Schools ICT Infrastructure Upgrade

Plans for the upgrade of school computers and networks are well advanced and we are hoping to begin the rollout in June 2006 with the aim of completing it before the end of the year. The key features of the upgrade are the replacement of 4000 original LATIS computers with contemporary hardware that will run the latest software products, replacement of the school servers and large increases in school storage capacity. Computers will be allocated on the ratio of 1 standard computer for every 10 students, however schools may elect to take a smaller number of laptop computers if they already have sufficient workstations.

A key improvement we are seeking in the upgrade is the introduction of new software to provide managed desktop services, which will allow remote management and support of school-based computers including the automatic distribution of software updates and new images. These advances will reduce the time and complexity of the tasks performed by school ICT coordinators.

Telecommunications

The transition from Optus to Telstra is nearing completion and most schools are receiving greatly increased bandwidth to provide faster access to the central learning resources and the internet. The new network also provides much faster access to school email and personal drives when they are accessed outside the school through the NT Schools Portal.

Once all schools have been moved into the Telstra network at the end of March, Information Technology Services Division (ITSD) will make arrangements to collect equipment that was required for the Optus network from schools such as E1s and communication routers, please leave these devices as they are and we will arrange a time to collect them. Satellite dishes will remain in place at all schools to allow future access to IDL and other satellite services.

There have been performance problems with the Telstra satellite service used in 40 remote schools and we are working with Telstra to identify and correct the issues. We would appreciate getting feedback about the change in services including problems and issues and improvements by emailing DEET IT Operations.

Investing in Our Schools Program

Congratulations to schools who were successful in their applications for funds for ICT projects under the Investing in Our Schools Program. Please contact ITSD before you proceed to purchase any equipment or services with your grant so we can ensure you receive the best combination of price and features and that your new equipment will integrate with the upgraded systems that we will be installing in schools.

For schools that haven't submitted proposals we have published the submissions for a number of NT Schools who were successful in the first two rounds. Click here to view the submissions. IT Services is keen to help schools who wish to make submissions for ICT funds in future rounds of the Investing in Our Schools program. The closing date for the next round of submissions is April 26th so schools will need to get started now. Please contact us for assistance in writing your submissions.

Wireless LAN Standards

Wireless local area networks are now an affordable and flexible way to extend network services in your school. They will never replace fixed networks but can provide great value and flexibility in staff rooms or open learning areas. We have just released a policy and guidelines to help you select and install wireless networks in your school.

Interactive Distance Learning

The rollout of the new Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) service has been completed for School of the Air families and the Alice Springs and Katherine School of the Air have been delivering lessons on the new platform since week 3.

Brian Grono, IDL leader at NTOEC has begun the IDL upgrade in the remote schools enrolled with NTOEC and expects to complete the upgrades in the first 10 schools by the end of the term. The IDL upgrade of other remote schools in the Southern Region has begun and should be completed by the end of the semester. Training for group schools will be negotiated in semester 2.

The combination of the upgraded communications network for schools together with the new and more flexible IDL software (REACT) has great potential for online collaboration in urban schools. Urban schools are scheduled for an upgrade in semester 2.

We will be bidding farewell to Tony Richards, Director Distance Education on 10th March and we are sure you join us in wishing him all the best in his endeavors. Tony was the leader of the development and implementation of IDL in the Territory and he pioneered this technology in conjunction with NSW. He will leave behind a great legacy and it will be up to students, teachers, parents and DEET to maximise the educational benefits of this more flexible learning environment. We will miss his creative thinking and student focused approach to ICT in schools. For further information contact the IDL team by email or by phone 8999 3513.

NT Schools Portal Upgrade

The following features, which have been requested by schools, have been included:

• The calendar events for the day will now appear on the log-in page - this saves teachers having to go to the calendar for that day.
• Ability to upload multiple documents to the Message of the Day.
• Ability to upload documents onto the calendar.
• New ICT in Schools banner across the top.
• Updated weblinks under 'useful favourites'.

e-Space Online Learning Environment

e-Space is our new collaborative learning environment. This is replacing elearning and elearn2.
e-Space allows users to participate and develop online courses and online components to enhance learning outcomes. It provides a range of online components to support, promote and enhance education, ensuring the effective use of Information Communication technology in NT schools.

Users will now have access to

1. A general environment called e-Space (http://e-space.latis.net.au) This is where all Public courses, private courses or online environments that are cross divisional, cross schools or cross clusters will be housed and available. All LATIS users in the NT will have access to e-Space and an account in this e-Space environment is already setup automatically, through the LATIS system. Users will just need to be added to relevant courses or environments.
2. A cluster environment where all the schools from a particular cluster are in one site. This allows users to create courses, collaborate and create online learning communities within their own cluster.
3. A school environment where individual schools can create courses, collaborate and create online learning communities within their own school.

These environments are now available through the e-Space tab in the NT Schools Portal.

For further information and/or support contact Robyn Hauser by email or by phone 8999 5664.

Explore NT

Many of the resources found in Explore NT are Learning Objects created and released nationally by The Learning Federation (TLF). Learning Objects are interactive, multimedia resources designed to engage students and support teachers. They have been developed in six curriculum areas:

• Science
• Mathematics
• Literacy for Students at Risk
• Studies of Australia
• LOTE - Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian
• Innovation, enterprise and creativity

A full catalogue of items released from TLF is available online and is fully browsable or available for download in pdf format.

Explore NT is available to all teachers via the NT Schools Portal. For troubleshooting tips visit the public Janison course ‘Explore NT’ or contact Online Services.

For further information contact Jenny Buckworth by email or by phone 8999 3539.

Open Source Software Catalog

There is an increasing range of quality Open Source software available for education. http://www.linuxpr.com/releases/8295.html

Open Source Victoria, Australia's government-funded open source industry cluster, has just published an 80-page catalogue highlighting some of the best open source software available for schools, teachers and students.

The catalogue, available online, consists of education-oriented applications, or applications which are potentially useful within an educational context and is segmented into broad categories, such as Office Productivity Applications, Scientific, Mathematical, Graphics, Multimedia, Computer Programming, Primary School and more. Software, which is available for the Windows, Mac, Linux and Unix platforms is listed.

The catalogue is available for perusal. Click here to access.

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Teacher and Technology Workshops

The new teacher in technology workshops are proving to be very popular with our clients in schools. These short sessions are held in the afternoon during the term and also as extended workshops during stand down. They provide a great opportunity for teacher to use your laptop to pick up skills confidence on a range of education and business software products. Workshops are scheduled in Alice Springs, Darwin and Katherine.

Announcing grants to support innovative practice using ICT in the classroom

Through IT Services Division and the ICT Integration Team, DEET recently announced the availability of small research grants to support innovative teaching and learning in the classrooms.

These grants are available for two or more teachers to work collaboratively in their schools. There is provision for purchasing equipment or software needed to undertake the projects and they become school assets when the project is completed.

Applications are due by COB Friday 10th March 2006.
Click here for full details. If you would like to discuss proposals you are encouraged to contact Jane Muchira or Denise Galloway by email or phone 8901 4987 or 8999 5985.

Night of Stars was totally ‘Groovy’ at Nightcliff Primary in Term 4

Groovy Movies is an annual festival of Nightcliff Primary School student movies. It showcases the video work that students have done over the past year for parents, other students and the community.

There was an outstanding field of 16 entries this year in Animation, Short Film and Documentary categories.

All of the entered movies were shown on a big projection screen using a data projector and a school laptop. The winners and runners-up received specially made trophies for their efforts.

Animation
The animation category included movies made using claymation, Marvin software and Windows Movie Maker. The winner was a clay animation called ‘The Long Day’ by a Year 4 student, which was about a boy and his mother who buy a ‘dogacorn’ (a cross between a unicorn and a dog) and spend their day providing for its needs.

Short Film
The short film category had entries from older Year 6/7 students and the winner was an exciting tale of revenge, arson and supernatural DVD players called ‘Too Much TV’.

Documentary
The winning documentary appealed to the teachers at Nightcliff Primary School. “Litterbugs” by the SRC Environment Committee was about the various types of litterers in our playground and what can be done to prevent littering.

A second documentary also drew first prize as well as the People’s Choice Award for the evening. The Groovy Movie audience overwhelmingly voted for “Skateboarding: A view from all perspectives” by a group of Year 6/7 students, a film about how skateboarding is wrongfully perceived by many adults and how it teaches valuable lessons and good habits of learning, as the recipient of the People’s Choice Award.

Special Encouragement Award
Finally, a special encouragement award went to “How do animals work together to survive?” by some Year 3 students. This film was a very informative clay animation about symbiosis, which also featured cleverly filmed underwater scenes.

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Upgrade to SAMS 6.84.01

For a complete list of all the new features look out for the following fact sheets which will be sent to your school during the upgrade process:

• What’s New in Admin 6.84.01
• What’s New in Lesson Attendance 2.42.01
• What’s New in Timetabling 6.80.01
• What’s New in NTCM 1.20 (eTool) will be available through Peter White at Curriculum Services (ph: 8999 3745)

The above documents will also be available shortly on our website.

All schools will be notified of the date of their upgrade during the next couple of weeks. If you have any queries please contact a member of the SAMS team on 8999 3531.

SEN Module

The SEN (Special Educational Needs) module is used to record data regarding students with Special Educational Needs. Student Services Division is currently conducting trials at designated schools, and there will be a staged rollout of training and implementation of this module throughout 2006. If you have any queries please contact Sylvie Tulacz-Hess on 8999 5738.

Parameter Control

With the Upgrade to SAMS 6.84.01, the following DEET controlled Parameters will now be locked to ensure consistency in information transferred between schools and captured in Centris:

If you need to make changes to any of the above parameters please contact the SAMS team.

Providing Information to DHCS and Dental Clinics

The process for providing information to DHCS and the Dental Clinics is:

• For each new enrolment photocopy x 2 the Consents page of the Student Enrolment Form (one copy for DHCS and one copy for Dental Clinic).

When Health and Dental checks are being carried out at your school, personnel will request either:

• For DHCS: run the adhoc report ‘Health Screening Report – csv’
• For the Dental Clinic: run the adhoc report ‘dental’

These reports are located in Admin > Reports > Adhoc Reports
Please note that schools no longer need to issue to parents and collect the Yellow Dental Form previously supplied to schools as all this information is captured on the New Enrolment Form.

Lates Button - Bug Alert!

It was recently discovered that lateness recorded using the Lates button is not being accurately reported in the Attendance Analysis report ‘Attendance Summary (am/pm)’. Other reports appear to be unaffected by this issue. Schools wishing to monitor student lateness should run the Attendance Records report ‘Students Arriving After Start of Day’. Alternatively, lateness should be entered directly into Lesson Attendance > Day View. This should be fixed later this year in a future upgrade of SAMS.

Reminders

$50 Back to School Scheme
If you would like to record the information in SAMS you will need to create five new UDIs and import an Adhoc report. You can find the procedures for creating the UDIs and the Adhoc report on our website.

Photos
If your school wishes to record Photo consents electronically in SAMS individually rather than as a blanket approval, please refer to the Fact Sheet ‘UDIs in Schools 2005’ (pages 7 & 8) on our website.

Loading NTCM

If your school is using Curriculum e-Tool (NTCM) make sure the checkbox ‘Do not load CM’ in General > Control > Users > Select User > Edit User is unchecked for users using the module (i.e. Teachers) and checked for users who are not using the module (ie. Admin staff). This module takes a while to load and if SAMS users do not need to use the e-Tool module SAMS will load a lot faster.

Direct Link from SAMS to ICT/SAMS Website
Did you know that there is a direct link from SAMS to the ICT/SAMS website? It makes access to the website a lot easier. Just go to: Help > RM Asia Pacific on the Web > LATIS-SAMS, then enter your Latis User Name and password.

Training

Please refer to our updated SAMS Training Calendar. If you would like to attend any of the courses please contact: sams.deet@nt.gov.au or phone 8999 3531.

Centris Clean Up

Further to the UPN Consolidation last year, a second phase of cleaning data will begin shortly. A DEET staff member may be contacting your school in the very near future to assist with cleaning up certain student records. These records have not been imported into Centris due to a variety of different reasons, eg. names spelt differently, dual enrolments, etc.

To assist with the integrity of your data, both within your school and in Centris, we would like to remind schools of the following:

• When enrolling new students the Start Date usually defaults to ‘Today’s Date’ and needs to be amended to the correct date. If you know the student’s previous school, this can be entered in General > Student Details, find the student, select edit pencil, then go to Movement History tab and use the red cross to add a new movement history record. Another way to update Movement History is to request a School-to-School Transfer of the student’s data as by importing and exporting the student their Movement History is automatically updated.
• When students leave your school, enter the correct Leave Date and a Destination School (if known).
• When reinstating students from the Former Roll, be careful to read the Warning notes re Date of Entry and amend the Start Date accordingly. The date that appears is the student’s first entry date into the school, which can be months or years old. You will be prompted with the message “This student is set to enter on (date)”. This date is not correct, select ‘No’ and enter the correct date.
• If the student is enrolled at two schools then adjust the Attendance field in General > Student Details > Additional tab. For more information regarding the Attendance fields, please refer to the document ‘Guidelines for Using the FTE and Attendance Fields’ on our website.

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