KeithBridges Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 We're thinking of buying PDAs and the software to go with them to allow the PE department to take registers outside classrooms. We would rather not pay Capita £1,105 for 1 day of support to get them up and running. Has anybody any experience of installation? Could we do it ourselves? Thanks
petectid Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 We are just about to do this using PARS.net this links with SIMS. Their instructions for installation involve moving a cab file to the PDA by Active Sync the running the cab file on the PDA. The PARS can then be configured to run as a standalone or through wireless to a workstation running their TCP server software.
webman Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 What about tablet PCs instead of PDAs? Multi-purpose, hold like a clipboard and less money paid to Capita.
petectid Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 less money paid to Capita. How does that add up Webman
webman Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 Surley if you're not getting PDAs, then you won't need to pay them for the specialist PDA mobile license?
localzuk Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 But how do you do offline registering then? That is the purpose of Sims.net mobile AFAIK.
kxv2020 Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 Sims.net Lesson Monitor 7 sometime in Oct IRCC will incorporate offline working... [OR in the mean time use Lesson Monitor 6] The tablet idea is a very a good one!!! Surely you can wait till them and use a tablet or devise a solution without going offline... can you not put wireless in the PE foyer?
steve Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 We too have been looking at this for PE - the offline being ideal for taking registers in changing rooms / out on the field. I can understand our PE departments frustrations with laptops for registers, they aren't the most practical items. Tablets and ultra portables are another option but having tried a Samsung Q1 and a tablet I still have to be convinced these would work better than a laptop. I'm having a demo of the PDA solution tomorrow. Also considering a kiosk style system in each changing room.
damo Posted June 12, 2007 Posted June 12, 2007 The Pars.net install is very very simple. As already mentioned just copy across a CAB file to the pda, but you do not need a seperate pc to install the TPC server software, we run ours on the same server as the rest of PARS. And any problems their support staff always sort it out.
KeithBridges Posted June 14, 2007 Author Posted June 14, 2007 We too have been looking at this for PE - the offline being ideal for taking registers in changing rooms / out on the field. I'm having a demo of the PDA solution tomorrow. Steve How was your demo? And did you pick up anything about how complex the installation and set-up is? Thanks Keith Bridges Ashmole School
steve Posted June 14, 2007 Posted June 14, 2007 How was your demo? And did you pick up anything about how complex the installation and set-up is? The product does what it claims, you can take registers on a PDA. To take a register you have to logon to sims on the pda, select take register, choose register, then take the register, save. Unfortunatly you can't do registers offline at the moment. I was assured that this feature is coming soon though. For our situation I can't, at the minute, see any great advantages over our wireless laptops. We have a strange timetable setup so PE staff have to go into other members of staff registers all the time. This would be worse on the pda as the fiddly onscreen keyboards would slow the registration process down. Hopefully this will be fixed in September by out timetabler. On the install side I was told we can't do it ourselves, we would have to pay for the installation :? I'm waiting for the technical documents to get a more clear picture of how it works before I make my mind up.
Snuffkins Posted June 15, 2007 Posted June 15, 2007 Fortunatly for us our sims support team come out and do it for us. But i suppose then there are still the costs of the contract for that. Doesn't look to hard to do though so i think that not allowing you to do it yourself isn't very fair. We were told the offline capabilities would be coming soon as well. There are a couple of useful things though other than that. You can select any register no matter who you are that's logged on, very handy for supply teachers etc. And you can bring up student details with the picture if it's in sims, so good for SLT or behaviour management staff.
KeithBridges Posted July 5, 2007 Author Posted July 5, 2007 Do you guys really mean that it can't be used offline? What is the point of it then? I understood that we used the PDA offline then synchronised.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now