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ICT Support for Oxfordshire Primary Schools 123 ICT Newsletter: November / December 2012 For ICT updates and teaching ideas follow @123ICT on Twitter 1 Oxfordshire ICT Conference 2012 …. Thursday 15 th November was another opportunity to exhibit our ICT support services to Oxfordshire schools and it was particularly well attended this year. The changes to IT broadband services provided by OCC to schools meant that we had a lot of headteachers approaching us for advice. It proved to be a busy day and allowed us to arrange appointments with many prospective schools. The presentations were varied with some of more interest to primary schools than others. The main news to come out of the conference is the changes afoot to OCN email. The OSG (Oxfordshire Schools Gateway) is being decommissioned over the next 12 months. Although no timetable was given, a strong indication was given that school email accounts will be migrated to Office365. This means that in the future, schools will be able to control their own accounts. Once we have received clarification of the email migration project, we’ll set out some impartial advice to help our schools understand the implications. Dominic New 123 apprentice … We are pleased to announce that Alistair Freeman has joined us as an apprentice ICT Technician. Alistair was a student at Chipping Norton School and like Phil, has a passion for music technology. Alistair started his QA Microsoft Apprenticeship in IT Systems & Networking at the start of November and is currently working alongside 123ICT consultants as part of his work placement. Bill OCN broadband transition catalogue … Oxfordshire County Council have finally published their catalogue for schools to help them in the transition from the OCN to commercial broadband provision. During the recent conference, OCC confirmed that so far only 30 schools have actually terminated their OCN connection. The vast majority of these are schools with a 123ICT support contract and we continue to lead the way assisting schools with the transition. We are unique among local support companies, in that we work with both EXA and Schools Broadband acting impartially to find the best solution for Oxfordshire schools. Based on our experiences so far, we feel it is in your interests to make plans as soon as possible and your 123ICT consultant is able to advise you directly. Charlie The new ICT curriculum …… Charlie and Nick attended The New ICT Curriculum conference in London on 16th October 2012. Until the introduction of the new curriculum in 2014, schools will continue to have an individual responsibility to teach ICT to a high standard. However, as there is no longer a Programme of Study for ICT, schools are asking the question: What are Ofsted’s expectations with regard to ICT? During the day, perhaps the most anticipated presentation was given by Ofsted’s David Brown (National Adviser for ICT). A summary of his presentation can be found on page 4 and you’ll notice that there is now a requirement for schools to consider e-safety. The new ICT curriculum is likely to have a much stronger emphasis on programming and this was particularly reinforced by Ian Livingstone OBE, Co-Author of the NextGen Report and Government Adviser on ICT Curriculum Reform. A full copy of the presentations can be found via The New ICT Curriculum: Creating a 21st Century Skillset Nick 123 curriculum update … Carol Rainbow continues to contribute curriculum news and reviews to our website (www.123ICT.co.uk) on a freelance basis and you can keep up to date by following @123ICT on Twitter. The latest curriculum posts are also featured on page 2 of this newsletter and with Christmas approaching we have highlighted the related posts. Andy 123 technical update … 1. iPad printing – If you visit http://www.collobos.com/ you will find a fantastic program to enable printing from any IOS device to any printer. It's called Fingerprint and you install it on the server and in less than a minute, you can print to any printer from your iPhone or iPad. Stuart 2. Accessing your H drive – Many schools have concerns about accessing local drives after their broadband transition from OCN to an alternative supplier. OCC have noted that it is a major concern to schools and are looking at an alternative to the MySchool technology. Dan 3. Staff laptops – 123ICT have established close working relationships with our suppliers with the aim of obtaining suitable laptops at a good price on behalf of our schools. They often notify us of clearance and end of year offers. You will find information on current laptop deals featured on page 3 of this newsletter. Stephen
