News

One of the ways VINE supports schools is creation of resources which can be used to help ensure safe and effective use of technology for learning and teaching. Today we're excited to announce the release of our second round of animated short films.

The new series of films address three more common topics relating to ICT use in schools: Passwords, Personal Brand and a Parent Guide to managing their children's use of technology. 

Below are links to all films on the VINE YouTube channel. The films are publicly available to enable schools to embed them in newsletters, play them at parent nights and device deployment days, post them on websites or use them how they see fit.

You can do this! Season 1

• You can do this! - Encourages people to have a go at resolving ICT problems for themselves.
• Data breach - This video aims to raise awareness of data breaches and how to avoid them.
• Phishing - This video aims to raise awareness about phishing attacks and how to prevent them.

You can do this! Season 2

• Passwords – This video aims to explain how to craft a strong password and how to manage some of the challenges of account security.
• Personal Brand – This video provides guidance to young people on how to take control of their personal brand.
• Parent guide – Sensible advice for parents around management of their children's use of technology.

Thanks to Nourishing Media who produced the films and members of the VINE committee who contributed to their development. 

What a year it has been for VINE with growing membership and engagement despite the uncertainty that ongoing lockdowns bring. The situation we find ourselves in is an underscoring of the need for schools to connect regularly and this happens best with the support of sponsors. Sponsors not only help fund our work and provide venues where we can meet, but also add a different and valued perspective to the dialogue which helps the industry mature in a positive and productive way.

35 companies applied for the eight annual sponsorship spots offered for the 2021-2022 financial year and of those accepted, six of the eight were returning sponsors. I mention this as these companies (Microsoft, CompNow, Interactive, Somerville, Sentral and Pixevety) demonstrate an ongoing commitment to the work VINE does and this is highly valued by member schools.

We would also like to highlight two new sponsors: Centorrino Technologies (Gold Sponsor) and Trident Technology Solutions (VINE Partner). Both of these companies are well known in Victoria and have contributed to the growth and success of VINE over time – it is fantastic to have them as annual sponsors for 2021-2022.

VINE is a professional association committed to nurturing the effective and innovative use of ICT in all areas of K-12 schools. Our tagline: "share, learn & grow"​ sums up our reason for being and our sponsors help ensure we continue to thrive.

Hardware for Hybrid Learning 

Delivered by Russell Ginley, Microsoft Education Expert

In this digital event briefing, Russell Ginley from Microsoft will provide guidance for Schools to invest in technology that not only delivers measurable ROI, but provides learners with a very real advantage when they need to use similar tools in University and the workplace.

He will share the latest research, local and global insights, as well as future roadmap to help decide:

• Where to Invest in technology that ensures School remains ‘always on’
• What technology is vital to support hybrid learning
• How to capitalise on Modern tools to be at the forefront of the future of Education
• What tools can deliver better learning outcomes & better staff satisfaction

Event Date 3 options to choose from

Tuesday, 3 August 2021 | 12:00 PM-1:00 PM (AEST) OR

Wednesday, 4 August 2021 | 3:00 PM-4:00 PM (AEST) OR

Thursday, 12 August 2021 | 9:30 AM-10:30 AM (AEST)

Introducing The Modern Backpack! Everything you need from Microsoft to ensure your toolkit is packed for the modern classroom!   Join us on the second Tuesday of every month 4:30pm AEST   Join your Modern Work team for 30 mins of: M365 & Surface key announcements and updates  Tips & tricks, topics & demos for education practitioners   Hear from the Microsoft Specialists across areas of devices, productivity, collaboration, and how Microsoft can best serve you.
Join us here: https://aka.ms/themodernbackpack Provide feedback here: https://aka.ms/themodernbackpackfeedback
Powered by you Modern Work & Surface Team Chris Turner, Rhiannon Herbert, Damien Bedford Antoinette Jago, Briar Klavins

We are pleased to announce our sponsorship and vendor engagement opportunities for 2021-2022. 

If you are interested in becoming a VINE sponsor, please complete the 2021-2022 VINE Sponsorship Expression of Interest form. Top tier packages (VINE Platinum Partner and VINE Gold Partner) are highly sought after and for 2021 the Committee have decided to conduct interviews with interested organisations. The interview is intended to explore the alignment of VINE and the potential sponsor and any potential value adds (other than sponsorship fee) the sponsor may be able to provide members or the organisation (e.g. training for members, venue access for meetings, etc.) which help support the network or technology use in education as a whole.

A copy of the sponsorship and vendor opportunities document can be obtained by contacting us.

VINE Sponsors Sentral and Microsoft are working together to achieve ISO 27001 Information Security Management Standards certification for Sentral's suite of school management tools. Read more here.

With security and cyber-attacks, a growing concern globally, this series shares multiple strategies to help mitigate incidents.

The series will then deep dive into each of the mitigation strategies in more detail. Starting with Patching of Operating Systems & Applications. It will cover all eight of the essential recommendations and how you can act today to prevent cyber-attacks in your organisation.

More information and registration can be found here.

The Microsoft School Transformation Program is a free school-wide professional learning program which sees school leaders, teachers, learning support teachers and IT professionals build their capacity to transform their school to support students using the technology they already have at their fingertips.

Microsoft is currently accepting expressions of interest for the School Transformation Program from schools across Australia for Terms 1 and 2, 2021.

Read more and apply here.

With COVID-19 laying waste to so many events, it was a great pleasure to facilitate this year’s VINE Technology Showcase.

Our members drove the decision to run the event this year and although it was not quite the same as the face-to-face experience, we think it was a great success.

There were ~409 participants (~100 unique) from over 50 schools attending at least 1 of the 25 webinars, which took more than 15 hours to deliver over the two weeks.

We have received some great feedback and we’re currently seeking further member feedback on all aspects of the event. 

All sessions are now online for VINE members

While not all members could attend in real time, they can watch the recorded pitch videos and the webinars by logging in. 

Feedback

We value feedback on the showcase to help inform what we do for future events. Please take a few moments to complete our event survey.

After our first week of watching parties and webinars we have another week of webinars to round out the 2020 VINE Technology Showcase.

A reminder that all webinars that have occurred so far along with pitch videos (that CompNow one is pun-tastic!) can be found on the showcase page. You’ll also find direct links to the remaining webinars, slide decks and some question and answers from some vendors who have provided them.

Thanks to VINE Committee members David, Josh, Steve, James, Chris and Kunal for hosting and for all those who have attended and made this a great event so far! Thanks also to Madeleine La Ferla for all of the background work this year.

Vendor	Day and Time
Lenovo	Mon 27/7 11:00AM-11:30AM
Fujitsu Australia	Mon 27/7 4:00PM-4:30PM
Lenovo	Mon 27/7 4:30PM-5:00PM
Acer	Tues 28/7 11:00AM-11:30AM
CompNow	Tues 28/7 4:00PM-4:30PM
Murdoch Webster	Tues 28/7 4:30PM-5:00PM
Microsoft	Wed 29/7 11:00AM-11:30AM
Amazon Web Services	Wed 29/7 4:00PM-4:30PM
Envirostream Australia	Wed 29/7 4:30PM-5:00PM
Dynabook	Thurs 30/7 11:00AM-11:30AM
Sentral	Thurs 30/7 4:00PM-4:30PM
Somerville	Thurs 30/7 4:30PM-5:00PM

Membership Update

VINE are currently doing (thanks to Josh Lyon) a member audit and are consolidating memberships into our new structure. This effort aims to keep things organised and help keep our member list current and sustainable.

Our old membership levels were:

• Individual member – non-school
• School membership – individual
• School membership – multiple members per school

Our new structure looks like this:

• Individual member – for non-commercial individuals who don’t work at a K-12 school (e.g. retirees, students, other educational institutions, etc.)
• Digital member – for schools outside Victoria
• School member (less than 600 students)
• School member (600+ students)

Joining using the free COVID-19 membership level will continue until Victorian lock down restrictions ease and after that this membership level will exist until renewal in August 2021.

Please Note: Due to restricted operations of VINE during the COVID-19 Pandemic, membership payment for the 2020 year is NOT required. Membership renewal for all membership levels will recommence August 2021.

Stay safe and see you at the webinars this week!