beeswax

Next time, try the "Edit" button.

Just like IEEE 802.11, the Queen's, or BBC English is a standard by which we can all communicate. Of course there are variants from the norm as it's only human nature to explore and push boundaries. I feel what is important here (Edugeek) is that the correct information is passed on, or a joke answer given, before somebody else beats you to the punch, and that strict use of grammar is not so important. Perhaps it's also worth bearing in mind that Edugeek now has over 4600 members, with a sizeable proportion coming from overseas, and whose knowledge of the English language is limited to the standard variety. Oh, and what really p*sses me off is the use of 'Oh' when writing something down. 'Oh' is an afterthought, it's something you use when speaking, where you can't alter the flow of a narrative. Writing is not like that, you can edit a piece of text to include your afterthought so that it is relevant to the sequence of events.

With shirts, you either do the back of the collar, or as some prefer, the inside of the cuff first, just in case you mark the material.

I came across a great portable learning device the other day. I think it was called a book.

Oh I don't know, you seem to have a good grasp of negotiating tactics.

thanks for that.

Is there a release date and price available?

it may be a little out of date now, but there's an older post here

I'm not having a go at you Grommit, and I do read almost all (sometimes I haven't the time to look in on Edugeek)you have to say on this subject.

Moodle on a stick

hmm...

Zak, knowing the situation you're in, I shouldn't think that a paid for VLE will be a goer, though I may be mistaken. With BSF about 3 years away for our LEA, anything you do now could be swept away when the managed service comes in. Getting the VLE up and running is the (relatively) easy part of the job, getting staff to populate it is much more difficult. It'll be a good experience for them to think about how they should prepare work for a VLE. However, my fear is that the bulk of the work will fall on your shoulders if you're not careful. Who asked you to look into a VLE by the way? I spent the last 16 months looking into a VLE/MLE for our school, at the behest of our ICT Faculty, and found one which ticked all the boxes, only to be told by SMT to drop it last June. Now, I may have learnt a lot from the exercise which is useful to me (c.v. etc.) so in a way my time hasn't been completely wasted, and it's an area I enjoy exploring, but, as I haven't been involved in the finer detail of the BSF negotiations, I didn't know what deals were being done, and that's why I had to drop my investigations. You have my email address Zak, so if you want further details I can give them, as this isn't the place to discuss these things.

Now this is more like it!

I got one of these for my daughter a few months back. V. good. you can buy them with either XP or Vista installed.

Grommit, what a little ray of sunshine your are on a drab autumn morning Have you been tuped already, or are you just further down the line than I am?

WASP, though I'm not responsible for using it.

For anyone who is interested, there are some new Sloodle tutorials (Second Life + Moodle) available here.

Frog, or any VLE for that matter, is only as good as the teachers providing the resources, unless you employ someone especially to perform this function. A couple of schools in my area use Frog, and they're happy with it, though one of them only just started with it in September. You can find the other one here and it's quite advanced (a couple of years). I believe Frog has now moved to using Sharepoint. One MLE I looked at and was impressed by is Scholaris.

You may want to view some of the OCR Nationals materials set up here It should give you an idea of what's needed.

Since posting this afternoon, we've (techies) had a meeting with one of their consultants. Tribal are engaged by the council to act as "facilitators" (my definition) to find out our (techies) views on how we want to see BSF affecting the schools in our LEA. I have no problem with this, as the council no longer have the manpower, or the skills to make this sort of call. I just wish I had a better handle on the ground rules. He seemed to be saying that we might not want a fully managed service, server farms etc, but go for a system where we only get our equipment from the various "accredited" suppliers. He made it clear that even if we were all still based (important terminology) in the school, that our wage slips would bear the name of the company we were working for, and not the school. He left us with a questionnaire which asked us to provide a run down of computers, data points, servers, etc. in order to find out the state of IT provision in our LEA schools. It may not be a fully managed service, but we will be fully managed, with all the insecurities, real, or imagined, that this will bring. I'm trying to remain neutral in all this, listening to the arguments, but there's so much conflicting talk from various sides that I worry about the outcome of this consultation.

Has anyone had any dealings with the Tribal Group? It appears that they have been selected as another partner to manage our IT services.

No Zak, I am AN Edugeek now. Kids today! Congratulations, it'll be a good step up for you.

5 or 6 years ago our family (2 adults and 2 teenagers) visited California for 3 weeks. We flew to LA and stayed overnight. Drove to St. Lois Obispo/Avilla Beach via Santa Barbara up Pacific Highway 1. Had a week there then drove to Yosemite via Fresno (3 nights) Drove south via Kings Canyon & Sequoia National Park, spent a couple of nights in Visalia. Drove to the Grand Canyon via parts of Route 66 avoiding Death Valley. 2 nights at Best Western. Finished up in Vegas for the final week. Excellent weather throughout. Over here a compact car is a Toyota Yaris, over there a compact will seat 5 people, fit all the luggage in the trunk, has A/C, Auto, Cruise Control etc. The Deep South will be very hot and sticky depending on the time of year. Vegas was hot 48 degC, but very dry. The Americans have embraced the internet much more than we have over here. You should have no problem finding places to stay, booking online etc. Decide what you want to see and plan a route. The country is vast, (I think the Grand Canyon is the size of Devon and Cornwall) so don't attempt too much. Most roads are quiet. The people are very friendly, and it's more than 2 dollars to the pound. If you're definately going to go to the States you should seriously think about buying dollars now with the favourable exchange rate. Obviously don't put all your money into this, but work something out depending on the number of people going. Be prepared for tight security. Some things, such as getting through customs over there, may take much longer than visiting other countries. Once you're in, enjoy yourself.

We had the system (Oliver) installed during July of this year thinking that we'd have something in place for when school reopened in September, and it still isn't working. It was all supposed to fit in with the kitchen fingerprint recognition and SIMS. I reckon our network manager has spent a full week trying to get the system configured. It's not his job to do this, we paid for a working system which fails to work, but he realizes, just as Softlink do, that if he isn't proactive in this then we'll just end up with an expensive pile of useless junk. The poor librarian is reduced to doing everything by hand. We still have the old machine with Alice, which was only used locally, and are seriously considering re-instating it. We get one excuse after another from Softlink support. (This message was brought to you by the school of Primal Scream Therapy)

being a quiet week with no one in but myself, I've been round the school resetting the bios password on all the machine and I found 5 unprotected by passwords. It may be worth your while to check your own school's machines.