Staff,

As some of you may have noticed we have begun making the process of making changes to your computers.  Below is an explanation of what is being changed, as well as the guidelines and responsibilities that accompany these new responsiblities. Please read them carefully and ask your building network manager if you have any questions. 

#1 Change User from Power User to Administrator � the district policy has changing and we are now making all teachers "local administrators" of their machine.  Previously teachers were �Power Users� and limited in the ability to install software and other functionality.  By making you a "LocalAdministrator,� you�ll now have full functionality of your computer. As part of this full functionality, you "can" load software , but district policy continues to state that ALL software, including software from the Internet, must be approved by the district technology coordinator. This includes software that comes with texts.  Be aware that as an �Administrator� you will be expected to know how any software installed affects the settings to your computer. . You will also be held fully responsible and liable if you choose to ignore district software and piracy guidelines.

#2 Install Spybot � Spybot is a program that protects your computer from harmful Spyware.  Spyware is similar to a virus in terms that it slows down the operation of your computer, uses significant amounts of expensive bandwidth, and may actually shut down your computer and the entire network.  Spyware is in fact used by advertising companies and install tracking software on your computer without your knowledge, which is continuously "calling home", using your Internet connection and reports statistical data to the advertising companies server.  Spyware has become more of a problem for major businesses and corporations in affecting worker performance than computer viruses.  Spybot is a program that blocks the installation of the tracking software. Keeping the Spybot program up to date and functional will be an additional responsibility for the end user.

#3 Changing Email account from POP3 to Exchange �By changing to Exchange your email account, contacts, calendar, emails will be accessible from anywhere using and external login.  The information is located on a server and backups may be saved to your local machine.  This will enable you to have access to your email, contacts and calendar from other computers, however, since this information is now being kept on the server, you will need to regularly clean out older/larger messages from your various folders (including �Sent Items�) Failure to do this will result in the shutting down of your mailbox.

This means if you fail to maintain your computer as above or install some software that overwrites or changes some of the initial settings on your computer that are needed to run daily and district critical programs making them not work properly you may be without your computer for an indefinite period of time, until the Technology Department has the opportunity to rebuild your computer.