R2TechnoBlog

We will be receiving a group of email accounts from EPals for the coming school year.  We will have enough for any classroom / student that wants an account.  Many of you are familiar with Epals as being a very safe source for email accounts in schools.  Their SchoolMail product that we are getting is safety focused and easily managed.  There will be no advertisements or commercials.  I am hoping to put a Willard school extension on the name – something like bob@willardr2.net but we are still working on logistics.  I am hoping we will be able to upload names from our sis database, but that has yet to be worked out.  On the management side, there are many teacher controls.  it can be set to have the teacher approve all outgoing mail, or can be completely open for the older students.  You can restrict who students can email and it includes customizable homepages, discussion boards, and file sharing.  I believe this will be a valuable tool to teach students about email.  Students are using email already at a very young age.  We need to jump on board and supply them with a safe alternative to yahoo and hotmail accounts.  For more information, go to http://schoolmail.epals.com

As we move toward the end of the year, I wanted to put together a resource page of approximate costs for hardware. This could also be a tool for planning budgets for next year.

The approximate cost of a classroom computer is $500

The 17″ flat screen monitors are about $150 and 19″ flat screens are $190

The CRT monitors (standard) are about $125

Smartboards are approximately $1500

Projectors are generally around $1000 and you need to figure approximately $350 if you would like the tech department to mount it.

Laptops range from about $1000 to $1400 depending on brand / processor. The tech department recommends Gateway and HP laptops. Please contact the tech department for specific prices. We also request that you budget enough to cover a two to three year extended warranty.

We have had an issue with a virus making its way around via email. It comes in the form of a .zip attachment. It looks quite official, often signed by the Willard Technology Team. Generally it tells you to run the zip and follow the instructions. In some cases, our server is stripping away the virus, so it is harmless. If you worried that you might have tried to run the zip file, there is a simple way to remove it.  Open your “my computer” icon and open the F:/ drive.  Look for a file called ”FxMydoom.exe” and copy it to your desktop.  Then simply double click on the file, and click start.  It will take about 8-10 minutes to run and will tell you it has been removed or it didn’t find it.  If you need any help please contact a member of the technology staff.