Managing Grades and Attendance via the WAN

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Managing Grades and Attendance via the WAN

• Jim Powers
• Student Database Manager
• Rita Turner
• Instructional Technology Specialist

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Data, Data, Where are you?

• Administrative System for long-term storage
• Transcripts
• Attendance History
• Finance
• HR
• How do we get the data there?
• Hand-Key
• Time Intensive, Requires Extra Staff

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Data, Data, Where are you?

• How do we get the data there?
• Scan Sheets
• Rely on teachers to calculate final grades
• Time intensive
• Difficult to fill in
• Equipment failures
• Mistakes
• Overall a BAD idea!

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Data, Data, There you are!

• Pinnacle
• The ONLY fully automated client-server grade and
  attendance reporting system on the market today!
• Can eliminate ALL teacher paperwork if desired
  and implemented correctly
• No printed rosters
• No bubble sheets
• No attendance slips

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Data, Data, There you are!

• Pinnacle
• Reduces errors
• No paperwork to lose
• Performs calculations automatically based on
  district standards of grading
• Electronically sends grades and attendance to a
  centralized database for reporting
• Attendance updates are electronically sent back
  to the teacher

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What is Pinnacle?
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How does Pinnacle Work?
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Traditional System Requirements

• WAN Connection to Administrative System
• Pinnacle Data Server for each campus
• Dual-Processor Pentium II or better
• 256 MB Ram
• RAID 5
• pcAnywhere Host
• Diskeeper
• 5,000 depending upon configuration and licensing

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Windows 2000 Terminal Services

• What is it?
• Allows use of legacy equipment
• Allows remote administration
• Allows for roaming users

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Benefits/Drawbacks

• Allows multiple campuses to run on a single
  server
• Centrally located making management easier
• Higher level of security
• Single point of failure
• If WAN fails, clients cannot access data servers

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Requirements

• LAN - 100MB or better
• WAN - T1 or better
• Windows 2000 Server - Terminal Services is built
  in

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Cost

• 7,756 per server for hardware
• Total of 9 servers required for PISD

• 3,490.50 for 9 NT Server Licenses and 75 CALS
• pcANYWHERE is not required
• Diskeeper is built into Windows 2000
• Total cost is 73,294.50 or 1,308.83 per campus

• 1 Domain Controller
• 1 Senior High Server (3 campuses)
• 3 Secondary Servers (18 campuses)
• 4 Elementary Servers (37 campuses)

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Summary

• Easier to Manage
• Locate server(s) at one central location
• Decreases personnel requirements
• Less hardware to keep running
• Cost difference per campus
• Hardware
• Software Licenses

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Questions?

• Jim Powers
• 972-519-8182
• jpowers_at_pisd.edu
• Rita Turner
• 972-519-8093
• rturner_at_pisd.edu