Sylv3r

I use mine extensively for Calendar, e-mails, note making, accessing my helpdesk and web browising. The apps I have installed which I also use for school purposes are: Twitter Pulse News Keynote Dropbox Evernote iTap RDP

We ran Zimbra for our students for 4+ years before moving to Live@Edu last year, we run SSO and AD synchronisation so the accounts are automatically created and link with our AD for password management etc. Didn't have any issues with Zimbra and haven't had any issues with Live@Edu. Will be looking at moving to 365 over the next few months, possibly for both staff and students.

I think I would rephrase the question and ask her what vision she has for ICT in her school. Ideally a short, medium and long term plan needs to be devised, to help with where they currently are and where they would like to be. It also helps to put the ideas on paper to help produce a budget of works required.

We run Chrome and IE on our machines. It gives the students and staff a choice of which they prefer to use.

Take a look at this - it may take a bit of tweaking and setting up as it certainly isn't ready to go out of the box, but it works well for us plus it's free - other than the cost of setting up and the hardware to run it on of course. Streaming Media Services

SIMS certainly still do the webparts and are releasing updated webparts in the next release or the one after to support iPADs better etc, so it certainly seems like its something they are still looking at supporting. We use webparts for Attendance registers, behaviour, achievment, tracking data and profiles (school reports). We haven't up until this year provided staff with client access to SIMS and everything for the last 4 years has been done via sharepoint and the webparts. Can't remember the cost of SIMS web parts as it was so long ago that we got them but ~£4,000 rings a bell then around £1,000 per year for support. Our parents also have logins to our sharepoint site and have access to the same information. Which is working well and parents love it. A lot of people on here have gone down the TASC Insight route, which I think would probably intergrate with sharepoint too and may be cheaper to provide access to parents to data. You mention you don't want to use SIMS LG - the SIMS webparts are essentially this.

As far as I am aware even if a student is on FSM for just one day then they count, the census is just a way of recording the data. Not sure how you proove it without the census return though.

They also appear to be using RM CC3, you probably wouldn't want accredidation in this as it has been superceeded by CC4. Whether they would be happy to put you through CC4 training or whether it would benefit you is another matter altogehter. It may be better looking down either the Microsoft, FITS or COMPTIA route instead.

The only way I could see to get this to work on a CC4 network for students was to remove the station security!

Haven't looked for any but for our inspirational assemblies since we returned in September - the olympics has been a major theme.

We issued usernames and passwords very two seperate letters. The initial letter was posted and the password letter we via 'pupil post' taken home by the students, the first letter told the parents to expect the second letter via their child and if it didn't arrive to contact the school directly for their password.

I was led to believe, that as an academy you couldn't sell on anything for a profit to students for example such things as memory pens - don't quote me though!

Yep, I agree when it works fine its a great product. But it is infuriating when it stops working and for the life of you, you can't work out why!

As above we use a wiki for all our details on our network. We probably dont keep it as up to date as we should - something I probably need to review.

We dont have a handbook as such, but we get all new staff in on an induction day before they start in September and I generally get an hour with them going through our network and what it can and can't do. I've thought about putting together a handbook as such, but felt they wouldn't bother reading it.

Its something just new the government has brought out called the Ever6 measure. Further funding is being provided to schools in the pupil premium (possibly not additional money, it may be money that has already been taken away from schools, that they get back ringfenced to Pupil Premium). Schools and academies now need to be more transparent about what they have spent their Pupil Premium allocation on and must publish this information on their school website. OfSTED are keen to see how schools are 'narrowing the gap' and the use of Pupil Premium is one way they are wanting to see disadvantaged students getting the same education as others. Your LA, may have historical data held regarding FSM students from the past.

Ah, good point I forgot to mention we did that too. 2 logins per member of staff, 1 login per student.

We set our screensavers to kick in after 6 mins, which locks the screen for members of staff. This doesn't exist for students, but they are able to choose to lock the workstation themselves if they so wish. Staff running full presentations via powerpoint or full screen movies etc via Windows Media Player etc, I don't think the screensaver kicks in. Staff also use the freeze function on the projectors for other software so the display is still shown on the screen for the students. Auto logoff probably wouldn't go down to well here, especially if staff are working on a document in their office then leave to teach then return to their office and they realise they haven't saved and the log off has lost their work. We've used locking screensavers for 10+ years and very rarely have issues with multiple locked computers in a room. Generally, our staff have ownership of a classroom as well and they will teach for a high proportion of the day in the same room. I could envisage problems if our staff wander from classroom to classroom for each lesson and the previous teacher hasn't logged off.

Pros: Speed Portability of the device Anywhere / Anytime learning (within reason) Engagement of students on task, using new technology devices (some people may not see extended engagement, but we have) Various educational apps available, but staff need to put the time and effort into researching what works Great as an admin tool outside of teaching, note making, diary, e-mails etc Familiar technology to students as often an increasing number have these devices at home Cons: Management of charging Ideally needs a good wireless infrastructure Management of installing apps Booking - staff often come to collect the iPADs when booked, but aren't as keen to return them when they are finished! Management of locking down the devices - changing background wallpapers Gimmicky toy at first, until the students get used to using them Purchasing a lot of apps could become expensive Easily stolen Easily damaged by being dropped We use them extensively here across a large range of subjects, they were initially used for devices to go on the internet and do a bit of internet, but we are not developing the pedagogy and staff and students are seeing the benefits. We are taking part in numerous whitepapers and action research projects with various stakeholders about our active use. I do still feel however, that the true benefit comes from a 1:1 scenario and the user keeps the device, a student creating an essay or presentation on a bookable device has no guarantee that the following lesson that the work is still going to be on the iPAD for them to complete it. We are looking strongly into providing a device for a cohort of students next year, possibly or sixth formers and will reduce our reprographics, student planner costs etc, but we need to seriously consider how students will be able to charge the devices in school, security and insurance aspects, how to lock them down sufficiently as well as how my IT Support team will have the capacity to support them.

We share pupil work for subjects such as media in a blog as above. Peer assesment also takes place for us using Realsmart, which is quite expensive but we are a long time user. The Google Docs / Office 365 and the sharing of docs that way is another way of doing it as suggested by @bossman above. We are also currently using iPAD's and sharing the work via an appleTV and projector to the whole class for large group peer assesment work, but this is probably a bit overkill for your needs.

The document was only released in July for a September 1st deadline, it wasn't that realistic for schools. Luckily we had the majority if not all the information on ours which saved us a job. I am not sure which body is responsible for checking the school websites - ofsted possibly - not sure what happens to those schools who dont meet the legislation.

You'll need access to the RM support site if you want to access any materials etc. You can try and set an account up here RM - Support Home Page but I am not sure what checks they do if any to ensure you work at said school before providing you access.

We use a product called Firstclass as our mail server (The Leader in Enterprise Information Management | OpenText) have setup the following form for eletronic submission. Any submission ends up in the Repgraphics managers inbox. She will receive around 40 requests per day.

Dataharvest are working on something for release soon too.

Name and DOB here for our sixth form students - some of them even get away with using them in Top Shop / Next etc as student discount cards.