jcollings

The BBC iplayer app isn't flash based and works a treat on the iPad

Worth seeing if your LA buys into Evolve (EVOLVE - Choose Service). We started using it this year and it's not bad.

We certainly get it here. Even had a letter from the local Orange shop re-iterating we could have 25% discount.

These guys are excellent NetCentrix: IT Solutions - Phil Scanlon is the man to speak to. They've helped us out with some very tricky issues.

We had a similar issue. Oddly deleting the users profile, having checked the locale settings sorted it out.

Someone bought my step daughter a Galaxy Tab this weekend but she'd much prefer an iPad. Don't suppose anyone is in the opposite position and has a 16Gb wifi iPad they would want to swap for the Tab? 10.1" 16Gb verison of Tab. Literally used for a few hours.

We give our teaching staff local admin rights on their laptops and (touch wood) it causes very few issues here. Staff tend to ask before they install software and play the game. They see the benefits outweigh not having that access so tend to be very sensible. On another note it may be work approaching your local secondary school. We provide IT support for a number of primary schools which involved us visiting their site for a number of hours a week. Because we are not running it as a profit making venture we tend to be pretty cheap and impartial when offering purchasing advice. May be worth investigating in your area.

We are off to NY for Xmas and are staying near Times Square although in a hotel. Just be aware they are closing the Statue of Liberty for a year from Oct 29th though which is disappointing as we really wanted to do that. BBC News - Statue of Liberty to close for year of renovation work

These guys host our SP 2010 install and are very good. ::: http://www.systemhost.co.uk ::: Phil Scanlon is the man to speak to.

It's well worth looking at the Dell Outlet for a good price. Dell Outlet - Refurbished Computers/PCs: Laptops, Desktops & Servers | Dell UK One of the guys here bought a 17" one for a bargain price from there. Saved a good bit on the price

Not if you pay it off you don't. So buy something on 23rd. Pay comes through later - pay it off = no interest!

Do you have any information on students leasing kit via the school please?

Sorry but that is simply not true. We have a number of SLT and most of my technical team with them (personal purchases not school). They are on the network happily. They use them extensivley for a variety of tasks and RDP into our terminal server for things like SIMS. Granted there are issues with mass deployment etc. which need addressing but they certainly have place on a network and in school.

This was what I gave our staffcomplete AM,PM or Lesson Register.doc

3 of our SLT have iPads (bought themselves not out of school funds). They seem to get on well with them for email etc and we stuck a little RDP app on for Windows so they can access SIMS etc via the terminal server. All in all they seem to work well and the Head now looks at minutes, agendas etc on it rather than printing reams of stuff.

I taught adult ed in many places when I started out as a technician. It was a relatively easy way to top up a meager salary. When I started out no-one was that bothered about having a teaching qualification at all so I started out just teaching CLAIT, IBT2 etc without any training. I did go on to do a teaching course eventually but I'm not sure it gave me much other than ticking a box. The PTLLS sounds like an excellent place to start nowadays. Personally I would say go for it - I had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the courses I taught plus it gives you another string to your bow.

It's an FE college. Excellent place to work. I was IT manager there 10 years ago.

We don't have a house system but we have used the behaviour and achievement bits of SIMS for several years now, ditching paper discipline slips in the process. It took staff a little while to get used to it but they all just get on with it now. Most of them seem to be able to enter both quite quickly and it is well used. Not sure if I can help with a demo as they just fill them in so not much to see. It's fantastic for heads of year and pastoral leaders to be able to analyse the data. Form tutors also use it now Capita finally put yesterday as one of the date ranges for the home page. It means they can sit in registration and see what their form was up to the day before.

Week 1 - renew servers with virtualized solution, replace a couple of rooms (cash permitting) Weeks 2,3,4,5 - off Week 6 - prepare for start of new term (user accounts etc) Sometimes term time only contracts are great. The rest of my team will work similar patterns doing maintainence work but all being well everyone should get 4 weeks off.

I'm sure we could let a few Lancashire people in too. I'd draw the line at Yorkshire but that might defeat the object given Smoothwall's location

I have been having email conversations with a number of Cumbrian schools about this issue. CLEO pricing seems to have alarmed many schools and rightly so. I understand all the arguments around having collective RBC etc. but the fact remains we would be faced with a bill of approx. £23k here (£2k of that just for being an academy). To us that is simply not affordable and is a many fold jump on what we paid in the past. I know it was topsliced and we never saw the full cost etc but in reality that just doesn't matter - if I want CLEO I have to pay £23k The issue of staying with them or jumping ship is a complex one and depends on lots of factors such as location, technical skills in a school and which services you actually use from CLEO. As a school who have just moved from CLEO to LUNS and are using Smoothwall as our firewall/filtering solution I feel that it would be hugely beneficial to have a meeting where LUNS/Smoothwall presented. I must stress this shouldn't be a sales pitch but simply a chance for schools to meet, discuss alternative offerings and see what is going on across the county. We meet very infrequently so a meeting in the area sounds like an excellent plan. I am based in Kendal and would be more than happy to co-ordinate and host such an event although a more central venue may be preferred. Can we get some posts on here to see if this is of interest please?

Having just been through this with my 18 year old lad I would say avoid Corsa as a lot of youngsters seem to thrash em and crash em. I think a Vectra would be high too. Best bet is to look for group 1 or 2 cars. A list of group 1 can be found here: Car Insurance Group 1 | Quotes and UK Insurance Groups People tell me the Ford Ka is quite good too insurance wise.

We use Vericool. Can't say I would recommend it. Getting support is like pulling teeth as is getting an admission there might be an issue with the software!

I'd recommend a career in educational IT for anyone starting out. The diversity of things you do in a school or college based job is great. When I started out many years ago I did bits of everything which gave me a wide range of skills. Coupled with the customer services skills I gained it has been an excellent career for me, holding technician and management posts in a variety of schools and colleges. There are well paid (relatively speaking) jobs in education and I've been lucky enough to get some of them. The other thing for me in a school is the variety of other things I get to do. Going on trips, residentials, writing and directing drama, being a governor, mentoring students, running clubs etc etc - the list goes on. All of this is so rewarding and makes for a rich and varied working day. I'd say give it ago. Chances are you'll learn a lot and if it's not for you then you can move on with the skills you've gained.

We have had many similar problems with Smartboards. Sadly Steljes support have been useless with us. Very uncooperative and un-supportive! I am so fed up of problems with our kit we are gradually swapping it out for the new Mimio ETeach which is an excellent product.