IT News and Notes - September 2022

Infinite Campus and Single Sign-On

As we continue to focus on data security in the district, we will be taking another step to securing our student data by changing the way to sign into Infinite Campus. Starting next Tuesday, all staff will click on the button (Sign in with Google) above the current username and password fields. When accessing Infinite Campus from a new device or if someone were to gain access to your password, this would prompt the Google 2 Step verification process which would prevent unauthorized users from logging into your account. There is nothing you need to do to activate this. Since you are already signed into your Google account, simply clicking the Sign in with Google button will take you right into IC. If you try to sign in using your credentials, you will receive an error message.

Program Update: Brightytes

Many of you have probably heard of BrightBytes. Here is a little history on this program. We have used BrightBytes for our Tech and Learning survey for 8 years. For the last 5-6 years the district had been looking for a Data Dashboard that would help bring our data to a single place in order to support our daily work. We spent close to three years looking for a solution and even attempting to work with an outside company to create our own. After not finding the right solution, two years ago the IT Department started to work with BrightBytes to see if their Data Analytics platform could be a solution for our district. We took a full year working with BrightBytes on importing and checking over our data. The importing of this data comes mainly from Infinite Campus, but we also bring in data from tools such as Renaissance Learning and iReady. After repeated cycles of imports and checks, we finally determined we were ready to roll this out to our RTI Teams at all levels. Over the last year and a half, we have worked with building RTI Teams and the Intervention part of the platform while at the same time sharing the power of the Data Analytics program. This slow roll-out has been intentional to make sure all of our data is accurate and that we had staff in all schools who were comfortable using the program. This year, we are ready to share BrightBytes with all instructional staff. We have loaded accounts that can be accessed by going to Clever, clicking on BrighBytes and choosing Sign in with Google. Once there, you will find information on students who are rostered to you in Infinite Campus. We will also be be sharing information about BrightBytes with groups receiving other professional learning at Paradigm during our Tech Shorts.

We also share this with you as it is time to CELEBRATE! It is time to CELEBRATE you and all of our students for the successful start of the 2022-2023 school year! Attendance and Discipline data are information that we bring into BrightBytes. Taking a look at the district data and chart below you can see that in these two areas we have seen growth in comparison to last September. We have seen an overall decline in behavior incidents and a positive increase in attendance. We know that it is because of our teachers and students working together that we have had a GREAT start to this school year!

Attendance has increased by 4%
Detentions have dropped by 48%
Suspensions have dropped by 15%

GIF of the Month

Each month our IT Techs will share a GIF to remind you of an important item related to Technology in Mentor. This month's GIF is a quick reminder for the change we have with logging into Infinite Campus!

IT Tips and Tricks

In IT Tips and Tricks this month, Todd talks about logging into Infinite Campus using the new Sign in with Google option. Be sure to watch Todd's fancy video with visual and sound effects. Click HERE or on Tips and Tricks!

A Little IT Humor!

Doug always manages to keep things light around our office so we thought we would have him share some IT Humor each IT News and Notes with you! This month's humor supports our move to Single Sign on with Infinite Campus!