INFORMATION PACK FOR PARENTS

The Department of Education and Training (Department) and your school are using online learning services to support learning and teaching. This pack provides information on one of the online services, Office 365 and advice in relation to its safe and responsible use.

For more details on Office 365 visit: https://products.office.com/en-au/student/office-in-education

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Office 365 is an internet based service provided by Microsoft for class activities. It provides students with access to online education services such as:

Microsoft Web Apps (Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote)
Exchange
One Drive
SharePoint
Forms
Flow

These tools are for collaboration which necessitates students being able to find and connect with other students and staff, either at their own school or within the Victorian government education system. As part of their school work, students may be able to communicate via email with people outside of their school.

The online services offered by Microsoft may be updated from time to time, but are only made available to students once they have been reviewed and approved by the Department.

What are the benefits of this service for students?

Teaches students to be ‘digital citizens’ through the use of an online system.
Provides access to digital tools for a range of classroom activities.
Allows students to actively collaborate with their class on school work.
Provides digital whiteboard capability in group discussions.
Enables students to access their classwork from different channels (i.e. laptops, iPads and smartphones).
Helps students to build working relationships with each other.
Promotes knowledge sharing.

What information might students store in Office 365?

In addition to the information needed to provide access to Office 365 (student’s username, password, name, year level, home group and school), student’s schoolwork will also be stored in Office 365.
Students have the ability to store and share any school work related content on the platform, such as photographs, audio, video recordings. They can also add non-classroom related information.
Student’s data is stored in data centers located in in Victoria and New South Wales.
How can you help protect your student’s information?

Whilst your school provides your student’s Department username and password to Microsoft to enable them to only access their own information on Office 365, there are some things that you can do to help keep their information safe.

Remind them not to share passwords with anyone, as they cannot be sure how secure another person will be with their details.

Teachers will remind students to only use Office 365 for activities related to schoolwork.

Talk about appropriate uses of technology at school and at home. Remind them that anything uploaded to Office 365 can be viewed by teachers.

In rare cases, Microsoft’s technical support team may have access to information stored in Office 365.

Please note that Microsoft will never contact you or your child directly. If you or your child are contacted by anyone claiming to be Microsoft support, contact your school immediately.

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