Essentials, Faculty, Faculty/Staff, iPads, Student, Students

My iPad isn’t working – no email, no printing, no web surfing

10/14/2016 Tom Rule

Problem: If your iPad all of a sudden stops working oncampus, it is most likely because your subscription to the network has expired.

It MUST be renewed every 30 days.

Symptoms: no email access, can’t print, can’t surf the web, but the wireless icon is still active.

Solution:

Open up a web browser window.
Surf to an OFF-CAMPUS website you’ve never visited before. Perhaps HamSandwichTees.com, or ShadowSoundStudio.com, or Macon.com… well, you get the idea. It MUST be off-campus, and MUST be somewhere you’ve never visited before.
You SHOULD see the “login here” splash screen.

iPads, Student, Students

Notability Not Working

10/14/2016 Tom Rule

If Notability seems to start up when you click the icon, and then it disappears:

Step One – Clear the Decks:

Swipe out of all your running apps [doubleclick your home button, swipe all the running windows up to quit the apps].
Shutdown your iPad [Hold Power button down for umpteen seconds until the “Swipe to turn off” slider appears onscreen.]
Wait FIVE MINUTES.
Turn iPad back on.

Step Two – Check your storage:

Settings –> General –> About –> Amount Available
If less than 500megabytes, then you need to make room, USUALLY by deleting photos or Videos
Photos app –> Camera Roll. Select items to delete.
THEN switch to the “Recently Deleted” album, click SELECT, then DELETE ALL.
Other possible storage hog is your email. DELETE emails you no longer need – each one takes up room on your ipad.

If the Notability icon is Dark, or says “Waiting”:

Your iPad [for whatever reason] refuses to update Notability, or it started to and has gotten confused.

A couple of points, first:

You are STILL responsible for getting your homework done. This means you will have to take an alternate route. Work with your teachers – they are all aware of the issue.

Alternative Possibilities for getting your work done include

Textilus if you want to type notes
Google Docs if you want to type, AND your notes to automatically be available in Drive
If you prefer to use a stylus, try using one of the Art apps [like Paper]
Use Pencil/Pen and Paper. [Seriously – there are a good number of brain-wiring/educational/physiological reasons to go this route. Ask Mrs. Alderman].

“THE DANCE”

Try this first at school.
If that makes no difference, try it at home.
Please do these steps IN THIS ORDER.
Once you complete them, let Mr. Rule or Mrs. Andrews know what happened. They are tracking the results and working with tech support.

Look at your Notability app. If it is NOT still dark, let Mr. Rule/Mrs. Andrews know – RIGHT NOW!
Swipe out of all your apps. Shutdown the iPad. Wait 5 minutes. Start it back up.
Once things are back up, wait 5 minutes to see if anything changes.
If Not, click on the Notability icon.
If it starts installing, let Mr. Rule/Mrs. Andrews know – RIGHT NOW!

—–> If you’ve “done the dance” at school, try it at home.

—–> If you’ve “done the dance” at home, try it at school.

—–> Let Mr. Rule/Mrs. Andrews know what happened – RIGHT NOW!

One student had success by doing this:

I closed out my apps,clicked on all the blacked out apps a few times, and shut the ipad down for about twenty minutes. The apps started loading after that.

More, Students, Websites

Parents and Powerschool login

09/14/2016 Tom Rule

As of this year the way Parents access Powerschool has changed. In the past, parents logged into their student’s accounts. As of 2016-17, parents must create their OWN powerschool account, and then “tie together” their student’s accounts.

For those families with multiple students at MDS, this means ONE login to check grades instead of multiple logins.

We send out information to each family with the Parent Portal Access ID and password. These are ONLY used to create the account, NOT to login with.

The process:

Go to the parent portal
Click on “create account”
Create an account with your email address
Specify a username and password
Below that you will be prompted for the Access ID and password. [This is what ties your parent account to your child’s/children’s info].
After the account is created, login with the username and password you created.
Go to “Email Notifications” and customize what you would like to receive and how often.

We do block online access during the school day. You ARE able to setup the account at any time, but can only login to the portal after 2:45 pm on school days.

MDS Tech