Category: ICT (page 1 of 2)

Hour of Code – ECE teachers

International Computer Science week is from the 9th to 13th of December. From the 9th to 20th December, please find some time in your class to do an Hour of Code activity with your students.

Amita has shortlisted 3 simple activities and placed all the resources on the server here:

smb://10.3.1.1/Teachers/@Teachers Pub/@ECE/ECE SHARED FOLDER/2019~20/Hour of Code

She is happy to have discussions with you if you would like, or if you would like her to come into your class to do the activity. She is also happy to work with you should you want to do something besides the shortlisted activities.  BeeBots are also available to be borrow out.

Veronica, Michelle & Amita

Mac OS upgrade

ITD will upgrade Mac OS to the latest version (10.12) during the Christmas holidays.

For the school Mac devices: Except for the iMac in the music classroom at CP,  ITD will upgrade all the school iMacs and laptops to the latest version. Please take a backup of the iMac in your classroom to avoid data being lost.

For your self purchased laptops: ITD has created an upgrade package in the Casper self-service system so that teachers can upgrade their Mac on return  (please see guide here). Please take a back up of your laptop before you upgrade.

For the school laptops which teachers are using: Teachers are recommended to go to IT support for them to re-image their laptops with the new upgrade (this will help create more space for the new upgrade to work a little faster).  Please take a back up of your laptop before you go to IT support.

 

Hour of Code – Primary

Read on for an exciting free technology opportunity which you can explore with your students.

The key website with details of this activity is https://hourofcode.com/cn/en. The website is also available in Chinese, Korean and several other languages.

What is the Hour of Code?

The Hour of Code is an initiative that takes place during CSEd Week (5th – 11th of December) where everyone is encouraged to try programming/coding for at least one hour. There are activities for all year groups, with minimal teacher expertise and preparation required, which introduce children to the logical thinking required for programming.

How do I participate in the Hour of Code?

This is an optional activity.

You can set this activity as an optional homework or if you have time in your ICT class, you might want to try it then. You can also introduce it to your kids in class and then give them the links for them to try at home.  We will be adding a post to the Year Level blog’s which explains the Hour of Code.

There are dozens of activities available at HourofCode.com, including art with Anna and ElsaJavaScript for beginners.

Here is an example of a minecraft coding activity on code.org: https://code.org/minecraft

While the activities on the Hour of Code site have been tried and tested to make sure that they are fun, free, and foundational, you are by no means limited to those examples. The goal is to spread the programming experience far and wide, in an entertaining and non-threatening way.

What if I want to go beyond an hour?

Fantastic!  There are several free resources for classroom teachers. Many of those resources are linked here.

The objective of Hour of Code is not to turn everyone into a computer scientist.  Its urgency is tied much more to the need for the citizens of the future to understand problem solving and logic, as well as to cultivate the ability for people to create 21st century tools that combat complicated issues.

You don’t need to commit to a life of programming.  Just try one hour of coding with your students and see where it leads.  Who knows, you just might like it!

Parent Communication and Blogs

Dear Colleagues,

 

Over the next few weeks, there will be some subtle changes regarding how we communicate with parents.  This follows input from parent surveys, discussions with parents, and input from Roseline who is looking at things with a fresh set of eyes.  Below is the blog post we will send to parents regarding this.  We will also be discussing this more with the team leaders next week at our regular meeting.

 

One point though that we do want to make clear to all staff is that your Class Blog belongs to you and it is the Co-Teachers’ responsibility to keep it updated.  Co-Teachers should also inform parents when the Class Blog has been updated – a short email or diary note to mention that you have posted new photos or information about a class event etc… is all that is needed. We can’t expect parents to just look at the blog unless we direct them there.  Please also make sure your blogs are updated and information and photos from last year are removed.  If you need help, contact Amita or the school office.

 

Year Leaders are responsible for the Year Level Blogs, and the school office will inform parents when Year Level Blogs messages have been posted, after the office staff have been informed by the Year Leader.

 

Communication with parents of over 650 students can be a challenge and we are always looking to improve.  We rely on all our teachers playing their part.  The way we communicate with parents tells them how caring and professional we are, and that we value their involvement.  Don’t forget to make use of your class parent reps as well.  If you want more information about how we can make use of parent reps in ECE and Primary, speak to Nadine or your relevant Coordinator.

 

See parent blog post below.

 

Have a great weekend.

Damien and Mary

Dear Parents,

亲爱的家长们,

You have been speaking, and we have been listening!  With the help of staff and parents, we have been reviewing how we communicate with parent and some of the feed back we received was:

您在说,我们在听!在家长和学校员工的帮助下,我们回顾了学校和家长交流的方法,我们得到的反馈如下:

  • Too many emails from the school.

收到太多学校的邮件

  • Attachments (parents don’t like attachments to blogs and emails)

附件(家长不方便打开博客和邮件中的附件)

  • Too much information – some is not relevant, how to find what is relevant?

太多信息 – 有些和自己无关,如何找到和自己相关的信息?

  • Blog is not mobile device friendly as many use smart phones to access info

在手机上查看博客不是很方便,因为很多家长使用智能手机查看信息

 

As a result, we are going through some processes of improvising communication with parents. Our steps will be:

所以,我们正在重新拟定了与家长沟通的步骤。如下:

  • We will send an email with a number of blog post links  – cutting down on the number of emails

我们将在一份邮件中罗列所有更新博客的链接,以减少邮件数量。

  • Each blog link will be explained so you can decide what is relevant to you 

每一个博客链接将有简单介绍,您可以选择与您相关的博客阅读。

  • Year Level specific information will be on Year Level Blogs

与特定年级相关的信息将更新在年级博客上。

  • We will be launching a new ECE and Primary News Blog which will be more user friendly for mobile devices

我们将发布一个适合手机阅览的新版本幼教部与小学部新闻博客。

  • On the Parent Blog, rather than see long blog posts you will see titles and can click on those that are relevant

在家长博客上,您将不会看到长篇的博客,取而代之的是你将只看到博客标题,然后点击和您相关的博客阅读。

  • We will avoid attachments where possible

我们将避免各类附件。

 

These changes will occur gradually over the next few weeks and we hope you find the changes helpful.

    以上这些变动将在接下去的几个星期中逐步完成,希望这些变化对您有所帮助。

 

Finally, we are excited to report we will be sending out a new newsletter format next Wednesday or Thursday.  The newsletter will no longer be a PDF and will be a series of articles you can click on according to your interest.  We will be providing special interests stories and staff and student highlights which we hope you will find interesting.  It will all be mobile device friendly and we think you will like it.

    最后,我们很高兴的宣布我们将在下周三或下周四发布全新模式的学校通讯。学校通讯不在是PDF格式,可以选择性点击阅读您所感兴趣的文章。我们将发表一些特别事迹、员工及学生相关的文章,希望您会喜欢。同样的,这将是适合手机阅读模式。

 

Skills Audit (Teaching and Non Teaching Staff)

Dear Teachers,

We would like to ask all teaching and non teaching staff to fill out the following questionnaire by following the link. This is a skills audit which will help us gauge the ICT skills of the staff. We will use this information to plan out technology training during in-service days and other staff meetings too.

Please take the time to accurately answer the survey. It contains 42 questions and shouldn’t take more than 15 – 25 minutes.

Skills audit link

We would very much appreciate if this can be completed by Monday 12th November 2015.

Kind Regards,

PPT PLC

Backup Drives

Dear Teachers,

 

We will be ordering backup drives for the staff, if you should so require one. The price for a 2TB Western Digital external USB drive is RMB650.

If you would like one, please bring exact money to Amita/Alex by Friday 8am. Jason will order the drives on Friday and they should be here by Monday.

Please note the following:
– We will not be giving any change to people – any left-over money will be donated to charity.
– You do not need to email to let us know you want one. Just bring the money and we will order one for you.

 

Any questions, please contact Amita or Alex.

 

Thanks,

Andrew

Attention teachers who purchased a school MacBook Pro

The IT Division is requesting that all those who purchased a school MacBook Pro, return the warranty to IT Division.  They will put the warranty for the laptop int he school’s name and look after any warranty issues for you.  There are tax and social security issues if the MacBook Pro warranty is in the teacher’s name which the foundation is trying to avoid – this was not realised until after the arrangements were made.   Please return your MBP warranty to IT Division before Oct 23.  If you would like to fully understand the reasoning, this is the email we received from the Head of Finances in HK which explain it in detail:

If you have purchased a school Macbook Pro, you may recall that in our policy we included the following statement: “The invoice and warranty for the laptop will be in the name of the teacher.”  The reason for this arrangement was mainly warranty-related.  Inside each box delivered to our teachers, which was unopened at the time of delivery, was a warranty card.  While Apple has records of each hardware’s applicable warranty, which can be searched online, there is always the possibility of ‘gaining’ a few extra days or weeks of warranty if substantiated by some form of proof of purchase.  This was the major rationale for issuing the invoice in the name of the teacher, to maximize the coverage of the warranty.

 However, local difficulties have been raised in the reporting of personal income taxes and social security payments, if the invoice is in the name of the teacher.  One of the major difficulties is the impact on individuals’ future social security payments in the case of Chinese teachers. 

Accordingly, for those teachers who have already purchased Macbooks under the Scheme, we would like to ask them to voluntarily return their warranty card to the IT Division, which will arrange with the Apple agent to have them chopped and dated with the date of purchase, after which the invoice will be issued in the name of the School instead.   This will simplify tax reporting for the School while also minimizing any impact on staff in the future. If staff choose not to submit their warranty cards to allow ITD to have them chopped, they will receive an invoice issued in their name as per the policy.

VPN trial

Dear All,

We are pleased to inform you that our IT division is experimenting with a new school VPN which will allow staff to access YouTube and Google, amongst other sites.  You are able to access the VPN automatically when logged in to the Teacher Wi-Fi portal.  Please note this is experimental at this time and will be monitored by IT Division for the next two weeks.  If you experience any issues, feel free to share them with Michael Wang, Head of IT.

Regards,

Damien and Mary

Email Signature

Last year an email signature was set up for YCIS staff.  If you want to use an email signature, please ensure you use the school one.  Please use the title on your staff name badge as the title for your email.  Below is the email signature template for RP and CP (address, phone numbers etc..) and the instructions for how to set it up.  If you need help with this, please see your friendly IT support staff member.

Instructions:

For Mac – YCIS Email Signature[2][1][2]

We will send out the templates in a separate email (won’t work on the blog).

Thanks,

Damien and Mary

lynda.com – PD website

We have some great news to share with you. All staff will be getting subscription to lynda.com.
This website is hands-down one of the best sources for online learning. For years, lynda.com has put informative and clear video-based training in front of people who need it. The videos let you work at your own pace, and the website is designed extremely well to help you keep track of what you want to learn and what you have already learnt. The site’s software tutorials are particularly useful when trying to brush up on a program you haven’t used in a while or learn the particulars of a newly released version of an old favorite. It is also a wonderful place to learn about popular and essential computer programs like Photoshop, Microsoft Excel and iMovie in addition to picking up business principles, money-management advice, and much more. They also have a handy app for your mobile devices.
You will receive an email before the holidays to sign up for this website. Please remember to do so as the link expires within 7 days.

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