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THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND GOOGLE ANNOUNCE NEW DEALS A new partnership agreement between the Ministry of Education and Google will allow state and state integrated schools to continue to claim the Ministryfunded Chrome Education Upgrade Licences (previously Chrome Education licence) for eligible school-owned, leased and BYOD devices. Through the upgrade, schools will be able to: • Select and push apps to student devices, ensuring they have the right apps they need; • Select Wi-Fi networks to connect to; • Customise the user experience by automatically loading websites on startup, adding custom bookmarks, and blocking URLs and distractions; • Centrally manage devices with more than 200 controls; • Protect user data with the sandboxing, Verified-Boot, and 128-bit encryption features of Chrome OS; • Prevent anyone from un-enrolling their managed Chromebook from the school’s domain; • Minimise lost and stolen devices; and • Manage student sign-in to prioritise educational use of devices during school hours. The Chrome Education Upgrade is a perpetual licence that covers the life of the device within the domain it’s enrolled in. As a part of the agreement, state and state integrated schools are also able to upgrade their Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals (the free for Education edition – previously called G Suite for Education) to Google Workspace for Education Plus. This is a set of Google Education tools and services that are tailored for schools to collaborate, streamline instruction, and keep learning safe and secure. Existing features include tools such as Google Classroom, Assignments, Google Meet, Google Docs, Google Forms, and Google Chat.
ENJOYING AUCKLAND MUSEUM FROM HOME Despite having to close its doors during lockdown, Auckland War Memorial Museum continued to provide plenty of things to see and do with Auckland Museum at Home. For a selection of fun and educational activities, videos, stories, blogs, and virtual tours go to aucklandmuseum.com/ your-museum/at-home
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After making it more difficult for adults to send messages to people under 18 (who don’t follow them) and starting to default new accounts belonging to people under the age of 16 into a private setting, Instagram is implementing more safety features designed to protect kids. For now, it will begin to require users to provide birth dates, and tailor access to content and services accordingly. Of course, people have been known to lie about such things. So, the company is also developing AI technology to help it identify these accounts, for example, by inferring someone’s birthday based on ‘Happy Birthday’ posts. Longer term, Instagram has plans to launch an ‘Under 13’ version of its service.
NEW ANIMATION SERIES TACKLES TEEN SUICIDE A new YouTube channel has been created to address teen suicide. My Life is Worth Living is an animated series that is focused on preventing teen suicide. It tells stories about teens who have had thoughts about suicide, and how it is okay to need and ask for help. For more information go to mylifeisworthliving.org
TENZ 2021 NATIONAL CONFERENCE GOES ONLINE Technology Education New Zealand (TENZ) has announced that its annual conference in October is switching to an online format. In a statement it said: “While it was a difficult decision to cancel the face-toface version of our conference, we still aim to make the most of our great line-up of presenters. Rather than live streaming the conference, we will work with our presenters to create and upload content that can be accessed by all members without registration. We don’t yet have a fixed timeline for this but will keep you updated.” More at tenz.org.nz/2021-conference/
TEAMS ADDS READING PROGRESS Microsoft is rolling out Reading Progress, a free education tool for Teams that uses AI to give teachers estimations of student fluency when reading text. Built into Microsoft Teams Assignments, the app lets teachers upload a single reading fluency passage for the whole class or provide different passages to suit students at various reading levels. Students respond via audio or video recordings. More at aka.ms/ readingprogress
