Lesson Monitor

[Vegas]

We have just started using Lesson Monitor having tested it last term. A couple of problems so far but nothing major, but I was having a conversation today with a member of staff, his PC (having tested it) took 2 mins from switch on to login and open SIMS, which I think is excellent, anyway he told me that if it took 3-4 mins then it would be unacceptable and he would go back to using a paper register! Now some of our older machines take that sort of time which I still think for their age is acceptable. 2 questions:

1. What is an acceptable time to boot up, login and open SIMS?

2. Why when LT have instructed staff to use Lesson Monitor do they think that it doesn't mean them!?

[kmount]

Our lot are lucky if they get on SIMS from cold boot in less than 8.

[StewartKnight]

Your guy vegas, is a prat!

 

If he bothers to plan ahead or even arrive at the classroom before the students, it doesn't matter how long the load takes, just so long as it's ready before he needs it.

 

It's like saying, "if it takes more than 2 minutes to fill my car with petrol, then I going back to using the bus"....

 

OK, it may not be like saying that, but you get the idea.

 

People (well...teachers) are so impatient with ICT in a way that they wouldn't be with something they were good at!

[jcollings]

What you need is SLT support - when we implemented it a year ago some staff moaned about it but were just told (by SLT) that was the way we did registers in our school - going back to paper wasn't a choice or option for individual teachers.

 

We have just ditched paper discipline slips in favour of direct entry to SIMS and some will complain but the message will be the same.

 

It really does need SLT to get behind these initiatives.

[Vegas]

Its actually being led by a member of LT, it's not actually my problem but it just annoys me when some staff have that attitude. If these people behaved like this in the private sector they would be told to get on with it or pack up their desks.

[antoeknee]

We've been using Lesson Monitor for 2-3 years now and I think most staff would complain like mad if they had to go back to paper registers.

 

A little while ago we did find that SIMS took ages to load up. Ths was after Sophos update. A lot of the machine used for SIMS are a bit old and don't have a lot of RAM. Upping the VM settings with minimum 1000MB and max of 3000MB made a massive difference.

 

I've had problems with staff saying something hasn't worked correctly for a week or two, duh! Why the hell didn't they tell me day 1?

[Vegas]

I'm hoping that eventually we will be in the same situation, we just need to persevere. Obviously some of our 'special' staff will require more patience than other but i'm sure we'll get there.

It's the same situation when we first installed a smartboard 6+ years ago, lots of staff said they wouldn't use them and now we have them in every room and they can't live without them.

[User3204]

I make sure the machines, will boot in under 2minutes, and then I also make sure that all machines will logon within 2 minutes (from user/pass , to desktop).

So this is 4 minutes from cold-boot to usable system.

That goes for any machine, on either of our networks.

 

With SIMS .net there's not much I can do to speed up, that wouldn't have already been sorted by quickening the boot / logon times. I've never looked at it, but I guess it takes about 20-30 sec, unless there's an update.

 

 

What happened when we introduced the online registration, the Senior DH made a list (per day) of all the staff that had failed to do their registers, and sent them a note "reminding" them that they had to do it this way....

[markwilliamson2001]

A suggestion to try and speed things up would be to take a look at wake on LAN.

 

You can enable this in the Bios (if the machines are fairly recent, or wake them automatically in the BIOS), then using a small piece of software (we use LanHelper) add them to a Wake on LAN service on one of the servers, setting all client machines to come on at 6.45am. We did this and nearly all complaints stopped. All they have to do now is logon, and take the reg.

 

We can also schedule WSUS to download and install updates at 7AM, and also any software deployment via MSI can take place before anyone arrives in school!

 

It takes time to start with, but soon you will notice the improvements.

 

HTH

Mark