Here’s a quick 2-minute video to share with your staff that explains what is changing.

All school staff will be notified by email to either set up WHfB or a passkey before the end of the year. However, you can be an early adopter and set it up now! Simply follow these handy guides to get set up.

For further information, please refer to the Enhanced MFA website.

Six new conversation starter buttons have arrived in NSWEduChat's student mode, as part of the updated interface released at the start of Term 3.

Each button sets up a common task through a prewritten prompt that supports students to get the best results from the tool. Some buttons help students plan or write a piece of work, while others help students to check their work or test their understanding.

To try out the conversation starters for yourself, go to NSWEduChat and switch to student mode by clicking the toggle to 'Student' in the top left-hand corner of your screen. A blue notification message will appear in the right-hand corner of your screen to confirm that student mode is activated.

Have a go before your next lesson and see which ones your students might find most useful!

In Issue 135 of news.T4L there was an article regarding Windows Hello for Business (WHfB) which included instructions for ICT Coordinators, TSO’s and Digital Field Services to enable WHfB for staff devices.

From today, all devices with the preset configuration “SchoolStaffDevices” will have WHfB enabled by default. This means staff can now follow the instructions in the setup guide to create their PIN or configure facial recognition.

Sign into your device securely and be compliant for Enhanced MFA in one step!

Since the end of term, over 1500 teacher laptops have been delivered! Thank you to our Principals, SAMs, ICT Coordinators, TSOs and Digital Field Services across 750 schools who have engaged so enthusiastically with the EUDR program. Because of your collective effort, these pre-configured teacher laptops have now been delivered state-wide, marking another significant milestone in the EUDR rollout.

Canva have just launched Canva Classroom 2.0. Classroom is your central space for managing classes, accessing teaching tools and keeping track of student work.

Use this guide to create and organise classes, invite students, monitor assignments and connect Canva with the classroom platforms your school already uses including Google Classroom, Microsoft Class Teams and Canvas.

This means you can design in Canva while still using the learning platforms you and your students know to set and manage work.

Adobe has been busy adding features we know you're going to love. Here's a few quick ways to make Adobe Express work harder for your classroom this week:

• Brand style: transform all your slides in a few clicks. Use your school or class brand kit to make your slides your own.
• Caption your clips: teach your students about the importance of accessibility by adding captions to a reflective podcast task.
• Class culture poster: students design a poster that encapsulates the heart and soul of the class: school values, expectations, or some inspirational quotes.
• Your Teacher Prep Pack has been refreshed too... a one-stop spot for ready-to-use activities and how-to guides whenever you need a quick win in class.

Google Classroom now offers a new personalised layout designed for teachers where a helpful new dashboard highlights student interactions, tracks assignment completion, and provides key classwork insights.

Users can still find their classes via the side panel, collapse modules to keep their space tidy, and easily access settings and archived classrooms.

Keep up to date with the key features of Google Classroom by visiting the T4L website Google Workspace page.

Teachers can also track and measure student learning and monitor growth over time by using the rubric options within Assignments. You can either:

• Create manually by creating the rubric on the assignment page to type criteria and points from scratch,
• Import from Sheets to build a rubric using data from an existing spreadsheet, or
• Reuse existing where you can apply a rubric from a past assignment or class.

For more information on how to set up rubrics in Google Classroom follow this link.

All Microsoft Teams should be created as a private team. This means that the team owners have the ability to manage who joins the team and are notified when someone attempts to join.

If you are a team owner, take the time to check in the Team settings whether your team is set to private by following these steps:

• Open Microsoft Teams and click on the Teams icon.
• In the top right hand corner of the screen, click the three dots next to Join or create team and select Your Teams and channels.
• Find your team then click the three dots on the right hand side of the corresponding row and choose Manage team.
• Click the Settings tab and then Edit.
• Check the Privacy drop down menu is selected to Private.

Self-Help Tip: Experiencing intermittent logon issues?

If you're finding it difficult to sign in to your Department device or applications, the issue may be as simple as an old password saved on another device.

Cyber criminals use fake prompts that appear to ask you to prove you are not a robot. But once you click, it will send you another pop-up and ask you complete further actions such as copy, paste and run a command. If you action this, it will install malware on your device that can steal your credentials.

What to do to keep safe?

• If a website suddenly displays a CAPTCHA or security verification screen and then instructs you to press a specific key combination or execute a command, it is likely fake.
• Do not assume that an advertisement link displayed at the top of search results is an official website. Sponsored links may direct users to phishing pages. Verify the official domain before installing software.
• Do not blindly copy and execute commands included in installation guides especially, if it comes from an unverified source or seems out of the ordinary.
• Suspicious activity can also occur on websites that appear legitimate. Always double check.
  

Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is the new and more secure way of accessing privileged applications such as Remote Desktop Protocol to school privileged servers, DHCP management, print server management.

From early September, access to your privileged apps or privileged Windows servers in schools can be accessed via AVD. Your existing access methods can still be used, however, it is encouraged to begin using the new method. Later in the year, the direct RDP access from your device will be removed, directing you to only use AVD as a secure intermediary.

System Administration (SA) account holders are required to set up Enhanced Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for their SA account. A separate communication containing the setup instructions will be sent to you in the coming days.

Please note there is no impact to any privileged roles assigned to you within these applications. Only the method of accessing them is changing.

For further information, please refer to the Staff Noticeboard article as well as the Restricting administrative privileges website.

Google Chrome has recently received some updates to how users can change it’s appearance and functionality. Vertical tabs can now be enabled allowing a user to see all open tabs, including tab groups on the left hand side of their screen.

Multi-tasking across two websites is now easier than ever with split view. This allows you to see two web-pages at the same time, side by side.

Check out the new features here and enjoy using these new features to help boost your productivity.

Watch the talented students at Lindfield East Public School teach us to code with ScratchJr in this inspiring Kidz Vid! A huge thank you to the students and teachers involved in creating this resource.

If you are keen to create your own videos and be featured on our T4L web site, please follow this link.

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.