Columbus, MS — March, 29, 2010 — Heritage Academy is pleased to announce that it has been named an Apple Distinguished School for its 1:1 (one-to-one) MacBook Program and integration of Apple technology throughout the campus. The Apple Distinguished School designation is reserved for schools that have implemented a 21st century vision of education using Apple technology.

Pictured (l-r) are: Heritage Academy Headmaster, Tommy Gunn; HA Academic Dean, Betsy Gunn; Apple Education Senior Account Executive Mark Williams; HA School Board Member Mark Bean; and HA Elementary Principal Yandell Harris.

“Heritage is honored to have been selected as an Apple Distinguished School.  I am continually amazed by the work of our students and teachers.  Both students and teachers have fully embraced the one-to-one MacBook Program and learning experience,” says Tommy C. Gunn, Headmaster. The selection of Heritage Academy as an Apple Distinguished School highlights its successes in enhancing and extending teaching and learning with thoughtful and innovative implementations of technology.

The use of Apple technology begins in the elementary school at Heritage Academy.  Elementary teachers and students enjoy the use of two mobile carts that can store, charge and transport up to 30 MacBooks to any classroom for use in grades K4-6.  Sixth grade students have the additional convenience of four iMac desktop computers in each of their classrooms, and six iMacs are available for students in the Pathfinders program.

Heritage Academy issues a MacBook to every teacher and to each student in grades 9-12 as part of a 1:1 one-to-one learning program that capitalizes upon equal access to technology for all teachers and students.  Heritage students in seventh and eighth grades make use of a computer lab with MacBook workstations and mobile carts containing 20 MacBooks that teachers transport to their classrooms for use by the students.  All MacBooks access the Internet via a wireless network that covers the entire Heritage campus.

Students enjoy creating Keynote presentations, websites with iWeb websites, and iMovie videos that are used to share the information they have learned in class.  The 21st Century classroom emphasizes the create-distribute-access-collaborate model for learning through the use of technology. Heritage students enjoy being ahead of the curve in this area.

Apple Distinguished School – Heritage Academy was recently presented with a framed certificate and a banner to hang in the school recognizing that we have been named as an Apple Distinguished School for 2010. Heritage is one of 54 schools nation-wide to be selected for this honor this year and is the only school in Mississippi, public or private, to ever be named to this prestigious honor.

You may email us to leave your name on a list if more become available.

Heritage Academy will be selling the used MacBooks that have been assigned to our graduating seniors this year.  Mr. Gunn sent out an email to all parents on the Heritage Parents email list that announced the sale.  We want to give a little more information and answer some frequently asked questions here.

2007 MacBook 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo

MacBook Specifications:

Model: MacBook2,1

Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Memory: 1.0 GB DDR2 SDRAM 667 MHz – 2 – 512 MB modules

Hard Drive: 80 GB 2.5″ SATA

Optical Drive: Slot Loading CD-RW/DVD-ROM, burns CDs, CDRW and reads DVD

Networking:

AirPort Extreme Wireless Networking – 802.11a/b/g/n

10-100-1000 Ethernet (Gigabit)

Ports:

1 – Power Adapter Port

1 – RJ-45 Ethernet Port

1 – Mini-DVI Port

2 – USB 2.0 Ports

1 – Firewire-400 Port

1 – Digital/Analog Audio In Port

1 – Digital/Analog Audio Out Port

1 – Security Slot

Complete details on this MacBook are available at EveryMac.com

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. How much will they cost? — $450
2. What are the specifications of the MacBooks? — Specifications are listed above, if you want more detail visit EveryMac.com.
3. Does it come with a User Manual? — No, but the manual is available as a PDF file here.
4. How do the senior laptops that are being sold compare to the ones the freshman class has now? — Senior MacBooks are identical to the MacBooks that current freshmen are using.
5. How many are for sale? — We are currently looking to sell 40 MacBooks, after the seniors get their pick it is first come first served.
6. Do you offer technical support for the MacBooks after they are sold? — We cannot offer technical support.  The AppleCare warranty expires in October 2010, until then warranty repairs should still be covered.
7. What software is installed on the MacBook? — iLife ’09, iWork ’09, Microsoft Office 2004, iChat, iTunes, PhotoBooth, and all standard Mac Apps that come with Snow Leopard. A list of all the installed software is available here.

Feel free to contact us with additional questions and we will add them to the list.

1. Open iWeb and make new site. Go ahead and choose a template, you can change the theme later.

2. Click on the Site settings by clicking on site in the sidebar of iWeb.

3. Setup server so that the settings look like this image.

Publish to: FTP Server
Site name: “You can pick your own site name.”
Contact email: “Put your school email address, if you have one.”
Server address: green.heritagepatriots.com
User name: “Your username, example my username is “bhurt”.”
Directory/Path: “Sites/” If you don’t use “Sites/” your site will not be viewable.
Protocol: “SFTP” It MUST BE SFTP, or it will fail.
Port: 22

Click on Test Connection and you can see if it is setup properly.

URL: http://green.heritagepatriots.com/~YOURLOGIN example: mine is http://green.heritagepatriots.com/~bhurt
4. Here is how mine looks.

5. Make changes to your site and click on the publish button, you will be asked for your password and your site will be published.

DONE!

To all Students, Faculty, and Parents:

As we approach our Thanksgiving Break, the Tech Team at Heritage Academy would like to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

There are a few technology issues that require a response from each of you.

1. On Friday, November 20, we will be sending out an electronic survey that assesses the use of MacBooks at Heritage Academy. Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey and submit your results.

2. If you have been issued a MacBook by Heritage Academy, please take a moment to make sure you shutdown your MacBook before you leave school on Friday. When you select “Shut Down” from the Apple menu, allow your MacBook to fully sync and shutdown on it’s own. If you use your MacBook during Thanksgiving Break, make sure you shutdown between uses and keep your battery fully charged. Do not allow your MacBook to sleep (hibernate) during Thanksgiving. After a week of hibernation, we get a lot of dead batteries that cannot be recharged. Please make sure you shutdown your MacBook.

3. We will be upgrading our servers to the new Snow Leopard operating system, during Thanksgiving. As a result, the web server may be offline for as much as one day. (Probably only a few hours, but let’s be safe.) During this time, email will continue to function and all other services should continue to work fine. Please do not be alarmed if you find http://www.heritagepatriots.com inaccessible. Student and Teacher MacBook accounts may also be down for a similar period of time, that is another reason every MacBook should be shutdown when not in use during Thanksgiving Break.

If you know of someone that needs to get this email please forward it to them and alert us that they are not in the current mailing list.
If you have any questions about the information in this email, please direct them to us at tech@heritagepatriots.com

Thank you for your time,

HA Tech Team

We will be sending another reminder to students and faculty about shutting the MacBook down for Thanksgiving.

If you would like to follow us on Twitter while we experiment with this feature you can follow us at this link.

http://twitter.com/hapatriots

Once we check on the feedback and usability, we will determine if Twitter is a feature we wish to keep.

Thanks,

HA Tech Team

Your user number and PIN should still work from last year, when the problem is resolved.

We will post an alert for you when STI Home is functioning again.

Thank you,

HA Tech Team

2009-2010 MacBook Responsible Use Contract Grades 9-12

MacBook Appropriate Use Agreement for 9-12

2009-2010 MacBook Responsible Use Contract Grades 7-8

MacBook Responsible Use Contract 7-8