Malph

Thanks to all for the replies. When I had my demo, I didn't really get my hands on to see how the quality felt, so I would be interested to hear your take on that. The iPads we have are used but for the management of work, especially when sharing them across a lot of classes is quite a headache. For the word processor/office suite, the guy said the files would save and be compatible with Microsoft Office. He did recommend the version with a keyboard. I would like to see how that combination worked as I didn't get to see that. Still a bit overwhelmed with all the kit on offer and trying to get as many devices in the hands of as many pupils as possible for the best price. So still left wondering- Learnpads/iPads/chromebooks or laptops? We use Purple Mash and Education City a lot which pretty much all platforms would hit. But one of my favourite programs- Clicker 6 doesn't work on Android which is a shame. If Apple could add this type learnpad management to education I think they would kill off a lot of the competition. Learnpads I am told, are only sold in sets of 8 for their wireless chargers so to test it all out I guess I'd need an Android device and then trial the software. A shame, because if I could get a single unit, I'd get it tomorrow. I'm nearly convinced........

Seriously interested in investing in Learnpads for a large primary school- wireless charging, saving to server, qr codes to log on to profile and access lessons. Has any one got them in their school? How is the battery life and charging. Is printing straightforward. Basically are they worth it. The demo was excellent, but I would like some feedback from users. Thanks.

Thanks for the post, I am in a very similar situation, iPads seem to have lots of the educational content, but the management and cost mean I need to also do the same thinking. I am based in Newark, Notts and would like to hear of any successful role outs of alternatives. We have 12 iPads in our nursery and foundation classes and 6 for the rest of the primary school at the moment. So we are definitely looking for the most kit we can get for our two form entry primary and nursery school.

I have just started to experiment with Showbie- students can be set tasks and upload what they have done. US based so support available in the evenings. Have a go, one ipad set as a student and the other as the teacher account.

Thanks for those suggestions, hadn't seen mix cloud before. Talked to the PPL people and an academic year licence for our PA system is £155 plus VAT so we could broadcast copyrighted music in school. Had a look at Mix Cloud and it seems a good option; as it is streaming and they cover the licences and there are no further costs. It appears that making the music into podcasts is problematic as it can be downloaded and I suppose they see that as file sharing. Rang audio network and they have some better music that isn't with PPL and would let us have an annual student licence for primary school for £250 plus VAT and seemed to think that it would okay to podcast. Seems like our LA don't subscribe to it any more Have used audacity for recording before - like the ZaraRadio dashboard for the feel of real live radio, pulling in pre-made jingles etc as well as the tracks for our live broadcasts.

We are making live "radio shows" by broadcasting live over the school PA at my primary school using a fairly straightforward set of kit with an ipod plugged for music and the year 6 children running it all. I would now like to move to recording these on the computer to upload to our school website, we use itunes for the music generally as the kids bring in their iPods with their music and would much prefer to use their own tracks. I have had a quick look and seen ZaraRadio, Jazler and Sam Broadcaster as ways to put together more professional shows. I downloaded Zara and it looks good but doesn't appear to recognise itunes files- otherwise it looks just what we want. Do any of the solutions work with itunes files? I can spend some cash if need be on a software solution but we are not planning to set up real live radio, we just want a good way to record shows for uploading as audio files to our Podcast channel or playing on the PA system at lunchtime. Also what are the regulations for using chart music? Will it be prohibitive, and if so, where can you get music that is free to publish in this way? Currently we have access to Audio Network through the county but most of the kids are most interested in chart music.

Looking for alternatives in Nottinghamshire for broadband provision- will be the next financial year. They are now devolving the budget for broadband provision- their 1c1n (one county, one network) and charging us primary schools a packet. They are saying if we move away we will lose their help desk support and data backup for SIMS, but I am wondering if we can save cash and get a decent alternative, especially if I get together with some other local primaries to negotiate a good deal. Any there other Notts schools thinking of going their own way or other schools who have done this with good/bad experiences?

Yes, Frog were easy to contact- there were issues with the setup that they will look into. We are at Coddington Primary- but there is very little to show yet as I need a guide on setting up the structure of the whole site for our school. Need to set year group pages and associate pupils and staff with them. I am thinking it would be sensible for my admin staff to associate teachers and teaching assistants with year groups in SIMS rather than doing it manually in Frog myself for the whole staff and having to change it all when someone new arrrives or changes year group

Just got Frog set up at our primary school, but need to get hold of some guidance documentation to ensure smooth set up- having trouble with adding groups as it won't show all our groups. It says page 1 of 5, but there is no page 2, 3, or 4. So beyond year 1, I am sunk!

Thanks Faceman, I guess I'll have to wait, I was hoping to be able to share some topic pages with other schools- say get a group working on different topic pages so you could share some of the tedious work in setting up pages for more specific areas such as year 6 maths term 1 sequencing. I found the link to gonville school that you'd posted on another thread to be a really good model setting up the structure for a two form entry primary school. They had used forums really well and I will be setting up templates based on this. Is there any way to turn off "User must change the password at the next login". I don't want to do this individually for 437 pupils, I just want to keep my original set of passwords set up by Fronter.

I am just setting up a primary school in Fronter and would like to share pages with others by using the import and export tools. Has any one succesfully exported a page including the front page section? I would like to be able to create a bank of pages that others can use as templates to get them started. My authority has one so far accessible via my admin account- so I need to need to take some action. Also does anyone have banks of suitable clip art/pictures images for building? Our trainer said surf the net- I'd prefer a more organised bank of images that could be shared and save us all time.