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Issue 41 - 2018 │T3 │W9

 

Link - access past issues in the archive

STEMShare kits are on their way! News item

It has been a busy few months for the STEMShare Community project and we have some exciting news! All STEMShare kits for term 4 are booked out! Kits are now rolling out to schools that booked them and workshops will be held all across NSW to support these schools in effectively using their kit. In addition, the schools in the STEMShare Phase 2 pilot have reached completion. We look forward to bringing more exciting news and motivational stories from many of the schools participating in the first ever general rollout of STEMShare Community!

STEMShare Community's Iain McKernan preparing to ship kits out to schools across NSWSTEMShare's Iain McKernan ships kits to schools across NSW!

T4L Rollout update News item

The ordering window for this year's rollout has now closed. Thanks to all schools that promptly lodged their requests using the online ordering portal. We have processed the orders and we're now working with vendors to deliver many of the notebooks and Chromebooks before the end of Term 3. All remaining deliveries should be completed by Week 6 of Term 4. When taking delivery of your order, we would appreciate your assistance to:

  • Sign the consignment or delivery note (POD) and legibly print the receiver’s name to help us with any tracking issues
  • Count the boxes and sign only for goods that have actually been received
  • Take note of boxes or items that are damaged on delivery.

Take a look at the proportion of devices ordered by schools in this year's T4L Rollout. Click for a larger view.

Lenovo Chromebook 500e News item

Schools in NSW are now able to purchase the new Lenovo Chromebook 500e with convertible touch screen with stylus support. Aimed at K-12 classrooms, the 500e is designed to resist shock, vibration, extreme temperatures and other rough treatment, just like its Windows counterparts, the ThinkPads. The 11.6-inch screen can fold into presentation-friendly stand mode and A-frame tent mode, as well as laptop and tablet configurations. A passive stylus is supplied with the Chromebook, which can be inserted into a handy niche in the case. USB-C and USB 3.0 ports, together with a microSD slot offer varied connectivity. While 4GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage and twin webcams make this a practical and affordable model for school use, ready for enrolment in the DoE Google domain. Order via the DoE online Catalogue.

The Lenovo Chromebook 500e is now available for discretionary purchase

ChromeOS v66 for Chromebooks News item

Since ITD launched its Chromebook Enrolment facility in term 3 last year, almost 20,000 school Chromebooks have been enrolled into the DoE Google domain! Following a successful pilot to test and confirm compatibility in our environment, we are now scheduling the release of Chrome OS v66. Along with important security updates, this version allows recording of video using the webcam, enhancements when connected to an external display and a screen zoom up to 20x. v66 will start rolling out to enrolled Chromebooks on Tuesday 18 September.  Each Chromebook will automatically download the update from Google and then install it. This occurs in the background with no impact on the use of the Chromebook. A restart will be required to complete the installation.

New in Google Classroom Info item

Google have been updating Classroom to give teachers more control over how they organise everything from assignments and announcements to class rosters. They have delivered new and improved pages that give teachers distinct spaces for distinct workflows. As teachers and students add more posts to their Classroom stream, they struggled to find content and spent too much time scrolling. Learning time is precious, so Google added the new Classwork page which lets teachers better organise assignments and questions, by grouping them into modules and units. This makes it easier for teachers to plan their curriculum for the semester or unit and easier for students to find assignments. The People, Stream and Settings pages have also been redesigned. Have a fresh look at Google Classroom and see how the new features work for you and your students.

New features in Google Classroom - click to enlarge

The first T4L Sandpit PL item

We held our first ever T4L Sandpit event at ITD headquarters in Eveleigh on Friday 7 September. There were no presentations, no formalities, just a chance to mingle and ask questions with the T4L, STEMShare, Procurement teams and our ICT Vendors including Adobe, Google, HP and Microsoft. Our ICT Innovations and Utilisation centre on level 8 was the venue, with over 80 school staff coming through the wide variety of stands, which included a look into the future with Drones in Education being explored and experimented with for the first time! More details on safe and educational uses of drones coming from the T4L team soon. It was a great event for people to come and see, touch and ask! Some even attended remotely, steering our Double Telepresence robots around the venue. We'll be sure to run more T4L Sandpits in the future, so keep an eye out and get yourself to the next event!

The inaugural T4L Sandpit event

STEMShare at Bournda EEC Peer item

Bournda Environmental Education Centre is located in Bournda National Park, on the far south coast of NSW. It's an ideal setting for the delivery of environmental education programs and the EEC helps schools to plan and conduct field trips for K-12, which are designed to specifically target KLA outcomes. Participating in the STEMShare Community pilot, the centre has been using the VR Primary kit to create images of their own environment which can be viewed with VR goggles. They've added this great story on the Bournda EEC website about their great new activity! NOTE: The VR image below requires Chrome browser.

ICT Thought of the day Fun item

 

ICT Thought - Right now, your hands are slowly 3D printing your fingernails

Minecraft EE for iPad! News item

Judging by the take-up of Minecraft Education Edition in our schools, students are loving it. Initially available only on Windows 10 and MacOS, Microsoft recently announced the release of its app for iPad, now available for installation from the App Store! So now you can take your Minecraft EE licence and logon using the app on your iPads, both at school and at home. If you haven't tried it yet, Education Edition is Microsoft's open-world game promoting creativity, collaboration and problem-solving. It offers pre-prepared lessons in maths, science, history, language and visual arts and is a great starting point for gamifying learning in your school. Over 400 lesson plans are now available at the MEE website - sign up for email updates while you are there.

Minecraft Education Edition now available for iPad!

What is connect.T4L? News item

In recent newsletters, we've let you know about a new program that's been running in ITD called connect.T4L - but so far, we've only been focusing on one aspect: replacing satellite connections at remote schools. connect.T4L is far more than that. It's the NSW Department of Education's new strategy to boost online capacities for every school, making access to innovative and expanding cloud-based learning tools and resources, engaging and responsive. It will also deliver effective network management tools for schools and the department and higher levels of user support for resolving network issues. To help explain what connect.T4L is all about, we've produced this new fact sheet that includes some details about the pilot soon to commence in some of our largest schools, to greatly increase internet capacity and reduce WAN traffic for all other schools.

Click to read our new connect.T4L fact sheet

T4L watchLIVE goes off the air News item

With the reintroduction of Brekkie with a Tekkie a year ago, we launched our T4L watchLIVE concept - a new way to get the latest tech information from the T4L team and the department's major hardware and software vendors. Every term, we presented at least five webcasts LIVE to participants from schools across NSW, who joined us online - either early in the morning, or after school. For the first few months, the webcasts were very well attended with almost 200 simultaneous connections regularly joining in. But as the year moved on and particularly during Winter, those joining us live started to dwindle as the option of viewing the recording on-demand became more attractive. This has led us to reassess the live concept and strive to deliver even better content by establishing our own T4L TV channel! There'll still be regular content every term, but instead of being restricted by producing it live, we'll aim for delivering a more polished product, with better replay value and an even bigger audience. Look out for the launch of T4L TV in our week 3 edition next term!

T4L TV is coming in term 4!

Premier's Coding Challenge Link item

The inaugural Premier’s Coding Challenge was launched recently at Doonside Technology High School to inspire students to get involved in STEAM education (Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics). Centred on the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences’ device called ThinkerShield, it will combine hardware, software and support materials for rapid prototyping and creative problem-solving. The Premier’s Coding Challenge is aimed at Stage 4 students (Years 7 and 8) but participation is open to all stages and all NSW schools. Get more details on this exciting challenge starting in term 4!

CCS on show at Singleton News item

On Monday 10 September, Singleton Public School was the venue for a great Ministerial event showcasing the upgraded wireless connectivity delivered via the Connecting Country Schools (CCS) project. The Assistant Minister for Education, Sarah Mitchell MLC and staff and students from Singleton Public School, were joined by neighbouring schools included in the CCS project. Together, they tested out their new Wi-Fi and the exciting new STEMShare Community kits. Highlighting the benefits of the CCS and STEMShare Community projects at regional and remote schools is an interactive way to demonstrate how the projects are delivering future-focused learning opportunities for students in the digital age. Students enthusiastically participated in themed activities linked to their study, working with Robotics, Virtual Reality, 3D Printing, Filming Technology and coding tools. The ITD team would like to thank the staff and students at Singleton Public School for their hospitality, enthusiasm and ideas, which made for a fun and informative day.

Students from Singleton area schools trying out the multimedia filming kit

Coming to Coffs in Term 4? PL item

Click to find out more and register for interactED @ Coffs Harbour in Term 4

FUTURE.stories: Glenwood High Peer item

Glenwood High School worked with the T4L team to publish a brand new issue of FUTURE.stories, featuring the journey the school went through to develop their Media Crew. It's just one of the reasons the school recently took out the Innovative Use of ICT in Secondary - T4L Award. Click the image to read their story.

Click to read Glenwood High School's FUTURE.story!

More news.T4L in Week 3

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

Share your story in news.T4L - just email us at T4Lnews@det.nsw.edu.au

NSW DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DIRECTORATE