IT Support - putting the boot in again

[Ditto]

An interesting short article following a Summer upgrade to Windows 10.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-50287922?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education&link_location=live-reporting-story

 

As ever with BBC online reporting, a very short article with little detail. Perhaps there were errors made, but I wonder what the back story is. Was time, money and resourcing allowed to do better testing? How much of the issue can be attributed to Microsoft? What is particularly striking is the comment from a union secretary under the subtitle 'Workload stress'. It's purely focused on a teaching perspective. It once again hints at a deep reliance on IT systems to teach - where are the teachers contingency plans? 'Robustness' is a key theme in my children's schools, the ability to cope with adversity and move on. If there is so much dependency on IT, why is IT so underfunded and undervalued in so many schools. It also hints at a non-inclusive mindset. What about the workload stress for non-teaching staff?

[JATSO]

As if this doesn't happen a lot anyway on first login:

 

"The process would normally take 15 to 30 minutes but due to the numbers signing in at the same time it jammed the network.

 

The issue was compounded when staff became "frustrated and gave up" which left the log-in process hanging."

[DrBeaker]

I love the "...deal with lots of IT issues which are really outside of their competencies." bit.

 

Yes so don't mess with things you don't understand, leave it to the pros!

[StevieM]

I wouldn't be surprised if the school(s) hadn't configured WSUS and, suddenly, every computer was trying to pull down its own updates.

[Lonix]

Not surprised.

 

Major IT issues occur and who do we talk to? The person in charge of the site? The representative? Or a member of staff?

 

None of the above. Speak to the IT person that setup the whole thing and planned it all. Let that person be honest too because I bet they had a lot of blocks in their way.

[HPlum78]

"Pulled down" and "Jammed the network" did my 5 year old write the technical evaluation of what happened?

 

Best way to do your load testing....

[sippo]

I'd be annoyed more on who moaned to the media.

[strawberry]

liase with the teaching unions? Well that'll solve the issue wont it.

 

Should i fix the issue then mr union?.

No son, not until we've agreed a compo package

Should i prep for when thats agreed?

No son, you'll be hanging from the flag pole by your nackers.

[jimmy_2k]

Was it done by an outside MSP that the LEA or someone wanted to oust?

[mavhc]

Scotland do have that Glow thing, maybe it's trying to do a download of Office365 stuff?

 

Sounds like it's all the schools using 1 IT support system, in which case no excuse for not testing properly.

[Garacesh]

I'd hazard a guess at a combo of:

 

County-wide domain

Roaming profiles and/or homedrive caching

User logon scripts (perhaps printer mapping?)