Welcome to Orange-Ulster BOCES!

 

We hope you will continue to use this site as a reference source for your teaching practice.  If you have any concerns or questions that you don’t see answered here, or if you have any suggestions for links or other resources, please email them to:  webtinker@gmail.com

 

Technology Tips

 

Note:  Orange-Ulster BOCES is in the process of upgrading to Active Directory this year; some of the elements described here will be changed as the system is developed.)

Building Networks are managed by helpful technicians in each building and at the Harriman office.  Log on to your school network from any building computer and use My Computer to find clusters for:

             Personal Folder:  Only you have access to this folder.  Save files here rather than in My Documents.

                          Files saved in “My Documents” will be eliminated by Deep Freeze software, which is installed

                          on all student-accessible computers!

             Teachers:  This folder is only available to staff.  Instructors use it to store and share handouts, lesson

                          plans and other material.

             Shared Folder:  Staff and students can access these folders, set up by academies.  Use this for group

                          work, file distribution, handouts, etc.

             Student Folders:  Each student has a folder to save his or her own work; it is accessible with log in

                          with student passwords.  While students can use computers without logging in, they cannot

                          save their work; anything saved in My Documents will be eliminated when the computer is

                          restarted.

             Thaw Space:  For emergencies, students can save their work into this folder if they are unable to log in

                          to their own folders.  Work will be saved temporarily on the specific computer they used.

             No technology is infallible; please back up all files regularly!

 

Staff email is set up for each individual user.  Our email program is accessible from school or home and has useful tools including a calendar, to do list, notebook, and address book.  To access your contact list or the BOCES directory type the first letter of the name into the “TO” box.  You can create your own contact lists to share information with your colleagues easily.

 

Internet Access is available throughout BOCES.  Access is filtered on all computers for student safety.  If you have questions or concerns about filtering please contact your building technology coordinator.

 

Technology for teaching at BOCES gives you access to state-of-the-art facilities such as teleconferencing, SmartBoards, Alphasmart computers, digital cameras, and much more. 

 

 

For more information contact your building technology coordinator:

 

Melody Geroux                mgeroux@ouboces.org               

Mary Lou Deitrich           mdeitrich@ouboces.org              

 

 

Web Resources

 

ZoHo Suite at www.zoho.com has lots of free productivity software that saves to a web address, so you can access your presentation from any Internet-accessible computer, at home or in any room at school.  Registration is free.

 

Google Docs at http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs_spreadsheets.html is a free online word processor that allows collaborative entry; you can create a document, invite others to add to it online, and monitor changes.  Google has many other free tools at http://www.google.com/educators/index.html including Picasa, an excellent photo editor/manager, and much more.

 

Gliffy at www.gliffy.com is a free online tool for drawing and sharing diagrams, flow charts, floor plans, and much more.  Drawings can be accessed from any Internet-accessible computer.

 

Del.icio.us at http://del.icio.us/ is a powerful bookmarking tool that teachers can use to create link sets for students (similar to web quests) and many other interesting projects.  Unfortunately, it is currently blocked by our filter, but can be accessed from your home computer.

 

Pics4Learning at www.pics4learning.com has a huge collection of copyright-friendly photos for education.  Recipes4Success at www.recipes4success.com has free tools including a rubric maker, graphic organizer maker, and bibliography maker.

 

NYS Statewide GIS Clearinghouse at www.nysgis.state.ny.us has aerial maps, photos, GIS data, and other mapping information.

 

NYS Office of Cyber Security at www.cscic.state.ny.us has invaluable information about keeping children and adults safe on the Internet.  Other resources can be found at www.netsmartz.org, www.safeteens.com, www.staysafeonline.org, and www.wiredkids.com/media/news.html.

 

NYLearns at www.nylearns.org has thousands of teacher-created and teacher-tested lesson plans and projects, including hundreds of peer-reviewed projects from the New York State Academy for Teaching and Learning.

 

Squeakland at www.squeakland.org has free animation and programming tools for levels from early childhood up.

 

www.tucows.com and www.tudogs.com have a constantly changing collection of free and shareware software, technology tips and useful tools.