MEET OUR COMPETITION WINNERS

Thanks to everyone who entered out latest competitions. As well as our Reader Survey prizes, there were some choice items up for grabs.

The pairs of Wall Mounted Phone Holders are on their way to Matt Harrison, Westland High School, Hokitika, and Liz Hansen, Terrace End School, Palmerston North. And the winner of the Smartphone 12-Inch Screen Magnifier is Philip Waller, Papatoetoe West School, Auckland.

We also had a selection of three Make Your Own Kits to give away. These go to Richard Stuart, Bream Bay College, Ruakaka (Make Your Own Fibre Optic Light), Vicky Lambert, Oceanview Heights School, Timaru (Make Your Own Remote Control Dog), and Nicky Anderson, Tamatea High School, Napier (Make Your Own Coin Eating Robot).

Congratulations to all our winners. If you missed out this time, you could try our new competitions on pages 34 and 35.

Contact Editor Greg Adams at greg.adams@interfacemagazine.co.nz Did students survive the Shark Tank?

Launch The Wonder Project Rocket Challenge At Your School

Blast ākonga engagement with STEM to the stars by signing up for the Wonder Project Rocket Challenge, aligned to Level 3 of the NZ Curriculum. It’s free, fun and supported by industry professionals.

Find our more and sign up at wonderproject.nz/ programmes/rocket-challenge/

Read more in ‘Launching an interest in STEM with the Rocket Challenge’ at interfaceonline.co.nz/issue102/

Register To Get Early Access To New Digital Services And Advice From The Ministry

During the next year, the Digital Team at the Ministry of Education has a range of new services that will be made available to schools and kura. This is part of the goal to improve overall cyber security and digital support to schools and kura.

“The team is looking to establish a schools reference group on digital challenges to help inform decisionmaking. The group would be involved in piloting new services and initiatives, and, importantly, providing feedback,” said the Ministry. “The benefits for schools will include getting access to digital advice and services ahead of launch, receive specific attention on your school’s security setup to understand where improvements can be made, and help shape the design of new services and support.”

Participating schools will be able to opt-in or out of being involved in specific development opportunities as they emerge.

“Spaces in the reference group will be limited. Ideally, the group will be genuinely representative of schools and kura of all shapes and sizes from across Aotearoa. So, if you are interested, get in quick!.”

To register your interest to be part of the Ministry’s digital reference group, please contact digital.services@education.govt.nz

Help Spread The Word About Survey On It Support Services To Schools And Kura

Can you help spread the word? As part of the Ministry of Education’s goal to strengthen cyber security and digital support in kura and schools, it would like to better understand what digital support services are being provided by suppliers into schools and kura and identify any potential gaps.

A request for information (RFI) has been published on the Governments Electronic Tender Service (GETS). To help get as many responses as possible, please can you share the link to the survey with your school’s digital services suppliers. Survey Link here.

Say Hello To Academyex

academyEX is a new Tertiary Education Organisation registered to delivered NZQA qualifications. It brings together a range of courses from its three faculties – The Mind Lab, Tech Futures Lab and Earth Futures Lab. Among new courses on offer are Master of Change and Organisation Resilience and a suite of short part-time courses (online delivery, six weeks part-time) called Advancer courses.

Find out more on page 12 or go to the new website at academyex.com/browse/courses

5 WAYS TO SPOT IF YOUR SCHOOL IS BEING SCAMMED BY A PHISHING EMAIL

• The sender uses a common email domain or inconsistent address.

• Email subject line or content reads as extremely urgent or uses threatening language.

• The message states there is a prize, free gift, or delivery to be claimed.

• There are obvious grammar errors and misspellings throughout.

• The links or attachments look odd, suspicious or downright ‘phishy’.

Source: Using Technology Better (usingtechnologybetter.com)

Rubber Duck Awards Winners

Congratulations to the winners of last year’s Rubber Duck Awards, a competition for educators and ākonga, tamariki and rangatahi of Aotearoa New Zealand, to tell stories through game design. They were:

• Jake, Josiah and Flynn with Carbon Blast, Rolleston Christian School (teacher Christina Sands)

• Kash Duncan with Collect the Pounamu, Breens Intermediate, (teacher Haley Taylor) Learn more at rubberduckawards.co.nz

Resources From Safer Internet Day 2023

A shout out to everyone who took part in Safer Internet Day earlier this month. Hosted by Netsafe, the event’s part of a wider global initiative, with 50 nations worldwide organising activities to encourage better online experiences and promote collaborative efforts to build a safer online world. This year was particularly special as it was the 20th anniversary of the observance.

Resources are still available for your school to use, including logos, newsletter messages, imagery, and posters . More at saferinternetday.nz

DID YOU KNOW?

Enabling airplane mode on your laptop or smartphone will speed up the charging of the battery, as it will turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and network connection, which all consume power.

N4l Releases Annual Report On Support For Schools

Among the stats and information in its Annual Report, Network for Learning revealed its Customer Support Team fielded nearly 44,000 support cases in 2021/22. The Crown-owned technology company’s staff and contractors grew from 114 to 168, fuelled by expanding services that included an Email Protection product and a new Security Operations Centre. And its annual customer service survey revealed 94 per cent of schools and kura were satisfied with its service.

“In 2021/22, as COVID-19 further accelerated the shift to greater reliability on online learning, N4L’s services became more important than ever before,” said CEO Larrie Moore.

“N4L is proud to connect, protect and support schools and kura across Aotearoa New Zealand. The services we provide help alleviate some of the pressures on schools of maintaining their technology infrastructure and allowing busy teaching staff to focus on education.”

If you’d like to read the N4L Annual Report, it can be downloaded here

NEW PURPOSE-BUILT STEM CENTRE IN NSW

Censusatschool Starts This Month

A $45 million New South Wales Government grant is being put towards establishing a STEM Centre of Education Excellence at Australian Catholic University in Western Sydney. The purpose-built centre will offer a range of courses for school students including robotics, coding, entrepreneurial thinking, and Girls in STEM, as well as homework and tutoring clubs. School teachers will also be able to access professional development opportunities in areas that include maths, science, technology, and literacy.

CensusAtSchool New Zealand – TataurangaKiTeKura

Aotearoa has launched its 11th biennial bilingual survey to chart students’ views of their own lives.

CensusAtSchool is a non-profit, online educational project that aims to bring statistics to life in both English and Māori-medium classrooms. Supervised by teachers, students from Years 3-13 anonymously answer 30 questions and later explore the results in class. The statistical project runs every two years, and in 2021, more than 35,000 students took part, representing approximately 600 schools and 1,200 teachers.

“We’re passionate about getting real, relevant data about New Zealand students into their hands,” said Co-director Rachel Cunliffe, “so that they can grow their data science superpower skills.”

Teacher Guides are available and teaching resources include workshops, presentations, classroom activities, research papers, interactive data analysis tools, real student data sets, and statistics website links. For more information go to new.censusatschool.org.nz