Thomas

Tony - I'll happily come along to one of these meetings. From what I can see it's a veritable government steamroller and there's not a lot that can be achieved by meeting people - but I'll keep an open mind on that. It seems if you're not in the upper echelons of school management (heaven forbid ) then you can wave goodbye to autonomy which, to my mind, is one of the perks of being a School ICT bod. But regardless, I'd be interested in meeting the protagonists!

Personally, I think no, but I would like to hear why Messrs Dook and Dev do support it.

If I may be so bold, I honestly think Grommit is the one here who's talking sense and understands the reality of commercial pressures, PLC PR and TUPEing. From my perspective it seems some people here are viewing the world through rose tinted spectacles (intentionally or otherwise). Either that or there's some atractive blonde PR bunny they met from RM who's pretending to be their friend From my experience, there are plenty of people out there who would be happy to be owned by RM or similar. I've met lots of technicians and even network managers who are simply incapable of handling any responsibility or working methodically. These people would be more than happy to be an unthinking servant drone. It doesn't really sell school IT outsourcing to me on a personal or corporate level.

I've seen a whole host of explanations of the word geek. There's a fair few here:- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=geek I'm really of the opinion that it's still widely used by those outside of IT as a term of derision. But, if you're sticking with the name, fair enough. I can see your reasons for that. There's not much else I can say.

No, really, I'm open to persuasion....I've just not seen anything particularly persuasive yet

Retired American teachers..... not really a worthwhile comparison?

Just out of interest, which circles are these? To be honest, if this group now has that much pull then simply putting out a press release saying "edugeek will now be known as" would actually be good publicity. Or perhaps they make the assumption that IT support in education is controlled by an enormous group of geeks. I think that probably works both ways. 8O Next thing you know, you'll be producing obnoxious loud ties (the type that stereotypical geeks wear) with the Edugeek logo on them...oh man......

I wouldn't care about the name if it wasn't for the reaction that I've seen the name provoke. What about a poll on whether people want this name, or one that doesn't contain the word "geek". Are you sure you mean "impersonal"?

Well, naturally, it makes people here sound like geeks which is an image that the IT industry has spent years trying to shake off. Personally, I don't want to be "humoured". All I can say is that when I have mentioned the name "edugeek" to people, they've sniggered in an "oh dear" kind of way. And that's not because I've provoked that kind of response. Yes, that's possibly true, but not wanting to be labelled as a "geek" in a comedy way doesn't necessarily mean you want to create another "professional" body with various qualifications and subscription fees. There is a middle way I'm sure. I don't want to detract from the idea behind site at all, I think it's a brilliant idea and in fact it's something I was looking into setting up myself before this site came along. I just really don't like the "geek" thing. Whether I want to be associated with this site or not, I feel the name and initial impression is portraying my chosen profession in a bad light. Getting a mention in high places is not the same as getting respect in high places. Sorry to be negative....

Surely the reality of outsourcing won’t be that support staff are needed to perform the invaluable role of developing the use of IT within the school. The provision of IT will essentially be proscribed by the government (well, its QUANGOs) via its appointment of external organisations to oversee its deployment. To be honest, I think it’s pie in the sky thinking to assume that our roles in a school will be invaluable and we’ll all end up on SLT. In reality we’ll likely have no more choice about how to use IT equipment in the curriculum than we have a real choice over whether or not to use SIMS. All that will be needed in a school is a low-paid support staff worker who fixes simple problems and points out where the new computers, IWBs and network equipment are to be installed when the workmen turn up. I already know of one large secondary school where this is essentially the case. The role of the on-site IT support is basically to order printer consumables and report faults, and presumably to turn up at a teacher or pupil’s desk for basic technical support. If, as school IT support and development staff we really want to keep our jobs as they are – i.e. In an advisory and developmental capacity - we need to affirm our successes. Stories about school servers going down for 2 weeks are absurd and the result of an obscene lack of professionalism. We need to counter these minority cases with a highly professional attitude. I honestly think that proscribed IT systems delivered by large, faceless entities are not the way forward. Innovation will suffer as a result. I think good IT development staff in a school are invaluable The question is “how can we make ourselves appear more professional”? Clubbing together to create a united image via this site is a superb idea. However, I think a change of site name would be a good start. I don’t think “Edugeek” really does us any favours. In fact, maybe I’m in a minority, but I’d actually be embarrassed to tell any members of staff in school how invaluable the “Edugeek” site is! . Without wishing to cause offence, I think we need to look a little more professional. That’s not to say that the people who post here are not professional….merely to point out that the name, the devil’s horns and the silly avatars don’t create a good public image, fun though they are.

Well... I'd love to get rid of roaming profiles but for a mutlitude of reasons it's just not possible at the moment. I would like to find the person whose idea it was originally and shoot them though

We're in the process of building a new domain at the moment and have set up a basic share called something like "student users". When we create a user account, we have set a roaming profile to \\student users\%username%\profile Then, we have used folder redirection to make my documents \\student users\%username%\data So, when a new user account is created, the first time they log in, these folders are created. Now to the difficult bit.. When these folders are created, the user is given exclusive access to them. This isn't a problem until, for some reason, we need to look at that user's files. This could be in the case of misuse for example. In order to look at them, we have to take ownership of the folders. This isn't a problem either. However, once we have done this, even if we then give the user full control over the folders again, they can no longer access their profile or their documents. WHY THE HELL DOES WINDOWS SERVER 2003 DO THIS!?!?! ..And more to the point, how can we stop it? You can probably notice that I'm a tad wound up about it Anyone any ideas?

Is this possible? Has anyone out there managed it? How? I really want to stop using roaming profiles as it seems like a needless use of network bandwidth. Anyone have any ideas? - would be much appreciated.

Yes - GPMC! I didn't even think of that...still so stuck on using 2000.

I've only used that pipet since someone ran off with the syringe. Who would nick that and why is beyond me. Although there's a multitude of possible scenarios to conjure with.... Probably a syringe is better as it's less likely to draw in air when you suck the liquid up. I would get to a chemist and buy one, but it looks like nearly all our Epsons have died now.... A development for which I am truely thankful