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Issue 28 - 2017 │T3 │W6

 

Link - access past issues in the archive

SharePoint Online goes live! News item

Microsoft’s SharePoint Online collaboration and productivity tool is now available by request, for use by schools and corporate offices. The Office 365 OneDrive cloud service provided to all students and staff is designed for personal/ individual use only. SharePoint Online on the other hand, enables collaboration at an entity or team level. It enables organisations to:

  • securely store, share and access information and documents online
  • access their content anywhere from any device using a browser or a range of mobile apps
  • replace functions previously offered by tools such as eBackback and MyFiles

At this stage, the department intends to only offer SharePoint Online to schools for STAFF use. It should not to be used to store sensitive or classified information, so avoid uploading any documents that relate to an individual’s personal information or corporate sensitive data. More details at the link above.

What is Sharepoint Online? - click for larger view

2017/18 T4L Roll out is coming News item

All schools can expect to receive their T4L Roll out notification email via the Principal’s email account later this term.  Please take note that at this stage, we are planning for a two-week window for placing orders. The notification email will include:

  • the school's allocation of T4L units
  • links to the equipment available in this year's roll out
  • details on how to place orders
  • contact details for your school's local T4L representative

Start planning now! Consider your school’s device requirements, and the ways you might enhance your students' access to the school's technology resources.

Lynda.com: Teaching online Link item

Have you started learning with Lynda.com yet? Since we announced the launch of this fantastic resource for all DoE staff in our previous newsletter, there has been a significant take-up and course completions continue to grow. But some teachers are finding it difficult to know where to start. To help, we'll aim to highlight one Lynda course in each of our future issues to keep interest up with this excellent learning platform. Just sign into your DoE portal then click on Lynda.com in the My Training tab before clicking the links below.

Learn with Lynda.com

Here's one way you can plan to use technology in your learning and teaching. Watch the quick video - Incorporating technology: SAMR Model. This video discusses a popular model for thinking about the use of educational technology, developed by Dr Ruben Puentedura. The video is part of an overall Lynda.com course called Learning to Teach Online, developed by Oliver Schinkten. The course “draws connections between high-quality instruction and online education”. It highlights the benefits of the many tools we all have freely available to us as NSW public schools educators, such as Office 365 and G Suite for Education. Have you completed a useful Lynda.com course? Why not share your experience with our online learning group?

FUTURE.tech: Makey-Makey Link item

A Makey-Makey is a USB keyboard attachment, where the keys are replaced by a mini circuit board. The name literally means Make + Key = Makey-Makey. The circuit needs to be closed to mimic a key press. Generic objects such as playdough, fruit and even water can be connected to the Makey-Makey to complete the circuit, the only criteria is they need to be conductive (an awesome learning experience or teaching point in Science). In addition to usual keyboard functions, a Makey-Makey can be combined with other programming or game-based learning tools such as Scratch or Kodu to add a physical and interactive element. The T4L team have produced a new FUTURE.tech fact sheet on Makey-Makey. Also, be sure you check out all of the published issues of tech and stories at the T4Lengage site.

Image: Makey-Makey idea

How students can get Adobe CC Peer item

All students in NSW public schools are entitled to a free annual subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud suite - as advised in this newsletter previously. This is a great inclusion in the department's enterprise agreement with Adobe. But getting Creative Cloud for a personal Windows or Mac device is the responsibility of each individual student. Before leaving Sydney Secondary College, Leichhardt Campus, Pip Cleaves produced and shared a great Adobe Spark webpage that provides instructions that students can follow to redeem their free subscription and get the software onto their device. Please be aware though that if a large number of students follow this guide while at school, they will be downloading a multi-gigabyte suite and will likely put a strain on the school's internet link. Schools should manage how they share this advice with their students to avoid network congestion.

Adobe Creative Cloud for student BYODs

Free Apple Learning Academy PL Link item

Apple invites NSW Public School teachers to the Apple Learning Academy to be held in Ryde in early October. For schools that have invested in Apple technologies, this immersive, two-day experience is designed to help you transform the learning experience for your students. You'll be collaborating with peers in the Apple Teacher community. Throughout the two days, you’ll explore coding, inclusive education, creative arts and Challenge-Based Learning. You’ll also receive hands-on coaching from specialists on using Apple’s core apps like Keynote and iMovie as well as mentoring from an Apple Distinguished Educator. A pre-requisite to attendance is that all participants must complete the Apple Teacher program for either iPad or Mac. It is free to join and complete the program. Register early to avoid missing out on the Apple Learning Academy event.

ICT Thought of the day Fun item

40 years ago, passwords were only used by children and international spies

STEM at Caringbah Public School Peer item

Caringbah Public School have put together a great video to show everyone how they use technology in learning, to explore their world and prepare their students for an exciting future. "We love using technology here at Caringbah and look forward to developing our skills, attitudes and values further as we continue to integrate technology in all we do", says Principal, Susan Oliveri. "The more we learn to explore the world around us, the better we can contribute as global citizens. We are the future citizens of the world and the journey to informed intuitive citizenships starts here". Watch their exciting journey by clicking the play button.

Click to watch Caringbah Public School's video

Does your school offer BYOD? Feedback item


Please help us get a better understanding of ICT at your school with this quick BYOD survey. It takes less than a minute.

ChromeOS v60 coming soon News item

One of the big advantages of enrolling school-owned Chromebooks into the DoE Google domain is a better way of managing updates to ChromeOS. Normally, Chromebooks will automatically detect an update is available and install it without giving the user any choice. With large numbers of Chromebooks in a school, this can place an enormous strain on the internet link. Also, ChromeOS updates may not always function as expected on different models of Chromebooks, causing problems. With DoE-enrolled Chromebooks, all ChromeOS updates are withheld from devices while testing occurs against all of our contracted Chromebook models. Once testing is complete, we release the OS update to all enrolled Chromebooks. However, to avoid internet link congestion, we also stagger the deployment of updates over a ten day period. Soon we'll be completing a first test of this with the release of ChromeOS v60. No action is required on the part of the user or school. Just another reason to enrol your Chromebooks!

Too many iPad proxy pop-ups? Tip item

Some schools are still reporting that their students and on occasion staff, are seeing constantly recurring proxy pop-up requests on their iPads or iPhones. It can be extremely frustrating and time consuming and finding a solution can be difficult. ITD has investigated the situation and determined there are many possible causes for this issue. The fact that it doesn't seem to affect every iPad indicates that it is not a DoE network issue. To assist schools that have not yet found a solution, this Yammer group has been created with advice for schools to follow.

What? Not again!

School Servers (RDS) update Information item

On Tuesday 8 August a fix was applied to the RDS service via the DoE Portal that partially resolves the Java RE issue previously reported in news.T4L. The fix only applies to users accessing the school's RDS server via the staff portal when using Internet Explorer 11 as their browser. If the server detects IE11, it will automatically revert to using an ActiveX/JS plug-in rather than Java RE. This means that it doesn't matter if the Windows PC has the newest version of Java RE or not. For Apple Mac users, Java RE v8 Build 121 or earlier is required to make successful remote connection as described in the fact sheet.

Separating DoE and TAFE email News item

At the NSW Department of Education, work is underway to migrate TAFE NSW to its own technology environment. The next step is to separate the email identities, which takes place on Tuesday 5 September 2017. Currently, all DoE and TAFE NSW staff are assigned three email aliases. Anybody who contacts you via your @det.nsw.edu.au address can also use @tafe.nsw.edu.au or @tafensw.edu.au. After Tuesday 5 September, TAFE NSW will exclusively use the two TAFE domains and no longer share these with NSW DoE staff. If you have been using either of these TAFE email addresses for any purpose in the past, you will stop receiving emails that is addressed to them. In these cases, you should update your email address to your @det address. The final step in this activity occurs later this year when TAFE staff will be removed from the NSW DoE Global Address List.

So, you've found a USB stick? Tip item

Research by American universities has found a 75 percent likelihood that people will simply plug in a lost USB stick they happened to find somewhere along their way. Maybe they consider a "found USB stick" as a chance to do a good deed, by returning it to its owner - assuming the owner could be identified by looking at the contents. Or maybe people are just naturally curious and want to see what’s on the removable storage device. Whatever the reason for picking it up and plugging it in, that “lost” USB stick may be bait waiting for someone unsuspecting. More and more, people are using "lost" USB sticks as a lure to install and run malware. In a school or corporate office where staff have elevated access privileges, it's far safer to hand the stick in to an ICT tech person who can test it in a sandboxed environment where it's unlikely to cause problems.

A "lost" USB stick

More news.T4L in Week 9

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

 

NSW DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE