CCS Technology's Goal:

CCS Technology is committed to delivering reliable and user-friendly technological solutions that empower teachers and staff to enhance the learning experiences of all Concord Community School's students!

Technology Announcements:

(December 6th, 2024) - Teacher iPad Cases, Para iPads and more!
Below are a few technology changes that we have addressed over the last week:

New Teacher Cases:
The new teacher cases have arrived! Reminder that we are upgrading your current blue Logitech iPad case to a newer Logitech keyboard case! This case features a more tactile Keyboard that also detaches! We will be in your buildings during the above days/times to come and exchange those cases!

This change not only gets teachers a more efficient case but it also serves as a replenishment of the blue Logitech student cases we can use for our students moving forward!

New Para iPads:
The time has come to swap out our Paraprofessional devices! All Paras currently using a Chromebook will be getting a New iPad (same device as the Teacher iPads). This will be a great upgrade from the current Chromebook and will better model the device students are using each day!

There will be training held at the Para Half-day training on January 15th. More information about this event will be provided by Jena Kennedy.

Holiday Break Updates:
This coming Holiday Break, the Technology Department will be deploying a plethora of updates to devices and critical systems! We highly recommend you check out the documentation on this Canva page as it will go into greater detail what fun new features are coming to your devices!

Updates Include:

iPadOS 18.1.1
MacOS Sequoia 15.1
TvOS 18.1

(November 4th, 2024) - Changes to K-4 Student iPads!

Google Apps Removed on K-4th Student iPads:
We have been receiving a lot of feedback in regards to the frustration of students switching between the apps and the web versions of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on their iPads. Additionally, students are reinstalling these apps even after teachers delete them from their iPad.

To better simplify this process we are going to move forward with removing these apps from the student iPads and not allowing the students to re-download these apps on their own.

This will resolve the issue of students getting redirected to the app version of Doc, Sheets, or Slides when loading their respective websites in Safari (ex: docs.google.com).

This does NOT mean you will be unable to get these apps back onto the student iPads if you prefer to use them over their website versions.

If you want your students to use these apps over the web versions, please follow This Guide to properly reinstall these apps back onto your class's student iPads!

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out!

(September 30th, 2024) - Printer Updates and Lockdown Changes

MacBook / iPads - New Printer Driver:
In the post below on August 28th, we mentioned an error that a lot of our users were seeing regarding printing on the Follow_Me_Toshiba printer. We have identified the issue being related to the PCL6 graphics encoder used on the normal FMT pritner. We did some testing with affected users using a new printer that uses Post Script as its grpahics encoder and we have seen promising results! We have made this printer available for all users and it is named "Follow_Me_Toshiba_Mac". For all MacBook, iPad, and Chromebook users, we recommend using this pritner as your default pritner moving forward. You can find guides on how to add this printer Here (Mac) and
Here (Chromebook).

New Intermediate iPad Lockdown Time:
As of Tuesday, September 30th, the new lockdown time for all CIS Students is 9:00PM. This is a change from the previously set 8:00PM.

(August 28th, 2024) - Apple ID and Printer Issues

Below are a few issues we have been made aware of that have ongoing support tickets open:

MacBook / iPads - Apple ID Errors:
Upon changing your password on MacBook, some users have found that when re-syncing their Apple ID information they are asked to authenticate with their "MacBook's Local Password".
The initial response from Apple was that staff should be using their previously set password when asked here but in further testing, we had staff members stuck at this page regardless of the password used.
This was the response we got today:
"Hello all,
You might remember that one of the new features of iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma (macOS 14) is that Managed Apple IDs now support iCloud Keychain and all of the Continuity features that come with that, such as Continuity Camera, Universal Clipboard, and Sidecar. That was great news!
One of the side effects of this new feature is a new prompt that users may see this fall when they log into iCloud on their Mac or their iPad. During the iCloud login, the machine might now ask for the user to enter the passcode of a previous iPad or the password of a previous Mac in addition to the username and password for the Managed Apple ID.
Whether or not your users will see this new prompt depends on a lot of factors, such as the version of iPadOS/macOS on their previous device, whether or not they had a passcode set, whether iCloud Keychain was restricted, etc. Because of that, you will likely find that some of your users will see this prompt, while others won't.
If the user remembers the passcode of the previous iPad or the password of the previous Mac, they should just put it in, and the login will continue. If they don't remember it, there is a reset procedure that will delete the "end-to-end encrypted data" that is associated with that Managed Apple ID. Data that will be erased includes saved passwords from the iCloud Keychain (not from Google Chrome), Safari bookmarks and history, Messages in iCloud, Maps history, and Memojis. It does NOT include iCloud Drive, data in the Notes app, or the user's iCloud Photo Library. All of that data remains intact.
AppleCare has a knowledge base article that was posted earlier this week that goes through the reset process. Note that the article only covers iPad, but it is a very similar workflow for Mac as well."
Since we do enable those iCloud Keychain features, some staff are seeing this issue.
We have a feature request ticket open currently to get this behavior disabled. For the time being, we are currently still working with Apple on this situation!

All Devices:
There is an ongoing issue with random print jobs receiving the following error when printing:
"<Error>

<Code>AccessDenied</Code>

<Message>Access Denied</Message>

<RequestId>ATGW37VMQHYB45FZ</RequestId>

<HostId>3N7skX2QtOJCK7ckRJ7pPGes+KBLEMRE3cA3GwiqjM7ISkZ3GIi13y36xZ0LHg/aCfw9C1EbU/8=</HostId>

</Error>"

Duane is currently working with PaperCut (our printer server provider) to resolve this issue. We will provide updates to this as progress is made.

Of course with all of this, we appreciate your patience and support working with us!

Thanks all! - IG

(August 14th, 2024) - Device Updates

With the release of all our new Thinkpads and MacBooks, some things may have changed with your devices so be sure to see those changes below! Additionally, we have been made aware of some issues and we wanted to discuss them here!

iPads:
All K-8 students will now have a "Nightly Lockdown" profile that is installed at a specific time per grade level that essentially hides all apps on the students iPads besides the Settings app.
Kinder - 6th Grade: iPads will lockdown at 8:00PM and will unlock at 5:00AM.
7th - 8th Grade: iPads will lockdown at 11:00PM and unlock at 5:00AM.
This is an effort to better support our students and ensure that our devices are not keeping them from getting a full night's sleep and help with iPads coming to school with drained or dead batteries!
Due to this lockdown profile, we are introducing new iPad app layouts for all K-8 students that should better organize all Conord focused apps on the first/main home screen page!

Additionally, iPadOS 17.5.1 is being pushed and currently has a 41% adoption.
You may see devices restart in class until this update is fully adopted!

MacBooks:
If you are running into printing issues on MacBook, please follow this Linked Guided!
Additionally, please make sure that you are not sending your print job in Color unless you know you have color printing permissions! MacBook will try to default print jobs in Color so just look out!

If you are needing to change your Password, please follow this Linked Guide!
There is an ongoing issues with Apple ID's not properly syncing after performing a password change. If you run into this issue, please make Isaiah Grathen aware as soon as possible!

If you run into any issues with either of these, please put in a Get Help ticket and we will be happy to help!

Thinkpads:
If you are having issues printing, please check the printer that is being selected!
We are seeing our new Thinkpads default to the older "Follow_Me_Print" printer instead of the newer "Follow_Me_Toshiba". Any print jobs sent to Follow_Me_Print will be deleted and not show up at the printer!

Reminder that if you are looking for software, please check the Software Center application! This is where we host all of our Concord approved software, ready to be installed!

Thank you all and as always, if you run into issues, put in a GetHelp ticket and the technology department will be around to help! Good luck on the first week of school! 🎉

(June 27th, 2024) - iPadOS 17.5.1 Update Pushed

We released iPadOS 17.5.1 to all our Student and Staff iPads!

Staff, we did not clear your passcodes (as it is very annoying to have to re-setup a passcode 🙂) so that means you will have to have your iPad charged and unlocked at some point to agree to the software update!

iPadOS 17 caused some memory leak issues that would result in certain apps, like Seesaw, to crash or have huge performance losses when using the app for an extended amount of time!
iPadOS 17.5.1 is stated to fix these memory leak issues!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to Technology!

Thanks all! - IG

(June 27th, 2024) - MacsBook Pickup Times and Trainings

We're just about ready to hand out MacBooks! You will be able to start picking them up on July 8th! More info below!

(Those waiting on new Thinkpads- they have been ordered! We anticipate being ready to hand them out around the second half of July! Stay tuned!)

There will be a number of training opportunities the week of August 5th. On Tuesday August 6th, Sherri from Apple will be hosting a number of trainings! Her sessions will need to be limited to 20 people each. If we exceed 20 people signed up, you will get an email asking you to pick a different time. The trainings on Wednesday the 7th and Thursday the 8th will be hosted by Isaiah and Tyler and have no limit!

Reminder: You must have your Thinkpad ready to turn in at the same time you pickup your MacBook.

Check out this link for all info on when/where to pick up your MacBook as well as training!

(June 26th, 2024) - Digital Learning Site Update

Technology has re-organized the Digital Learning Site in order to clear up some older documentation and better organize our existing and newer resources / guides!