Previously, we had anticipated being able to begin allowing CCSD21 staff members to access Exchange via their personal smartphones as early as today. Unfortunately, our current mix of staffing and other ongoing summer projects is going to cause us to delay this. As we move through our summer projects, we are continuing to re-evaluate how best to accomplish all of them in an efficient and timely manner while continuing to provide training and resources to staff in order to accomplish these projects. As soon as we are ready and able to begin scheduling appointments with staff regarding signing up to access your District 21 email, calendar, and contacts on a personal smartphone, we will communicate that to all staff via email. Again, we thank you for your patience.

Tags: Staff MacBook, Exchange, SmartPhones

As we move all District 21 staff members over to Exchange 2010 from CommuniGate during the closing months of the 2009-2010 school year, many staff members are interested in being able to access their email, calendar, and contacts on their personal smartphones. With certain parameters, District 21 is going to allow staff members to gain access to ActiveSync and their Exchange data beginning during the Summer of 2010. (Unfortunately, the CCSD21 Technology Office will not be able to devote time to supporting this until July 2010.)

Initially, we will only be able to support the iPhone/iPod Touch, and users will need to be running iPhone OS 3.0 or newer. From there, as described in the policy form, we hope to add Android OS 2.1 or newer to our supported devices. Then, in the Fall, when Windows Phone is released, we intend to add that OS, as well.

Beginning July 12, 2010, staff members can begin to contact the Tech Office to make an appointment (approximately 15 minutes) to get their phone enabled in the iPhone Management Software. For details on the policy, read it now!

UPDATED-12 July 2010

Tags: Exchange, SmartPhones

In School District 21, approximately 70% of our families have Internet access at home and 30% do not. When breaking this number down further, even more interesting and important information is revealed. On the one end of the spectrum, a couple of schools have populations in which 95% of families do have Internet access. On the flip side, in another District 21 school, only 20% of families have Internet access. Approximately half of our English language learners have Internet access at home. We even know that Internet access is only related in a minor way to income--meaning that there are many low income families that have Internet access as well as families not classified as low income that do not have Internet access. Unfortunately, we do not know more about the nature of the Internet access in the homes of District 21 families. For example, we do not know who has dial-up connections to the Internet versus who has high-speed connections over cable or DSL. Nevertheless, the Internet is not yet completely commonplace in our community.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the mobile telephone is establishing itself as the basic tool for connecting people around the world. It is now predicted that by 2012 nearly every adult in the world (and many adolescents) will have his or her own mobile phone, which, of course, will also include some form of Internet access.

For more information on this, read the article from The Guardian. Also, consider what this new technology means for the idea of knowledge? What does it mean for classroom instruction?

Tags: SmartPhones

Did you get a smartphone this summer? If so, you may be wondering how you can access your District 21 email account on your smartphone. Unfortunately, due to the configuration of our firewall and the CommuniGate email server, you can only access it outside of School District 21 using webmail via a web browser, such as Firefox, Safari, Flock, or Internet Explorer. This means that you have to see if your smartphone’s web browser (IE mobile on a Windows Mobile phone or Safari on an iPhone) will support CommuniGate.

At the same time, please be aware that over the next year and a half, we will be migrating all of District 21’s employees to our new e-mail, calendar, and contacts server--which uses Microsoft’s Exchange server solution. As a matter of fact, by the end of the first week of the 2008-2009 school year, there will already be more than 6 dozen District 21 employees who have begun using the Exchange server. The bulk of the staff members in School District 21 will be moved to the Exchange server during the first half of the 2008-2009 school year. At that time, if your phone supports Exchange, you will be able to access your e-mail via your own smartphone, though we will not be able to actively support you personal smartphones.

Tags: SmartPhones