Certain Staff

[button_ripple]

Why is it that certain staff always think that they come first.

 

Just the other week me and the NM were asked to join a meeting with NEC computers 1/2 an hour before we were supposed to take the laptop trolleys (SIGH) to a teacher.

 

We realised that the meeting might overlap so we might not be able to take the laptops to the class. We informed the teacher that there might be a chance and that we would still take the laptops to here class before we went to the meeting.

 

SHE WENT CRAZY!! She told us that she should be a priority over anything else because her lesson was to be observed by the head so everything had to run smoothly!

 

Never mind the fact that if we missed this meeting then someone travelling all the way from Birmingham to Luton just to talk to us would be sitting in a room by himself - the teacher was the priority. In the end we just told the teacher where to stick it (somewhere painful!) and went to the meeting. We did finish the meeting in time to help the teacher.

 

We have also stood in the ICT Suite for 40 mins waiting for a class to arrive - they never did. When we asked the teacher where she had got to, she just laughed. Why the hell didn't she ring us or senda pupil to say they weren't coming???????

 

Any of you have this problem? What can we do. This is most of the teachers this is happening to. We have training this Thursday for the Luton VLP. God knows what the school will be like on the Friday.

[FN-GM]

Why does it matter if the laptops get there a little early?

 

Z

[torledo]

Unfortunately a lot of teachers and indeed end-users think we are their servants and that we've got nothing else going on in our jobs but to be at their beck-and-call, this teacher with the trolleys needs to develop a sense of perspective.

 

I'm lucky in that my end-users are actually concerned that by asking me do something for them they would be taking up too much of my valuable time....good eh ? It helps that I work in a small team and so I've earned their respect because they are in awe of my depth of knowledge (seriously, they are). Ofcourse I'm always modest in front of them - even when I am doing the IT equivalent of turning water into wine.

 

When I post on here I get to unleash my ego.

 

BTW why were you in the ICT suite for 40 mins waiting for the pupils...you weren't asked to take a lesson. That seems to be a common occurance among some of our less fortunate colleagues on these boards.

[Ric_]

Naturally, teaching does come first in the school but that doesn't mean you need to be a teachers' gopher.

 

Some of your staff sound like they need to meet the LART and understand that they need to be more flexible so that you can better help them. Having a laptop trolley 30mins early so that you can negotiate with a supplier for instance will surely benefit their teaching in the long run!

[tomscaper]

We often have staff book computer rooms and then not turn up to use them. Then we get other teachers coming in and asking "who has this room booked", we have a booking form on the internet, why can they not look themselves. They came all the way up stairs to see if anyone was in, why not look at there computer first.

[john]

We often have staff book computer rooms and then not turn up to use them. Then we get other teachers coming in and asking "who has this room booked", we have a booking form on the internet, why can they not look themselves. They came all the way up stairs to see if anyone was in, why not look at there computer first.

because they need to logon, and that will take like 10000000 years to do and then they cba to go to the intranet, click room bookings.... (you get my drift!)

[localzuk]

@john - do staff at your school not have laptops? All our staff are logged in to their laptops pretty much from the time they get there in the morning until the time they leave at night. So logging in isn't a problem. Viewing the booking system at our school takes all of 3 seconds - open IE and click Rooms/Media Booking. Voila.

 

There are still some who ask 'who has booked room X' though, as they just don't think to look on the site and expect the network manager to know... Why? I don't know. We have roughly 40 bookings a day across our rooms in the school, how are we supposed to remember?

[DevilsAdvocate]

laptop trolleys (SIGH) to a teacher.

 

I feel your pain. We brought a 24 laptop notebus and I just can't move it around school because of the size and weight of it! I end up carrying the laptops around 5 at a time. They are pretty heavy too when you've carried them one end of the school to the other 4 times!

 

Rob.

[john]

@localzuk, no mine don't have them (thank god!) so they can't use that, but we have some terminals on the intranet all the time, and they just login to that to view room bookings, takes all of 30 seconds but still has issues.

[georgebush]

Luckily our student laptops are all in a special block with loads of dedicated APs so they dont go anywhere. The only problems we get are batteries going flat if they accidently get booked for consecutive periods and kids deciding to rip the keys out and destroy the cd drives.

 

They're at the point now were we dont have enough time to stay on top of repairing them and can have upto 10 in the queue at any time. If we're lucky its just a quick solder job to the power socket, if not its salvaging what you can to repair other broken units. If student wireless is the future lets hope it goes the way of concorde.

[damienharrison]

I Hate LapSafe Trolleys!!!

 

Few now ive got that off my chest =0)

 

We have two bookable lapsafes and due to there weight and H&S it needs two of us to push and collect from lessons (normally different floors inbetween periods or one side of school to the other. When we get the lapsafe to the new room we then have to manually check all the laptops (15 per trolley) for vandleism (keys ripped off, stuff shoved in cd bays/pcmcia bays pcmcia ejector pegs ripped off, batteries stolen.....)

 

They had been out for a week and 6 got wrecked in one lesson so I asked the teacher at the time (also head of department) which students had done it...

 

Firstly she tried saying it didn't happen in her class..... yeah whatever!! then she said she couldn't keep an eye on the kids and the laptops so there was nothing she could do.

 

I decided that if she cant stop the kids wreckin the laptops then ICT support can deny her access to the laptops WRONG!!! Headteacher ordered me to appologise (which I did very half heartidly) even after I explained the costs for replacement keyboards (dell say £82+)

 

Now we are a man short so I have had to take one trolley out of service wonder when Ill get a tellin off over that (takes 10/15 mins to move 1 trolley sometimes (especially with busy corridors) and thats 5 times a day at the worst)

 

Anyone else had similar experiences?? How did you deal with them??

[laserblazer]

Your HT sounds like a jerk. Are you in a union?

[SteveB_NI]

In my school we have 2 laptop trolleys - each hold 20 laptops but can hold up to 30 - big Lapsafe beasts.

 

Due to the layout of the school we can only use them on 1 big long corridor, and I have conveniently based 1 trolley at each end of this corridor.

 

The trolley at 1 end is pretty well managed by the department themselves, it is used for 3 subjects based in the same area, so the teachers or pupils move the trolley themselves. Occasionally this trolley moves up the corridor though, and for that my assistance is often required.

 

The other trolley is used throughout the corridor, and is mostly moved by myself. Now imagine the scene.... 1 large trolley & several doors to go through. I often have to open the doors & push the trolley through, and often up & down small ramps by myself. Not good - but the arm muscles have definitely got bigger!

 

I'm at the stage now where I feel (as does my boss) that my time is better spent elsewhere. The teachers have had a term of technician assistance setting up laptops - it's time for a policy to be drawn up to encourage (where possible, I mean GCSE years onwards) pupils to move laptop trolleys themselves, or even teachers.

 

The policy includes a procedure similar to: first booked class - technician moves trolley to class, then from that class onwards, the pupils / staff return trolley to a generalised collection point. Hopefully this will get SMT approval soon.

[GrumbleDook]

How about ... trolleys are booked a minimum of 24 hours in advance. In the morning a list of locations is put in the trolley inside door and at the end of each lesson nominated students take it to the next class. At the end of the day it is returned to the end of the corridor or a designated office.

 

I've seen similar for rear projection whiteboards and it worked fine. Teachers also knew who had the board before they got it so if it was late or failed to turn up the teacher took the other teacher to task ... not putting the support team in the middle

[SteveB_NI]

Thats a good idea Grumbledook - I'll look into that idea tomorrow during work

[tech_guy]

Blimey we'd have people setting fire to themselves in the playground if we suggested they set things up themselves....

[trekmad]

Here we have 3 laptop trolleys and 3 ICT suites. We stated from day 1 we would help a teacher setup a lesson once using a suite or a trolley and give them all the support they need. After this they would be on their own. Sounds daunting but part of using ICT in a lesson includes setting up the necessary equipment/apparatus in plenty of time for it.

 

Same goes for projector set ups. The first time we give them support and after that we will only assist if something is not working.

 

If we didn't hold to our guns on this we would spend all of our day running around after teachers setting things up instead of repairing and maintaining equipment/network/telephone system/CCTV/photocopiers/AV/access control etc etc etc.

 

We get a few members of staff who think it is unfair and "how can they be expected to set up equipment for a lesson..." but overall everyone is happy with this.

[pallen]

We tried to setup a booking system for a portable projector which was allocated for 1 teacher to use most of the time. As this was the only portable projector the school had, I suggested she implement a signing sheet so people knew where it was anytime it left her room. Also as the projector has been left in rooms overnight when used by other people I told her it would be wise to cover herself in case of theft/damage. All in all about 2 staff ever signed the form, leaving me running round trying to find leads that went missing. After a couple of times I told staff it is their responsibility to look after the equipment and NOT to come to me as I have no spares and no idea where the projector would be. Lukily we now have a few portable projector, but there is still no log of where they are being used.

 

Providing a good (blatantly obvious) idea of logging where equipment is and showing people how to transport/use equipment is one thing...getting them to use it is another.

[firefox_2006]

RE:Laptop Trolleys

 

We have one laptop trolley here, and the other week the NWM and myself went up to inspect it to find 10 of the 15 or so laptops had missing keys. It use to be based in food technology area, where the teacher did a very good job of looking after it. This teacher has now left and the laptop trolley is now getting trashed on a regular basis.

 

How difficult would it be to get the pupils to line up by the trolley at the end of the lesson and hand the laptop to the teacher, who then places it in the trolley (after checking it, obviously)? Or even just walk round checking open laptops for damage.

 

Honestly I wonder where teachers hide their brains sometimes

 

Personally I think laptops are a waste of time, you spend more time getting them going than actually using them (replacing keys, screens etc)

 

//end rant

:x

 

firefox_2006

[damienharrison]

firefox_2006 - We tried asking teachers to check each laptop at the end of the lesson but some flat out refused saying it's ICT's job - (whatever)

 

So now we just take our time 1 lapsafe sat waiting in the storeroom collecting dust. Whilst me and a technician move the trolley around and check each laptop writing down the asset number for any damages.

 

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Tried getting departmental assistants to move the trolleys but again got told it isn't there job to do so as it's ICT's

[firefox_2006]

firefox_2006 - We tried asking teachers to check each laptop at the end of the lesson but some flat out refused saying it's ICT's job - (whatever)

 

So now we just take our time 1 lapsafe sat waiting in the storeroom collecting dust. Whilst me and a technician move the trolley around and check each laptop writing down the asset number for any damages.

 

What we are thinking of doing is taking it out of the department where it is currently getting abused and putting it in Maths, where it SHOULD get better treatment

 

I can't believe that teachers can say "its your responsibility..." what a cop out....teaching staff can be such ignorant people.....i don't know grr! *shakes fist*

 

firefox_2006

[tomscaper]

firefox_2006 - We tried asking teachers to check each laptop at the end of the lesson but some flat out refused saying it's ICT's job - (whatever)

 

So now we just take our time 1 lapsafe sat waiting in the storeroom collecting dust. Whilst me and a technician move the trolley around and check each laptop writing down the asset number for any damages.

 

What we are thinking of doing is taking it out of the department where it is currently getting abused and putting it in Maths, where it SHOULD get better treatment

 

I can't believe that teachers can say "its your responsibility..." what a cop out....teaching staff can be such ignorant people.....i don't know grr! *shakes fist*

 

firefox_2006

 

I dont understand how they can say its not my responsibility, if they are using the equipment then surely it becomes there resposibility.

I make it my business now to check everyone who has used the trolley, just so i can catch them out now and ban them from the trolley.

Problem i sometimes find is that mangement let them off the hook due to needing for school work.

Off topic but we have 6 kids who's accounts are banned for the week, but i doubt it will last all week as teachers will come up and asking if they can be unlocked so they can work. I am going to try my hardest to say no and they can write it on paper and type it up at home or next week.

Just shows that there is no discipline and they can get away with it whenever they want.

[TechMonkey]

Hmmm, the head of IT is thinking of banning certain departments from using the IT rooms as she is fed up of having to clear them up after ready to teach in. Not talking about a few chairs out of place but paper everywhere, books strewn about, wrappers as well all the charis all over the place. Even put out a polite notice asking if the rooms could be left tidied and checked beofre letting the kids go. Same reasoning given though.

[damienharrison]

We have tried banning students from the network usual reasons porno images in there home folders, abusin the internet, abuse of the computers....

 

I think we managed to keep them banned for a day until Head of Year approached us and said we can't ban students from the computers so have let them back on comps but banned Internet access from there a/c =0)

 

Nothing has been said as of yet about that which is good =0)

[kestrel1]

If I ban a user from the network, they are allowed on during a lesson & their account is disabled at the end (If I remember)

Internet can be blocked per user or per room & is very useful. I do the occasion shadow of users if I have time, which at present I don't.