KS3 ICT SATS Poll

[russdev]

So lets see who doing it then..

 

russ

[SteveT]

Yes, I set it up (that was fun.......NOT) and showed the ICT teacher what was involved. He wasn`t a happy bunny!!! He had words with the Head who (quite rightly in my opinion) backed him up when he said he didn`t want to waste precious curriculum time training kids to use it. So.......we have it and a few kids will probably "have a go" at the practice test but I doubt they will do it for real this year!

[dezt]

I've set it up here and the ICT teachers are busy training the kids on how to use it, we are more than likely going to use it this year.

 

It's so popular with the ICT teachers that they are asking for more practice tests as the kids are bored doing the same ones over and over again.

[ChrisH]

We have just signed up for it and I have just got the details through. Not looking forward to it after reading all the problems with it. Especially since I will have to do the bulk of it between everything else :?

[pinemarten]

Did it last year - complete balls-up (it didn't like W98! we're now on XP Pro) .

 

Head of IT adamant he didn't want to do it again 'til about 2 wks ago -

 

-he had his arm twisted by LEA advisors and now we're off again......

 

Hmmph!

[MikeW]

No major problems this year so far , however last year was a nightmare. Just had 2 people in from Leeds Uni working for QCA observing the practice/pre tests and interviewing the kids afterwards.

[Sylv3r]

We are registered and have it installed, but I dont think the entire Year 9 year group will be doing the tests. We will just pick 3 or 4 classes of mixed ability so we know exactly what we are letting ourselves in for.

[m25man]

I have been watching these antics from afar, I have barely found a single person that has a good word to say for the whole sorry affair.

 

I get around a lot of schools, and there seems to be a common pattern.

The SMT/ICT Heads decide to use it and sign up.

They then dump the manual and CD on the Network Managers desk.

He looks at it and says oh no not again!

Stands a coffee cup on it and forgets about it for three weeks.

 

Then the head of Dept appears an asks how the testing software is getting on...

 

Then the network manager quickly picks up the manuals and CD then passes them onto the most junior member of the IT Team and asks them to role it out as it can't be that hard!

Then finds he needs additional server hardware capacity.

Oh and because his WSUS has been so efficient in keeping his workstations patched they are too upto date to accept certain parts of this RM Malware without a major rework!

 

Then as we get into the final week of close of registrations things start to get a little manic!

 

I know of schools that have spent months on this project, with entire teams tied up for days trying to sort the bloody mess out.

 

Why only after weeks of rolling back workstations to .NET 1.1 in order to get workstations to operate correctly with it do they ship a patch that makes it work with .NET 2.0!!!!!

 

RM seem to have turned the art of CSV import into a black magic ritual!

 

I am seriously concerned that whilst clearly QCA and RM have blatantly used the UK schools network support teams to beta test thier products for them, when it all goes horribly wrong and the kids fail thier KS3 ICT tests it will all be blamed on the Network Managers and they in turn will try and blame their subordinates.

 

I for one hope that everybody concerned about this fiasco voices there experiences and opinions in the appropriate forums here so that we have plenty of "I told you so" evidence to rub the SMT's noses in when it comes to it.

[tosca925]

The testing. First year was shocking no good at all, software temperamental and crashed alot. Last year we ran 2 lots of testing on 250 kids. 125 on the morning 125 on the afternoon. On the morning we had quite a bit of success only the odd DPS played up with the clock not running down or with the DPS not restarting for the second part of the test.

 

On the after noon was nightmare, we only had around 30 of the 125 kids finish the test. We ran 7 flight decks and the server crashed. They later told us it was because the web server stopped as it could not handle the volume of flight decks.

 

I have just updated the server APS and deployed the DPS through GPO to 140 computers. I am going to deploy the practice test and other test early next week. The staff want to run a few practice test first to get the kids familiar with the software again.

 

We still plan on running 130 test at once again in 7 rooms to see what happens. At the end of the day they love us for giving the software a good bashing by the number machines that use it at once.

 

 

I'll you know what happens.

[broc]

On Friday morning we ran our first 'test'. As network manager, I assisted our Head of ICT curriculum. We took 30 high ability students in Y9, got them to log on & start the test. In a 1 hour lesson most managed to complete the first 15 minute task of a 50 minute test. This was their first exposure to the test environment but it was encouraging to see how quickly they adapted to the rather restrictive GUI.

 

All of the DPS workstations behaved themselves, we had no problems with the APS server. All of the students experienced very slow (1 minute+) initially opening the 'file manager' application on the DPS.

 

At the end of the lesson the students were asked what they thought of the test environment. 100% of them said they would be much happier doing a written test(!), or being allowed to use MS Word & Publisher to perform the tasks as they thought they could do it quicker that way.

 

We might try it on a low ability group next week.

 

Brian

[russdev]

 

We might try it on a low ability group next week.

 

Brian

 

this is in some ways whre online testing comes into its own we found last year we entered some students who had great ict but not so good at others in fact we had some students who only sats they did where ict...

 

and they perfromed well getting level 4's which for them is great and way more than expected of them....

 

yes test is wordey

 

so some of them need it reading to them but once they had heard what to do they could do task really easy...

 

key is practice you need to make sure computer room is open at lunch for them to practice ones that do get good results

 

 

Russ

[tosca925]

Just out of interest whats the maxximun numder of test you have run at once?

 

In our case 125.

[shahidemran]

What does this means:

[scheduler][VACUUM DB : Vacuum has been initiated successfully]

[SteveT]

I think this is just housekeeping........ie tidying up the database.

[kestrel1]

Trying to run this stuff on a thin client network. What a nightmare. Can logon two users in one room, with no problems. Try to logon another user & it will logoff one of the others & transfer the session to the client that has just been logged on.

Been on to RM, just got to go through a few things before we try again. Don't really think the ICT teachers are that interested. Personally I couldn't give a monkies. I think the software is rubbish & is giving me a headache. Anyone else running this on a thin client network?

[ChrisH]

Ric_ is. RM are sending him an engineer next week free of charge to help with any "problems"

[Vegas]

Installation has been the biggest headache here but we have just finished our first run through with year9's today, 64 kids, and all has gone very well with no problems.

[Sylv3r]

Installation has been the biggest headache here but we have just finished our first run through with year9's today, 64 kids, and all has gone very well with no problems.

 

Exactly the same as us. Installation took me a while but all tests today were faultless. Also I didnt notice any effect on the rest of the network when the tests were running.

 

We aren't using thin client machines - this seems to be causing people the most problems.

[russdev]

well to certain degree it is how beta testing work...

 

Lets look at fat client version...

 

tech pilot - that was very interesting really problems as i understand and really bad

last year - not to bad quite few issues...

this year - while still issues no where as near as many last year...

next year - will be lot of interface issues to solve this year..

year after - reported sats and in good position

 

this is first year of thin client and so will will follow same ort of path.

 

What people got to remember it is pilot still and so there will be a lot of issues..

 

Russ

[Ravening_Wolf]

Not only was this system a complete pile of the stinkiest plop ever, but when I went back and reviewed the results generated (for some reason my ICT team ended up overseeing the actual exams too!), it became apparent that all the students had to do to get a grade was answer the first section of the first question. That alone was worth a level 3. If said student managed to complete the whole of section 1, they got a level 4.

 

Being that grades were averaged out amongst the results generated by all students across the country who took the test, this would seem to indicate that everyone had a pants time with it!

 

Here's to the 2007 fiasco!!!