Technology News and Focus
If you'd like to speak to a Technology Staff Member between the hours of 8:00-4:00 Mon-Fri, please call (662) 449-7121.
Links to Office 365, Schoology, and most commonly accessed websites can be found in the blue sidebar to the left.
Check out My Apps
Student usernames follow the format 'js234567@dcsms.org' - 2 letters and 6 numbers. The 2 letters are the initials of their first and last names and the 6 numbers are the last six digits of their lunch number for a total of 8 characters.
Example: If Amy King's lunch number is 1234567, her computer / Email / Schoology username is ak234567@dcsms.org.
Student passwords are the school mascot plus their 6-digit birthdate in the format MMDDYY.
Example: Tigers030406
In most cases you should use the entire email address (with @dcsms.org) as the username.
Students should log in to Office 365 / Email at DCS Email first to ensure they are properly identified by all systems. This authentication determines access for One Drive documents in Schoology, Youtube access, and much more whether you are on a personal or school-owned device.
Do not go to www.schoology.com to get to your Schoology classes.
Go to https://desotoms.schoology.com, access DeSoto County Schools Schoology here, or click the Schoology link in the sidebar.
More information:Adobe Reader DC is installed on all district-owned PCs and is available as a free download for personal computers. You do not need to and cannot install this on a district-owned device.
Adobe Reader DC has Fill & Sign tools which will let you add text and symbols on top of the pdf and then save the work.
There are free Adobe Fill & Sign apps for iOS and Android. For ChromeOS on Chromebooks, try one of these Chrome Apps
Installing Adobe Reader
on your personal pc
You now have a unified username and password for access to the majority of sites and services through Single Sign-On.
Your DCS Office365 username and password is now synchronized with your computer logon. From school computers to email and Schoology to SchoolInSites, students and teachers now use your email address and password to log in to most of the things you need.
TO 
Adobe Flash player is going away...for good
Technology and the Internet are moving forward.
Adobe first announced the End of Life for Adobe Flash Player in July of 2017. After December 2020 Flash-based content will be blocked from running in Adobe Flash Player in all web browsers, according to Adobe. All downloads for Flash Player will be removed from the Adobe site and no further updates or security patches will be published. Adobe recommends all users uninstall the Flash Player plugin from their machines before the December 2020 End of Life date.
At this time, more than 95% of sites on the web have transitioned away from Flash content completely. However, many educational sites are far behind the times and the use of Adobe Flash content is still not uncommon in this realm. Nonetheless, all Flash content will be unavailable after the end of the year. This is not something we can control. The industry has been working towards this change for several years and all of the major technology companies have come together to enforce the end of Flash usage.
Microsoft, Apple, Mozilla, Facebook, and Google have all joined in to enforce the end of Flash usage by disabling Flash content by default in their respective platforms. They have already taken steps to progressively make it more difficult to use the Flash Player plugin for the past several years. As of December 2020, the Flash Player plugin will simply no longer be available.
Adobe's advice has consistently been: there is no plan B. This why there has been the unique and unprecedented lead time of well over 3 years before shut down. Creators / maintainers of these websites have had a minimum of three years to update their content. They either will or they will not.
You are advised to find alternatives as soon as possible to any web resources you make use of which require the use of the Flash Player.
More information
Safari, Internet Explorer, and Edge are not suitable for accessing Office365 (including Teams).
Chrome and Firefox should both work fine. Chrome is recommended. The new Chromium Edge browser will work similarly to Chrome.
All DeSoto County Schools Middle and High School Students and DCS Employees have access to up to 5 free installations of Microsoft Office for their personal devices.
When you have logged in to your DCS Office365 account in your web browser, go to your Office365 Home Page
In the upper, right-hand corner, click "Install Office," then select "Office 365 apps" from the drop-down.
This should immediately begin the download.
You do not need a license key. Once you run any of the Office apps, click "Sign In" in the upper, right-hand corner of the application and sign in with your DCS Office365 account.
There are also free apps for mobile devices.
