MDLT Blog

Changing Role – staff Glow account reminder

The Digital Learning Team and MIS Support have received a number of queries recently regarding access to Glow accounts for staff who have changed roles within the authority.

When you leave your school based role a closure date will be added to your work record in SEEMiS, this will automatically disable your Glow account. You should ensure you download anything you do not wish to lose before leaving your current role. A new Glow account should be requested from missupport@moray.gov.uk by your line manager. Details of your PVG check may be required to create the new account.

If you have not downloaded all the content you wish to keep by the time the school you are leaving has updated you SEEMiS work record a 60 day grace period can be applied to your account, after which it will be automatically permanently deleted. You should also provide your new Glow details to the owners of any Teams, Google Classroom or Groups you will still require access to so you can add you as a new member.

Staff moving to a role in a different school within Moray will retain their original account; however staff accounts can not be transferred to other Local Authorities.

Education Scotland support for practitioners

There is a massive amount of anytime/anywhere support for practitioners in all sectors on digilearn.scot . Below are some links to help you find support for your sector, for a specific tools, programmes and CRIS.

Anytime/anywhere learning for practitioners in all sectors.

Support for specific tool or platforms

Programmes and courses

Cyber Resilience and Internet safety

Teams meeting co-organiser functionality in Glow

When scheduling a meeting staff can now add a co-organiser to meetings scheduled within Team in Glow. After inviting people/scheduling your meeting, you can add up to 10 co-organisers to help manage your meeting. Co-organisers can be added in the Meeting Options screen which is accessible after the meeting has been created. Only those who have been added as named attendees can be promoted to co-organisers. Co-organisers are displayed as additional organisers in the meeting participant list and have most of the capabilities of the meeting organizer.

A co-organiser can perform the following actions –

Open the Meeting
Admit people from the lobby and switch off the lobby
Manage Breakout rooms
Present content by default
Change another participants role to allow the to present content
Make changes to meeting options
End the meeting for all

Due to these extra capabilities it is not recommended to add a learner as a co-organiser as this could result in meetings which are only attended by unsupervised learners.

This additional functionality could be very useful in staff meeting or for those who arrange meetings on behalf of other. More details on adding a co-organiser can be found – 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.

Glow Blogs – Accessibility by UserWay Plugin

Glow Blogs have added a new plug in that improves the accessibility. The Accessibility by UserWay plugin can be activated by anyone with Administrator permissions for you Glow Blog. Enabling this plugin will give your site visitors a button on the bottom right of your site that allows them to make changes to the how the site is displayed to support accessibility.

The Moray Digital Learning Team would recommend adding this plugin to any existing Glow Blogs to make it easier to access for all users. Below is a video that will demo how to activate the plug in and how it works.

You can find more information – 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

Google’s Scotland Certification Programme – new cohort in September 2022

Before the summer holidays Google launched their national Google Certified Educator Programme, with the first cohort launching in May. The next cohort for Level 1 will begin in September with sessions scheduled for 21st, 28th and 8th October. The Level 2 cohort will take place in November. These are full-funded and supported learning pathways to achieve the Google Certified Educator Level 1 and 2 awards. In addition to webinars with Google certified trainers, coaches or innovators, to guide educators through the preparation for the GCE Exam, Google are also providing access to Canopy for asynchronous access to training materials. Online training materials are also available on the Google Teacher Centre.

The GCE exam has been updated and is now a 3 hour open book multiple choice exam, and results are available start after submitting your completed exam. Exams can be taken on demand at a time that suites the candidate. If you have any questions or would like a chat about the programme, exams or experience of working through the online training please contact learntech@moray.gov.uk

To find out more and register for the next cohort click – here

Microsoft Educator Centre changes

In May Microsoft Educator Centre is merging with Microsoft Learn to become the single training hub to empower digital classrooms. On Microsoft Learn users have access to the same content that you love from the Microsoft Educator Centre, and many other online courses.

Current MEC users need to link their account with Learn Educator Centre to keep all achievements and transcripts. Head here to find out how: Click Here or follow these instructions-

Log into the MEC (https://education.microsoft.com/en-us)
Click on the ‘Visit Learn button’
Log into Learn with the same details as the MEC (Glow email address)

All badges/achievements will be migrated from the MEC to Microsoft Learn, but if you do wish to download your MEC Transcript to have as a record until this work is completed follow these instructions

Log into the MEC (https://education.microsoft.com/en-us)
Click on your avatar in the top right corner of the screen
Select the My Profile
Select View Transcript
Select the save icon to save a copy to your computer

Microsoft Apps on Android Devices

We have had a few users reporting issues accessing Microsoft apps on their Android devices. This is an issue which does not just effect Glow users, so RM Unify have escalated the issue to Microsoft.

The current advice for users who are unable to access application like Teams or Outlook via their Android tablets or mobiles is to fully log out of the app and the account on your device, you may need to do this in the device settings rather than the app settings. After logging out fully delete the application and then reinstall it, before logging back in with your full Glow email address as your Microsoft account username.

If you can access the app sign out and close down the app on your device
If you are unable to access the menu to sign out inside the app you may may need to do this in your device settings, but make sure you have closed the app down.
In the device settings locate the App settings
Scroll through the list of apps on the device to find the correct one and click to open the details.
Click on the Storage option
Click to clear the data and cache
Uninstall the app from your device and reinstall the latest version of the app from the Play store
When logging in use you Glow Microsoft account username (full Glow email address)

If you have any issues logging out of the application fully please consult your devices manufacturer’s guide on how to do this on your device model.

Changes to Google Additional Services for Staff Glow Accounts

From 1st February 2022 Education Scotland Digital Services are reversing some of the changes made in Sep 2021 which limited Glow accounts access to Google Additional Services such as Google Maps.

From 1st February staff Glow accounts will regain access to Google Additional Services; however learners will remain unable to access these products when signed into Glow. This is due to the age restrictions outlined in the T&Cs for these services. Please note it can take a few days until the change is rolled out across all accounts, so please be patient. To test if your account has been updated please access G Drive or Google Classroom before attempting to open an Additional Service like Google Maps. If you are able to open the Additional Service then your account has been updated, if not please give it a bit more time.

It is still recommended that Glow users do not link their Google account to other services which are approved for use, but use the sign up with an email option whenever possible.

Note: YouTube is still set to “Restricted Mode” and therefore cannot be accessed whilst signed in to Google with your Glow account. This may be reviewed later in the year. More information about Google Additional Services available on Glow Connect here.