Rangeview High School

Infinite Campus Parent Accounts

The parents and legal guradians of Rangeview students may create an Infinite Campus (IC) Parent Portal account and track their student's grades, attendance, and other data using any computer with an Internet connection. To create an account or to resolve technical issues with an existing account (such as a forgotten password), contact Tom Fox (email or voicemail) and provide the following information: your full legal name, your student's full legal name, his/her date of birth, and a phone number where you can be reached and a preferred time to be contacted. You will be contacted, your information verified, and the account created/reset at that time. A temporary password will be assigned which can be changed to a user-chosen one. Please keep your password secure and do not share it with your student-they have their own account for IC. Students and parents see exactly the same information on IC. The only difference is that parents see all of their students on one page while students see only themselves and will not see thier siblings. Repeated incorrect logins (3) will cause the account to become disabled. Should this happen, contact Tom Fox and your account will be reset with a new password.

Infinte Campus Student Accounts

Student IC accounts are automatically created for each student during enrollment and registration. students log in with their 8-digit student ID number for username and their birthdate for password. The format of the 6-digit password is MMDDYY, so if the student's birthdate is January 5, 1994, the password would be 010594. As with the parent accounts, repeated incorrect logins will cause the account to become disabled. Should this happen, stop by the Tech Mgr's office in the west end of the Library to get your account reset.

Wireless Devices

By district directive, only those wireless devices supplied by APS and approved for operation by the Principal of RHS (Pamela Turner) and/or the APS Chief Information Officer (Dan Davis) may access the APS or RHS wireless networks. We will not give out the APS or RHS wireless passwords to staff or students. No exceptions. And no exceptions to the "no exceptions" rule.

RHS Netbook Cart

Rangeview HS has purchased a set of 36 Dell 2100 netbooks for teachers to use in their classrooms. These netbooks function like their larger laptop cousins, but are somewhat different in the following ways:

The netbooks use Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows. But there is still a graphical desktop and users still click icons to launch programs and features.
There is no login screen. After powering on the unit, it will automatically search for the appropriate wireless access point and automatically connect to it. The presence of blue bars in the bottom right of the desktop indicates that the unit has successfully connected to the wireless network.
There is no Microsoft Office program. Students will use OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations. Students should save their documents in the Microsoft Word format by choosing the appropriate file type when first saving their work. This allows the document to be opened on computers which have either OpenOffice or Microsoft Word. Similar file format choices are used for the OpenOffice spreadsheet and presentation programs.
The netbooks use the Firefox browser. Those who are used to seeing the "big blue e" will need to get used to using Firefox as their Web browser-but the transition is very easy. Firefox is very similar in appearance and function to Internet Explorer.
	All work must be saved elsewhere. Because there is no login procedure, students will not be able to save or access work stored in their W: drive folders. The netbooks have only a 16GB flash-based hard drive, so any work saved on the desktop will be erased. Students must therefore use one of these strategies to save their work: Save work to a USB flash drive Save work to the desktop just long enough to email it to themselves. The work can then be accessed by opening the email at home or in another class. Save work to the "cloud". Many sites offer free Web-based storage. The most widely used is Google Docs, which allows users to create documents and presentations stored in online folders, which can be accessed from any Internet-capable computer.

For Staff-New RHS Netbook Cart Checkout Procedure (15 Dec 2009)

As you may have heard through your department chairperson, RHS has acquired a set of 36 netbooks for classroom use. These netbooks are suitable for Internet research or Web-based activities as well as basic document/presentation production. However, there are many differences between these units and their big silver cousins many of you have used before.

The new netbooks have no login procedure. The unit is powered on, and within 30 seconds or so, it locates and connects to the wireless network with no user action required. This also means that students will not be able to access work in their W: drive or save work to their W: drive. All work must be saved in one of three ways:

• Saved to a USB drive
• Emailed to the student for later access or emailed to the teacher for evaluation
• Saved to the “cloud”. For those unfamiliar with this term, this means saving files to a Web-based storage site, such as Google Docs, Mobile Me iDisk, or Moodle.

The new netbooks use OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. This program is similar in look and function to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but is free. Students can work on documents and presentations which can be opened in Office, as long as they select the Microsoft-compatible file type when they save their work. The new netbooks are not configured to print, as we are moving toward as paperless a classroom as possible. Finally, the netbooks use the Firefox browser, which is very similar in function to the familiar “big blue e” of Internet Explorer.

These netbooks will be kept downstairs, just outside the tech manager’s office, but are available for checkout building-wide (first or second floor). Checkout will be by online signup. There is a new password-protected page under Staff > Technology > Reserve Netbooks. On that page, you will find the online form used to reserve the netbook cart. When you submit that online form, Tom Fox will receive the request and review it promptly. Once the reservation is accepted, you will receive an email confirmation. On that page, you will also see an embedded Google calendar showing all of the reservations for the netbook cart.

When picking up the cart for the first time, please plan on spending 5-10 minutes for a brief orientation. The cart will not be released to a teacher (or his/her students) unless that teacher has been briefed on the new netbooks and cart. The new netbook cart will not be released to substitute teachers. These netbooks need to be well taken care of in order to remain in service for the longest possible time. Please count the units before accepting the cart and do not dismiss your class until the units have been returned and counted at the end of each period!

The other two 16-unit laptop carts will remain in service in their current locations (one in language arts, one in the library) and the current checkout practice will continue for those carts. Only the new netbook cart will be reserved by the online method described above.