Welsh Government not renewing the Hwb+ contract

[Bionic]

I'm sure most schools in Wales are aware that Hwb+ is being withdrawn from the Hwb toolset.

 

Currently, using Hwb+ is the only way that school IT staff can change user passwords and manually create new accounts in the Hwb tenancy. Has anyone heard any news on how IT staff will be able to do this once Hwb+ has been withdrawn?

[nicholab]

https://hwb.gov.wales/news/article/85168380-a805-4da2-800b-50eabf8a617b

 

I would e-mail the support address at the bottom of the page.

[MkII]

I asked that question of the HWB team via email...

 

Hi

 

We will be releasing a new dashboard for user management shortly after Easter. We’ll send information out via the local authorities as soon as it is available.

 

Kind regards

Jacqs

 

Yn gywir/Regards,

 

Tîm Hwb/Hwb Team

Llywodraeth Cymru/Welsh Government

E-bost/Email:[email protected]/[email protected]

[Alis_Klar]

Is that all the j2e stuff going out the window then?

[MkII]

Is that all the j2e stuff going out the window then?

If only

[Bionic]

Hot off the press...

 

https://hwb.gov.wales/news/articles/e11da86e-be0d-4e67-aaf2-9ae5f4e2c373

[LukeRowberry]

I’m meeting the hwb team tomorrow to talk about these issues. It seems to be too little too late for us though and we will be moving to our own tenancy for September.

[MkII]

I’m meeting the hwb team tomorrow to talk about these issues. It seems to be too little too late for us though and we will be moving to our own tenancy for September.

 

I want to know what their strategy is. Why in Powys are there two conflicting systems. A better one (full version| paid licence) provided by Powys County Council and the freebie one that HWB are trying to force us to use.

[3s-gtech]

Stra...te...gy? Nah, they don't know about strategy. However, this huge pile of money seems to be struggling to stick - maybe if they throw some more at it, it will?

[PotNoodleTech]

Stra...te...gy? Nah, they don't know about strategy. However, this huge pile of money seems to be struggling to stick - maybe if they throw some more at it, it will?

 

I'm just really glad we saw through it at the start and went with Office365 and Google - I feel sorry for the schools that took the bait and spent the last 3 years creating a virtual learning platform via the hwb+ only to have the rug pulled out from under them within 3 years. Now whilst those schools are scrambling to transfer their VLE, we just keep expending and improving our google use.

 

It's a shame they are forcing us to use it for exams. One more set of usernames and passwords.

[PotNoodleTech]

Oh and by the way it cost us at least £10,000,000

 

Ditched school learning tool Hwb+ cost £10m - BBC News

 

Imagine if that money had been spent on wireless, broadband and mobile devices!

[MkII]

Comedy gold those quotes

 

Gareth Morgan, who is a consultant to schools on education technology, said Hwb+ "was a very challenging technology to effectively use in the classroom".

 

"As we know, technologies change at a great pace. Possibly at the time in 2011/12 this learning platform appeared to be a solution that the Welsh Government felt was suitable for schools".

 

"Possibly" rotfl

 

The Welsh Government said the contract for Hwb+ had provided value for money.

[Bionic]

I specifically remember openly stating in a meeting in 2012 with Welsh Government officials, regional consortia, and school representatives that the Hwb+ project would NOT work. They refused to divulge to me how much it was costing the Welsh tax payer. Anybody know who the project manager was?

[3s-gtech]

Here's my quote from five years ago on here:

Hwb and Hwb+ is supposed to provide the VLE, Email and Office 365. From the recommendations I have received (quietly), I would not offload anything to Hwb. While it looks good, it'll only survive as long as funding remains, and there are political factors at work there - to then find it's being ditched in the future while you depend on it could be a major headache. http://addysg.d-wdl.net/mod/resource/view.php?id=5557 User storage - Skydrive [OneDrive] I believe. Would you depend on your net connection for doc storage?

My only surprise is that Hwb itself still exists, but as it's now basically the old NGFL with Office 365 and G Suite tacked on there's no real change. What a predictable, catastrophic waste of money, again! We could tell it was eye-wateringly rubbish when we did the training all those years ago, now they've realised. Somebody high-up should lose their job for this - sadly, because of the money wasted there's less funding for schools so perhaps that'll just happen downstream instead. Edited April 27, 2018 by 3s-gtech

[PotNoodleTech]

Lol same here:

 

Trenche 4 January 2014 for me.

 

Personally I am not holding out too much hope. It could easily be yet another project delivered just to tick a box and then dropped like a stone.

 

I guess I should be seeing the glass as half full, at the very least, office365 for all is definitely a good thing.

[LukeRowberry]

Well yesterday was a massive sales pitch for Gsuite. They want you to do everything in Gsuite except for mail which will still go through o365. They did say they would give certain admin controls to schools inside gsuite which was nice of them.

[Bionic]

Well yesterday was a massive sales pitch for Gsuite. They want you to do everything in Gsuite except for mail which will still go through o365. They did say they would give certain admin controls to schools inside gsuite which was nice of them.

 

 

Interesting; were they encouraging the use of Google Drive in favour of OneDrive and SharePoint?

[LukeRowberry]

Google classroom is the way forward apparently! O365 isn't going anywhere though. It did look good but nothing that we couldn't do ourselves.

[MichelleC]

Has anyone else seen the new Data Sharing Agreement for Hwb yet? My Headteacher forwarded it on to me asking what the implications are for our school and I'm not happy about it at all. It seems as though they are merging the compulsory need for students to have a Hwb account for online reading and numeracy tests with forcing us to gain consent from parents for pupils to use the additional services that Hwb provides. We already have O365 and GSuite, so have no desire to duplicate these with Hwb.

 

Our LA rep was unable to provide clarification on whether we need to sign the new agreement to comply with the compulsory need for Pupils to have an account. He just said that the Welsh Government have lumped together the impending release of the new Google services through Hwb and the forthcoming online assessment tests into one reason for signing the new data sharing agreement. Since one part seems to need consent so therefore must be optional and the other is needed to comply with statutory regulations it doesn't seem right to have them as part of one agreement (doesn't consent need to be separate from other terms and conditions?). As it stands I'm reluctant to sign the new agreement as it states that we'll be seeking consent from parents for the additional services, which we don't want pupils to have.

 

Does anyone have any insight? Am I reading too much into this?

[PotNoodleTech]

Well I guess if schools are force to use HWB, and every single family has signed the data sharing agreement it's going to give GOV some nice stats to make HWB look much more successful.

 

"look everyone's using it every day now! We didn't waste tens of £millions after all!"

[LukeRowberry]

From the session last week they were saying that every head teacher in Wales will have to sign the document if they want to continue with HWB but there will be a separate agreement that parents will have to sign to use the additional features (GSuite) and when that is signed and returned we will have to log in to hwb and tick a box to allow that child access. We have 1600 students and we would have to tick the box for each student separately because you know we don't have anything else to do!

[MrGutoA]

I've been playing around with the Google build on Hwb this week and it seems pretty well put together. I've put the link to my full article on it below, but the TL:DR takeaway is that there's no obvious reason why a school already confidently using G Suite would switch over (lack of Gmail and, weirdly, Jamboard would mean losing features) it's great for the majority of schools (esp. primaries) who have not the experience or expertise in setting such things up themselves.

 

First Look at Google on Hwb - MrAaron

 

As for Hwb DP forms, the Head one is needed by all schools. The pupils one only needed if you're going to use their services, they are NOT needed for the compulsory online tests etc.

Edited July 16, 2018 by MrGutoA