Join the Digital Support Team for engaging professional learning sessions!

Are you looking to enhance teaching and learning with digital tools in your classroom? We have just the thing for you! The Digital Support Team is excited to offer a series of online webinars designed to inspire and empower educators like you.

All staff now have access to eduSearch, a new experimental search engine that is designed to bring you better and more relevant results when you search for information published by the department.

eduSearch combines AI and traditional search technologies to go beyond simple keyword matching, to understand the meaning and context of your search queries.

Feel free to use the feedback button to share your experience.

Try it now at search.education.nsw.gov.au.

Canva is bringing exciting new features to help teachers create, collaborate, and present with ease!

• Automatic page numbers – save time with auto-numbering for slides and documents. Customize fonts, colours and styles to match your designs.
• Draw in present mode – highlight key points, emphasise important details, and interact with your slides in real-time while teaching.
• Record on mobile – capture lessons on the go with the Canva mobile app. Hit record, save and share your videos effortlessly.
• Dream Lab tools – generate on-brand images and graphics in seconds, making content creation faster and more personalised. Available for DoE staff only.

Stay up to date with new tools and updates!

The devices we use on a daily basis are great at keeping us connected and notified, but can also lead to distractions too.

There are many ways you can enable technology to automate reminders, and improve your ways of working and communicating in different platforms.

This could simply be by adjusting settings in your email to only notify you of emails within certain hours, modifying the notifications for different online classrooms or changing what apps give you alerts or changes.

Access these helpful guides and videos to help you switch off.

Your Apple devices are awesome learning tools in your classroom. We continue to hear that some schools are experiencing issues with accessing websites and some apps.

This could be because you are not logging into Internet @ Edge each time a student or staff member uses the device. Check out these support materials to remind users to navigate to detnsw.net or use the shortcut created on the home page.

If students are working on a shared device, please ensure they log out at the end of the session by navigating back to the Internet @ Edge site.

Check out these support resources.

Don’t miss your opportunity to access full conference tickets for this year’s EduTECH, taking place in Sydney on the 11-12 June at the ICC.

By attending the day, you will have access to a wide range of inspirational seminars, hands-on support and discover the latest in technology enablement.

Google Chrome is one of the supported browsers you can use on your device. Here are some ways to customise your experience.

You can pin important features or test out different colours, themes and settings. Just open a new tab in Chrome and click the “Customise Chrome” icon in the bottom right corner. A new side panel will open with the available customisation and tool features.

You can also choose to customise the toolbar shortcuts, to add frequently used tools directly into the toolbar. Useful tools like reading mode, Google lens, QR Code creator, and even Google Translate, can be right in your toolbar.

Students can do this to add Reading Mode, the super useful accessibility tool, so that it is just one click to enable a more accessible webpage experience for those who may need this support.

Visit the website for more information.

During the upcoming holidays, protect your equipment by switching off power and unplugging the following devices:

• computers (desktops/laptops) and monitors
• notebook and iPad trolleys
• printers, projectors and other peripherals
• multifunction devices and copiers
• main learning displays (MLDs) and televisions.

On the Term 2 School Development Day – turn on all your school computers, so they can receive security and Windows updates from your eT4L server. Also turn on your storage trolleys so device batteries can recharge. This will ensure that they are ready for use by students when school resumes.

Refer to the Holiday Period - Device Power Management guide.

The prompt library is a resource to help you get the most out of NSWEduChat. It contains prompt templates based on frequently used topics, developed and tested by NSW teachers.

“It takes out a lot of the guesswork” says Tennille Molino, Science Teacher at Sydney Technical High School.

World Backup Day (March 31st) urges you to safeguard your personal digital life. Do you know that 113 phones are stolen every minute and 29% of data loss is due to an accident. So, a backup is your digital safety net, a copy of important files, photos and videos.

• Choose wisely – prioritise irreplaceable data.
• Regularly back up – make it a habit.
• Automate – let technology do the work.
• Secure – protect backups from threats.
• Verify – ensure your backups are functional.

Teachers, talk to students about the importance of backing up their homework and assignments. Head to Backup your devices for tips and advice. Protect your data and avoid digital disasters!

The data in AssessedIT is getting richer.

The Cyber Team have added additional information to make searching for IT tools easier.

• In the Service name field, it now indicates if it is an online service, an app or a desktop application. Remember desktop applications can ONLY be installed from the Software Catalogue, CDM or the Company Portal.
• If a request has already been made for a review, the vendor field will show “ASSESSMENT REQUESTED”. This means you do not have to raise another ticket.
• If a service has not been reviewed because there are alternatives available – the alternates are contained in the AssessedIT record.

Teachers and Education Support Staff use Microsoft Teams on a regular basis for online meetings, some of which include people from outside of the Department of Education, including parents and student support services.

To ensure protection of staff and student personal information, the department is implementing a technical change.

ITD publishes three issues of news.T4L each term. Share each issue with your staff! Subscribe to get email notification as soon as a new issue of news.T4L drops.