Almost Caught Up

Copy Service is almost current. They are working on jobs that came in on Thursday, so are only about one day behind. We want to thank everyone for their patience. The statistics aren't done yet, but the number of copies for August/September is very high.

LTAC update

The LTAC (Learning Technology Advisory Committee) met this morning at the new Regional Education Center. 6 districts and the CNYRIC were represented at the meeting.

We discussed the new Ethernet WAN. Rick talked about videoconferencing and the bandwidth that it will use. It will not impact your allotted internet bandwidth to conduct videoconferencing.

Tony discussed distance learning and a meeting in October for principals and guidance counselors from participating schools to discuss scheduling for next year.

Linda demonstrated the new media catalog and the link to EdVideo Online. She explained that WCNY would like students to have accounts in EdVideo. This can be accomplished with an SIS download. It will not be done without a request from each school or district.

The group discussed demos for the year. Deric Tallman from the CNYRIC will be asked to demo School World (to develop websites). Curriculum related demos will be referred to curriculum council.

Rick talked about the redundancy that is being built into the WAN.

Ann said that three more districts are using the OPALS open source library software. She also asked that you let her know if you change IP ranges so that the database vendors can update their logins.

Tony said he needs the e-rate forms back. They were due in July. He will send them again.

Next meeting is October 18, 10-noon. Deric Tallman will present School World on November 15 at 9:30 AM.

EdVideo Online

We are happy to announce a new service. The EdVideo Online (Power Media Plus) titles have now been added to our new media catalog. We have also added passwords for all of the staff. This means that you can login to the media catalog, search the catalog, and wherever you see the "PowerMediaPlus" logo you can click on the video.

If you are new and don't have a login to our media catalog you can request one from Judy.

Cable TV and Off-Air Taping

We are not able to get Cable TV in our new building. Time Warner Cable has chosen to charge us at a commercial rate for cable access. The cost is more than we can pay. We will not be able to tape off-air cable programs until we are able to implement an alternative to Time-Warner Cable.

Our satellite dish has been moved to the new site and will be installed soon. When it is installed we will be able to do teleconferences and the Annenberg channel as we have done before. We will not be able to get cable channels with the satellite dish.

Copies and more copies

We are now running two shifts each day in copy service. We will have staff working again this weekend. The piles are beginning to decrease. Thank you to the teachers who have been giving us future dates for copies. This allows us to prioritize what is needed now.

In the media center, we are working with the new media system. We plan to load the EdVideo Online (PMP) titles next week so that you can search the catalog and get the videostreaming titles without an extra login to EdVideo. I'll let you know when they are loaded.

Have a great weekend!

Tuesday Copy Update

We are making progress on the copying requests that were sent in last week. We had staff work 25 hours over the weekend. We are beginning a second shift tomorrow. We did try to pull things that looked like first day (syllabus, welcome to my class, parent letters, etc.) and did them today.

If there are things that you won't need for the next few weeks, please wait to send them. We are unable to honor next day requests due to the volume. We have a new machine that has only been working for 2 weeks and we already have over 210,000 copies on it. We are also running 3 other machines.

In planning ahead for next fall, please consider sending your requests earlier in the summer.