A team of seven MCPS central office employees worked with IT systems specialist Greg Thomas Oct. 4 and Oct. 7, to fix all of the school’s technology issues.

Many of the problems are due to incorrectly executed updates conducted during this summer’s Tech Mod ’13. The technology situation was at a standstill until the team arrived, because the issues were too widespread for Thomas to handle by himself, he said.

Principal Alan Goodwin sent an email out to teachers Oct. 2, asking them to report any technology problems they were experiencing. Responses included missing or non-functioning computers, missing printers, inability to connect to printers, missing software and  malfunctions with Promethean boards.

Assistant principal Brandi Heckert compiled a spreadsheet of the reported problems, which the team of county employees translated into a ticket system. The central office team created a ticket for each room number that listed the problems, went to each room and worked on solving each individual problem.

“It has been successful so far because they don’t move on until they fix it,” Heckert said.

The school’s internet server, which was not replaced during Tech Mod, is the source of some issues with printers and software. The server controls nearly all the technology in the school and requires constant maintenance and updates. However, many of its settings can only be accessed and changed by the MCPS central office, Thomas said.

Earlier last week, Thomas worked with a central office IT systems specialist, who was able to help him make a breakthrough with ongoing printer connection problems, and Thomas used the newly acquired information to connect approximately 20 printers, bringing the total number of printers connected to the network up to around 55 from 36 at the beginning of the year.

Now that the server’s settings are correct and Thomas has received assistance, the state of the technology around the school is looking up, Thomas said.