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Micro:bit Playground Survey

You may have seen that the micro:bit Foundation have launched a ‘Playground Survey’ for the summer term. This is part of their ‘next-gen’ roll out of 30 micro:bits to schools across the UK and has featured in CBBC content, so you or your learners may have already seen this.

The lesson resources give children the skills and code to collect data in a survey of their playgrounds (temperature, biodiversity, area and physical activity). There is also an opportunity to upload the data to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) who will publish the findings in Autumn (We have a DPIA in place so you are free to upload this if you wish).

You will find the resources HERE with videos, lesson plans, worksheets and code. They are quite self-explanatory. You can make it a big project over several weeks or do it in an afternoon by just downloading the appropriate programs to collect the information.

Due to my work as a micro:bit Champion over the past couple of years I’ve been asked to be involved in PR for the project. This may involve education media visiting some schools to highlight the great work with micro:bits happening in Moray. So do let me know if you plan to take part in the survey and I may reach out when I have more info.

Any support/questions as always, just reach out to learntech@moray.gov.uk 

 

Notes

Just to note that for the ‘Tracking our Physical Activity’ lesson – You won’t be able to open the file directly from the micro:bit but need to copy this to the learner’s drive (U) and then it should open fine. The machine learning tool may be hit or miss as it requires the micro:bit to pair but with perseverance I’ve tested it to work.

Changes to OneDrive storage in Glow

Microsoft recently announced changes in storage allocation on their A1 Education license, which is the license all users have through their Glow account. As of February 1st, 2024, users will be restricted to a maximum of 100Gb storage within their individual OneDrive.  This is a reduction from the 1TB currently available in Glow.  The vast majority of Moray users will be unaffected by this change as they are not using anywhere near 100Gb of storage.

Education Scotland have provided the Moray Digital Learning Team with a list of accounts whose OneDrive storage exceed these new limits, as well as users that are close to this limit (i.e. those with storage space of 90Gb and over).  We will be contacting these account holders individually.

All Glow users are encouraged to undertake regular housekeeping of their cloud storage to ensure they remain with the limits. These housekeeping tasks can range from, but are not limited to

  • Deleting unwanted / unused files
  • Delete unwanted / unused versions
  • Empty Recycle bin
  • If the material is still required, consider storing in an alternative location like G Drive
  • To learn how to review and delete large files in OneDrive, go to this site.

Tips For End Users

  • How to view your storage usage – Sign into OneDrive on the web. Review storage usage on the bottom left corner.
  • Clean up your files – Click the storage amount used and view the largest files in your OneDrive you may want to delete to free up space. After deleting the files, empty the recycle bin.

Following the licensing change in February 2024 users will receive warning notifications when approaching the storage limit. At 100% capacity, the user’s OneDrive will be limited to read-only access. Users won’t be able to upload, edit or sync new files to OneDrive but existing files will remain read-only

Computing Science Scotland Week – Nov 6th – Nov 10th 2023

Join Education Scotland and their partners to celebrate Computing Science Scotland Week – Monday 6th – Friday 10th November 2023 with a series of live lessons exploring different aspects of Computing Science.

During the week you and your learners can dive into Computing and learn new skills with practical code and create a long sessions as well as some unplugged activities broadly suitable for BGE levels 2/3.

Topics covered during this week include

  • Data Science
  • Coding
  • Design
  • Prototyping
  • Physical Computing

 Live Lesson Schedule

Most of the live lessons will take place via a Team in Glow; however if you are unable to join the Glow team then you can still access the live lesson via direct link but won’t have access to chat.

More information about the activities and partners contributing to #CSScotland23 can be found – HERE.

Happy Data Protection Day!

Image Copyright – Council of Europe (Source).

Tomorrow 28th January 2023 is Data Protection Day.

The Digital Learning Team and the Council’s Data Protection Officer would like to remind schools that any online platforms, digital tools or software that require staff or learners to create an account or provide personal data to use (e.g. name, email, DOB etc.) should have gone through a DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment) and be listed on the green section of the Moray Council RAG List before any personal data is entered. 

See a full article on the Moray Council Interchange HERE.

Funding Available for LEGO League Challenges

Funding Packages for the FIRST® LEGO® League 2022 – 2023

There is limited funding available through the IET (Institute for Engineering and Technology) for the FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge. This is a yearly challenge based on a real world scientific theme. This year’s theme is renewable energy.

This video gives you an overview of what’s on offer: WELCOME VIDEO

You can choose to complete the challenge in your classroom (with a classroom pack) or to enter a team to attend a competition. There are 3 Levels:

  • Discover (4-6 year olds) – You get a class pack of LEGO DUPLO sets and resources on energy.
  • Explore (6-9 year olds) – You get 5 LEGO robots and 5 related LEGO sets per class. Along with engineering notebooks and guides.
  • Challenge (9-16 year olds) – You get 3 LEGO robots and 2 LEGO challenge packs to build a series of 15 energy related challenges for your robot to complete. The competition element is to code your robot to complete the challenges against either a classroom opponent or in a external competition event.

This would be particularly suited to a upper Primary Class or Primary/Secondary STEM Club. All the LEGO, instructions and resources are provided if you are successful with funding.

More information on the funding and an application form is available HERE

More information about the FIRST® LEGO® League can be found HERE.

 

iPad Smoothwall Certificate – Action Required

To access the internet on your school iPad you first need to log into the Smoothwall; however this is only possible if there is an active certificate.  The current Smoothwall certificate will expire on 10th June so it is vital that all iPads are updated as soon as possible.  After the 10th June iPads which have not been updated will no longer be able to access the internet until the certificate is updated.

ICT have set up a new wifi network to allow schools to update their certificates – IOS-ICT.  The wifi password has been emailed to all school’s admin email account.  Once you have connected to the new network you should go through the following steps –

  • Click on the Settings Icon
  • Select Wi-Fi
  • Select the IOS-ICT network
  • Enter the password in the email sent to school admin/technician
  • Press the home button to go back to the main home screen
  • Open the Meraki App
  • Refresh the app by swiping your finger down from the top of the screen
  • Press the home button to go back to the main home screen
  • Click on the Settings Icon
  • Select the General menu
  • Select the VPN & Device Management option
  • Click on the Meraki Systems Management option
  • Select More Details
  • Check the Certificates section and ensure there is a valid Smoothwall-default-root-certifiacte-authority with a date in 2024
  • • Select Wi-Fi and switch back to the mobiles network and forget the IOS-ICT network. You may need to toggle off the Private Wi-Fi Address option on the mobiles network to get it to connect again.

If you are unable to open the Meraki App or if after following the instructions above the new certificate is not shown please contact the Digital Learning Team or check for updated instructions which would have been issued via the weekly bulletin.

Please be aware that the IOS-ICT network will only be available for schools to update their certificate until 7th October.  The IOS-ICT network should only be used for the purposes of updating the certificate as it is an unfiltered connection to the internet and the password should not be shared outside of staff responsible for updating the iPads.

If you have any questions please contact learntech@moray.gov.uk

Changes to Google Classroom Settings

To prevent students from un-enrolling themselves from Google Classrooms, Google have added a new setting which will enable whether Students can unenroll themselves from Google Classrooms.

To assist Educators the Education Scotland have decided to turn this feature on in Glow, preventing students from unenrolling themselves from a Google Classroom. A Educator would have to unenroll any learner manually from their Google Classroom if requested.

This change is scheduled for 28th October.

Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams – Now Live

Reading Progress is a new addition to Microsoft Teams Assignments, which all Glow users should now have access to. It is designed to support learners in building fluency through independent reading practice, and allows educators to review their progress. Within Reading Progress there are the auto-detect feature which educators can use to quickly identify errors such as mispronunciations, repetitions, phrasing, intonation, and omissions, so they can customise instruction for each learner.

Educators can upload a single reading fluency assignment or differentiate assignment for their class as required using Assignments in Teams. Learners record themselves reading and submit it within the assessment.  This allow only the educator to view the recording. Educators can chose to require learners to record both their audio and video; however this should be used with caution as there is no background blur option currently available and for learners using the mobile Teams app video is automatically selected. As Reading Progress is developed by Microsoft options for selecting video and audio may change, but learners should always be aware of their surrounding when recording with Reading Progress.

As a tool Reading Progress can be used to assist learners to build confidence in their reading, fluency and can be applied to a number of curriculum areas such as Modern Languages and Drama.

If you wish to learn more please see links below:

 

Share your digital learning journey

We would like to start running short educator lead webinar sessions to highlight and share all the fantastic work going on in the digital learning space in Moray.

 

If you have a created a Blog, Google Site, OneNote, Sway, Form, SharePoint Site or anything else you think others might be interested to see or benefit from hearing about your experience, please let us know at – learntech@moray.gov.uk

 

We will assist you in delivering a short (20 to 30 minutes) informal webinar and Q&A session.
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