurance claim form for any and all broken iPads!
Reminders
- Please remember to fill out support tickets for support issues.
- Take care of your devices.
- Visit HAST Tech Store for chargers, screen protectors, and to pay iPad deductible online
