ICT Update

25th July 2007

We are also working on a new ICT Website which will include a range of new Web 2.0 features to improve communications and collaboration across the NT Schools ICT Community. In the meantime please continue to use the ICTC Lists to seek information or provide comment or feedback on ICT issues.

Teacher Laptops

The following formal advice will be sent to principals in the weekly update next week but you can advise them of these procedures if necessary.

Management of New Dell Laptops for Teachers

All schools have now received new Dell Laptop Computers and these should have been distributed to all eligible teachers.

Schools should issue computers to the teachers actually at the school. You do not need to allocate computers to teachers who are temporarily in other positions or schools. Conversely you should allocate laptops to teachers who are temporarily in your school as the total number supplied to the school will match the actual staffing.

After allocation principals will only need to seek return of computers when they know of staff leaving a teaching position. Principals will only need to request a new computer for teachers that are entering the service for the first time and should re-use computers handed back by exiting teachers before seeking a new one from ITSD.

There are three forms for schools to use to manage the process.

• Request new Laptop - Used by the school to request a new computer for a staff member who is being assigned a laptop for the first time.
• Use Agreement - Must be signed and cover page with asset number returned to IT Services whenever a laptop is assigned to a teacher.
• Lost, Stolen and Damaged - Must be used to report lost, stolen or damaged computers. Reports on stolen computers must be accompanied by a Police report.

Please ensure that all teachers who received a Dell Laptop complete the cover page of the Use Agreement and record the asset number of their computer. Principals are also asked to provide new laptop request forms for eligible teachers who have not received their new computer.

Return of Optima Laptops

The Optima computers currently issued to teachers must be collected at each school (or group school) and reconciled with the lists previously supplied by ITSD by Friday 24 August. ITSD will make arrangements for the collection of the laptops from Monday 27 August.

Centralisation of IDL Services

Over the term break the three IDL studios were connected to a central hub in the Chan data centre and a single link was commissioned from this hub to the Optus ground station in Sydney. The consolidation of three separate studio links into a single service means we can make better use of the total bandwidth to allow more studios to broadcast simultaneously and supplement internet services to schools.

20 remote schools that currently have Telstra Satellite links will be given access to the IDL bandwidth. This will improve their internet access speeds and will also increase download speeds for the remaining schools still on the Telstra network as the internet load will be shared between 2 networks.

REACT Upgrade

Over the holidays the IDL bandwidth was centralised and the REACT software upgraded. Distance Education schools will be piloting and testing the new version over the next 2 months.

For those schools who are working with NTOEC, ASSOA or KSA the IDL Leaders will be assisting you with the REACT upgrade.

For those schools who have an urgent need for REACT and prepared to suffer a bit of pain (Pioneers have to be tuff…) please contact Margaret Littler or Phillippe Monforte to discuss further.

Known Issues with Dell Laptops – when not connected to power

Symptoms:

• Teachers enter a ‘PRACTICE’ venue on their laptop and receive an error message and cannot proceed.
• Teachers try to connect to the schools network on battery power and cannot connect.

Issue:

• The Dell has a power save function that, when on battery power, turns off the Ethernet port. REACT needs to see this card/port even when in practice mode, and will not work when computer is on battery power.
• If the laptop is on battery power, by default, the Ethernet port is switched off so even when they connect to the wall socket they cannot access the schools network till they plug in the 240v powerpack.

To correct the above you need to turn off this power saving function.

To turn power-save to Ethernet card/port off, go to:
Start/ Accessories /Dell quickset / Ethernet power management.

Espace

espace is currently being moved from the old LATIS domain to the new ntschools.net domain. The new URL will be http://espace.ntschools.net. For individual toolbox sites the URL will be the name of your site with espace.ntschools.net (ie http://parcs.espace.ntschools.net) This change will allow users to log onto espace and other espace sites using your ntschools user name and password. Your old LATIS user name and password will no longer work. Further information will be posted on the ICT in Schools website.

Managing SPAM

Both email products deployed to the ntschools domain; Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook Web Access provide tools for managing SPAM. The following brief guide may be of assistance:

1. Microsoft Outlook, there are several tools to assist/manage SPAM. They are:

• Tools/Rules and Alerts
• Actions/Junk Email/Junk Email Options. By selecting Safe Lists Only, mail from people or domains on your Safe Senders List or Safe Recipients List will be delivered to your inbox. All others will be delivered to the Junk E-mail box, which you should briefly scan before deleting to ensure that there are no "valid" emails.

2. Microsoft Outlook Web Access also has a Junk Mail feature. It can be accessed by clicking on Options in the left pane, scroll to Privacy and Junk E-mail Prevention. Click on Manage Junk E-mail Lists. There are options to Add Safe Senders & Recipients, and to Block Senders. There is also a check box to treat all emails as Junk E-mail unless it has come from your safe senders list.

Suppressing ePass email Notifications

To place these rules in Microsoft Outlook, the user can:

1. Open Microsoft Outlook
2. Create a folder called “ePass Approvals” or whatever you like. Hint: Right Click over Folders area and select New Folder
3. Select Tools
4. Select Rules and Alerts
5. Click New Rule
6. Click on “Move Messages with specific words in the subject to a folder”. Click Next
7. Under Step1, Leave “with specific words in the subject” Ticked and also Tick “From Specific People or Distribution list”
8. Under Step2, Click on “People or Distribution list”
9. Type online and select OnlineServices DEET (DEET). Click Enter, Click OK
10. Click on “Specific Words”
11. Type “approval required for”. Press ADD, Click OK
12. Click on “Specified Folder” and navigate to the “ePass Approvals Folder” created in point 2 of this process. Click OK
13. Click Next
14. Leave “Move it to the Specified Folder” ticked and Click Next
15. Don’t Tick any Exceptions, Click Next.
16. Overtype “OnlineServices DEET (DEET)” with “ePass Approvals”
17. Tick “Run this rule now on messages already in “Inbox””. Click Finish

Note: All “” are only for clarity and must not be entered. If you use Microsoft Web Access instead of MS Outlook, then it should be relatively easy to configure, following the above instructions.