booggerboy

Thanks Steve, Yes - the frontend has had a lot of work done on it to keep it as friendly as possibly for staff/children. Interesting point about needing instructions, as we've really tried to keep it intuitive and straightforward. I can understand how new features like setting tasks to classes might need a bit of explaining before the teacher gets the hang of it, but I'd hope that they were logical enough to have a try at with no prior reading up. Bug-wise I'd be great to find out where the problem areas are. We do pass on queries from support to dev, especially when they are requests for new features. Our support team have excellent product and technical knowledge and do solve many problems while on the phone (to any member of staff at a DB Primary school, not just a nominated contact). I'm definitely going to agree with you that the addition of features required and asked for by schools conflicts with usability - this is something we take very seriously and work hard at. The recent re-design of the community admin page is an attempt to simplify things for teachers by reflecting the community layout in the admin screen. I'm sorry you feel this way about DB Primary, and am disappointed that we didn't meet the knabb's need from a platform. BB

Wow - that's quite a statement! I feel moved to respond - Firstly, I am massively biased, as I work for Editure helping schools use DB Primary. Secondly, I don't want to hijack the thread as I can see that responses will be useful for the OP. What I'd like to know is why/what/how the techs are doing the passionate hating as stated above. I sit right next to our support team, and there's really not very much hate coming down the phone lines for DB Primary at all. All I can think of is general tech hatred of offsite hosted software - which is fair enough. As an ex school network technician I sympathise with this hate, but don't think it's enough to start a hate thread about a possibly un-hated product. BB

A few things to try: 1) Like chris says check the HDDs are the same size. Ghosting likes destination drive to be same as original. 2) Are all the machines *identical* i.e. same network drivers needed? 3) You might be able to get around it by doing this: a) take HDD from already ghosted machine (one that worked, call is machine "A") b) swap with one of the annoying 6 and see if it works fine with the new hardware. c) try ghosting the HDD that didn't work by putting it in machine "A" 4) I hate ghosting. bb

Some cycle computers will allow you to enter the wheel radius/circumference manually. Some of the posher ones also measure cadence, or pedal rotations - that'd tell you enough to work it out yerself. Can you get mini-pedometers? If so, how big is the length of "stride"? bb

Brighton and Hove now use Uniservity (like East Sussex) There are still a couple of schools with active Moodle sites here, but these are also active with CLC. Not sure how many actually got going with Moodle, looks like just a few with interested IT literate teachers. bb

Clearly not - thought it was an advert! Seems I have found a bunch of clues already. I wondered what the pattern on the floor in a flat was, and it seems its a heated floor under construction.

A little "Where's Wally" Can you find: 1) Man smoking out of window (boring!) 2) Strange sculpture of old man with beard that looks like it's coming out of the corner of a building. 3) Woman with no trousers on (with blue tshirt) Any more to find?

Sounds like it wouldbe easier to encrypt each document and only give certain gov's the key. That way all docs can be hosted on the platform, without worry of who can access them. Most could have the same key - so it wouldn't be too much of a problem. bb

We've been setting up governor accounts inside a sub-platform to which only they (plus top level admin) have access. But either documents are public to all govs, or private. Private files can be shared between users however, but this is done on a per-file basis. I work for a platform provider btw - so any requests for how this should work will be greatfully recieved! bb

A few links on the matter: Jim Knight letter (for background info): http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/12680/Final%20online%20reporting%20letter%20online.doc More deets can be found here: Becta Schools - Extending opportunities - Parental engagement - Parental engagement using online reporting in secondary schools There's more out there if you need it... bb

There seems to be a few issues here, which are being argued over: 1) Problems with Fronter itself - the blogger has a low opinion of Fronter, and has voiced this publicly. There's plenty of people out there who can stick up for it, and argue its pro's and cons. All platforms out there have stuff that's great and stuff that's not so good - they do need to be told this so they can get it right for schools in the future! 2) A school wanting to go its own way and not toe the party line. This is natural when schools have invested time/effort only to be told to use a product procured by LAs. If a school has its own solution that is acutally being *used* this should be celebrated and supported. 3) Transition from junior to secondary learning platforms. The general functionality of platforms is pretty similar product to product. Children that have used one at junior school shouldn't have a problem moving to a new one. There's no reason why dialogue between schools can't make sure things like username/passwords can't be synced between them. 4) LA wide platforms procured for 3-18 year olds are not a good idea. It's clear that LA's are finding it very hard to get their school's using platforms that are not suitable for this massive age range. Hopefully in the future either: a) Platforms will be able to cope with this by having multiple skins/interfaces for each KS. b) LA's will have a different strategy which takes into account the different skillsets of primary/secondary teachers and children. I wouldn't be so quick to rubbish the opinions of the blogger in question - I believe he's had Fronter training and was turned off from the start. There are teachers out there with exactly the same experience with all LA provided training/platforms. BB

I was IT tech for 3 primaries, and this random selection of info is as of 6 months ago: We had a lapsafe, or laptop trolley with 15 - 30 laptops that could be booked out every other lesson (to allow charging) by teachers. The school with stairs didn't have one. It plugged into a spare network point, had an wireless access point in the back, and allowed more time on computers in class. Great if there's no possibility of a suite, but a pain to administer as the wireless could be unreliable moving from room to room. Schools had interactive white boards in every room - mixture of smart/promethean. Digi blue video cameras were popular (but had to be installed for every USB port!). Each school has an espresso box - to serve their resources. They were just getting to grips with their new learning platforms too. Open office was beginning to be used (especially on recycled machines with no office license). Checking out BETT this year showed a bunch of cool looking touch screens, which would be great for children with poor mouse skills. That's all for now, bb

Does balanced mean no more negative comments about Uniservity? Just checking. bb

"i couldnt care less if the code behind a vle was a saved to web word doc as long as it worked, was viewable in a browser and both the staff and pupils could and would use it" Really? I'd quite like my code to be compliant so that I could guarantee that all children logging in from home has the same experience. I would also like children to be able to find examples of well written code throughout school, as it is important to encourage the next generation of web designers to get it right. bb

Have you had any luck with DB Primary or Studywiz? BB