Issue 81 - Term 1 Week 3

The Schools Digital Strategy team recently launched a new release of the Digital Learning Resources Hub. Release 3.0 includes a range of key updates and introduces a new functionality – My Resources – relating to the creation and management of resources. Teachers can: 

• upload a resource or use a link to a resource that could be of value to teachers
• create resource cards to share with other teachers, and even collaborate with them
• add meaningful information to resources including the syllabus, syllabus outcomes and progressions, and copyright information
• share My Resources into their Google Classrooms and MS Teams classes. 

To learn more about the full list of enhancements in this release, please go to Help & About in the Hub to find the Road Map section. Explore the new Tutorials section to access short tutorial videos and a user guide for the new features.  

If your teachers or entire school were considering implementing more of the Microsoft 365 platform in 2022, then you really should take advantage of this! Microsoft are offering a range of free, short teacher workshops in Terms 1 and 2, before launching into their amazing School Transformation Program in Terms 3 and 4.
Explore the variety of workshops and register yourself for any or all of these online sessions. Remember to also share the link with your colleagues! Some schools have already directed all staff to complete certain workshops in the first half of the year as part of their whole school PD.  Then, the 2022 Microsoft School Transformation Program is a free professional learning program that supports schools to digitally transform using Microsoft technologies. A school that signs up to the program commits to school-wide change, sending leaders, teachers and IT technical staff to workshops to develop a strategy, implementation plan, professional learning experiences, and an achievable horizon plan.

In June 2021, licence keys were provided for SketchUp Pro 2020 and 2021 for educational use at home and on BYODs. Those keys expired on January 1st, 2022. Following advice from Trimble, the product developer, SketchUp Pro is no longer covered for a BYOD licence for teachers or students in Australia. For the short term, NSW DoE continues to offer SketchUp Pro 2021 via the eT4L Software Catalogue and UDM for deployment to school-owned computers. School-owned computers using the DoE licence will not work outside of school. For deployments via UDM to school-based computers: 

• SketchUp Pro 2020 installations ceased to function at the start of 2022
• SketchUp Pro 2021 installations will continue to be licenced through to the start of July 2022, then cease to function.

Trimble advises that their SketchUp for Schools product delivers a K-12 specific tool, available free to schools around the world. SketchUp for Schools is a web-based 3D modelling app available through Google Workspace (formerly G-Suite).

We've been working with vendors over the break to arrange the delivery of your T4L Rollout orders. Depending on the device, we'll see shipping commence very shortly with some models not available until Term 2. Couriers contracted to deliver to your school are to unload into the school's nominated location. When taking delivery of your order, we would appreciate your assistance to:

• 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 photo of any damaged boxes and note which box(es) have damage on the delivery docket. If the damage is concerning, you can refuse delivery of those boxes
• report all concerns relating to delivery of your T4L Rollout order to T4L@det.nsw.edu.au - including any photos taken
• sign the consignment or delivery note (POD) and legibly print the receiver’s name to help us with tracking issues.

For schools looking to better manage their DoE-enrolled Chromebooks using GDA (see above), we've introduced an important change. From 28 January 2022, all Chromebooks that are newly enrolled into the DoE Google domain are automatically placed into the school container of the STAFF MEMBER that is enrolling the device. This is important to understand fully. ANY staff member in NSW DoE can enrol a Chromebook purchased through EdBuy. But if that staff member is associated with multiple schools, the Chromebook will be added to the container of THEIR primary site. This may or may not be the school that the Chromebook is intended for. It is always best to ensure that the staff member that is authenticating to enrol the Chromebook is someone substantively associated with the school. More information is provided in this Yammer post.

Recently, the department published advice around Privacy and the use of third-party web and cloud-based service providers. With the start of the year, many teachers look to use new online educational services with their students. Principals and teachers should be aware of the data retention and privacy terms of each service prior to use. Gaining parental permission is also important. To assist schools, the department has already vetted and authorised certain web and cloud-based providers, including Google, Microsoft and others. A full list including their respective privacy statements is kept up to date. It's the school's responsibility to vet the terms of service and privacy statement of other third-party services that a school may independently engage and use. This is particularly important where it involves student data.  

The video streaming platform on Microsoft 365 has undergone a major revamp. The product called Stream is now known as Stream Classic and will be phased out in time. It is recommended that new videos are no longer uploaded to Stream Classic. Toward the end of 2021, you may have noticed that Teams meeting recordings now automatically appear in the OneDrive of the user that started the recording, instead of in Stream Classic. Microsoft has upgraded its OneDrive and SharePoint cloud platforms for better video streaming performance and has a detailed roadmap with upcoming new features. Just upload your videos to your OneDrive or SharePoint libraries and share them as desired. 

Have you ever wanted to send the same email to multiple people but have each message personalised, including certain content that is just for them? This process is called an eMailMerge. You can send custom merged email messages to a group of different recipients using Word, Excel and Outlook - but it can be a convoluted task. Trying to send it from the school email account, or some other shared mailbox is even more complicated. It can turn out very badly if you're not careful in completing all the necessary steps. If you'd like to master a highly-desired skill, check out this step-by-step video that explains the entire process. More information can be found in this discussion on Yammer.

Transcript

Every staff member and stage 6 student in NSW has free access to the full LinkedIn Learning online PL service. Just click the Sign In button at the top-right of the LinkedIn Learning site and use your department email address to get full access.  There are plenty of courses to choose from covering all kinds of subjects and skills. In fact, there are so many courses you'll probably be overwhelmed trying to work out where to start! So why not start with a curated list? What are the most popular courses offered? What skills will help students get their first job? What personal skills will help you get promoted? Or maybe you want to find specific courses on using a certain software package or online service. It's all at LinkedIn Learning.

Show your devices some tender loving care this February 14^th  and protect yourself from the heartache of losing important, sensitive or personal information. We’ve published previous articles on clearing the dust and dirt from your devices, but what about cleaning up your files and folders this Clean Out Your Computer Day? Every file and all the browsing cookies and history saved to your local drive increase your digital footprint.  This increases the risk of losing valuable information and having your identity stolen, should your device be lost, stolen or hacked. Follow these recommended cleanout actions for Clean Out Your Computer Day and schedule regular cleanouts to reduce your digital footprint and protect yourself from potential losses.

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! So why not subscribe?