Jump in now and get ready for the start of Term 1 by registering your school’s primary classes for this virtual incursion and check out the Minecraft resources for high schools! We're supporting Safer Internet Day on 7 February 2023, where students will learn to use their voice to make things better online and:
Connect safely with secure apps and devices and use social media in positive ways.
Reflect on how their actions and words online may affect others.
Protect themselves and others by talking about eSafety and how they can help.
Register your year 3-6 classes for the eSafety Commissioner's Be an eSafe kid - connect, reflect, protect virtual classroom that will run on 16 February 2023 from 2:00-2:45 pm. Set the scene from the start of the year so that your classroom expectations and digital citizenship behaviours are similar. Be kind, be polite and think of others. Check out our other resources for coding, Minecraft and internet safety games on our Safer Internet Day site!
News Check T4L's latest podcast!
Got a spare 15 minutes while on your daily commute, or while taking a walk? The T4L Team's regular podcast brings an easy listening classroom technology chat straight to your earbuds. In this Virtual Staffroom first, join the team on location at EduTECH 2022 as they explore the latest in technology innovations and trends in the classroom!
Discover how a 3D food printer can convert insect powder into something edible
Hear about a manufacturing simulation that uses three robotic arms communicating through sensors, to power a conveyor belt
Learn about the emerging trends of sustainability, drone technology, artificial intelligence, Citizen Science and more!
If you're looking to jump into the Hour of Code festivities and have your students explore coding, programming and computational thinking, jump into Minecraft: Education Edition - Hour of Code: Escape Estate. Learn basic coding concepts to escape Dr. Breakowski’s mysterious mansion by dawn in this free Hour of Code lesson. Solve puzzles using computational thinking to unlock secrets, open trap doors, and reveal hidden clues. Microsoft Australia is hosting two Hour of Code Sessions for virtual classroom coding sessions. These are play-and-pause sessions in which teachers and students can attend and watch the live event, but also pause the video when necessary to allow students to engage in the activities.
And visit the top link for all the lesson plans and resources you'll need!
Tip Are staff leaving your school?
As the school year ends, it’s important to clean up access and permissions granted via AMU. Otherwise, departed staff will continue to have access to your school’s resources from their new site. This could include the ability to reset your student and staff passwords, access your eT4L file shares and be members of your school’s email distribution lists. When they start at their new site, staff will disappear from your main AMU lists, but your granted permissions will remain for them. So, It’s best to remove these permissions BEFORE they start at their new school. If they have disappeared from your AMU list, click the “View & Add Staff not at this site” link at the bottom of AMU, to find them. Then remove their access from the various applets in AMU. If they are not shown there, but report they still have access, an EDConnect call will need to be logged to remove them from your site totally. Casual/temporary/ relieving staff that have left will need to have their access removed from the various applets in AMU, then removed from the “Casual – Search / Remove Staff” list in SMU. Finally, what about MS Teams or Google Shared Drives? It's critical to review their members too.
Info Are you changing schools?
It's always recommended that staff take a backup of all their files before leaving a school. While many staff have moved personal files to their Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive cloud storage, many others still rely on their U: drive. Your DoE user account is fully transferable and will work at your new school. But when you move schools, the contents of your personal home folder (U:) is not transferred and stays behind on the old school'seT4L Server. So when you sign in at a new school, you get abrand new, empty U: drive! But you can access your old home folder contentsto copy them to your new school. Let's say your DoE user ID is Lady.Gaga2 and the school code of your previous school is 6482. Log onto any Windows PC at your new school, open Computer and in the address bar at the top, type in:
\\detnsw.win\6482\staff\_Lady.Gaga2
then press Enter. Take note of the _ before the user ID. It should open your old home folder and you can copy all the files and folders from there to your empty U: drive. Then delete your content from the old school's server.
Info How to deal with brand new "Dead on Arrival" devices
With schools receiving T4L Rollout and discretionary purchase devices leading up to the end of the year, it's important to understand the "Dead on Arrival" (DOA) policies for each vendor. In order to issue a new replacement device, every vendor has a maximum time from delivery for a school to report a device that is damaged in transit, or is simply not working properly immediately after removing it from the box. Reporting DOAs AFTER the specified period will turn your DOA claim into a Warranty claim, which may result in a repair, or a swap-out with a refurbished model. For this reason, it is important to promptly check and test new device deliveries rather than store them for later action. If they have been stored beyond the vendor's DOA limit, a warranty claim will apply for any and all faults in otherwise brand new devices. All vendors reserve the right to determine whether their DOA policy applies or not. Please refer to the timing advice below for each vendor:
ACER, DELL and HP - Reports must be made within 21 days of receipt of delivery
Apple - Reports should be made within 10 days of receipt of delivery
Please check these specific instructions for logging DOA calls with each vendor. For devices NOT deemed to be DOA, please log a warranty claim via EDConnect either on phone 1300 32 32 32 or online - providing all relevant details.
PL Back to school with Apple
As we're all looking forward to a sunny break, the 2023 school year is just around the corner. Apple wants to help teachers start the new year by registering for their Back to School Learning Series, running from 16–20 January. Register to get the recordings if you can't attend live. During these sessions you will:
Learn how to personalise the learning experience and foster creativity in student projects with lesson ideas and teaching materials, as well as time-saving tips.
Explore Apple resources to help students to focus on health and wellness throughout their day, and gain insights into how Augmented Reality and coding can help bring student projects to life across all year levels!
Info Reminder: RDS decommissioning
Are staff at your school still using the legacy F5 Remote Desktop Service (RDS) to access school devices/resources remotely? In Term 3 last year, ITD launched a new remote access service from home for all staff, the Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). With the school holidays approaching, if staff need remote access and still have not configured AVD, please advise them to visit the Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) page for Instructions. As advised, for cyber security reasons, ITD is now planning to decommission the legacy F5 service (RDS) during Term 1 of 2023, with a likely date of 28 February. Any school still using that service should start preparing their users now for transition to AVD for their remote access needs. Further advice will be provided in the week 3 Term 1 edition of news.T4L.
Tip Leave these ON over Summer
Turning off ICT infrastructure over the holiday period can stop important software upgrades, antivirus and security updates. It is strongly recommended that you DO NOT turn off the following infrastructure:
All components in the main data cabinet
Components in any other data cabinets
Your school’s eT4L Server and UPS
Apple Caching Server - if you have one
Note however, that heatwave temperatures can cause problems for your eT4L Server and UPS in particular. You should definitely consider ventilation in the server room over the break. If you do need to turn these devices off, necessary updates will take place on your return to school and likely slow down your network access during the busy first days of Term 1 next year.
Tip What you should turn OFF
In many areas of NSW, Summer is lightning season. In order to protect your equipment over the long break, it’s a good idea to turn off the power point and unplug the following devices:
Computers (desktops/laptops) and monitors
Notebook and iPad trolleys
Printers, projectors and other peripherals
Multifunction devices and copiers
Main Learning Displays and Televisions
On the Term 1 School Development Day – turn on all your school computers so they can receive security and Windows updates from your eT4L server. Also turn on your storage trolleys so device batteries can recharge. This will ensure that they are ready for use by students as school resumes.
IMPORTANT Windows Security Updates: Prep your devices before school resumes
With greatly increased cyber threats occurring globally, Microsoft has accelerated the release of security updates over the past few months. It is expected that in late December and January, several critical updates will need to be applied to all managed Windows devices at all schools. As recommended in the previous article, schools should turn off all Windows desktops, notebooks and tablets over summer and disconnect them from power. But what this means is that upon restart when school resumes, these updates will deploy, install silently in the background and require a device restart. If the first use of these devices after the break is by students, they will likely see disruption caused by these important updates. We strongly recommend that all schools plan for the return to school and focus on powering up all devices, including those stored in trolleys. Log on and allow for these security updates to install and wait for the prompt to restart before using them with students.
Tip What about batteries in devices?
The long, hot summer vacation is also known to cause problems with the remote controls for your projectors, TVs, LED touch panels and VC units. The AA and AAA batteries in these remote controls are known to occasionally leak. While it usually is only required to replace the batteries, sometimes the leaking actually damages the remote control or battery-operated device. Some of these can be difficult or expensive to replace, depending on the device. As a precaution, it's a good idea to remove these batteries from the remotes before the end of the school year. Remember, many robotic devices also use these batteries, so consider them as well!
Fun All ICT Thoughts in one place!
Did you know that there's been an ICT Thought of the Day included at the bottom of every news.T4L released since issue 18 in 2016? And until now, there's never been a webpage to view them all in one place. So with the school holidays upon us, we thought it would be good to compile them all from oldest to newest, to see how the humour has evolved, from clever to corny - but always with a tech focus. We hope you enjoy this little indulgence of ours and wish all of our readers a fantastic Christmas, New Year and a restful holiday - before we see you again in week 3 of 2023 for the start of another twelve issues of news.T4L!
Fun ICT Thought of the day
Info More news.T4L in Week 3!
Information Technology Directorate publishes three issues of news.T4L each term. Remember - share each issue with your staff! And if you aren't receiving an email notification as soon as a new issue of news.T4L drops, then you're missing out! Sowhy not subscribe?
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