Author: Mark Salzer

As you make plans to close up your classroom for the summer (and enjoy a well deserved break), please note and in some cases, take care of, the following items as the timing dictates:

1. Save, Update, and Share Your Content

   1. Current Canvas courses will close and get placed in your past enrollments. However, there are considerations to check in the End of Year Canvas Post. Also note Canvas Studio is being Discontinued for 25-26 School Year. If you have videos currently stored in Canvas Studio that you wish to retain, you will need to download them by the end of August (see this blog post for more info).
   2. If you are leaving the district or hoping to collaborate with colleagues over the summer you might review this post: Sharing Digital Resources with Colleagues – P-CCSK12 Tech
   3. Clever: Staff and Students will have access to all clever resources throughout the summer. Clever syncing will be on pause starting on Monday June 10, 2025 giving student’s access to their 24-25 teacher’s pages and links until around mid-August when syncing will resume for the 25-26 school year. If you’re interested in learning how to make the most of Clever in your classroom, consider looking at training and ideas here.
   4. IXL: PCCS’s digital subscription for K-5 elementary students will continue throughout the summer. Students will have access to their NWEA skill plans (which were just updated with any spring scores) all summer. Students will have access to any current teacher starred skills through around mid-August, you might consider un-starring skills for students because they travel with students from year to year. Students in 5th grade currently will lose access around mid-August when syncing begins for the 25-26 school year as they will then be recognized as 6th graders.
   5. Edpuzzle: AFTER your grades have been transferred to the gradebook, it’s recommended that teachers delete their Edpuzzle classes. Issues can sometimes arise when Canvas courses that were integrated with Edpuzzle are copied from one year to the next. It is recommended that teachers delete their Edpuzzle classes before the new school year starts and new students join your classes. Please follow the directions in Edpuzzle’s Best Practices: Closing Out the School Year.

2. Tech Housekeeping: Secure, Return, and Power Off (typically around the last day of school)

   1. Please comply with the directions of your principal and main office to turn in or secure all classroom technology equipment such as document cameras, microphones, interactive pens, and remotes.
   2. Please also secure or take home all District-assigned devices (laptop, Chromebook, iPad, etc.), as well as all personally-owned devices.
   3. Power off projectors/IFPs, sound amps, and desktop computers.
      1. You may leave printer and copiers plugged in and powered on
   4. Follow the care suggestions for classroom audio

Local school districts continue to experience significant phishing email campaigns. Typically these phishing emails ask the recipient to click on a link and provide personal information, like an email password. The emails might appear to be from the district, a staff member, or another district’s employee, but are in fact malicious. When for example someone might click a “Docusign” link and sign in via the Google sign in, they aren’t where they think they are. The payload as shown below, actually captures the login and signs the user in, but also gives some access to bad actors.

Our district and other districts will never ask a staff member, student, or parent/guardian to provide a password or personal information via email. Some variants of phishing emails circulating are listed below. If you receive any of these, do not click on any links. At a minimum, ignore/delete them, but ideally, click the phish hook so that they email can be reported and if found malicious we can easily click a button and remove it from all others’ inboxes that might have it.

1. A phishing email with the subject line (Staff Member Name) Shared a Document and it appears to be sent from DocuSign, on behalf of some district employee. If you receive such an email, DO NOT open the blue DocuSign link that is towards the bottom of the email. Ignore/Delete the email or better, click the phish hook.
2. A phishing email with the subject line Action Required  – IMPORTANT UPDATE and it appears to come from a district department, such as the technology department. If you receive such an email, DO NOT click on the link or copy and paste the link into your browser. Ignore/Delete the email., or better, click the phish hook.
3. Other subject line variants:
   Final Notice – Action Required

   Final Notice – Action Required to Prevent Account Deletion

4. Act Now…

Finally, note, if you have a district account impacted by falling victim to a campaign, please submit a help desk ticket for assistance. If a personal email address is impacted by a phishing email, please contact your email provider for assistance. For other sensitive accounts, try to improve their security posture by enabling two factor authentication.

Unfortunately, phishing emails continue to be a threat in our digital world. For more tips on identifying and preventing phishing emails from impacting you, review the Secure Our World Phishing Tip Sheet shown below.

Effective Monday, March 3, 2025, building assignments for our computer technicians will be adjusted to bring greater efficiency and responsiveness in our work. This change comes as a response to the feedback we have received from staff and analysis of our technology tickets. We expect there may be some challenges as our team transitions to their new building assignments, however, we believe these changes will result in faster response times and resolutions to technology issues. 

To assist us with providing you better service, we ask that all technology-related issues be submitted as a Technology Request in ML WorkOrders. We recognize that some staff may prefer to communicate directly with a technology staff member rather than submit a ticket. However, using the ticketing system allows us to effectively manage and respond to everyone’s needs, ensuring no requests are missed or delayed. We are continuously working to improve our technology request system, and we will soon be introducing self-service options that may help you resolve issues even before submitting a ticket.

As a reminder, you can submit a Technology Request ML WorkOrders by going to helpdesk.pccsk12.com or selecting Tech Request Form under the P-CCS Bookmarks folder in Chrome.

We look forward to better serving the needs of the P-CCS community.

As we continue to see a rise in various kinds of attempts to take advantage of our network, here again is a simple review of some of those ways being used. Bottom line, PLEASE STAY VIGILANT to STAY SAFE!

Social engineering is an attempt to trick an individual into revealing information or taking an action that can be used to attack systems or networks. Social mining is an attempt to gather information about the organization that may be used to support future attacks.

Examples of commonly used types of social engineering:

Phishing is a digital form of social engineering that uses authentic-looking emails to trick users into sharing personal information. It usually includes a link that takes the user to a fake website. If you cannot verify the source, do not open the link. Report suspicious messages to your IT team.

• Spear Phishing is a type of phishing where a specific user or group of users is targeted because of their position (such as a company’s administrators).
• Quishing, short for QR code phishing, is a type of phishing where a QR code is used to trick users into visiting malicious websites or downloading malware.

Social media exploitation is where the attacker uses information found on a user’s social media profiles to create a targeted phishing attack.

Pretexting and Impersonation is where the attacker creates a fictional backstory that is used to manipulate someone into providing private information or to influence behavior. Attackers will often impersonate a person of authority, co-worker, or trusted organization to engage in back-and-forth communication prior to launching a targeted spear phishing attack.

• Fake IT Support calls are a common form of impersonation where someone pretends to be an authorized user or administrator in an attempt to gain illicit access to protected data systems. The attacker has enough information to sound credible, and they ask the user for some bit of information that will allow the attacker to gain access to the desired system.

We hope you enjoy your winter break, arriving just eight days from now! Before you leave next Friday afternoon…

WOULD YOU PLEASE SECURE ALL VALUABLES in the classrooms and office spaces you inhabit. This includes laptops, document cameras, Apple TVs, remotes, and interactive pens.

Further, if it is equipment you handle, would you please make sure all iPads and Chromebooks are in their carts and those CARTS ARE LOCKED and plugged in before leaving.

Finally, would you please also POWER OFF any of the following equipment, if it is equipment you handle:

• projectors
• sound amps
• SmartBoards
• desktop computers
• monitors
• printers

THANK YOU for your cooperation.