Latest News

Please note that the Kindergarten IT Program helpdesk will be closed from 24th December 2022 to 2nd January 2023. IT Support services will resume on Tuesday 3rd January 2023 from 9AM.

Just before you leave for the school break its helpful to:

• Shut down your computer
• Switch off the modem
• Switch off the power and unplug at the wall socket

This can stop a possible power surge or damage to your computer if there is a storm and it also saves energy. Post-It note your keyboard – Turn the modem and power back on – to remind staff on return from break.

Webmail

If you want to check your webmail over the break, remember the new webmail is here:
https://webmail.kindergarten.vic.gov.au/

The username is the full email address.

This tip covers some end of year considerations for staff organising files, managing outgoing staff mailboxes and accounting for changes to file sharing tools etc. 

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Tip – End of the year wrap-up

Department of Education and Training has released the December 2022 edition of the Early Childhood Update.

With a message from Kim Little, Deputy Secretary of Early Childhood Education, articles on the final days to order Three-Year-Old Kinder Kits for 2023, the upcoming Victorian Educational Leaders Conference and other important updates regarding the early childhood sector.

You can subscribe to receive the updates here: Early Childhood Update | Victorian Government (www.vic.gov.au)

This guide demonstrates how to password protect a PDF created in Microsoft Word or Publisher.

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Tip – Password protect PDFs exported from Word

If your service shares a computer, network drive or cloud storage between staff, committee and volunteers, you might find it useful to restrict some Office documents from modification with a password or encrypt others for confidentiality. This tip will explain both how to encrypt a document and how to restrict modifying a document.

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Tip – Password protect Office documents

Excel documents are often ‘living’ documents that are intended to be viewed and updated collaboratively.  To avoid users introducing errors to your documents, Excel’s protection options can lock or hide cells or formulas.

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Tip – How to protect worksheet cells in Excel

Each year, many kindergarten staff need to transfer the contact details of enrolled families from an Excel spreadsheet into Outlook.  Within Outlook, staff often also want the family emails grouped into Contact Groups for each session or cohort of enrolments.

These two tips provide two methods of setting up the Contact Groups in Outlook:
Tip – Create Outlook Contact Groups from an Excel spreadsheet (quick copy/paste method)
Tip – Create Outlook Contact Groups from an Excel spreadsheet (advanced import method)

Make sure you are making a professional impression by setting up your email username correctly. This tip will explain how. As well as assisting with recognisability, this process also helps to ensure your mail isn’t mistaken for spam.

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Tip – Update your email name in Outlook

If you are using a WordPress theme, widget or block pattern with place-holder logos you might need make custom or unique icons to replace them. This technique will work for making larger logos too.

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Tip – WordPress create logos and icons.

Staff often need to maintain a spreadsheet of families and enrolments. Common tasks like adjusting or reorganizing such lists can be repetitive. Here are the first of some time-saving methods suggested from our Excel course.

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Tip – Reordering columns and combining columns in Excel.

Put your WordPress website to work collecting feedback, a wait list for enrolments or survey your families.  This tip will show you how to create simple contact forms for your WordPress site.

Browse to it on our Tips page or from this direct link: Build a basic WordPress contact form.