Conferences+&+Workspaces

First Class brings community based applications to your desktop. Conferences allow CPS employees and students to convey messages back and forth in a moderated environment. This is a great tool for sending and receiving information. Workspaces are a collection of different First Class tools placed in one area so that those assigned to use them can. The MMA Workspace that appears on your computer contains an MMA school calendar, MMA employee conferences, a collection of important bookmarks and an important documents folder full of useful manuals, forms, tutorials and documents.

Conferences
Your First Class desktop will have different conferences on it depending on what your position within CPS is. All CPS employees have access to the //District Wide Employee// conference area. You may also have icons for //District Wide Employee// //Alerts// and //HS Student Alerts.// These are not interactive conferences but instead work like a one way conference. Messages are posted to the Alerts areas by CPS but cannot be responded to. Opening the //District Wide Employee Area Conference// area presents you with a few more icons and a conference area. From left to right: the //District Area// icon contains board and district calendars; the //Central Office Departments// and //School Positions// icons contain conferences more specific to a position such as Assistant Principal and Counselor. You only have access to conferences that pertain to your position (i.e. Teachers cannot access Principal conferences); Impact is a link to the CPS Impact website; and the Student PW Change icon is for looking up Student id’s and passwords for computers and First Class access; CPS @ Work links you to the Peoplesoft HR webpage; and Tips and Tricks provides you with links to more First Class training.

Other conferences may appear on your desktop depending on your position within CPS. For example, there is a //TechCo Area// for Technology Coordinators. Future conferences may revolve around HST teachers.

Conferences can be created at the district and local levels. If you would like to start a conference for a particular club or group at the school, please see the technology coordinator. He has access to a program within First Class called //TechCo Toolkit// where he can create conferences and add students and teachers to the list. Each MMA employee and student has access to the //MarineMilitaryHS Area//. Conference's like this one were set up by TechXL and the First Class Team for each school. It is nice to have but unfortunately, as of the writing of this Wiki, TechXL has not given control of the conference to the school. So although we can access it we cannot monitor it and remove objectionable posts, especially in the student area. If you are cruising through this conference and see something posted that is not acceptable, please contact the Technology Coordinator so that he can have it removed, and then follow the proper channels to discipline the student.

Workspaces
The //MMA Workspace// icon looks like this:

Inside are many useful icons full of information for all MMA staff and faculty. Inside the workspace are four more conferences and a place at the bottom where you can post messages to the rest of the staff.  Here is an explanation of each of the internal conferences:
 * Teachers Work Area
 * MMA Computer Lab Scheduler
 * MMA Technology Ticket System
 * MMA Important Documents