News

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!

Thanks to those who attended our online AGM that was originally scheduled for our Term 1 meeting (cancelled due to COVID-19). 

We had promised a lucky 'door' prize and we are pleased to be sending Lance Pilgrim (Woodleigh) a $100 Uber Eats voucher to shout their team some lunch.

You can click here to access the presentation from the meeting,  but a brief summary of the discussions below:

• Membership Report showed 368 members and 112 schools 
• Schools will not be charged for 2020 renewal due to COVID-19
• Overview of member resources developed was presented
• Summary of meetings and topics held throughout the past year
• Click here to access the financial report (members only)
• Sponsorship Update with our new sponsors and the process we follow
• Committee:  Special thanks to John McAlister from Wesley leaving his role as Treasurer and to Ashley Voigt (Mazenod) and Lauren Sayer (Haileybury) for joining the other existing Committee members.
• Future plans include the Online Device Showcase, Battery Recycling Project, more videos, licence negotiations (Adobe & Microsoft) and PD projects.
• Special thanks to all our members, school who host events, the Committee, Madeleine (our admin support) and once again John McAlister.

The VINE Annual General Meeting will be held online on 15 July from 4:00PM - 5:00PM (UTC+10:00) following cancellation of our scheduled face-to-face meeting in Term 1, due to COVID-19.  

Click here to find out more and to register. 

What a challenging beginning to 2020! I'll keep this short, but wanted to communicate a couple of decisions the VINE Committee have made in light of the current circumstances we are all experiencing:

• There will be no requirement for members (schools or individuals) to pay their annual subscription renewal later this year.
• There is a new member category created called "COVID-19 Member" which will exist for at least the next 12 months. This membership level will be FREE and will give access to the member forum - valuable for us all to learn from one another. The restriction of only people who are employed by a school will remain for this member category.

I have also had contact with CompNow around providing cheaper access to Zoom for VINE members. Here is the flyer - for details contact zoom@compnow.com.au

Rob Flavell
VINE President

 

Microsoft Education Tune-Up Recruiting New Schools! We are pleased to now accept expressions of interest for our free Microsoft Education Tune-Up program for Terms 1 and 2, 2020. Our team of Education experts are on hand to meet with your school. Through a series of workshops and meetings we will deliver a comprehensive and bespoke strategy which leverages our Education Transformation Framework. Uncover answers to questions your school may be asking: Are our school leaders and teachers equipped to deliver 21st Century learning skills for students in an rapidly-changing world? Are we managing and deploying our devices and apps in an efficient and cost-effective manner? Are we best leveraging technology to make our school a more equitable and inclusive institution? Are we getting the most out of our existing Office 365 technology? This unique service capitalises on decades of research, global best practice and real evidence to help deliver a strategy tailored to your school’s needs. There are limited spaces available for this exclusive program, so reach out now to arrange a meeting with your school’s leadership team. REGISTER YOUR INTEREST  >

About The Team A Technology Solutions Professional will offer guidance & support to help you; assess your technical readiness; optimise your Office 365 tenant; build your ICT team capacity; recommendations on the right Microsoft partner. A Learning Delivery Specialist who will help you see the potential of the Microsoft Education solutions; assist you to build a PD strategy to better reach curriculum outcomes and transform classroom time. FIND OUT MORE  > Our Offer / Your Commitment A move toward Office 365 and/or Windows 10 as the major platform in your school; 2x term duration; A technical readiness assessment; Build a focused PD strategy with the LDS; Key stakeholder attendance (incl. Principal or AP) at the Transforming Education Leadership 1-day workshop; ICT Team to attend an M365 for IT Pros 1-day workshop and work directly with our TSP to build their capacity; Your Learning Support/Inclusivity team to attend 1-day Inclusive Classroom workshop; 2+ teachers released for 2 days to be certified as MIE Trainers; Monthly virtual meetings with our team and other schools successfully implementing these tools.         FIND OUT MORE  > Remember, spaces are limited so get in touch now to arrange a meeting with your school’s leadership team. REGISTER YOUR INTEREST  >

Family Zone has been announced as gold sponsor for the Victorian ICT Network in Education (VINE) for 2019.

Please see our media release below:
FamilyZone named gold sponsor MEDIA RELEASE April 2019