Student BCE Accounts

Students in Year 3 set their new BCE Account passwords on Monday. They each brought home a note with their accounts details (username, password and email address) glued on. Please keep this note in a safe place, or record these details digitally for later reference.

If you did not receive this note (or found the contents too crushed or obscured by orange juice to be legible), please contact your child's teacher for your child's details. If your child was not at school on Monday this week, we will catch up with them when they return to school or early next term and help them to set their password.

There is one job remaining to have these BCE student accounts fully configured... A job that is too fraught with potential pitfalls to attempt in a classroom situation, with students of this age:  Setting "Secret Questions". Parents, if you would like to gain more control over your child's BCE Account and improve your access, please take 5 minutes to follow the steps below, to set the "Secret Questions" on your child's account. This way, if ever the password is lost or forgotten, it will be an easier task for you to gain access to the account and reset the password.

Thanks, as always, for your help!

Setting "Secret Questions"

First, open your favourite browser and go to the Student Dashboard website. Here's the address so you can bookmark it for future use: https://portals.bne.catholic.edu.au/schools/stcatherinescps/studentdashboard/default.aspx 

Then use these screenshots to follow the steps...

Please note that the answers you record will be case sensitive.
Once you complete the steps above and hit Submit, you will see this screen again:

From here, you can use the Student Dashboard link to return to the login screen. The BCE Student Dashboard link is always in the top right hand pane of this blog should you need it again.

Preparing Passwords

Next week, year 3 classes will log into their BCE student accounts to set a private password, in readiness for 1 to 1 iPads next year. Here's what parents will need to know: 

How can parents help?

Your child will need a password that is private, secure and that fulfils the minimum security requirements of Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) systems. Over the next week, please discuss this with your child and help them to choose a password that they will easily recall and which has the following:

• at least 7 characters
• at least one numeric character
• at least one capital letter

We suggest children choose a key word that is familiar to them, such as a pet's name or favourite musician, sporting team, colour or vegetable (favourite vegetable?? Ha ha!). Many letters can be replaced with numbers as you might see on car registration plates, or even other characters such as @ or !. Try not to make the password overly long as this increases the time taken and the chances of inadvertent errors when typing it.

Once you have worked out a password with your child, you can record it in a 'secret' place for them to bring to school, or send it in a note to your child's teacher. Many children may be able to memorise their chosen password sufficiently well to bring it to school 'in their heads'. They will need it ready for sessions in class on Monday or Wednesday next week.

It will be helpful to keep the password recorded somewhere safe at home so they child can commit it to memory. Practise typing it on a keyboard (even a printed paper copy of a keyboard!) so they can quickly and easily learn the location of the letters and type it quickly on their own.

Keeping passwords safe and secure...

At school we will stress the importance of keeping this password secure and private. Children must share their password with only their parents, no one else. This means not sharing it with siblings or friends - even BFFs! We will explain that a real friend would never ask anyone to share a password. Please reinforce this message at home.

How will students use their BCE accounts?

Next year and beyond, email will be a primary source of digital communication with teachers. The BCE student accounts will also be used to access Google Drive which is our primary Cloud storage facility in our 1 to 1 classrooms and other services such as LIFE (BCE's learning management system), Google Maps and Showbie (our primary service for digital submission, feedback and assessment of student work).

This year in Year 3, students are not required to use their BCE accounts at all. In fact, we ask that parents do not encourage the use of student email accounts unless you are prepared to closely monitor your child's use. No formal instruction in safe and responsible use of email will be undertaken until Year 4.

Why take this step so soon then?

Students require an Apple ID dedicated to their own use for school next year. Every Apple ID requires an email address. Parents who already use Apple's Family Sharing may wish to use the child's existing Apple ID, generated for under-age users within the Family Sharing setup. This "Family Sharing" Apple ID will use an iCloud address that ends in "@icloud.com".

The other alternative is to create a new Apple ID for your child in which case we ask that you use the child's school (BCE) email address. As the children are under 13 years of age, this Apple ID account must be owned and managed by a parent (and have a parent's birth year recorded during the application process). But they can be created in the child's name and ideally, using the child's school email address. For those parents who wish to have the Apple ID and Mail app set up as the iPads are purchased, it's not too early to send these BCE email account details home now.

So what do I do with my child's account details?

Students' BCE account details will be sent home next week. Please keep these details in a safe and secure place at home. You may wish to record your child's BCE username and email address digitally, say in a contacts list. It's not recommended to record their password in the same place as their username, or alongside any personal identification.

If you are setting up an Apple ID you will need to access your child's email via their Student Dashboard. There is always a direct link to the Student Dashboard on this blog, towards the top of the right hand pane. You might like to bookmark this site on a home computer so you can continue to monitor your child's use of email throughout their years in a 1 to 1 iPad classroom.

Once logged into the Student Dashboard, look for the Outlook link which will take you to your child's email inbox.

Web Outlook

Thank you parents, as always, for your amazing support.

iPad Purchase and Setup Options

Breaking news this week...

We have negotiated a special purchase offer from BCE supplier CompNow for St Catherine's Parents. As you read this post, CompNow are busy preparing a special purchase portal for St Catherine's families so you can easily select and order your iPad and optional case online at specially negotiated prices. Several different iPad Wi-Fi only models (from 32GB upwards) will be available through this offer, along with additional options such as extra warranty and finance purchase options.

WATCH this space, for a link to your special iPad purchase portal. 

COMING SOON!

iPad Setup Evening Event

Regardless of how you intend to supply your child's iPad for next year, you might want to take advantage of our (optional) iPad Setup Night, scheduled for Tuesday 27th October, 2015. The focus of this evening event is iPad Safety.

We encourage any parents who will have iPads in use by children at home over the Christmas break to come along and gain some advice about how to set the iPad up to ensure a safer environment, monitor children's use of the iPad's internet browser and restrict access to inappropriate content.

We will cover some of these hints and tips at the compulsory Cyber Safety Boot Camp in January 2016, but that event is ill-timed to cover recreational use over the holiday break. If some ground rules for safe and responsible use of then iPad are established from the outset, children will become accustomed to your expectations and many unsafe habits may be avoided.

So, we hope you will mark this event in your calendar:

iPad Setup Night

7pm Tuesday 27th October

Nano Nagle Centre