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Tuesday, April 7, 2020

NYC Public School Students Switch From Zoom To Google For Education Applications

After the New York City Department of Education set up Zoom as the platform for remote learning while all of NYC is on PAUSE, suddenly we heard about "Zoombombing".

Now the NYC DOE, always in control of precarious events (NOT), has re-directed all students and educators to Google applications.

It's always something.


Betsy Combier, betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials 


From: ChiefOperatingOfficer <ChiefOperatingOfficer@schools.nyc.gov>
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2020 9:01:51 PM
Subject: Updates on Zoom + Google

Colleagues,

The past few weeks have created a unique set of challenges for all New Yorkers--parents, students, educators, and everyone who supports learning across our 1.1 million students. We are in unprecedented times, and yet every stakeholder in the New York City school system has done an incredible job pivoting how, when, and where they work to support our children. 

We know how hard all our DOE staff are working to make working remotely a reality, and we also know you share our concern for safety. We want to make our guidance and expectations clear over the coming days, so you can use various online platforms safely to ensure privacy for all users—yourselves included. 

Last Friday, we shared guidance on videoconferencing. We are happy to report that, following testing and discussion with Google over the weekend, we have determined that Google for Education applications—including Google Hangouts Meet—are safe to use for this purpose. If your school is currently using Google, you should continue to do that. We will soon be sharing guidance that will help you and your staff maximize Google's security features to help protect your school community. 

If you are currently using Zoom for videoconferencing, we are ready to support you in a transition as quickly as possible. We know that for many of you, that won’t mean overnight, but we’ll be supporting you with numerous trainings and guidance to help this process start quickly. Look for the “Make the Move from Zoom to Meet” classes on the Remote Learning Tech Professional Development calendar.  

Please also note we continue to support the use of Microsoft Teams across the DOE. Many of you are already using it. Our classes on "Make the Move from Zoom to Teams" will help you make the transition.

Additionally, we are in continued conversations with Zoom on potential future use of the platform with the DOE. However, until then, our guidance from Friday remains in place: while we recognize the transition won’t happen overnight for many of you, we are asking schools to transition away from Zoom and to other platforms (like Google and Microsoft). We will keep you up-to-date as we continue to review and monitor developments with Zoom. 

Some of this might feel like a sudden transition, but we are here to support you. We know how hard you and your colleagues worked to quickly acclimate to video conferencing tools, and we urgently worked over the weekend to preserve some widely used options while establishing clarity on those that pose a risk to privacy or security.  

In the coming days, we’ll share additional detailed how-to information for staff and families to support the transition to Google Meet and/or Microsoft Teams.  We’ll be adding this information to the pages we link to below. 

We’re so proud of and grateful for your efforts. We will continue to provide guidance on videoconferencing platforms in the days and weeks ahead. 

Thank you again, 

Ursulina Ramirez 
Chief Operating Officer 


Helpful Links 

For Staff 
Calendar of Remote Learning Tech Professional Development Classes: https://diit.nyc/learningcal 

 
How to Create Student Accounts (also helpful for families):  https://www.schools.nyc.gov/learn-at-home/technical-tools-and-support/doe-student-accounts 


For Students and Families 
 

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