Blairsville-Saltsburg School District

If you are reading this, we have completed the first phase of the cutover to the new connection for BSSD to the internet through Sting Communications.

There could be a few additional interruptions, but it appears some internet service providers have already updated routers with new dns information - like Comcast and PTD. Some ISP's may take a little longer.

For teachers and staff:
Inbound email also appears to be reaching our mail server. Outbound mail service will be delayed overnight (Friday).

Beginning on Friday, October 3 around 3:30pm, access to the BSSD website will be interrupted. Easy access through the url (or bookmarks) may not return for several days as routers around the internet are updated with new addressing information required to find our webserver.
Services accessed through the BSSD website, but not hosted on the BSSD network can still be accessed if you bookmark the site before October 3. This would include Edline, Schoolcast, PDE, etc. Services that may not be available will be the employee call off (DISC) system, BSSD email, or other webpages within the BSSD website. Full website access should return around Monday, October 6.

A word from Inshore:
All,
At close of business on Friday, October 3, 2008, In-Shore Technologies will be implementing the Sting Act 183 connection at Blairsville - Saltsburg. The Act 183 connection includes Internet 1, Internet 2 and the Regional WAN. While this implementation is expected to go smoothly and all changes propogated over the weekend, there may be some issues that present on Monday, October 6, 2008. Should you encounter any particular applications or Web tools that are not available or not working properly, please bring them to our attention at your earliest convenience.
The work on Friday evening and the propogation of new records over the weekend may cause some disruption in Web applications such as Outlook Web Access throughout the weekend. We thank you for your patience as we implement this enhanced Web capability.
Sincerely,
In-Shore Technologies

Microsoft Office - huge purchasing discount for PA teachers and students! Under our previous MS Office leasing agreement, teachers were allowed to have a copy of MS Office installed on home computers. That agreement was terminated as of July 1, 2007. However, Microsoft and Journey Education have announced a plan to allow teachers and students at Pennsylvania schools to purchase Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 for $84.98. This software retails at $599. More information will be posted on the BSSD website on the Tech Updates page. Or visit http://www.journeyed.com/select to get started now.

Act 183 - High Speed internet connection to BSSD I recently spoke with our representative at Sting Communications. Sting is the company building the lines for our high speed internet connection funded through our Act 183 grant consortium. All the paperwork is completed and they are waiting for Penelec to make the poles ready for installation of the fiber optic cable that will carry the signal. You may see the Penelec trucks along Rt. 119 between Indiana and Blairsville. The closer they get to Blairsville, the closer we are to getting connected. This work will probably not be completed before the end of this school year. But we can expect to have it connected and ready to go to start the 2008-2009 school year.

We are in the process of doubling the network capacity between Blairsville and each Saltsburg campus. This will most likely be completed after the end of the school year to avoid interuptions in instructional time.

AOL email - We are still trying to resolve issues with AOL. AOL servers are refusing to accept email sent from the BSSD email server.

Please submit any requests for changes in internet content filtering (Websense) to me through Trackit. This includes allowing sites that are currently blocked or blocking sites that students should not be allowed to access. Please indicate if it is for teacher use or for instructional use with students. I will evaluate the request before it is implemented. Please allow 1-2 days for this process.

All BSSD classrooms now have access to wireless networking and internet. If you are using wireless laptops with students and experience any weak signals, please let me know. Personal computers from home (student or teacher) will not be able to use the school district wireless network.