Technology is constantly changing. As it does, the technology department and Haywood County Schools are changing with it. We have already made several adjustments. We will be making a few more over the next month. We hope these modifications improve instructional technology integration and staff collaboration.
First, you will notice a major overhaul to the website that took place in late December. During that time, we updated the website to improve functionality on mobile devices and smart phones. We also made the new board policies much easier to search. You can visit the School Board Policies section of our website and use the search feature in the top right corner to search for key words. This will make it much easier when you are looking for something specific in the new policies.
We have also made a major change to the Technology Department website. You will notice that the website matches the overall look and feel of the HCS web site. We will be expanding this design to include all departments over the next few months. From the technology page, you can easily access the ticket system from the gray box in the top left corner. You will also notice a chat button on the right side of the screen as well as another button for chat at the bottom of the page. We keep a staff member assigned to the helpdesk to answer and respond to these conversations from 7:30-3:30 each day. Our hope is that the availability of chat will help improve how quickly we handle issues.
The technology department is also working to improve the way we share important information with staff. For the last few weeks, we have been posting weekly articles to our blog on topics like passwords and backing up your documents. We hope these articles help users understand how technology can best work for you. Along with the blog, we also added a social media account for the department. The new twitter account will be used to make announcements and keep users aware of large issues we might be dealing with. Following our twitter account, @HCSitc, is the quickest way to receive these updates.
Stay tuned to our website and to twitter over the next few weeks. We will be making several really big announcements about changes that will have an impact on your classroom.
