Category Archives: Glow and Office 365

MIcrosoft Teams for Education (Initial notice for Academy schools only)

What is it? And why would your school want it?

Many teachers are already familiar with OneNote Class Notebooks, just imagine now the ability to create Notebooks for every class with no initial administration. Modern dynamic conversations for each class that the teacher controls. Teachers and pupils do almost everything without leaving Teams. Set tasks/homework as assignments or through Class Notebook – with the advantages of resources being stored and accessed digitally giving opportunities to reduce. All SEEMiS classes automatically set up as Class Teams from Seemis data Access to apps already used such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint online. Personalised views for all teachers and all pupils of all classes, conversations and work. Membership updated as SEEMiS changes at any time during the school year.

Why does a school need to opt in?

It’s necessary to have opt-in directly from schools for this because of the capacity of School data Sync (SDS) to create Class Teams for all SEEMiS class groups – regardless of the level of engagement by each teacher.

How do I opt in my school?

Here are the steps to have this switched on for your school:

Please contact your SLT  to discuss this  (HT’s have been advised of this proceedure)

Complete the form at this link (note that you need to sign into Glow to complete this form and read the supporting documentation):  here

The Form above is a quick set of questions to confirm school buy-in, engagement with the Local Authority Glow Key Contact (Jim Mclean or Susan Sey) and has a link to a supporting document explaining background, risks and options
http://glo.li/2wB74Mr

Once the form above has been completed the national Glow team will process the switching on of Microsoft Teams for all classes for your school.

What to expect?

After receiving the request, your school data will be briefly checked to make sure it is current. If not, the person identified as responsible for SEEMiS data in the school will be contacted. If SEEMiS data is current, your school will be added to the queue for the next sync. Syncs will be done daily but there may be a delay according to demand. When complete all teachers and pupils in your school will be assigned to O365 Groups as owners/members respectively – you will see these appear in Outlook and OneDrive. At this stage no pupils can access the Class Team. As soon as any teacher signs in to Teams – for any reason – all of their Class Teams will then activate and be accessible to all pupils in those classes.

 

Why opt-in at school level?

The national Glow programme team has decided that there should be an opt-in at school level for SDS. This is primarily because SDS will look to setup all Class Teams for a school regardless of whether or not all teachers are engaged. This will mean pupils having access to the underlying O365 Group immediately and continued access to the Class Team from first use by the teacher. The document linked from the opt-in Form has details of the key risk and what steps can be taken by teachers that don’t want to participate in Teams with their classes.

Support?

Please contact Learning Through Technology with any specific questions/requests, there will also be training as detailed below:

Support for Microsoft Teams will be provided from the Learning through Technology Team ( Dates will be confirmed shortly and sign up via ALDO)

The courses on Learning through Technology Teams Website ( http://glo.li/2wAJSxy )  relating to Office 365, OneNote, OneDrive, Word Online  also include reference to Microsoft Teams for Education.

There is also a free online course in the Microsoft Educator Community (sign in with your Glow email address to gain a certificate, points and digital badges):

https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/courses/introtomicrosoftteams

And there are guides which can be downloaded and printed if desired from here:

https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/resources/meet-microsoft-teams

We are currently seeking staff volunteers to be Digital Leaders, and we now have around 60 staff from around Aberdeenshire schools,   if you are interested please email Jim Mclean or Susan Sey. Digital Leader details are on Glow here: http://glo.li/2xv0pj8

 We have an inaugural Digital Leader event being held in Woodhill House on 15th September details for this event are in ALDO.

If you have any questions about this then please contact JIm or Susan from the Learning through Technology Team

Thanks

Microsoft Teams for Education

The update to Microsoft Classroom, Microsoft Teams for Education is now available from the App Launcher (Waffle) via O365 in Glow.

We would encourage teachers to wait before setting up classes because:

  • The integration with SEEMIS will not be in place until the end of August , so any Teams  created before then will involve you manually adding pupils.
  • If pupils were allowed access now,  then  some of the current functionality in Teams could potentially be used inappropriately. By the end of August the additional admin settings will be inplace to reduce any risk.
  • If you try to use Teams at the moment you may get an error message asking you to contact your ICT personell (Please do NOT log any calls with ICT)

The SEEMIS integration will allow your classes to be populated with the correct students, and this list will dynamically change as pupils join or leave your class. The classes will automatically be correctly named in fitting with the systems you have in place at the school.

We will be providing twilight sessions in the next few weeks to advise on how to use Microsoft Teams so please look back here regularly for updates and links to twilights.

Please direct any questions you may have on Teams for Education to:

James.mclean@aberdeenshire.gov.uk
Susan.sey@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

 

 

 

Staff Digital Leaders

Many thanks to those of you who have volunteered for the Staff Digital Leader Programme for Education.

We are now sitting at over 50 members of staff who are keen to support schools with using Technology to enhance Learning and Teaching. These people will liaise with the Learning through Technology Team to coordinate training sessions and pass on information re technology in the classroom and the National Digital Agenda.

We will be officially launching our programme on the 15th September in Committee Room 5, Woodhill House. This day will be a mixture of planning, discussions and hands on workshops.

We have a Glow Site with more information about the programme and a Yammer group for ongoing discussions.

Staff Digital Leader Glow Site

The session will be advertised via Aberdeenshire Events as soon as they move to the new Aldo system after July.

Please get in touch with the Learning through Technology Team if you would like to enroll in this new exciting programme.

james.mclean@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

susan.sey@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

New Glow Accounts

Please note below the procedure for new or transferring Glow accounts.
Users need to have officially started at your school and have been entered correctly in Seemis before you will find their Glow account and before you can log a call for a CC4 account.
  • User (Pupil or member of staff) has a record entered in Seemis
  • If you do not enter a GTC number for a teacher then the Glow account will be set up as a non-teaching member of staff
  • After an overnight run, information migrates from Seemis to Glow
  • If it is a person who hasn’t had a Glow account before, then you will find them in the Management Console under Download Passwords or Users
  • If the person had a Glow account then they may be under School Transfers or they will have automatically went under Users if there previous establishment have made them leave

If they haven’t appeared then please give the system another overnight run to see if they will come through. If not, then please log a call with the Learning through Technology Team.

james.mclean@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

susan.sey@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

Glow Authentication and Portal Services Contract Awarded

Glow Announcement: Glow Authentication and Portal Services Contract Awarded

Following a competitive procurement exercise, RM Education Ltd has been selected by Education Scotland to continue to deliver Glow Authentication and Portal Services.

RM Education Ltd has successfully delivered the services via their RM Unify product since December 2013. The new contract will commence in January 2018 for 5.5 years with opportunities to extend up to a maximum of 10.5 years. The full cost (£1.3 million per annum) will be met by Education Scotland and Scottish Government.

This means Glow Users will be able to continue to use the services, free of charge and in full confidence of the stability and continuity of provision.

In addition to the current services, Glow Users can expect a number of developments during the new contract including age appropriate sign in for younger users, self-service identity matching and a feature to inform users of  new functionality. RM Education Ltd will also deliver a number of community benefits to support the ICT/Digital Technologies Skills Investment Plan, including work experience for young people and digital career talks.

To build on the success of Glow, Education Scotland, the Scottish Government and RM Education Ltd are committed to working closely with customers and partners to ensure the contract continues to deliver a flexible service which meets and adapts to users’ needs. Over the coming months this will include, engagement on the deployment of Google’s G Suite for Education.

Glow supports the Scottish Government’s Digital, Learning and Teaching strategy by helping education establishments and local authorities deliver education enhanced by digital technology and its popularity continues to grow with approximately 140,000 unique users and 2,000,000 logins per month.

National Digital Learning Week 2017

Deputy First Minister Set to Launch National Digital Learning Week

National Digital Learning Week is 15-19th May. This year the theme of the week is ‘Digital Difference’ and throughout the week you’re invited to share and celebrate the digital approaches which make a positive impact on your classroom practice.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney will be launching the week via a short video. Visit DigiLearnScot from Monday 15th May to hear Mr Swinney address teachers, pupils and parents about the benefits digital makes in education and officially launch the week.

Exclusive National Collaborative Story Telling Activity Launched

Share what’s happening in your school via the Aberdeenshire Learners’ Site.

Aberdeenshire Learners Site in Glow Link

 

S1 Transition Week

S1 transition week is fast approaching some of our Academy Schools.

If your new S1s require a CC4 login then please contact the primary schools who should be able to pull up lists of P7 Glow Usernames.

Instructions on how to do this as follows,

  • Log into Glow using the school ASM account or a personal account if you have Admin Rights
  • Click Management Console along the top of RM Unify
  • Select Groups on the right
  • Click the blue actions next to P7 and then select View Members
  • Now you will be able to download all members in the group
  • This will then download an Excel Spreadsheet

Please get in touch if you encounter any issues, susan.sey@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

Glow Annual Survey

The 2017 Glow Annual Survey is now live. The survey is open to all teachers, staff and pupils and provides us with valuable information on how you use Glow. More information, including links to the survey, are available through the link. Let us know your views and help shape the future of Glow

https://connect.glowscotland.org.uk/2017/04/27/annual-survey-of-the-use-of-digital-technology-including-glow-in-scotlands-classrooms/