Help And Support

The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development DEECD has their own version of  Edublogs called  Global2  It is a department managed version of Edublogs, separate as a community and is managed by the DEECD Digital Learning Team. If something concerns you email

epotential@edumail.vic.gov.au

Help  and support around the technology is provided by Edublogs at the

Edublogs Help Centre

DEECD has some essential requirements around the way we care and share with our young people and students online in this and all virtual communities.The DEECD Policy on all safe and responsible use lives in the Learning On line website  Information and template to get parental permissions

Posting and sharing information online about a person other than yourself online or in any other way requires consent. Consent must be fully informed, freely given, current and specific in how the information will be presented and to whom it will be presented. Schools will require signed authority for any work, images or information posted online. School should understand that while consent can be freely given, it can also be withdrawn at any time. The school would then be required to remove the content/resource immediately.

We recommend that you show parents Global2, make it clear that this is visible on the Internet but also that you are doing this to teach your students how to work safely and responsibly online.

Supervision
Supervision is critical. Here are the Guild lines for both online and offline supervision.  http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/health/pages/lolteachduty.aspx
To support supervision we advise all teachers to be co- administrators of every students blog. This allows you to access from inside your own blog all of the front and back ends of your students blogs and remove content or close accounts as required.  It is also recommended that students are allowed to be administrators too, as much of the functionality allowing students to design and or personalise their blog disappears without it. As co-administrators teachers can work shoulder to shoulder together to create positive and and responsible contributions to the blogging world.

Access
Functionally every blogger needs an email address. It is how they are identified in the space and get access to their blog. anyone with an email address that ends with vic.gov.au and vic.edu.au will have automatic access. Others can you email us at  epotential@edumail.vic.gov.au

For government schools their school Edustar Internet service (iinet previously Netspace) is already paid for and accounts can be uploaded in bulk at the school.  Once they have an email address you can bulk upload them to Global2.

Remember you have to work to make any blog collaborative by setting challenges and or asking for opinions to be posted through your comments. But sharing out to the web and learning how to do that respectfully and responsibly is a pretty good start. Happy blogging Sandy  :-)

iPad and Android tablet use

The Edublogs app is designed to be used with Edublogs and Edublogs Campus blogs.

All you need to do to use it with a Global 2 blog is:

1. Download the Edublogs app – https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/edublogs/id526466328?mt=8
2. Launch the Edublogs app and click on Add Edublogs Campus site – http://help.edublogs.org/2012/12/05/blogging-using-an-ios-device/
3. Add your blog URL, username, password and tap Save.

You’ll find our comprehensive support documentation here – http://help.edublogs.org/ios/ You can also access this Help Guide directly inside the Edublogs app.

The WordPress for Android App also works really well with Global2.