Google are currently organising a series of Roadshow events around Scotland. They’re aimed at local authority staff, to help them find out more about what Google Apps offers, and what’s involved in making it available to their learners.
We’re hosting one on Thursday this week, 4pm to 7pm, at East Lothian Outdoor Education Service, Musselburgh.
If you’re interested in finding out more about Google Apps, or sharing your experience of using Apps, why not come along?
You’ll find full details here.
We’ve been receiving reports of excessive comment spam over recent days on three eduBuzz sites. Are you affected? If so, please let us know. You’ll also find some tips below that may be helpful until we beef up our spam protection. Sorry.
Initial investigation shows these are coming from a number of separate internet (IP) addresses, and arrangements are in hand to block anyone connecting to eduBuzz from these addresses. If you’re being affected, especially by persistent spam from a small number of IP addresses, let us know and we’ can block them site-wide. Continue reading »
An East Lothian school had a query from a Mum wondering if it was possible to prevent children’s photos being copied from school web sites and being posted to Facebook. Our response contained advice on the use of Facebook privacy settings which may be of value to others, so we’re posting it here.
Many years ago, some people did try to create technical barriers to the copying of photos from web site pages. They were mainly professional photographers trying to prevent the theft of their copyright images. Trying to do that, though, has fallen completely out of favour for two reasons.
Firstly, it was always ineffective. People found ways to work around the barriers. For example, with modern high-res computer screens, you can hit “Print Screen” to copy anything on the screen to the Clipboard. From there, it’s a small step to pasting into Paint and saving as a new, surprisingly good quality, image. These days, people might grab a phone, and take a snap. Continue reading »
Today’s Scotsman reports that Google have “walked away” from the Next Generation Glow procurement.
Google has pulled out of the competition for Next Generation Glow, saying that the Scottish Government’s procurement process was at odds with its company philosophy on how the internet should be used to provide education in schools.
The next step in this process is expected to be an announcement at the end of May of the result of that process. Whatever that is, it will not affect the existing use of Google Apps for Education in East Lothian schools.
This summer, the wide-area network (WAN) that connects East Lothian’s schools together is being upgraded. As part of this work, the primary schools’ servers will need to be completely re-configured. This is a major piece of work, and means that:
No primary school computers or network resources (e.g. internet access, shared files, printing) will be available for the first two weeks of the holidays (2nd – 13th July).
** Email will still be available from home.
Primary School PC/Laptop changes:
Following this work, every PC and laptop in every primary school will need to have some work done on them to make them work with the new setup. This means all laptops must be left in the school over the holidays so they can be updated.
All files currently stored on any primary school computer will be PERMANENTLY DELETED
This includes documents, digital photos etc that are stored on your desktop or in the My Documents folder.
All files that you want to keep must be moved to your server before the holidays – either to your S: drive or your Z: drive.
If you have large amounts of digital video or photos to store, it may be more suitable to store them on an external USB hard disk – your ICT Co-ordinator will be able to advise you. If you are unsure of what this means for you, please phone the IT Service Desk on 01620 827205 for advice and support.