b_m

Hi, You clearly have far advanced infrastructures compared to us! Could you give details of your backup solutions? Thanks so much for your time!

Hi, Thanks for all posts so far. As many people have commented, space per se isn't the issue,. but backups can be more tricky. We're currently running 2 servers on our curriculum domain, students spread across the 2 servers (Year 7, 9, 11 on one, 8 and 10 on the other). Both servers have a single LTO tape drive for backup. I believe that this is where the issue lies. Should we be looking at a different backup solution- and if so, what would people suggest? Thanks, b_m

Thanks to all posts to far. I forgot to ask, could people also mention whether they are using static profiles, or roaming profiles- and if roaming do the files that make up the profile count as part of the students quota? Thanks again.

Hi Could people post up to date details of the storage space that they give their student users please? I'm regularly being told that students need to delete stuff- but when I check their user areas they're actually very reasonable, and there is nothing there to really be deleted. The opinions seems to be that students can "make do" with user quotas of 50Mb (max, they start smaller than this!) but because they have roaming profiles, the various application settings files regularly run at between 20/ 30Mb, especially now our Art department have started using Photoshop on a regular basis, which seems to save a file called Brushes.psd to all users profile. On occasion, I have seen these files alone to be 25Mb. I feel now that the days of student using only a few Mb as a user area have now gone. They (rightly) expect to use photos and audio in work, and they will take pictures etc using digital cameras, which of course produce much bigger files now than they did a few years ago due to the increased quality. I'd be interested to know what different schools are now allocating as user area quotas-and also how you're backing this up in a manageable and affordable way. Thanks for your time. B-M

Can I just thank everyone for their responses so far. I am sorry to see that it has caused arguments although glad to see that it is a hot topic! I will investigate the issues that have been raised by some people wherever possible. I would just say though, and I know I will get flamed for this, that a lot of the posts do seem to have been made during "work time". I don't have a problem with this, but it could be seen as social networking, and whats good enough for the techies is good enough for the teachers..... Thanks for all the time people have put into this thread. B_M

Hi again Mark, I'm not HoD, but also above the role of a teacher- so a teacher with a responsibility if that makes sense. My background is technical before I did teacher training. My logic is that by removing some of the barriers to using ICT and actually making it a valuable tool in the classroom, staff will actually want to use it, rather then feeling that they are being told they have to use it so just using it to tick a box. This hopefully will then increase confidence in ICT and have other knocks ons e.g. people word processing their reports!! Not identifying area too much but southern England.

Hi Mark, Thanks for the time you had obviously put into your reply. You may remember that I initially posted asking what was the "norm" in schools- this was so I can actually sit with the NM and have an informed conversation as to where our access was in comparision to other schools nationally. Our school is quite some way behind in terms of ICT use and understanding and i'm hoping to be able to address this with the support of the NM, but obviously needed to get a clearer picture of where others are at the moment. I wouldn't say that I doubt the abilities of our NM, but I do doubt how up to date he his with his knowledge, both of "modern" teaching (such as digital video) and also the way that technologies are moving. He knows his way around the RM management console impeccably, but would doubt whether he would be able to set up a vanilla installation, which, as budgets get squeezed tighter, is becoming an increasingly preferred way of running things, therefore saving on the annual costs. In the scenario I am experiencing, I feel he has accepted that all users have the same level of internet filtering, and "that's the way it is"- his knowledge is not up to date enough to challenge the view and understand that there *are* other ways of it being done. Obviously if you fall behind on your knowledge of how ICT supports teaching and learning then it becomes very hard to support it effectively. I fully take your point that there are normally other solutions to problems caused by filtering. I accept and understand that Youtube videos can be downloaded at home. However, I am trying to raise the level of ICT as a tool for teaching, and some of our staff are, quite literally, years behind. Some of our staff still hand write reports, one has DVD's copied onto VHS because she can't understand how to rewind the DVD disk at the end of the lesson (yes, it's true!!). I can point staff in the direction of some useful, ready made resources on sites like youtube (again, your comments over inappropriate associated content are noted, and understood, and the use of external sites must always be carefully vetted), but if the staff also have to download some sort of youtube flv downloader, download the video, copy it to USB stick then remember to bring it in, it's like putting up barriers to them using ICT as an effective tool- barriers that will stop them "having a go". It's also much harder and more likely to cause problems then being able to show them how to put the link to the video onto a powerpoint! I get frustrated by it- not just our NM but by the way that ICT is "used" in our school. A french teacher will book an ICT suite and spend 3 lessons making a poster in french, then have the whole class print in glorious technicolour, jam the printer on the first printout and just leave it for someone else (normally me it would seem!) to sort the printer out during my next lesson in the room and end up with 30 french posters!! We have spent a fortune on projectors in nearly all rooms and interactive whiteboards in most, but they just seem to be useful to hang the christmas decorations off! I'm trying to signpost to staff easy ways that they can access ICT resources to add interest in their lessons without paying the ransom that companies like Boardworks expect. A situation like I am currently experiencing seems to do nothing to help....

You appear to have taken some offence and I can only apologise if this is the case. Our SLT have very little clue with ICT- they are guided by our network manager who is very good at using technical words. Whats the expression, Bulls... baffles .......? My assertions that he hasn't a clue is his general demeanour. Raising a support ticket for the smallest of issues, not being able to diagnose permissions errors with a users account without the RM "Healthcheck" tool and then, if that doesn't work, using the RM "profile reset". Without these buttons he really would be lost! He's still of the opinion that giving pupils 50MB of space should be sufficient for 5 years, and has been known to question GCSE photography students over the number of (obviously work related) photographs stored in their user area. Some of our OCR National students have had audio and video files deleted whilst working on units 22 and 23. And before you ask, he is fully aware of the course content. My initial question was related to what is the "norm" in schools with regards to internet access. I expressed that I was raising the query because I was concerned as to how up to date our NM's knowledge was. That was my reasoning for mentioning RM, nothing more, so please don't lets turn this into a debate on the validity of using RM in schools.

Makes perfect sense to me. Could you say what those "few extra sites as needed" are? Thanks, B_m

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Just to clarify a couple of points..... my point about using RM wasn't meant to imply that RM were doing the filtering, just to give an idea of the level of competency of our network manager. (His response to everything is "I'll raise a ticket with RM") the reason I ask is that we (me specifically) are trying to raise the use of ICT as a teaching tool amongst all staff. We have invested heavily in projectors and IWB's (an initial SLT response to just throw money at the problem!) but I am aware that there are a lot of good resources on youtube particularly that we are currently restricting staff from using. I know of course that lifting restrictions gives rise to issues with staff leaving computers unattended etc, but I think that would be another bridge to cross if and when we actually reached it!

Hi all, I am new to the forum so please be nice! I am a teacher (sorry!) in a secondary school, with a network manager who believes that RM is the best thing ever and there is no other way to run a network! So basically, I have doubts as to whether he actually has a clue or not! Having worked in another school in the area also connected through the same internet provider, the differences between the schools policies have shocked me greatly. To cut it short, in one school I was allowed pretty much unfiltered access (obviously porn would be filtered!), and could access youtube, facebook, bebo etc. This was logged and if accesses to facebook etc were seen during teaching hours you obviously would be questioned, but apart from that it was basically restriction free. In the second school staff do not have access to youtube. facebook, google images etc. Staff are on the same internet connection (and filtering) as the pupils. It obviously is possible for different groups to have different filtering as evidenced by one of the two schools, but the second school just doesn't know how to administer this properly. My question is, do you allow staff different internet viewing permissions to students- and if so what can staff view that students can't? Please could you answer the poll and post details in the thread? Thanks for your time in answering this! B_m