Distance Learning - Action Plan

[mullet_man]

Thanks. I'll take a look, not sure why they can't add a button in the Team's admin centre to disable teams creation.

[AJWhite1970]

This is what I did but the first time I got it wrong. The script is an ‘only allow this group to create teams and disable everyone else’ script which I misread, so first time I pointed it at the all students group, gave them all the ability to create teams and knocked out all the staff..... So the group you give it is the one you want to create teams, not the one you want to block!!!

[sippo]

This is all good but good internet speeds are essential. With all staff and students off across the country, contention is going to be a massive issue - everyone will be streaming netflix, cbbc.

[Brimstone]

If any of your schools already use or need a remote learning solution Showbie Pro have offered free licences foe schools until July 2020, to register sign up at the form below

 

https://showbie.typeform.com/to/MZwjhN?campaign

 

They have also put together resources for teachers for remote learning

 

https://support.showbie.com/en/articles/3773042-resources-for-remote-elearning-with-showbie

[Danp]

Similar talks going on here.

 

We use Firefly for our VLE which will do most of what we need for distance learning alongside access to staff for the students via Email.

 

However, I've been asked to investigate how easy it would be to create a school YouTube channel so if required staff could upload "help" videos to alongside their Firefly content.

 

It looks as though a single YouTube Channel, when a YouTube content owner is created for the organisation, one user serves as the administrator for the content owner, the administrator can then invite other users to manage content for the content owner and assign content management permissions.

 

Presumably though every user contributing would need their own YouTube logon? Can I batch create some or would I need to perhaps do ONE per department?

 

Thoughts?

 

Do you have O365? Then use MS Stream

[mavhc]

Similar talks going on here.

 

We use Firefly for our VLE which will do most of what we need for distance learning alongside access to staff for the students via Email.

 

However, I've been asked to investigate how easy it would be to create a school YouTube channel so if required staff could upload "help" videos to alongside their Firefly content.

 

It looks as though a single YouTube Channel, when a YouTube content owner is created for the organisation, one user serves as the administrator for the content owner, the administrator can then invite other users to manage content for the content owner and assign content management permissions.

 

Presumably though every user contributing would need their own YouTube logon? Can I batch create some or would I need to perhaps do ONE per department?

 

Thoughts?

 

You've not set up syncing AD to GSuite so everyone has a google account? How do they log into half the websites on the internet without one?

 

Sign up for GSuite now. Then either sync AD to GSuite (annoyingly everyone has to reset their password), or just use users and use M365 as your GSuite oauth.

[mullet_man]

Ok so in preparation for closure we are testing staff using Teams and would like to create a meeting daily say at 12pm. The head teacher would create a meeting and send it out and then go live and everyone will log on and join. Simple?

 

Of course not, we are testing and if we create a meeting from within teams you can't invite o365 email groups. If you use the create teams meeting in outlook and send it to the group people in the group were not getting any meeting requests?

 

Am not sure if as we've just created groups there is some Azure 24 hour sync we need to wait to complete?

 

Basically we want someone to be able to invite a whole staff group to attend a teams meeting and it be on their calendars so they are altered.

 

When team's app is open shouldn't that alert you that you have a meeting in 5 mins or anything?

 

Doing some more testing on Monday after its synced over the weekend!

[witch]

I think you have to create specific groups in Teams rather than trying to get it to use O365groups

[theadmin]

Moderator note. This post OKed by @elsiegee40

 

 

Hi,

I am really sorry to do this, but the main forum discussiong coronavirus is only avaliable to people who can access the red door forum.

I need to post twice to be able to enter.

This is post 1

Once again, apologies

Edited March 15, 2020 by elsiegee40

[pooley]

If any of your schools already use or need a remote learning solution Showbie Pro have offered free licences foe schools until July 2020, to register sign up at the form below

 

https://showbie.typeform.com/to/MZwjhN?campaign

 

They have also put together resources for teachers for remote learning

 

https://support.showbie.com/en/articles/3773042-resources-for-remote-elearning-with-showbie

 

No longer free, they changed their mind after too many people overwhelmed their servers

[MYK-IT]

Like most (every) other schools, we are looking at options to facilitate some level of remote T&L solution in readiness for self-isolation, school shutdown etc.

 

We, probably like many others are not currently utilising Office365 site-wide (e.g. full integration of staff and students, with Teams, Groups etc) as I have been working through it systematically only due to the sheer administration (nightmare) of Office 365 (e.g. old & new Admin portals required to get certain options, PowerShell needed too. Microsoft's stance that it should be a fully open service, where end-users can, and are able to do and create whatever groups, teams, chats they want etc.)

 

All that aside, it is very obvious that many schools have been using Microsoft Office 365 / Teams successfully for some time now. Therefore, as I know many other schools' IT Teams are being approached by SLT to come up (overnight) with solutions too; I was hoping that those establishments who do use Office365 throughout could assist covering the basic fundamentals?

 

Coincidentally, we purchased SalamanderSoft / SDS system before the COVID19 epidemic, but it's still at the provisioning / planning stage as we had initially planned to rollout more features to our staff; during a phased-deployment introducing new systems, and getting key staff and departments on-board. But now, the pressure (and expectation) is on, to (somehow!) configure and setup a school wide system. As we all know, from VLEs years gone by, it's not a simple task. Certainly, doesn’t help when staff are saying, "oh, can we have setup Google Classrooms / Microsoft Teams… as it's free!".

 

To be honest the entire administrator, and knowing how to monitor everyone has probably retarded (for us) our Office365 deployment – perhaps I am over worrying(?) I only do, as it would be a school supplied system and if anything, untoward happened it would be me who would have to answer to the questions (e.g. why could such student do / create this etc.). Especially, as many other schools appear to be using it (without concern?)

 

To keep things brief, some major areas I would like assistance on is:

 

Office365 Naming Convention / Email

- For students, what naming convention do you use? Random, initials, dob

 

- One tenancy for all? Different tenancy / sub-domain for students?

 

- email is optional (e.g. Students don't need an email / exchange account to access Teams etc?) although their Office365 account name will follow an email convention

 

Teams

There appears to be 11 separate policies that can be applied to a user account covering meeting, app, calling, teams settings etc.

Anyone care to share any examples? I know that some default "Policy packages" are supplied by Microsoft.

 

Hints/Tips in relation to chat; safeguarding students – stop creation of teams, channels. (solution already posted earlier)

 

For some reason, we don’t have a meeting icon within Teams – we have Assignments. Is this because we are Office 365 for Education? Only as Senior Management want to use Teams for (video) meetings, and with Governors.

Perhaps as we have not implemented SDS yet, Classroom-based Teams may well be (configured) differently?

 

I assume that Students will have to be assigned Team licence AND (Sharepoint licence?) - Do students also use the Sharepoint back-end to access the (same) resources within a Team Group? Or, expectation to use Teams only? Additionally, this would give students OneDrive - I assume if this was a concern I have seen methods of removing OneDrive accounts?

 

Naming convention for Teams, related Email address (do you hide it)

 

I am sure I have many other questions, but in these unprecedented times an ad-hoc (e.g. not quite perfectly configured system) may be forced upon me (many of us). Such a fine balancing act, and it's becoming quite over-whelming (stressful) with all the other IT-related pressures and solutions expected of us, to be available within a matter a days, that would normally take weeks / months to be planned, configure and deploy correctly.

 

Sorry, don’t mean to rant as I know everyone is in the same situation... need to find those Hob-nobs..

Edited March 16, 2020 by MYK-IT

[kennysarmy]

You've not set up syncing AD to GSuite so everyone has a google account? How do they log into half the websites on the internet without one?

 

Sign up for GSuite now. Then either sync AD to GSuite (annoyingly everyone has to reset their password), or just use users and use M365 as your GSuite oauth.

 

No. I've only just signed up for GSuite - been told it can take 2-3 weeks to get Education approval!!

 

AFAIK you don't need a google account to get on half of all websites (?)

[paulkerton]

No. I've only just signed up for GSuite - been told it can take 2-3 weeks to get Education approval!!

If you work with a reseller/Google for Education Partner like Vitalize or C-Learning, they can normally nudge that approval forward.

Neither are big boys like XMA, but they're way more nimble at getting things sorted.

DISCLOSURE : I used to work at Vitalize, and I was able to get same day approval arranged.

Edited March 16, 2020 by paulkerton

[Zoom7000]

If you work with a reseller/Google for Education Partner like Vitalize or C-Learning, they can normally nudge that approval forward.

Neither are big boys like XMA, but they're way more nimble at getting things sorted.

DISCLOSURE : I used to work at Vitalize, and I was able to get same day approval arranged.

 

If you don't work with a reseller and are still having issues getting approval and coming to the end of your trial period, send me a DM and I can reach out to my Google contacts to try and push this through.

[Brimstone]

No longer free, they changed their mind after too many people overwhelmed their servers

 

You can still download the basic version free of charge......

[kennysarmy]

If you work with a reseller/Google for Education Partner like Vitalize or C-Learning, they can normally nudge that approval forward.

Neither are big boys like XMA, but they're way more nimble at getting things sorted.

DISCLOSURE : I used to work at Vitalize, and I was able to get same day approval arranged.

 

No reseller, I just signed up the school myself.

[paulkerton]

No reseller, I just signed up the school myself.

 

Speak to @Zoom7000

Abid knows most of the Google for Education UK team, I'm sure he can nudge them on the way!

[kennysarmy]

Now setting up TEAMS for all our staff.

 

Given them access to the app via O365, created a test TEAM and can add staff to it.

 

Can't seem to work out how to give staff the permission to create their own TEAMS?

 

Do they also require Sharepoint access?

 

Thanks.

[john]

Now setting up TEAMS for all our staff.

 

Given them access to the app via O365, created a test TEAM and can add staff to it.

 

Can't seem to work out how to give staff the permission to create their own TEAMS?

 

Do they also require Sharepoint access?

 

Thanks.

 

Teams does use SharePoint for the "files" part of it as well as if you upload files they are stored in SharePoint so yes you do need SharePoint Online working.

 

Making teams needs O365 Groups - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/admin/create-groups/manage-creation-of-groups?view=o365-worldwide should help you a bit on that.