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Issue 19 - 2016 │T4 │W6

 

Link - access past issues in the archive

When to jump to Windows 10? News item

As announced in Technology News for Schools, Windows 10 was made available to all eT4L schools from 14 November. But deciding which computers to upgrade and when to upgrade them are questions that each school will need to answer for themselves. These factors should be considered:

  • Is each staff member ready to move to Windows 10?
  • How old is their PC and how much RAM does it have?
  • Avoid updating computers currently used for LMBR
  • What other software is needed? Does it work with Win 10?
  • Smaller schools may experience bandwidth impacts as more Win 10 PCs are added to the network

To help with answering these questions, eT4L's Fleet Management Reports and UDM will help to identify and locate suitable hardware at your school. Initially, anything more than three years old or with only 2GB RAM should be avoided. Consider upgrading your newest computers first and thoroughly testing them before moving onto older models. Also note that the Windows 10 build includes Office 2016 which may represent a change for users. Further advice on deploying Windows 10 is at our Technology for schools website.

Switching to Windows 10 image

Win 10 & Software Catalogue Information item

With the launch of Windows 10 comes important considerations about the compatibility of packages in Software Catalogue. As part of our preparation for the release of the new operating system, deployment testing of each of the packages in Software Catalogue was completed. As expected, some of the older packages were found to not be compatible with Windows 10. It's important to check this list of known incompatible titles to see if any of the programs your school uses are included. If you find that there are critical applications that your school needs that are not compatible with Windows 10, it's best to leave those computers on Windows 7 for the time being. If you decide to update a PC to Windows 10 while it has any incompatible software titles, you should first disassociate those titles from the PC in UDM before rebuilding.

How to setup and F12 HP PCs Information item

With the 2016 T4L rollout now finalised for most schools, ICT coordinators are noticing some differences with the bootup process. The F12 text screen they would be familiar with is not appearing before Windows starts. This is due to a new "Fast Boot" setting applied on the PCs. It removes the usual delay before Windows starts that prompts the user to press F12 to rebuild, so it starts Windows faster for everyday use. As a result, some schools have had problems with starting the build process for eT4L. Firstly, it's important to ensure you have correctly connected each component - especially monitors and working network links. This new fact sheet will help you with both the hardware setup and the new F12 process.

Email mailbox management Information item

Every staff member in the NSW Department of Education is allocated a mailbox as part of our Microsoft Exchange email service. Each mailbox has a minimum storage quota of 1GB which is sufficient for the majority of staff. Some staff, such as school principals and executives are both recipients and generators of high-volume important emails and have a requirement to keep the messages for longer periods than other staff. As a result, some staff may often receive notification emails stating that their mailbox is almost full. Information Technology Directorate has published new and useful advice for Staff mailbox management which will now be included with all full mailbox notification emails.

Recovering deleted emails Tip item

Did you know that it is actually possible to recover an email message even though you may have deleted it AND emptied the deleted items (trash) folder? As long as no more than 60 days has passed since you emptied Deleted Items, you can still get your deleted emails back, using either Outlook WebMail, or the full Outlook desktop application. In webmail, shown below-left, right-click on Deleted Items and choose Recover deleted items... If you have access to the full Outlook, shown below-right, click on Deleted Items and in the ribbon menu at the top, choose Recover Deleted Items from Server. A window will pop-up showing you all of the emails that are able to be recovered, sorted by the date they were removed from the Deleted Items folder. Select the desired email and click Recover. It will then reappear in your Deleted Items folder and you can move it from there as required.

Image showing how to recover deleted email in Webmail and Outlook

SPA for primary schools update News item

The pilot for Secure Proxy Authentication at eight primary schools was completed successfully in week 3 and analysed. We are now commencing cutovers at all remaining schools in NSW. Cutovers are scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, commencing week 7 and concluding this term in week 9, before resuming in week 4 of term 1. All schools, grouped by principal network will be cutover on scheduled dates with at least two weeks' notice provided to all schools. We aim to publish the full SPA cutover schedule with our week 9 issue of this newsletter.

Learning Environments survey Link item

Futures Learning and University of Melbourne invite you to complete a short online survey (5-7 minutes) about the types of learning environments in your school and how they are used. Your contribution is vital to help deliver a greater understanding of how learning spaces in schools affect outcomes for students and inform policy, pedagogical and practical implications on school design and teacher professional development. Participation in this initial brief survey will ensure that your school remains a potential site for further explorations on how teachers can best utilise their learning environments.The survey is open now and closes on 9 December 2016. To ensure that only one survey response is provided from each school, please discuss this survey with your Principal and other staff first.

Kids online research Link item

The Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner has published new research on Digital participation. They undertook a national survey of kids, teens and parents who use the internet. Parents were asked about their approach to online safety, and what information they need to support their children to be safe online. Kids aged 8 to 13 and teens aged 14 to 17 were asked detailed questions about their internet use and online practices, including how they manage their negative experiences online.

Image: Kids online research banner

The total sample comprised 1,367 kids, 912 teens and 2,360 parents. The site also provides access to videos and reports about the research as well as a useful snapshot infographic.

ICT thought of the day Fun item

Animated image of cats playingAt one time, lasers were the biggest scientific discovery. Now we use them to play with cats.

The impact of iPad app updates Information item

Many schools with larger school-owned iPad fleets or that offer a BYOD iPad program have discovered the significant impact that app and iOS updates have on the school's internet bandwidth. Let's say 100 students are bringing iPads to school. Each student or their parent has installed pages of apps on the iPads - games, important photo face-swapping apps and everything else that young people must have these days. Maybe there's 50-100 apps on each iPad. Of course, iPad apps are updated regularly and that really important face-swapping app has been updated and by default, every iPad has Automatic App Updates turned on. So automatically, in the background, even while the iPad is sitting in their bags, that app is being updated. It's a 50MB download. But there's 100 students with it, so that's 5GB that has to come through your school's link. And that's just ONE app to update.

What about OSX app updates? Information item

Like iPad app updates, Apple OSX app updates are also not blocked during school hours. In 2015 when the department's internet service was being impacted heavily by device updates, Apple Macs represented a small proportion only. But BYOD is being introduced more and more, and Macbooks are appearing in greater numbers. We are finding some schools are significantly being impacted by the automatic OSX app updates on these laptops and on unmanaged school iMacs. In the first week of November, the top 5 sites in western Sydney alone saw 137GB of their bandwidth consumed by OSX app updates. So how does a school better manage this invisible bandwidth tax that affects all internet users?

An Apple caching sever in your school can greatly reduce the traffic on your internet link.

Install an Apple Caching server News item

An Apple Caching Server (ACS) is a Mac computer that sits inside your school and delivers updates directly to Apple devices in the school without using your internet link for every single update. As soon as one user has requested an update of a specific app or the operating system, the Apple device will identify that a local ACS is present and check for the availability of the required update. If it has never been requested at the school, the update will be retrieved from Apple, with a local copy then stored on the ACS. Any subsequent device that requests the same update will get that update from the ACS automatically, saving the need to go back to Apple for it. So how much bandwidth will it save? The chart below is from a mid-sized primary school that recently installed an ACS (click for larger view). To setup an ACS in an eT4L school, you'll need to get an Apple Mac Mini and macOS Server and follow this guide.

Apple Caching Server performance chart - click for larger image

Apple OSX Sierra for eT4L News item

At the start of this year, we provided a new user guide for eT4L schools to follow to build Apple Mac desktops and laptops with OSX El Capitan (10.11). With the delivery of the newest models of iMac and MacBook via the T4L rollout, all eT4L Servers have now been updated to remove the OSX Yosemite build and add the new OSX Sierra and Apple Caching Server builds. OSX Sierra is required for all new Macs. Follow the guide above to deploy OSX Sierra to your Macs.

Google Chrome advice Information item

While Google Chrome is a popular choice for internet browsing, it's important to understand that it may not be suitable for all internet browsing purposes. Since September 2015 and the release of Chrome v45, support for official third-party plugins has been removed. Any websites or corporate applications that embed interactive PDF files for example, will not work any more with Chrome as it refuses to launch the official Adobe Acrobat plugin. For this reason, when using the department's SAP applications, it's important to be using Internet Explorer and not Google Chrome.

Support for learning technologies News item

Google Apps for Education and Microsoft Office 365 enhance the capability of teachers to enable online collaboration. In 2015-2016 Learning Systems supported online collaboration as part of the Rural and remote blueprint. Support included the delivery of professional learning workshops, development of online learning resources and publication of the Learning tools support website*. The project increased collaborative practice between NSW students, teachers, school leaders and corporate staff. Extending this work, Learning Systems established a network of Online collaboration mentors* (OCMs). OCMs are teachers in schools with expertise in online collaboration pedagogies. They are available to provide advice and professional learning for schools and principal networks. Each OCM has a strong pedagogical background and experience in using technology to increase student outcomes. Contact your closest OCM - try zooming around the map below and clicking the markers for details - or email Eric Land (eric.land@det.nsw.edu.au) at Learning Systems to arrange professional learning in your area.
(* DoE Intranet links)

Helping students get Adobe CC Peer item

Pip Cleaves from Sydney Secondary College - Leichhardt Campus has shared a useful resource she put together for her students to help them access the free Adobe Creative Cloud software they can now get for their BYOD / home computers. Just share the above link with your students and they'll be able to find out all about Creative Cloud and how to get it. Pip produced the resource using the free Adobe Spark tool.

Adobe Creative Cloud is free for NSW public school students

"No More Ransom" - anti-malware Tip item

Back in issue 16 of news.T4L we posted a Ransomware warning and provided a link to help staff find out more about this growing problem for internet users. The good news is that people are fighting back. This useful website has resources to help users who are tricked by the links and phishing emails of cyber criminals and manage to get all their files encrypted. Tools available at the No More Ransom site may assist cyber victims to decrypt their files on personal devices. Paying the demanded ransom is never recommended, so it's always best to teach staff and students to recognise and avoid phishing scams in the first place, as well as to have regular and reliable backups of their important files. Remember though, if ransomware has attacked a DoE device, please contact EDConnect for advice and support.

More news.T4L in Week 9

Information Technology Directorate publishes news.T4L three times every term. Remember to share each issue with your staff!

 

NSW DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE