At the start of the 2010-2011 school year, School District 21 began implementing and using Casper Suite, a software tool designed to allow the District to more easily update and support the hundreds of staff laptops and other Apple computers. Now, School District 21 is implementing another new feature of Casper Suite, the Self Service application.

Self Service helps distribute software and critical updates to computers, just like the District has done prior to now. The advantage of using Self Service for staff laptop updates is that it can eliminate untimely computer re-boots while still allowing updates to be distributed and minimizing downtime.

When an update becomes available, all staff will be notified via email. Then, to install the update, staff members simply need to:

• Be on the District 21 network (connection via a wired Ethernet cable is preferred)
• Launch the Self Service application
• Click "install" on the update

Detailed Instructions
Below are more detailed steps on successfully installing this update:


In the white menu bar at the top of the screen, click GO and select Applications from the menu by clicking one time.



In the "Applications" folder, scroll down and find the Self Service application.



Double-click the Self Service icon (pictured below) to launch the program.



After Self Service has opened, you may find software or software updates that are waiting to be installed. Under any individual software installations, you will see the "Install" button.



Click on the "Install" button to begin the installation process. Please do not execute more than one update at a time.



If additional information or steps are required, you will be prompted. Please read carefully before proceeding with any installation. After reading the installation notes, click the blue "Install" button.



Once you have started the installation process, you will notice the "In Progress Installing Items" note in the sidebar.



In addition to the "In Progress Installing Items" note shown above, you will also notice a progress bar moving across the top of the window. Please be patient while updates are in progress. This process may take several minutes to compete.





Once the update is finished, you will see the note, "Completed" in the upper-left hand corner of the window. The message (pictured below) will tell you whether the update has succeeded or failed. If the update fails, please reboot your computer and try again. If the update fails a second time, please call the Help Desk at 847.934.8100 (press 2).


Once you have completed the installation, you can relaunch your Office 2011 applications. Please note that you will need to allow quite a bit of time for Outlook to relaunch--anywhere from 5 minutes to one hour--as it rebuilds your database. Also, Word will open slowly the first time, too, as it rebuilds your font library. For more information on your first relaunch of Office applications after this update, see this Modern Pen post.

Tags: Casper Suite, Office 2011, Staff MacBook

One of the hallmark strategies for analyzing student data on standardized tests for many years has been to focus on student performance in each of the sub-elements of a particular "subject," such as Reading or Mathematics. These are often referred to as "strands".

Many of the assessments that are uploaded in to Inform include strand information, such as "Reading Strategies" and "Vocabulary" or "Geometry" and "Number Sense." When you come across strand information on a typical standardized survey test, it is important to remember that strand scores are based on a select number of items--typically only 6-12 items per strand per assessment. As a result, teachers should be cautious about making quick generalizations about specific strand performance without additional evidence to support those conclusions.

Depending on the assessment, District 21 may or may not receive scaled strand scores from a vendor with a corresponding categorization. When only raw data is received with no scaling or categorization, the following scale is used:

• 0-25% of items correct = Academic Warning
• 25-60% of items correct = Below Standards
• 60-75% of items correct = Meets Standards
• 75% of more items correct = Exceeds Standards

Measures of Academic Progress strand information can be analyzed in Inform. Directions for analyzing strand performance follow below.

Vocabulary Warning: Inform uses two different terms to refer what we commonly call Strands (Vocabulary, Comprehension, Number Sense, Geometry, etc.). Inform typically refers to Strands as Concepts. At times, Inform will also refer to Strands as Learning Standards.

Always start a new query by clicking the "+" button as pictured below.


Your query will be similar to queries you have done for MAP and Aprenda data on other occasions. There are six steps. (Steps are below the picture!)

1. Select the appropriate subject area from the "Subject" pull-down menu
2. Click the "Get Assessments" button
3. Click the arrow next to the assessment you would like to choose, and then, check the box for the specific assessment(s) you would like to analyze
4. From the pull-down menu near the top of the far-right "Learning Standards" column, select "Concepts"
5. Click the "Get Learning Standards" button; When you do this, the concepts will appear for that assessment
6. Click the "Create Report" button

Tags: Inform

A centerpiece of the No Child Left Behind Act was its focus on disaggregating data by identifiable sub-groups of students. Sub-group analysis is intended to shine a civil rights-based light on the performance of sub-groups of students to ensure that there are no covert or overt --isms leading a school to undermine the performance of some of its students. At the same time, there are limits to the utility of such sub-groups because within each sub-group of students there is a wide range of background experiences, language proficiencies, and interests that students bring to school that impact their learning.

Nevertheless, should a school want to engage in sub-group analysis Inform can support these efforts. Examples of sub-groups that might be analyzed include:

• Students with IEPs in Reading
• Students with IEPs in Mathematics
• Locally identified students at some risk of not meeting standards
• Students identified as high potential or highly able with Mathematics
• Gender

To conduct a query in Inform that analyzes the performance of a particular sub-group, begin by clicking on the + button in the upper right-hand corner of the Inform screen in your web browser.




Next, follow the steps below to create a query that filters by sub-group. This will show you results ONLY from that sub-group. (Steps are listed below the picture!)

1. Select the "subject" you would like to analyze from the "Subject" pull-down menu
2. Click the "Get Assessments" button
3. Select the assessment that you would like to analyze by checking the box to the left of that assessment
4. From the "Filter" pull-down menu select the Sub-Group you would like to filter
5. Click "Create Report" - This will only show data from students in the selected group.

Tags: Inform

Microsoft has released an update for Office 2011 that is being deployed by the School District 21 Technology Office directly to computers throughout the school district, including staff laptops. This update enhances performance and patches vital components. The update will be installed school-by-school to staff laptops in the same manner in which previous staff laptop updates have been completed. This update will also include other updates that are unrelated to Microsoft Office 2011, and a restart of the computer will be required for the updates to work.

After the update has installed and the computer has been restarted, you will need to allow the computer to complete a few additional steps in order for Outlook 2011 and the rest of your Office 2011 suite of applications to function properly.

Relaunching Outlook 2011
After you have relaunched Outlook for the first time following the update, you will receive the message pictured below.



Click on the "Upgrade" button to begin the final step in resetting Outlook for your use. While Outlook is rebuilding your local database of emails and calendar events and contacts, a dialog box will appear on your screen that looks like the one pictured below.



Depending on the number of emails you have, this may take as long as 20 minutes--or even longer in a few cases. Either way, to prevent data loss, please do not quit the application or shut down your computer until this update is complete.

You will also notice a small delay when you first launch any of the other Office 2011 applications. This will rebuild several components of the application and update the font menu. A small notification will appear in the applications splashscreen as pictured below in the red rectangle. Please be patient while this process takes place when first opening these applications after the update.

Tags: Staff MacBook, Office 2011

The Issue: Sometimes, School District 21 staff members have visited a wiki and found that they were unable to access certain files or view certain images. When this happens, it is because they do not have permission to see those files or images. This is typically caused when other teachers or staff members have copied and pasted the files and images from one wiki to another.

The Solution: When uploading documents to share on wikis, please upload these files straight from your computer rather than copying from one wiki to another. To get a file from one wiki to another:

• First, download the item from "Wiki #1" to your computer.
• Then, upload the file from your computer to "Wiki #2".
• Do not copy HTML code from one wiki to another, unless you are sure that "wiki 1" (from which you are copying the code) has more open permissions than "wiki 2" (to which you are pasting the code).

The Bottom Line: Upload files directly from your computer to a wiki rather than from wiki to wiki.



Additional Information: Each wiki in School District 21 has a certain level of permissions (whether a specific user can view or edit a file) set for it. A user can copy a file from a wiki with permissions that are set fairly open, such as Connect21--which allows all staff members to use the wiki, to wikis with less open permissions, such as an individual school or team wiki. However, when a staff member tries to move information from a wiki with less open permissions, like a school staff wiki, to a more open wiki, such as Connect21, problems will occur.

For example, the seventh grade science team is sharing documents on Connect21. School A copies documents from their staff or team wiki to Connect21. School A teachers can view these documents on Connect21 with no problem because they have been granted permission on both wikis. Teachers from Schools B & C, on the other hand, cannot access those files on Connect21 because they do not have permissions on School A's wiki, from where the files came.

Summarizing how permissions work on District 21 wikis:

• Team Wiki - Only a small number of users with permission; Just the team
• School Wiki - More users with permission; The whole school
• District Wikis - Even more users with permission; Whole district or a district-wide group

Tags: Wikis