Schools ICT Centre & Lancashire Grid for Learning

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1 Schools ICT Centre & Lancashire Grid for Learning Services The Lancashire Grid for Learning (LGfL) is a managed service from the Schools ICT Centre, providing schools with a wide variety of educational services and resources to support the effective use of ICT for teaching and learning. To help your school ensure it is making the most of the services available, we have outlined some of these and the support that we provide in this document. If you would like to know more details about any of the items that follow, please contact us on or info@ict.lancsngfl.ac.uk Schools ICT Centre

2 Contents: LGfL (Lancashire Grid for Learning) Website MyLGfL LGfL Internet Content Filtering Competitions LGfL Service LGfL Spam Filtering Service 360 Virtual Tour LGfL Anti-Virus Service School Websites LGfL Graphic Services Service Status Feedback LGfL Helpdesk LGfL CMS (Content Management System) Research and Evaluation Projects Training, Support and Consultancy Services Moodle Support ICT Matters LGfL Moodle Mahara MIDAS Interactive Whiteboard Training Sunny Safari Moodle Lancashire esafety Website, Guidance and Support EYFS and Primary ICT Progressions ICT Health Check The Lancashire esafety Charter 2

3 The LGfL website (Lancashire Grid for Learning) The Lancashire Grid for Learning webiste is a collection of information and educational resources that support the curriculum and many education-based projects. The site is made up of over sixty different websites. These include the ICT Curriculum, LGfL Literacy Resources (a 5 star rated website by Schoolzone), Schools ICT Centre and LGfL Advice and Services websites. Lancsngfl.ac.uk receives over 5 million visits every year. Most of these are from Lancashire schools although there are visits from over 180 countries. The most popular area of the site is the curriculum section and the most popular sites include Literacy Resources, Mathematics, and Literacy. 3

4 MyLGfL MyLGfL is a collection of web-based tools to support teachers and pupils in their school work. The system is used by primary, secondary and special schools. It is available to all teachers and pupils with an LGfL account. It includes services such as personalised calendars, LGfL , a personalised folder area and a podcasting facility. The school is in control of the services allocated to groups or individual users. The login page for MyLGfL is and more information can be found at 4

5 LGfL Filter The LGfL content filter uses the Netsweeper Filtering System. The LGfL filter currently provides three default policies; Primary Pupils, Secondary Pupils and School Staff. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the default policies reflect the educational needs of schools and also prevent access to inappropriate websites, we understand that each school will have slightly different requirements. In light of this, the LGfL team have developed a filtering tool designed specifically to allow for greater flexibility and ease of use for Schools who locally manage their filtering. Headteachers are able to request local control over filtering in their school through the MyLGfL interface. The Headteacher will then be able to login to MyLGfL and use the MyFiltering service to modify their filtering policy, adding or blocking websites at a local level. The Headteacher can also choose to delegate the responsibility for adding or blocking sites to other individuals in their school. The majority of schools are able to set different levels of filtering for curriculum and administration networks, allowing teachers to show videos from sites such as YouTube but prevent pupils from spending valuable lesson time searching through the site. Schools are also able to allow categories of website that are not allowed on their default policy though great care needs to be taken when making these decisions. Access to blocked core categories such as Extreme, Phishing and Pornography will continue to be blocked centrally. 5

6 Competitions The Be Creative Lancashire Schools ICT Film and Animation Awards ( have run for the last three years. The competition provides an excellent focus for a project supporting creative cross-curricula work. Entries can either be digital videos, animations or Microsoft Photostory movies. The winning films are entered for the National Schools Film and Animation Award. The Centre has also run other competitions such as the esafety Poster competition and the Photostory Competition. LGfL Service The LGfL service (Microsoft Outlook 2007) is used by the majority of Lancashire schools and can be used to make custom distribution lists and personal calendars. The LGfL Service processes in excess of 100,000,000 s every year. The LGfL team have created an administration system ( to allow Lancashire schools to create, delete and edit their own accounts. The system allows users to create multiple accounts using a.csv file upload or by entering the account information through the Multiple Account Creation - Text Entry box. Users can also delete multiple accounts through similar processes. The system can be accessed by the itcoord and head school accounts and other accounts which have been designated for the system through MyLGfL. There is a comprehensive help section accessed through the help tab in the system to support users with this process. LGfL Spam Filtering The spam filtering service checks all incoming s and automatically diverts suspect s to a junk mail account set up specifically for a school domain e.g. spam@schoolname.lancs.sch.uk. s for all accounts within the domain are checked. Recent statistics show that around 400,000 messages are centrally identified and rejected each day as SPAM or viruses. The spam filtering software is based on rules and filters and testing has shown that occasionally false positives can occur where a genuine is incorrectly identified as spam mail and is automatically redirected to the spam account. For this reason it is important that a nominated member of staff regularly checks the spam account to ensure that genuine s are forwarded to the intended recipient and that spam is deleted. 6

7 Virtual tours A 360 virtual tour can prove a very useful and effective way of promoting your school or establishment. They allow prospective pupils, parents and other school visitors to see what you have to offer in a very captivating and interactive manner. We can provide bespoke virtual tours that can blend into your website or we can host them separately on our servers. We can customize your tour to your specification and branding. 7

8 LGfL Anti-Virus Anti-Virus software (Sophos) offers schools a reliable virus protection across all platforms. Most schools will automatically take their updates directly from the central LGfL Sophos server. Installation information can be found at School Websites We provide information and support regarding school domains, hosting, creating and uploading content to the LGfL servers. LGfL subscribing schools are allocated space on the LGfL web servers to host their websites. We also produce the LGfL CMS which is currently used by hundreds of Lancashire schools as well as many others across the North of Great Britain. This system allows schools to locally manage their website easily without the need for specialist technical knowledge. Graphic Services office@ict.lancsngfl.ac.uk LGfL provide cost effective graphic services to schools. Common projects include creating new brands or logos, making e-brochures and producing 360 virtual tours. If you want more information or want to contact us about one of these services office@ict.lancsngfl.ac.uk. Service Status Feedback The status of the LGfL servers can be monitored on the service status page. The information provided is updated every 5 minutes. It is anticipated that this information will be further developed in the near future with the aim of providing a wider array of data and feedback for schools. LGfL Helpdesk LGfL has a dedicated helpdesk facility for school support queries which is provided under a managed SLA with colleagues at the Westfield Centre in Leyland. Further information and contact details are available at 8

9 LGfL CMS Create and Manage your School Website The LGfL CMS (Content Management System) has been developed specifically for schools, enabling them to develop and manage their websites effectively. Schools can actively design, edit and update their websites whenever they wish, with immediate results. It is used by hundreds of schools and organisations across the UK. The system is automatically updated for subscribing schools and there are no reoccurring annual costs for having the system. If you already have an LGfL CMS and want a fresh look for your website or extra features such as the ones mentioned below, then we are happy to embed these into your LGfL CMS website. If you would like a more customized website and you want additional features such as a translation tool, 360 virtual tours or music players, then please contact us as we can provide you with these features and services. 9

10 Evaluation Projects Through our ICT research and evaluation projects, we work with schools to provide advice for Lancashire schools on new technologies such as mobile devices, gaming technology and even technologies to support health and fitness. The findings are published and disseminated online, through courses and conferences and through publications to Lancashire schools. Current ongoing projects include evaluations on both the ipod Touch and ipad devices and the Cyber Coach dance mat and virtual trainer system. If you would like to volunteer to be involved in a project, please info@ict.lancsngfl.ac.uk. Training and Support We offer a wide range of courses and consultancies to support learning and teaching in Nursery Schools, Primary Schools, Secondary Schools, Special Schools, Colleges and other organisations. The areas we support include esafety, ICT curriculum, ICT Progressions, ICT Health Checks, SRF, ICTAC, Moodle, Mahara, MIDAS, website provision, ICT software (e.g. 2Simple, Adobe ), Interactive Whiteboard technology and software, Multimedia, Video Conferencing and lots more ( We are also available to support the development of policies and development plans as well as providing training for basic skills support for all school staff. Moodle Lancashire schools can apply for a Moodle Learning Platform as part of their CLEO subscription. For information on how to apply see We offer a wide range of courses and consultancies to support a school s learning platform and Moodle needs whether you need to update your Moodle administration skills or learn how to use the Moodle suite of resources and activities. 10

11 ICT Matters ICT Matters is a termly learning resource from LGfL sent to all LGfL subscribing schools in Lancashire. The publication has been made for over 5 years and continually receives extremely positive feedback from schools as a muchvalued resource. Articles are written by staff from The Schools ICT Centre with contributions from Lancashire schools. If you have ideas for future articles or would like to contribute, please contact info@ict.lancsngfl.ac.uk. 11

12 LGfL Moodle moodle.lancsngfl.ac.uk This is a Moodle site for schools that has many useful support areas and courses including those for new technologies, Moodle and curriculum delivery. It has support and course areas for Secondary schools in many different subjects including SEAL, Functional Skills and ICT. For access to this site info@ict.lancsngfl.ac.uk. Mahara Support Mahara is an open source eportfolio system which is currently used by over 70% of the Secondary schools in Lancashire. The eportfolio can be used to support pupil achievement and attainment and monitor progress. It is also an excellent tool for communicating and collaborating as well as having features that can be used to support pupil reflection activities. The Schools ICT Centre runs courses and consultancies to support Secondary schools with their use of the Mahara eportfolio. MIDAS The MIDAS service provides schools with the ability to report information to parents or guardians from a school s MIS system. Schools can publish data on attendance, behaviour, pupil progress and special education needs. The service also provides a way of accessing many of your schools services through a single interface and logon. We can support you and your schools using MIDAS to make sure that you are getting the most from this service. Whiteboard Training If you are looking for ways to enhance your teaching using the interactive whiteboard or simply need an update using the tools available in the software, we can support you. Whole school whiteboard update training or individual class teacher training might be the solution you are looking for. 12

13 Sunny Safari vle.sunnysafari.lancsngfl.ac.uk The Sunny Safari Project provides classroom resources to support the use of Moodle in the EYFS and Primary stages. This central Moodle site is available to Lancashire Primary and Special schools. It has a growing bank of resources including images, sounds, video clips and hundreds of Moodle courses to support many different subjects and themes. Schools can visit Sunny Safari and download courses to add to their own school Moodle. They can also download and use popular 2Simple software products; Simple City, Stories 2 Tell, The Literacy Collection, Talking Stories and Maths City. To apply for a username and password, simply sunnysafari@ict.lancsngfl.ac.uk using a Lancashire school account. Moodle training can be provided in school to support individual teachers or the whole staff. 13

14 esafety Website A range of resources and support are available to support esafety in your school. The Lancashire Grid for Learning website offers a range of materials including the new esafety policy guidance and framework and information regarding the new esafety Charter for Primary schools. We can provide in-school support to help you prepare your esafety documentation as well as showing teachers how they can teach esafety in school. In addition to this we can also run parents session to raise awareness of pupil esafety at home. Free resources for Primary and Special schools are available on the Sunny Safari site to support teaching esafety to a range of different year groups in school. ICT Progressions EYFS and Primary The ICT Progressions documents have been produced to help and support teachers using ICT in the primary classroom. There are two documents, the EYFS/KS1 document and the Primary Progressions document (KS1/KS2) with additional online materials on the LGfL website. The progressions documents are not designed to be a Scheme of Work but provide a progression of skills, knowledge and understanding for nine different elements of ICT including, sound, animation, text and multimedia. Training and support for putting the progressions document into practice can be provided. There are also courses to support some of the different elements. ICT Health Check If you need help and support with Curriculum ICT in your school, an ICT Health Check might be just what you need. This will provide an opportunity to look at all areas of the primary curriculum, resources, software, esafety etc. This is an ideal starting point for Subject Leaders taking on this role. 14

15 esafety Charter The Lancashire Schools esafety Charter is a self evaluation tool. It has been established for schools in Lancashire to demonstrate their ongoing COMMITMENT to the development of esafety within their school community. The scheme is free for Lancashire schools to participate in and we will send you the charter certificate once you have completed the necessary form. If you want find out more then go to 15

16 Schools ICT Centre Lancashire Grid for Learning LGfL WebsiteMyLGfLLGfL FilteringCompetitionsLGfL ServiceLGfL Spam Filtering360 Virtual ToursLGfL Anti-VirusSchool WebsitesLGfL Graphic ServicesService Status FeedbackLGfL HelpdeskLGfL CMSResearch and Evaluation ProjectsTraining, Support and ConsultancyMoodle SupportICT MattersLGfL MoodleMaharaMIDASInteractive Whiteboard TrainingSunny Safari MoodleLancashire esafety Guidance and SupportEYFS and Primary ICT ProgressionsICT Health CheckThe Lancashire esafety Charter The Schools ICT Centre Southport Road, Chorley, Lancashire, PR7 1QR Telephone: Facsimile: Schools ICT Centre