Winter – Fall 2022

Technical Assistance for the Win Upgrade

Windows 10, Windows 7, Microsoft

Maria High School

The school’s predecessor, St. Casimir Academy, was established in the Marquette Park area of Chicago, Illinois, in 1911 by the Sisters of Saint Casimir. Due to increased demand, a bigger but adjacent school was built and opened in 1952 as Maria High School. Maria High School was a private, Roman Catholic, all-girls high school in Chicago, Illinois.

Maria High School wanted to create a video conferencing system in order to maintain and expand-upon communications with their brother school, and for any other schools in the area. With a very high budget, they were not only troubled with which system would be the best for the school, they also were not too sure on how to use all the new equipment with the highest of efficacy. That’s when they turned to us for consultation.

As AKA Comp Solutions have been managing CHICAT’s IT Infrastructure and helpdesk support, the task was carried out by the Support team to ensure all devices are upgraded and there is no data loss.

The project was executed by first identifying devices which needed the upgrade and which of them have the hardware configuration supported by Windows 10. Next step was to find the correct tool to upgrade to Windows 10; we had Lenovo’s upgrade tool which was created as per the device configuration and the other option was Microsoft’s Windows Update Assistant or the Media Creation Tool, which preserved all the files and upgraded unlike Lenovo’s tool which deleted all the data.

The first step was requirement gathering from the school so we had our technicians go on-site to the school and talk to faculty, staff and administration about the requirements for the system which they had in mind. Everything was documented and compiled and checked to see as to what are the most common expectations which everyone had at the school.

Once we had the client requirements in hand, we spoke to our vendor partners to get all the costing for the materials required and also how much we could save the school if we bought in bulk. We got the list of items confirmed from the school which needed to be ordered. The equipment was bought and shipped to the school and we had a team of onsite technicians who setup the equipment.

The technology equipment which was setup was Microsoft Office Suite to check for statement of purchases, Crestron video conferencing program, Clear One Audio equipment, Sony Video Conferencing Codec, JBL Speakers, Panasonic screens, Electrograph screens, equipment from Extron, Premier Mounting equipment, and AMX Touch Panels.

After the equipment was setup and all the bugs were resolved, we trained all of the staff in-charge of the video conferencing room. Also even after all of the set-up and instruction, we spent time responding to any, and all network issues that the school faced when using the equipment.     

With the completion of the project, Maria High School now has a start of the art video conferencing room which will enable it to better communicate with its brother school and other schools in the area. There are projector and cameras setup for the video conference calls and also there are well trained staff in the video conferencing room.