We Are Connected!

I am pleased to announce that the Mecklenburg County School Division is now operating on a 100Mb fiber network at all locations! The Technology Department worked on the final conversion from 6:00 am on Thursday, August 7th to Monday August 11th. As Director of Technology and Career Education, I am very fortunate to have a great team of individuals that have been so committed to this organization. I am so proud of Chad Wollenberg, Ron Goodwin, Bernard Robinson, Pam Jackson, Daniel Andre, and Lisa Conner for the work that they did to make this happen. Good Job!

Progress Report

As of Friday, June 27th, we have provided over 300 MCPS teachers and staff with their new user name and password for our new Meck Mail. We look forward to comments, questions, and suggestions from you this summer. Your feedback will help our trainers prepare for the Meck Mail Staff Development Sessions that we plan to provide in August. Here are a couple of things that people have asked.

1. Did the contacts migrate over to the new system?

Answer: No. We had hoped they would have seamlessly migrated over but they did not. The good news is that we when you email someone or they email you, they are automatically placed in your contact list. You can also search your old emails, click on the email, and the contact information will be added.

2. Will the group emails be available with this system?

Answer: Yes. We will create those for the division. We had originally planned to have those available this past week but, decided to wait until all personnel changes had been made. We want the original file to be as accurate as possible. These will be ready by August 1st.

3. Emails are grouped together by conversation. It is confusing to have them linked together. Can I separate them.?

Answer: No. There are many users out there that have complained about this feature. Google is hearing this from users worldwide. I hope they will make this feature optional. It would be nice if users could turn it on and off when needed. Will they fix it? I hope they will. How long will it take them? I do not know. There only suggestion at the moment is to use Outlook or Thunderbird on your local machine. If you need more information on that option, email Ernie Conner at econner@mcpsweb.org.

Questions

If you have questions concerning the use of the new Meck Mail system, please comment at the bottom of this post. At the bottom of each note posted on this blog will be a comments link. Check out the comments and responses on each post.

Excellent Response From Users

The Technology Department has been very busy over the last two days. I am excited to announce that 144 teachers and staff members have requested their user names and passwords. This is GREAT news. This will allow a large number of users an opportunity to provide great feedback on the new email. Please email Ernie Conner your comments. What do you like? What features did the old email have that the new one does not have? Give me a chance to find answers to your questions. THANKS FOR THE INPUT!

Trouble Ticket System

If you need to access the Trouble Ticket System for Technology or Maintenance, your user name changed from meck.k12.va.us to mcpsweb.org. Example: My user name is econner@mcpsweb.org instead of econner@meck.k12.va.us. The password that you had set up for this system did not change.. If you have trouble getting into the system, please call or email me at econner@mcpsweb.org.

Welcome to Google Apps for Education

Welcome Mecklenburg County Schools users to Google Applications and Meck Mail! We are excited to implement this new program. The purpose of this blog is to allow our users a chance to collaborate and find answers to questions. Technology Resource Teachers will be conducting training on the new system when teachers return in August. 12 month employees will be trained during the summer. Check this blog on a regular basis to see the latest conversations and answers to questions.