Category: ICT Moray

Enabling School Laptops for Home use (Students)

By default, school laptops are configured for use only when connected to the Moray Schools network – this guide will outline the steps required to enable laptops for offline use, e.g. from home, for students.

Please note that once configured, laptops will NOT function as if connected to the school network, so network drives U: and Student(In), Student(Out) etc. will be unavailable. However, this process will allow access to locally installed Microsoft Office applications, such as Microsoft Office, and also Glow via a home internet connection.

To configure the laptop it will be necessary to temporarily physically connect it to the school network – this will only need to be done once. This does not need to be done at the school you normally logon at – as long as you have an EduNet logon account, you can logon at any school.

The process is detailed below:-

Connect the laptop to the school network using a known working network cable (a cable can be temporarily “borrowed” from a desktop PC, if necessary).

Power on the laptop, and logon to the network using your usual username and password.

Once logged on, reboot the laptop.

This time, logon with the following account:   .\Homework   (type exactly as shown).Please make a note of the Asset number and password, as the password you have just set applies to the ‘Homework’ account FOR THIS LAPTOP ONLY

(Although the example screenshots below refer to .\offline.teacher – please replace with .\Homework instead)

Windows 10         

Windows 7

If the system does not recognise .\Homework as a valid account, reboot the system and try again. (If the system still does not recognise the account, you should contact the ICT helpdesk for assistance)

No password is set initially, so just hit ‘Return’ – however, the system will immediately prompt you to set a new password. Password complexity requirements have not been enforced, so there is no requirement for capitals/numbers/special characters etc. to be used (although it is recommended).

Once the password has been set, the initial logon and setup process will complete – if you have reached this point successfully, you can shut the laptop down and remove the network cable. The laptop can now be used offline, from home – the remainder of this guide refers to enabling internet access from home.

Note: students MUST use this new “.\Homework” account when logging on from home – normal EduNet account credentials will NOT work.

Enabling School Laptops for Home use

By default, school laptops are configured for use only when connected to the Moray Schools network – this guide will outline the steps required to enable laptops for offline use, e.g. from home.

Please note that once configured, laptops will NOT function as if connected to the school network, so network drives U: and Workgroup etc. will be unavailable. However, this process will allow access to locally installed Microsoft Office applications, such as Microsoft Office, and also Outlook Web Access (OWA) i.e. “email from home” and Glow via your home internet connection.

To configure your laptop it will be necessary to temporarily physically connect it to the school network – this will only need to be done once. You do not need to do this at the school you normally logon at – as long as you have an EduNet logon account, you can logon at any school.

The process is detailed below:- (Please follow each step carefully)

• Connect your laptop to the school network using a known working network cable (a cable can be temporarily “borrowed” from a desktop PC, if necessary).
• Power on the laptop, and logon to the network using your usual username and password.
• Once logged on, reboot the laptop.
• This time, logon with the following account:         .\offline.teacher   (type exactly as shown). No password is set initially, so just hit ‘Return’ – however, the system will immediately prompt you to set a new password. Password complexity requirements have not been enforced, so there is no requirement for capitals/numbers/special characters etc. to be used (although it is recommended). Please make a note of the Asset number of the laptop that you are using, as only you will know the password for the next time you need to take it home.

Windows 10      

Windows 7 

• If the system does not recognise .\offline.teacher as a valid account, reboot the system and try again. (If the system still does not recognise the account, you should contact the ICT helpdesk for assistance)
• Once the password has been set, the initial logon and setup process will complete – if you have reached this point successfully, you can shut the laptop down and remove the network cable. Your laptop can now be used offline, from home – the remainder of this guide refers to enabling internet access from home.  Note: you MUST use this new “offline.teacher” account when logging on from home – your normal EduNet account credentials will NOT work.

*** Enable internet access ***

• To configure the laptop to use your home internet connection should be straightforward, but to do this you will need to know the ‘name’ of your internet router and the password – these details are normally found printed on, or attached to, the router itself. On the bottom right hand corner of the laptop’s taskbar, you should see the ‘Internet Connections’ icon:-

Windows 10                         

Windows 7 

If you don’t see the ‘Internet Connections’ icon at all, but instead see something similar to the image below, you should proceed to step 9.

Windows 10  

Windows 7

• Clicking on the icon will present a list of available WiFi networks – you should see something similar to the image below. You should select the ‘name’ of your router from the list, click ‘Connect’ and then enter the password:-

Windows 10    

Windows 7 

If all is OK, your ‘Internet Connections’ icon should appear as below, to indicate that you are connected to the internet:-

Windows 10              

Windows 7  

No further configuration is required and the laptop can now be used from home, subject to the restrictions previously outlined. A Glow shortcut is already installed on the desktop, and an additional “OWA from home” shortcut has been added, for accessing email:-

    

Promethean interactive panels have now been rolling out to schools for 4 Years and 2020/21 should see the final units being installed in the remaining classes.

Many teachers are still using Smart Notebook for their presentations. Whereas teachers can still legitimately use the software on products that are not smart products, Smart have highlighted that the older versions which can be used under the license agreement may stop working at some point.  Smart have also advised to download the discontinued V16 software which may work a little longer.

However as Promethean boards will soon be the only type of interactive panels in schools it is strongly advised that all new presentations are created in ActivInspire and that Teachers that have not already done so begin importing smart files to ActiveInspire. This will ensure that the support needed will be available in future years and that they will not be affected should Smart software stop working.

To see how easy it is to migrate Smart presentations to ActiveInspie please view this 55 second video created by Promethean. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbHUMgPnMvk

There are also 8 Introduction to Promethean and ActivInspire courses scheduled for the near future, which will cover the creation of new presentations and the importing of Smart presentations amongst other topics.

The dates for your diary are:-

• 15^th Jan – Buckie High School
• 16^th Jan – Elgin High School
• 20^th Jan – Keith Grammar
• 22^nd Jan – Milnes High School
• 28^th Jan – Lossiemouth High School
• 30^th Jan – Forres Academy
• 3^rd Feb  – Speyside High School

For further details on these course, or if you require any further information on either creating new presentations or migrating presentations to Active Inspire, please contact Alison McCook Education Technologist.  learn.tech@moray.gov.uk

 

 

 

The Security Certificate issue has now been resolved and all users should now have full access to email. Should there be any outstanding issues please let ICT know.

Some users may be experiencing problems with accessing email within Schools. This is due to a Security Certificate issue. ICT are working on a permanent fix and will post an update when one has been put in place.

 

Yesterday’s issue regarding the Windows Security message which was restricting access to the internet has now been resolved. This was traced to a corrupt Group Policy which has now been replaced.

Should you continue to experience issues after the machine has been restarted please log a call via the online portal.

 

ICT are aware of an ongoing internet issue which is affecting the majority of PCs within the Education network. Investigations are ongoing to discover the cause and solution for this issue.

ICT will keep schools updated as soon as more detail becomes available.

 

Dear Colleagues, 

The way that Windows 10 printers are selected is slightly different from Windows 7. Users must always check that the correct printer has been selected before they print in Windows 10 to ensure that the print is sent to the correct printer. When users wish to print they should select a printer from the drop down list which will only show the printers in your school.

Some staff have placed a poster in their room with the printer ID that should normally be selected for that room. If you are unsure from the names of the printer in the dropdown list where it is, then hover over the name of the printer and a description will appear that will include the location.

Unfortunately these changes have been forced upon us by the way that Windows 10 handles printing on a network and we are aware that there is likely to be some teething problems with this change in process and we ask schools to continue working with us.

 

ICT staff have been busy over the Summer Holidays carrying out work agreed with schools to help improve the IT provision for the 2019/20 school year. The following is a high level summary of just some of the work carried out.

Service Desk Calls:-

ICT closed 853 Service desk calls for the schools estate during the holiday period. 99% of these calls were closed within SLA (Service Level Agreement) Any new faults or requests can be logged via the online portal on the following link. http://ictservicedesk.moray.gov.uk:8080/SunriseLive/web/SContacts/

New PC / Laptop Allocation:-

ICT have installed and rolled out over 300 Windows 10 Laptops / PCs as part of this years refresh. The remaining units will be rolled out as soon as they can be scheduled with the schools.

Interactive Boards:-

ICT have worked along with schools and arranged for the installation of nearly 60% of this years 115 Interactive Panels to be carried out during the summer holidays. This means that many schools are now returning to new Interactive Boards in their classrooms. The remaining units will be scheduled with the schools as soon as possible.

User Administration:-

950 new Primary pupils have been added to the Education Computer system as they join schools around Moray. ICT have also transitioned 1024 pupils between schools to ensure the accounts are ready in the correct location for the start of the new year. ICT would like to thank all staff that provided the necessary pupil / location information to allow this to happen. There have also been 37 NQT accounts created in readiness for the new teaching year.

As many of the PCs in the schools estate will not have been switched on over the summer break they will not have received their Microsoft Security Updates. These updates will be installed when they are first turned on, and as such there is a likelihood that several thousand devices will be updating over the first week of the school term. This will affect the speed of the PCs and the network until all PCs in the estate are once again up to date. Unfortunately these updates are required to ensure that the Education network remains secure and we ask that you bear with us until the updates complete.

Should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact the ICT Service Desk.