H.S. Principal Dr. Amy Fast - BGM Interview

Amy Fast is a high school principal in the McMinnville School District in Oregon. She holds a Ed.D. degree. Previously, she’s been an elementary teacher, instructional coach, and assistant principal. She is also an education commentator and author of the book, It’s the Mission, Not the Mandates.

After a brief overview of Amy’s career and a discussion of her book, we dug into the issues facing educators amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We covered planning for remote vs. in-person classes, the technology of remote classes, teacher concerns about in-person class safety, funding for cleaning, effectiveness of remote teaching, mental health issues, and long-term changes to education in the post-pandemic era. Parents with schoolchildren and educators will find this interview enormously helpful.

Apple Updates Schoolwork, Classroom Apps

Apple updated its apps for education—Schoolwork and Classroom—with new features and a new design for Schoolwork. Version 3.2 for Classroom:

Automatically access classes set up through Apple School Manager by signing into your device with a Managed Apple ID; Use AirPlay to project class details to Apple TV when inviting students to join a teacher-created class; Easily adjust the size of students’ screens by pinching to zoom in or out.

Why Teaching Privacy to Your Kids is Important

Siobhan O’Flynn writes about all the ways that companies like Google collect data from kids in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. It starts when schools increasingly turn to Google services in education.

Alphabet Inc. dominates child-directed and child-featured content online through YouTube Kids and has now colonized online educational spaces through Google Docs, G-Suite, Chromebooks and the associated Gmail accounts for children that are required for use. This means that Google’s access to children’s data spans entertainment (YouTube and YouTube Kids), search and purchase histories (via associated parental accounts), and educational sectors.

Jamf School Launches as an Apple Education Technology Solution

Jamf is a mobile device management company for Apple devices. Today it announced the launch of Jamf School.

Jamf School is an Apple education technology solution purpose-built for educators. It wasn’t designed for the expert IT user; instead it was designed with an intuitive interface and workflows to empower teachers to seamlessly manage and use their Apple devices for creating an active learning environment. It joins Jamf Pro to offer schools a solution choice that best fits their needs. With the launch of Jamf School also comes powerful apps.

Jamf Partners With Google Cloud for Education

Jamf is partnering with Google Cloud to make it easier for schools and businesses to authenticate Apple devices.

With Jamf Connect, users can unbox their Apple device, power it on and access their corporate and learning applications after signing on with Cloud Identity (or G Suite) credentials. Additionally, IT admins are more easily able to manage Mac accounts while knowing their hardware and information is secure.