Sonic3

Hi, Just wondering what everyone's using to enable their students (ages 11 to 16) to edit videos? Our students mostly use Chromebooks and we've been recommended WeVideo a few times, but we're open to suggestions (for both Windows software and Chromebook compatible software). Thanks!

Hi. Google is not being very helpful with this one and I thought it would be simple! Does anyone know if there's a way to prevent students in Office 365 from adding teachers to Office 365 groups/Teams that the students have created? Surely we can apply a policy that allows them to add/invite other students but not teachers/staff? Alternatively, what is the best/easiest way to stop students from creating Office 365 groups and Teams? (we'd rather not resort to this).

Hi, Is anyone else experiencing this issue with ClassCharts/SIMS? We use ClassCharts to do our registers and the marks then get inserted/updated in SIMS via Wonde. However, the Covid codes (for schools in Wales) we use (such as a semicolon) in ClassCharts fail to update in SIMS. We're told this is due to SIMS not having writeback support for the codes but we keep getting passed around from ESS/Capita to our LEA to ClassCharts and nothing's being done about it. Has anyone found a solution?

Brilliant. Thank you! I'll try that

Perfect for when they only need audio, thanks. But for some tests they require video as well.

I'm sure there are plenty of different solutions for this. We've been using an iPad with a tripod but the iPad is on its last legs and it doesn't do a good job at recording the audio. We're looking for a good setup for recording oral exams, often involving several students at the same time. Video and audio. I was thinking a decent video camera with an external microphone? What do you use in your schools?

Thanks. That helps but it doesn't disable spelling and grammar checks. The tickbox for that is in Review -> Editor -> Set Proofing Options but you have to do this for every new document the pupil creates and they can easily re-enable it themselves

Does anyone know if there's a way to enforce a policy in Office 365 to disable spell checking and autocorrect in the Word web app for students? On a per-student basis, it seems that once you disable autocorrect in Word then it stays disabled for every other document that the student creates, but spelling and grammar checking resets to enabled.

Just wondering what everyone's using to enable the students to create online (private) blogs and edit videos? We've been creating blogs using (the old version of) Google Sites but I'm not sure if this is good for them as the interface etc. is really outdated, and I'm not sure if the new version of Google Sites allows them to create blogs. As for video editing, we previously had them using Shotcut as it is free and doesn't require powerful PCs, but with the increased use of Chromebooks and remote learning I'm looking for other compatible solutions. Any recommendations?

This thread is great! Any more web based video editing programs? WeVideo is excellent but a bit pricey. Is anyone using an alternative?

Admittedly not at my school but another workplace with around 100 users. Yes, 'English UK' appears at the bottom left in PowerPoint and it corrects the word 'colour' if you try spelling it 'color' The code is a mix of snippets of code I've found and modified; it tries to cover all bases. It could do with a tidy-up but it does work. Note that it requires you to connect to your Office 365 tenant first, before running the script.

Some luck when using a PowerShell script I found and modified. Please only use if you are confident with PowerShell scripts and Office 365. Replace 'YOUR DOMAIN', 'XXXX' etc.: SetLanguageAndRegionForAllUsers.ps1

Does anyone know what happens to a student's assignments in Teams if they move class/team? A few pupils have moved from one teacher's class to another and the current teacher of those pupils isn't an 'owner' of the pupils' previous classes. She can't see their previous assignments/work/etc. because of this, presumably.

I've been asked to research into the possibility of live streaming and recording classes for when/if we're in a situation where some pupils are able to attend school and some must learn from home. We're thinking wireless clip-on microphones for the teachers, connected to the PCs with a webcam and broadcasting software. My main concern is getting suitable wireless clip-on microphones (there are a lot of potentially cheap-and-nasty ones on Amazon), though some recommended cameras would be appreciated too. Any ideas?

Since becoming IT Manager of the school just under a year ago I have been fighting (and unfortunately failing) a case for me to have more IT support in terms of staffing (ideally) and external contracts. I'd like to get a good idea of what support you guys have and what you think you need (if different). It is my thinking that, especially considering the heavy focus on IT right now with the new curriculum and the DCF, I should be receiving more support here, but I am aware that it varies between schools (and considering the number of PCs, switches, staff, pupils etc. plays a part). In my case, I have an assistant who works with me 13 hours a week who (and this is not a dig at him) is not qualified or experienced in IT and is not seeking a career in IT. He spends 13 hours a week with me (he is shared between departments). The school has 640+ pupils, 90+ staff, 250+ PCs, 80+ laptops, 40+ tablets, 35+ switches, and 50+ wireless APs. On top of this, we are in charge of the CCTV and telephone systems. I also have a contract with an external company who can give basic IT support and CCTV and telephones maintenance, 16 hours a month. So I'm just wondering: What is your situation in comparison? Do you think you have enough support?

Like most schools, we have people working here regularly who are not actually employed by the school but "require" access to the computers and/or our MIS (SIMs) and/or their own e-mail account in our system (as if they are part of the school). Since taking over from my predecessor I'm trying to crack down on this in terms of the child protection and data protection/GDPR issues it raises, and determine how it can work with our automated account creation/synchronisation system, Salamander. Right now Salamander is set to check SIMs for new staff and and new pupils and create both a new Active Directory account and an Office 365 account for them, based on the information SIMs provides. It does not, however, check for 'Outside Agency Staff/Members'. From what I know right now, there are the following types of people who work here regularly but are not employed by the school: Short term/emergency supply teachers Long term supply teachers People from outside agencies such as careers advisors People who are employed by the LEA such as youth mentors So my question is, how do you determine for each type whether or not they should be given AD accounts, school office 365/e-mail accounts, and/or MIS access (so they can see pupils' data), what access they should have using each (e.g. should they be allowed to e-mail pupils? Should they have access to certain shared/network folders?), and what documents/agreements they should sign before having access (if necessary)?

All switches have been accounted for. Thanks everyone

YES! Thank you, that was it! I don't quite understand how though. I mean all the switches are working fine which must mean they are on our network's subnet/range which is 10.220.84.0-10.220.87.254, but their login IP addresses are e.g. 192.168.1.1 ??

I have to find out the IP addresses of all the switches on the network, for which there has been no previous record, and have come up short. I still have 11 switches that I've physically identified but cannot for the life of me find out their IP addresses. I've tried multiple IP scanners including Advanced IP Scanner and LanSweeper, manufacturers' own tools such as Netgear Switch Discovery and Cisco FindIT, and plugging a laptop directly into them and taking out the uplink before scanning. I've pretty much attempted to load every IP address into a web browser on the off chance it's a switch management page! I'm really stuck as for what to do next, other than reset them to factory defaults. Is there a trick I'm missing? The switches are: [TABLE=width: 500] Make Model Avaya Level One Level One Cisco Cisco Catalyst D-Link Netgear Planet Level One Netgear Networx 3510GT-PWR+ GES 2450 GES 2450 SLM2048 3750 v2 DES-1024R+ GS724T GSW-1600HP GES 2450 GS724T "24 port web smart switch"

Having a rather annoying issue with Windows 10 PCs randomly dropping off the domain, which wouldn't be too bad if I could just log on as the local admin account and get the PC to rejoin the domain. However, I'm finding that the local admin account has been demoted to a standard user which means it doesn't have the necessary rights to join the PC to the domain again. Very frustrating. Any ideas why this might be happening?

Managed to get GAM set up on a live Linux USB (to save from Win 10 using all my mobile data in 5 minutes) and it's running that command now. Fingers crossed!

Yes, the user accounts existed, GSPS set up, and then all students were required to change their AD password. I think my only option is to use GAM over a 4g mobile data connection! Thanks for the command line example. Will try that

That is correct. But thanks to both of you! However, loading up GCDS again it looks like the box wasn't ticked but I can't be 100% sure it wasn't ticked at the time I did the initial syncronisation, so this may be the solution for those lucky enough to find this post before making the same mistake as me!

We have G Suite for Education set up and AD accounts/groups/OUs/etc. and passwords synced using GCDS and GSPS. All students have had to change their AD account passwords since then and I can confirm that the password syncronisation is working. However, when a student first logs in to G Suite, it forces them to choose a new password! This, of course, means the password is different to their AD account password (kind of defeating the object) and it won't let them use their current AD account password. Is there any way to stop G Suite forcing students to change their password on first/next sign in? That is, without having to manually change each password ('cause that's the only place I see the 'must change password at next sign in' toggle switch) and then have each student change their AD password just to get them in sync! I've looked into ways to reset multiple passwords in G Suite/Google Cloud at once but GAM ( https://github.com/jay0lee/GAM ) and Google Cloud Shell won't connect (probably because they can't get through the LEA's firewall).

So, after a LOT of trial and error, I finally have a refined, unattended deployment process of Windows 10 using WDS and answer files. Everything works except for the very last bit - the PC fails to join the domain, for no apparent reason. I've checked the WDS logs; nothing there. I've Googled the issue and made sure the right boxes are ticked in the server properties window, made sure the user account used by the WDS unattend file has permissions to join a PC to the domain, and prestaged the PC in AD. I'm stuck! What could I be doing wrong?