SchoolSoft App Update for Guardians and Students - A new dedicated app for guardians has been released, available in app stores now and is green.

iOS17.4

The update we've all been waiting for is here! It has finally resolved the printing issues experienced by preschools.

2FA

2-factor authentication is now required by all personnel throughout Futuraskolan. If you experience problems contact helpdesk and we will help you resolve any problems.

We are trying to create as secure an environment as possible to minimise risk of hacking, phishing and other cybersecurity threats.

1. myaccount.google.com

2. security (left side)

3. 2 step verification

4. add phone number and get code.

Sora

If you thought ChatGPT was impressive, check out Sora Text-to-Video. The next evolution from OpenAI, this is very impresive, and these videos are long, and all ai generated. This AI platform is moving fast.

1st IT update of the year - Lets dive in...😃

Preschool printing woes

We are still experiencing trouble in printing images from iOS devices, specifically from Photo Gallery - This is an ongoing issue that Apple will address in their 17.4 update which should come at the end of the month. In the meantime screenshots work.  🤟 Take a screenshot and send that directly to the printer.

Survey by Enkätfabriken

Our Futuraskolan survey is live! This will run from 5th Feb - 8th March

• Employees - You should find the survey in your inbox and it will only take 5 minutes to complete.  There had been an issue with the survey going straight to SPAM, this should be resolved now.

• Guardians - All guardians that have a registered email address with us will recieve the survey based on one per child, direct to their inbox.

• Students - carried out at each unit following your local procedure.

Reading/ writing tools survey

We all love surveys :)  To help find out what really is needed as essential pedagogical tools, I will send out some quick surveys to fill out over the next few weeks.  It would be really helpful if you take a couple of minutes to help me assess these products.

The first is reading and writing aids:

• Oribi Speek

• Oribi Writer EDU

• Spell Right

• Stava Rex

Look out for the questions in your inbox. or start here

• 12 days of GDPR Xmas

To make sure we all keep on our GDPR game, please watch the videos that are being sent out by Santa, Rudolph and their team. Spare a mince pie for your DPO in the process :) 

You will find all videos in this series HERE

Grading in Schoolsoft:

Gradeing video

Manual ENG    -   SWE

IT check in :)

• Please make sure you have access to all the tools needed - Schoolsoft, Prorenata, Cosafe, Google, Printing, Trelson, etc.. Ask your admin or contact helpdesk if something is missing.

• Join your Google Group - HERE

• You can also check out the past news post on Practice sets in Google - An AI tool within Google clasroom to helpyour learners get to the right answer.

For those of you who may or may not have heard of this AI, mass data set, open source program tool. It is the latest most upto date iteration of the technology frontier we; students, teachers and guardians have at our disposal. 

Like many other emerging technologies it has the potential to be abused and also embraced for use as an educational tool. 

At its core, it has the ability to create near human responses to questions, problems, social conversations and also generate convincing material for problems, essays, debates, coding; pretty much anything you throw at it. You can quickly become convinced, the source was human. 

Like Google search in the early days, you had to have the right word phrase order, to utilise its power and receive the best results possible. I see these AI based tools following a similar direction. We can't just blanket ban their use, but embrace it and find ways to push education forward. 

The end user will need to be smart in harnessing its power to get the clearest desired result. 

For me, one use could be the next generation template or starting point to accelerate a learner. 

• In an HTML case, use it to generate a base site from the information you give it and continue the development from there. 

• As a start for creative, poetry or essay writing with a follow on in social studies where you try to determine if the work came from a student or artificially generated? Are there any tell-tale signs..? 

• In art, similar technology is available and can be used as a starting point to create work that is inspired by your favourite artist. Take this AI generated piece and produce your own interpretation of it. 

• As a teacher you can turn notes into full paragraphs or vice versa. 

There are many progressive uses of these emerging technologies that we should look into and not shy away from. 

At the moment this is an open beta (version 3.0) , which means it's out there and accessible to all who wish to dabble in and play with what it has to offer. The more human input data it receives the further the advancements of version 4.0 will become (even more powerful and convincing). 

So, will students be using this to submit homework..? Yes! 

Can we be ahead of the game and embrace its use..? Yes! 

Is someone working on a tool to detect plagiarism through the use of OpenGPT..? Yes!

This won't be going away and ultimately will be baked into our everyday life as a tool we rely on. 

"Just Google it" 

"just OoenGPT it" 

During this term Futuraskolan will start the transition, migration and training for the switch to SchoolSoft.

Behind the scenes the first steps have been taken to get the system prepared for use, such as importing staff, students and guardians, linking with SPAR, updating roles and such. The next key step will be access and training, this will be carried out by SchoolSoft and follow their recommendations for who should receive the appropriate training and when.

Our training structure will look like this;

January - Administrators, IT coordinators, Lead teachers.

February - EHT, Administrators, Principals & Vice Principals.

April - Administrators

May - Fritids, All Staff

More information and updates will become available as we move forward in this process.

Throughout January 2023 training will get underway with Cosafe - our alarm and incident platform to supplement our existing system. This is not to replace any existing alarms at your unit, but work alongside procedures at Futuraskolan.

The training will cover the Cosafe app - its functions and how to use/ respond to them.

Soon you will receive an invitation to your Cosafe account - either from your school administrator or IT.  This will be sent to your Futuraskolan email address.

The app will be available to all our devices;

Apple - iPad/ iPhone SelfService, 

Macbook -  Cosafe Warning system pre installed.

Chrome - Playstore - Force installed and pinned for staff devices.

you can also access it through a web portal

https://app.cosafe.se/login

The system is active, but our official LIVE date is February 1st from then it won't be a drill.

Let's hope this is a tool to have and not need, rather than to need and not have.

Explore, Play, Create!

Anyone, anywhere can organize an Hour of Code event. One-hour tutorials in over 45 languages. No experience needed.

Hour of Code is coming in December, browse the website at code.org to find inspiration and lessons to hold with your learners. Get them interested and excited about compouter science.

What’s New in Apple OS Upgrades: macOS Ventura, iPadOS 16, iOS 16 and tvOS 16

iOS 16 will be rolling out soon to our apple devices in Futuraskolan - Look out, update as and when needed.

It is now possable to log into Admentum with your Google credentials. At the login screen click login with Google. This is active for all students and staff. If this method of login does not work, contact your administrator or helpdesk to have it resolved.

Now when you start the School accademic year 2022/23 you will have some premade Google Clasrromms with students prepopulated in them. These are managed Google Classrooms meaning there is a generic default owner, so we can avoid loosing accces to them further down the line when a staff member leaves for example.  

These classes are also updated regularly with the correct students in them, so if a student moves or leaves the Classroom will reflect that change automatically.

At the end of the school year these Google Classrooms will be Automatically archived and a new one created for the next accademic year.

If you are emailing or sharing to teachers in your unit, here are the group names.

Subject Teachers Groups