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Issue 24 - 2017 │T2 │W3

 

Link - access past issues in the archive

New DoE Technology website News item

The department's new Technology site is now live. In-line with the Intranet changes occurring across all areas of NSW DoE, we're changing the way we deliver technology information online – making things simpler, faster and easier to use. On Thursday, 13 April we launched our new technology site which provides ICT advice and support for schools and departmental staff. The two main changes are:

  • Technology for schools has been incorporated into the new department Technology section
  • Most of the intranet content related to ITD on Teamsite has been updated and moved to the new platform, Squiz Matrix

Take some time to familiarise yourself as the old technology content may not be in the places you’re used to. Please update any bookmarked/favourite links as well. If you have any questions or comments, please use the Feedback option at the bottom of any page of the website.

New DoE Technology website

More G Suite tools now available! News item

New learning tools and functions are now enabled in the department’s G Suite for Education for staff and students.

  • Google Keep - Record multi-media content, to do lists and set reminders. This flexible note taking web and mobile device app could be used to record evidence of learning on the go. This is Google’s alternative to OneNote. It looks deceptively simple but has powerful organisational functions.
  • FeedBurner - Connect your audience to your content with FeedBurner. Create custom RSS feeds and analyse traffic with this web publishing resource.
  • Fusion Tables - Gather, connect, share and visualise data sets. For more information, access Fusion Tables Help and the Fusion Tables Example Gallery.
  • Google Chrome Sync - Synchronise your Chrome browser experience when you sign into Chrome using your DoE account. Settings for bookmarks, history, passwords and other features are then synchronised across your devices.

Access the Learning tools selector for more information about learning technologies.

MS Sway updates News item

If you or your students haven't discovered Sway yet in Office 365, you're missing out on an easy-to-use tool to showcase student work on the web. Microsoft’s digital storytelling app had a major update during April with several new features added that were inspired from user feedback. The first addition is audio notes, which was the “the top request from educators” according to the Office team. You can also set media to auto-play when visitors open your Sway, or after a set delay. Audio recording is only supported with Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome for now. To add to its already recognised accessibility features, Sway also allows users to add closed caption files to video or audio notes. Finally, content creators can keep track of how many views their works have had which is a great motivator for sharing new work.

NSW Public School Finder News item

NSW DoE has published a very handy new school finder tool for parents and the community. Comprehensive details about each school are quickly accessible, searched for by school name. As well as the usual contact details, visitors are shown the school on a map, including school boundaries, nearby public schools and a useful school description. Alternatively, parents can search for a school by typing in their home address and the local school will automatically be displayed. If you find there are changes needed to your school’s entry, the school principal should email the required changes to: schoolfinder@detcorpcomms.zendesk.com

Image - NSW Public School Finder tool

NASA image and video library Link item

NASA has spent decades pushing the bounds of human innovation and exploration - and it has documented every second of it in great detail. Finding all those images and videos used to be difficult, but no more. NASA has announced a brand new searchable version of its public Image and Video Library. You and your students can visit it right now and get access to more than 140,000 NASA images, videos, and audio files to support lessons in science, and on the Solar System and astronomy.

NASA image library

Learning how to live online Link item

From next year, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) will test not only maths, science and reading skills, but "global competencies". Its education head, Andreas Schleicher, described this as "young people's attitudes to global issues and different cultures, analytical and critical skills and abilities to interact with others". The Australian Children's eSafety Commission is evaluating DQ World, a free, online, 15-hour curriculum to teach students digital citizenship. It is targeted at eight-to-12-year-olds, which is "the age children start using digital devices and social media". If your school is considering teaching digital citizenship, this resource is a great start.

DQ World digital citizenship curriculum

Protecting your data and privacy Link item

For more advanced options, Common Sense Education is the world's largest independent non-profit organisation committed to helping students, teachers, and families manage media and technology in life and learning. They offer high-quality digital literacy and citizenship programs to educators and school communities with a view to empower students to harness technology for learning and life. Free resources available at their site include a comprehensive K–12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum, ready-made lesson plans, videos, webinars, ratings and reviews of digital tools and more. The site is highly recommended and with the available resources, students can use the internet with confidence and build skills around critical thinking, ethical discussion and decision making.

ICT Thought of the day Fun item

A telephone makes sound travel faster than the speed of sound

CCWC community consultation Peer item

Callaghan College Wallsend Campus (CCWC) recently featured in a Filmpond video promoting community consultation. The 24/7 digital footprint that affects virtually all students, staff, parents and caregivers presents new opportunities for consultation that simply were not possible just a few years ago. Wallsend Campus has used this to develop a large following on social media within the school community and wider local community. It is used regularly for information dissemination, student achievement and data administration. The popular online services that CCWC utilises are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. But they also communicate through a Parent Portal, direct email and in recent months, have implemented the learning management system – Canvas. By using universally accessible tools and services, CCWC is positioning itself as a 24/7 community resource. Watch their video on Filmpond.

Click to watch this video on Filmpond

DoE Chromebook management News item

Chromebook Management Licences for the department's education.nsw.gov.au domain were provided with all Chromebooks delivered through the 2016-17 T4L Rollout. Since then, all school-purchased Chromebooks through the DoE Online Catalogue also included these licences, which are all added centrally to our Google domain. The Chromebooks themselves however, are not yet enrolled in our domain. ITD has been working with Google to develop an effective solution to allow all of these and future Chromebooks to be enrolled as part of the device configuration process. This will provide a better user experience for students and staff when signing in and accessing our G Suite service. Testing has completed within ITD and a proof of concept involving several schools will start shortly. Following that, it is expected that details will be provided to all schools to advise how to enrol their Chromebooks into our Google domain. Advice on progress will be included in upcoming newsletters.

Third Party Integration project News item

The Third Party Integration Project (3PI) is scheduled for its first release in July. A pilot including 17 schools will run in June to trial the exchanging of information between the department and third party systems used by schools. Once the trial period is complete, all schools will be offered the opportunity to connect. To find out more please visit the 3PI Project website. A brief video has been prepared to further explain what 3PI will deliver. If you have questions please email the project team at: ThirdPartyIntegration@det.nsw.edu.au

Click to play this video

Decommissioning MyFiles News item

The MyFiles service in the DoE staff portal was first made available in early 2005. Once configured, it allowed staff to access files stored on their school server from home via a rudimentary interface. They could access files either in their home folder or in team shares they were given access to. From home, users were required to browse folders for the file(s) they needed and download a copy to their home computer, which they could then edit and work on. They would then need to re-upload the edited file using MyFiles to the school server, or bring a copy of their edited file to school on a USB stick the following day. It was always viewed as a tool that was used for urgent access situations rather than as a productivity tool that was used regularly. After twelve years, compatibility with newer operating systems has been a challenge and the product vendor has advised they will stop support for the tool later this year. As a result, planning is underway to decommission MyFiles from the staff portal in the near future. Further advice will be provided in our next issue on more effective and reliable access options to school-based files from home.

Revamp your school's newsletter Peer item

Almost all schools publish their school newsletter as a PDF file on their school website. Creating the original in Word or Publisher, has been an effective way to create a document that's designed and intended for printing. But how many parents would actually print your newsletter rather than just reading it online? If the most common way your news is read is on a screen, then PDF is probably not the best format, especially when screens now come in all sizes from handheld smartphones to large TVs. There are also significant issues with PDF files and accessibility. Why not consider a more visual format that's designed for all screen sizes? You could spend a lot of time learning how to publish to the web using a high-end professional tool like Adobe Dreamweaver that we use for our newsletters. Or maybe just do what other schools are starting to do with tools like MS Sway or Adobe Spark. Here are two examples of what's easily possible for free:

REMINDER: Old school PAC files Information item

Now that the rollout of SPA is complete, plans are in place to delete the old PAC files during term 2. Is your school still advising students and staff to use the old PAC file when setting up their browser or network connection?

  • The old PAC file looks a bit like this:
    http://pac.schools.nsw.edu.au/schools/schoolname-p.pac
  • The new common PAC file is:
    http://pac.det.nsw.edu.au/fib/proxy.pac

In eT4L schools, the easiest way to get the new PAC file is to set your BYOD or unmanaged device to Automatically receive proxy settings and to remove the old PAC file setting or manual proxy setting entered. Further advice will be provided prior to deletion.

Image: Don't use the old PAC file

Seesaw app on older iPads fix News item

An article was included in our previous issue about the Seesaw app failing to upload content when used on older iPads running iOS 9.3.5. ITD worked with the Seesaw developers to assist in finding a resolution to this issue. Following testing by multiple schools on 23 March, it was confirmed that uploading from their latest app now works with both older and newer iPads.

Newsletter archive by category Information item

The T4L Newsletter Archive has had a couple of updates to allow readers to find past articles quickly.

  1. At the top of the archive there is a Sort by Category button. Use it to find all articles posted by specific categories such as eT4L, T4L rollout and procuring hardware, G Suite, Wireless, networking and internet,and many more. This will help you find all articles posted on a specific subject easily. Then jump back to the sorted by date archive quickly as well.
  2. In the newsletter archive, when accessed via a PC or Mac, you can hover your mouse pointer over article titles to see a pop-up of the actual articles before opening the entire newsletter. This function goes back as far as issue 15 of news.T4L and will progressively be added to all earlier issues as well.

We hope you like these handy new features.

More news.T4L in Week 6

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