IUSD’s Information Technology team has been hard at work over the summer making a number of changes to the district’s email system. Some of the more technical stuff made our eyes glaze over, but we’re told the improvements will save money, increase email storage capacity for employees and make usernames and email addresses more intuitive. Here’s the biggest takeaway: All employee email addresses have been changed to the more common format of FirstnameLastname@IUSD.org. So, for example, if your name is Luke Skywalker and you happen to be a district employee, your new email address is LukeSkywalker@IUSD.org. Before the change it would have been lskywalk@iusd.org because, well, the system could only accommodate so many letters when it was established. Chief Technology Officer Brianne Meyer says that posed some challenges over the years, most notably when employees had the same last name and first initial. (Just imagine the chaos if the district hired another guy named Lenny Skywalker to teach math or something.) The changes that took effect last week were designed to simplify things a bit. Luke’s email address, at LukeSkywalker@IUSD.org, would be much easier to remember -- and less likely to be confused with LennySkywalker@IUSD.org. Neither of these would be case-sensitive by the way, and we’re guessing that Yoda’s online handle would remain the same because he doesn't seem to have a last name. But we digress. Anyway, for those of you trying to reach a real staff member, don’t worry if you accidentally send a message using his or her previous email address. Someone up in IT with Jedi-like prescience foresaw that possibility and made it so the old addresses will continue to work without interruption.