Bogle Renovations for 2019-2020

Blair Academy's recent renovation of Bogle Hall includes a three-story addition with new classrooms, labs, dedicated research space for long-term projects, and upgrades to legacy spaces such as existing classrooms, labs, and Cowan Auditorium.  The technology team's work on the wiring, infrastructure, internet access points, and classroom AV systems contributed to a successful opening of the building in time for the start of the 2019-2020 school year.

Read more about the renovation project at this link:  https://www.blair.edu/support-blair/forward-thinking-campaign/bogle-hall

You can see a walk-through of the renovations by playing the video below:

Registration Days Baseline Concussion Test

Opening of school registration is a busy time for our students and families.  Each year, registration includes completion of a baseline test as part of a comprehensive approach to student athlete concussion care.  The test occurs online either at home before the student's arrival to campus or in a computer lab on registration days.  The technology team partners with the Health Center to ensure all our students complete this testing before their first team practices.

Cybersecurity at Blair

The cyber-security needs of Blair's community continue to be a top priority of the technology office.  Safety measures have already included decommissioning physical servers, enforcing drive encryption on employee laptops, and providing antivirus and malware protection campus-wide.  More recently, technology team members have also worked together to enforce multi-factor authentication, give cyber-security presentations to faculty and staff, sponsor a Skeptics talk by a cyber-security expert, provide dedicated training opportunities, and reduce potential network vulnerabilities.

Electronic Report Cards Six Years Later

Reports cards were emailed to parents for the first time in 2013 after final exams.  You can reminisce by reading the blog post here.  At that time, the technology office was just starting a long term process of reducing physical paper mailings and creating a more efficient process for getting grades out to parents.  Since then, the school has not only streamlined report cards, but also the application process, enrollment, re-enrollment, health forms, and more have gone to being mostly paperless.

Design Software Available in Computer Lab

Students at Blair Academy have many opportunities to use design software in their classroom work.  In the open computer lab in the Chiang Center, students have access to the same design software used in their classes.  For example, the technology team installs on these computers and manages licenses for Inkscape and Adobe Creative Cloud.  The large screens aid students with layout that might be more challenging on their smaller laptop screens.

Annual Account Creation

During the summer months at Blair, the technology team creates accounts on several systems for incoming students, faculty, and parents.  These accounts all need usernames, passwords, and levels of access on our secure systems, including the school website, the grading platforms, and email.  The team also disables and deletes accounts for departing members of the Blair community.  This work has just been completed, and the new school year is ready to begin!

Summer Computer Set-up

The technology office team is hard at work this summer setting up computers for the new school year.  Above, User Support Specialist Mr. Kemp sets up computers with the aid of our summer intern.

Roughly 20% of the computers on campus will be brand new for the 2018-2019 school year, including laptops for faculty, desktops for academic spaces, and both laptops and desktops for office staff.  Macs, PCs, and Chromebooks are all utilized across campus.