Administrators, Teachers, and Students are all benefiting from a new crop of features and updates - all designed to enrich your School Island experience. A big thank you goes out to all who offered such great suggestions for making School Island an even better study and review tool! This issue of the School Island Newsletter provides account management guidelines for Student, Teacher, and Administrator accounts.

Also in this newsletter... find out about upcoming conferences and learn about a suggestion from one of our School Island family members.

Thanks to all of our customers who have opted to use the student pre-enrollment service. Many schools have commented on what an easy and efficient way this is to bring students on board. As noted in the June newsletter and also in a notice sent to districts at the end of the last school year, student accounts for 2005-06 were deactivated in August. Students cannot sign into deactivated accounts; however, teachers may still monitor and review the results of summer assignments.

As soon as we receive the new student data from the district, we archive and delete the "old" session data and upload the new student accounts for 2006-07. There is still time to take advantage of this free service. Ask your sales representative or contact School Island Technical Services (support@schoolisland.com or 1-631-331-7384) for details on the required file formats. Send the enrollment data to support@schoolisland.com. We will create and upload the student accounts and return to you a complete list of the login IDs.

Some schools, however, still prefer to handle their own student enrollments, adding new users one at a time or with the Add Multiple feature. In that case, please contact School Island Technical Services. We will archive and clear the 2005-06 session data and reactivate the student accounts so that you can proceed with a manual cleanup.

Student enrollments are rarely static. Remember, whether or not you use the pre-enrollment service, you can still add, edit or delete accounts as students transfer in and out throughout the school year.

Unlike student accounts, School Island retains teacher accounts from year to year so that teachers can reuse or adapt their assignments. You can use the Accounts Administrator features to add, edit, or delete teacher accounts at any time. However, the beginning of the school year is a good time to conduct a thorough review and clean up of teacher accounts.

Here are a few helpful tips as you clean up teacher accounts:

• Download and print out a complete list of accounts. On the Administrator Home page, click Accounts; scroll down to the bottom; and click Create Download File. A window pops up with complete account information (except for passwords). Save this as a text (.txt) file and then open with spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel . Accounts are listed alphabetically by last name: first, all the students, then teachers, followed by administrator accounts. This is a handy way to extract a list of existing teacher accounts.
  
  
• While working with the list of accounts, you can narrow the display to teachers only. On the Accounts List page, scroll down to the bottom; set the User Type drop-down menu to "Teachers"; then click Refresh. Now you will see only the teacher accounts displayed. You may add, edit, or delete these accounts as necessary.
  
  Note: Create Download File always creates a complete list of accounts regardless of the User Type setting.
  
  
• When creating new teacher accounts, keep in mind the ID pattern used for existing teacher accounts. Consistency in naming conventions makes it easier for users to remember their login information. However, remind teachers to set a password as soon as possible to protect their accounts.
  
  Note: For schools using pre-enrollment, ID patterns for student accounts are usually slightly different than the pattern used for teacher accounts. This difference is intentional and serves as a precaution to help prevent students from accessing teacher accounts.
  
  
• Do you have new teachers who have come to your school from another School Island customer? They can bring their School Island accounts, complete with assignments with them! Contact School Island Technical Services to see whether a teacher's account can be "moved" from the previous school to the current school. This feature is particularly useful for large districts in which teachers frequently transfer from one campus to another.
  

School Island also retains administrator accounts from year to year. This is a good time to review the administrator account holders. Remember, administrator accounts have access to all account management features as well as to reports, so exercise discretion in creating and assigning additional administrator accounts.

Good news for districts with multiple campuses! Certain individuals such as Technology Directors or Superintendents often need access to School Island data from all of the enrolled campuses. These administrators do not need to juggle multiple logins and passwords. Contact School Island Technical Services and ask for "district rights" to be assigned to these administrator account holders.

The School Island team hits the trail meeting with educators throughout New York, Virginia, and North Carolina this fall to share the School Island Advantage.

For the first time, we'll be attending the NYS Middle School Association Conference on October 20th in Niagara Falls, NY. To learn more about this conference, visit their website at http://nysmsa.org/displayconvention.cfm.

New York educators can meet us at the New York State Association of Mathematics Teachers (AMTNYS) Conference on October 28th. This great event will be held in Saratoga Springs, NY. Check out the organization at http://www.amtnys.org/.

New York City educators will meet the School Island team at the Association of Teachers of Mathematics of New York City (NYCATM) on November 4th. More information is available at http://www.atmnyc.org/.

Within days of this conference, we'll be participating in the Science Teachers Association of New York State (STANYS) Conference from November 5-7 in Ellenville, NY. Their website is http://www.stanys.org.

Later during the same month of November, we'll be continuing our support of the technology community when we attend the annual NYS Council for Technology Educators (NYSCATE) Conference from November 19-21 in Albany, NY. More information is available at http://www.nyscate.org/.

Throughout October and November, Prof. Bill will take to the road when he meets educators in North Carolina, starting with the North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCCTM) from October 5-6. Their website for more information is http://www.ncctm.org/.

A few days later, from October 9-10, he'll be visiting in Atlantic Beach, NC with administrator members of the North Carolina Principals and Assistant Principals Association (NCPAPA). Information for their event is available at http://www.ncpapa.org/conference.html.

Prof. Bill continues with the North Carolina Science Teachers Association (NCSTA) Conference from November 9-10 in Greensboro, NC. Learn more about this conference at http://www.ncsta.org/.

He'll end up at the North Carolina Educational Technology Conference (NCETC) from November 27-30. Learn more when you visit http://www.ncetc.org/.

Our GM for Sales and Training, Scott Fischer, will be in Roanoke, VA for the Virginia Educational Technology Leadership Conference from November 28-30 sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education. To learn more, please visit http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Technology/OET/conf.shtml.

At many of these conferences, be sure to check your schedule for special presentations, where School Island features will be explored. At several events, we're proud sponsors who support the efforts of the education community, making the classroom experience for both students and teachers productive and exciting!

Over the summer, the layout changed for Personal Questions Sets (now called Personal Content Sets). I like the greater capabilities that I have now when creating questions, but I ran into a problem with my browser's pop-up blocker. It turns out that you need to disengage the pop-up blocker in order to use the editor. I eventually figured this out, but it took me awhile since last year it wasn't necessary. I think it would be easier for teachers if this reminder was clearly pointed out.

We're glad to hear that you like the expanded features of the Personal Content Sets! Many web applications, including the advanced editor for School Island Personal Content Sets, use small windows that pop up on your computer screen to convey additional information. However, many advertisers also employ pop-up windows in their relentless pursuit of your hard-earned dollars. A pop-up blocker is a piece of software that your computer uses to block these annoying messages. However, many pop-up blockers have trouble distinguishing between "good" or even essential pop-ups from the "bad" ones. Some pop-up blockers simply disable all pop-ups, while others allow you to choose which pop-ups you want to see.

The online help for the Edit Personal Question Set page states that pop-ups must be enabled for the School Island domain (http://www.castlesoftware.com ) in order for this feature to work. However, we have now posted an expanded version of this message in a more prominent location on the Personal Content Sets page.

If you have any comments, ideas for future articles, or suggestions for a School Island product feature or enhancement, please send it to support@schoolisland.com. We would love to hear from you!