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It won't all fall apart - a system barely maintained could run for months without any noticeable to the common user problems. yes quite true, until it goes wrong then you find the backups haven't ran for the last few months lol Why don't have an agreement to come in early once every couple of weeks to run updates we cant come in before 7 anymore full stop What requires an hour and a half of daily updates? you've got to remember to account for the time it takes to make and drink the tea in this true not many things - I just like to have the window so i know I can use that time undisturbed - our usual problem is something doesn't run in the night say a backup or the antivirus, so we get the extra hour and half to run it again before anyone starts logging on not only that but once the day starts the majority of our time (myself and my technician) is spent supporting staff and students in the classroom - so we have very little time for maintenance , installs ,upgrades or fixing broken kit. We have no external support or warranties and the school has a approx. 650 computers and they are never prepared to wait till the school holidays to have things working again. stef

we have aprox 500 computers for 700 students, I’d rather have used the money to update them, as quite a few are over 5 years old . The Tablets will be used for browsing the net very unlikely for anything else Stef

So I have always believed that tablets are a bad idea in secondary schools primary schools yes great but for the price of an IPAD I can buy a laptop(with a keyboard) and manage it through GPO even an android device (as we have just purchased a batch of, not my idea) will have cost us around £200 each with the relevant software to lock them down just so they can look flashy to parents visiting the school and because some people believe as they are great for sitting in front of the telly and browsing Facebook they must be great in schools Apple have done a great advertising campaign (it's what they are good at) at making us believe they are great for our kids what’s the general consensus on using tablets in a secondary school environment ? Do you or Don't you have them ? Stef

we have only ever given the key to staff, as giving the key to students would mean that some could access it from home as they live directly behind the school ! however now on the wisdom of a few (not me) we have purchased a batch of android tablets and it's going to be fun locking these down so the kids don't access our key on them (as soon as they do every kids mobile phone in the school will be browsing via our wireless ), surfaces I would have agreed with then I could have used GP .I was asked if our sports hall team that run clubs at night could give our key to it's customers but I had to explain that they had never agreed to our usage policy.

So we have been hit by single status and from Monday I can no longer arrive at work 6.15am like I used to what I would normally do was go in early to run the updates for Pars/Insight (that come in almost daily) and sort out any other network updates/ issues before staff arrived and begin logging on to the system, usually I would have the system back online between 7.30am and 8.00am - however now I will have to arrive after 7.00am so may well run into morning registration that begins at 8.20am for us (we finish at 2.40) I have been told I will have to run these now at night, however this creates the problem that some staff stay behind logged on to the system till around 5.00pm also I don’t really think it’s wise running updates before the antivirus and backups have ran. As if an update screws everything up a day’s work will be lost when it’s restored from the previous day. i'll just have to lock them all of the system at 2.40am and then run the updates without backups and see how long it takes one of them to come crying at me. To be honest I can’t wait for it to fall apart then I will just laugh at them, sadly though it will be me who has to put it all right  Just wondered what your thoughts on the matter are ? Stef

Thanks for the replies yep - the dep likes big button pictures, twitter, apple products ! I pointed them to the .gov page , though was wasting my breath , I can’t seem to get through to them what looks good to one person , looks awful to another it's a personal design preference so we should go with what has already been researched with a little more colour (.gov guide) and for keeping it up to date we just don't have the time , the school requires a full time wed designer/Publicity (officer/manger) but what the chances of that

one of the deputies wants twitter, Facebook, pupil photos (on main pages) and links to local shops and business (community liaison ) , and constant news/website updates though I’m not sure this is the way to go what’s your opinions ? what they are essentially doing will be turning our website in to a full time role (as if I haven’t already got enough work) we already have news forums and news tickers as well as a gallery but these are managed by our office staff, so since I finished the site it has not required any input from myself Our site already contains the essential information and most of the desirable information as shown here Your school website | Clerk to Governors apart from the twitter feed I have tried to explain that in my opinion the site is generally viewed by job hunters, parents and perspective parents and at best this could only be around 800 families and I know form our link counting logs that the only hits our site really receives are to our calendar, vacancies, our email and remote folder access these account for 90% of the hits my personal opinion is that it 1)Should contain direct links on the front page to timeless relevant information of the school and individual subjects so as constant updates are not required, i.e. not creating pages for trips or events, but adding these in a news ticker of some sort 2) a very limited number of photos of students if any, other than say maybe a general gallery that can simply be uploaded to 3) should not include links to business as this could be seen as giving unfair biased advertising and the school may be held liable if someone follows that link and purchases something on the schools advise 4) whilst twitter Facebook etc. may be great for some , would anyone really be interested ?– we have a txt to parents system, that I opted out of as I got fed up with the constant spam! Our deputies seem to be under the impression we can get more hits if we provide more information, But why would we want to , the parents aren’t that interested in seeing what their kids do at school and if they are they can access our school parental portal for all the information they require and I’m sure they are quite capable of using google to search for local business and offers ! Is there any real guidance to the general layout of a website? I personally love https://www.gov.uk/designprinciples and think this is really clear

Thx for the replies everyone seems to be split between Full read-only access with AUP stating no personal information to be stored A communal area where work to be marked can be saved (this is what we have always used) could do with a poll to vote on the 2 options being used - anyone know how to set one up on here ?

So if it is personal data then DP says to give access to all pupils (including the ones that are not taught by the teacher) would not be appropriate. ! can you state in your AUP that it is not Personal if students work is 'personal data' under the DPA as it meets the definition ?

Same here, even though we may tell them 'do not store any personal information' you can bet they would however it does seem that there are a lot who just give full read only access ! I think a general shared area (that they all ready have and use) with a wrk folder should suffice

Thx for the replys i contacted our local data protection officer who said now one of our deputies has spoken to him and agreed as long as there was no personal data in the folders it would not be an issue though I am still not sure however it seems this may be the norm !

Hi One of our teachers has asked for a mapped drive for their account to access to all our students network shared folders so as they can view and mark their work . My inital thoughts where that i shouldnt do this becuase of Data protection , though I am being told as their files are not personal DP does not count ! Does anyone else do this ? should this be allowed ? if not why not ? Thx

if they didnt i would want some of them - lol my point was they paid £400 just for the visualiser Logitech B500 1.3MP Webcam - 960-000560 £34.30 ex VAT, best video conferencing experience. A 72-degree wide-angle lens allows everyone to be seen during small group video conferencing. A true 1.3-megapixel sensor provides rich, vibrant images. Video Resolution - 1280 x 1024pixels Frame Rates - 30Per Second http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=44346&tid=frooct this is what i would have done anyways or somthing like it that i could be sure would do at least 20fps at high res, because sods law says, they would use it once then never bother again Anyone considered putting up a satellite dish for their language block? Was thinking of doing this so they could record all foreign channels (gone a little of track from my orginal post- however any new IT we can put in that a RMS will not support the better)

True, however I based this on the fact that for how much it would ever be used who would notice Lol though you could by a cheap HD cam and stream it at 1.5mbit though as you say this is not always straight forward and we know teachers like it straight forward and the last we thing we want to do is create more work for ourselves the truth is no matter how much kit you have or give no matter how cheap or expensive, how well it is used usually comes down to whether or not the teaches will use it, we find most of the ones under 25 try it those over struggle those over 35 don’t like to go near it – not to be ageist of course especially as I fit in to the top bracket Get this one though when we installed some whiteboards last year one of the teachers a woman in her 50's I’ll mention no names, came crying to me that she had asked for it to be set to project on one side of the room, not directly in the middle (lol we pulled out her dry wipe board) - she ended up in tears I explained under no circumstances where we moving it, but I would give a demonstration on how to use it Well you could have knocked me out with a feather. Within an hour she had sussed it and was using it, within the week she was madly in love with it and now she wouldn’t be without it It’s just that initial barrier that she didn’t want to cross

One has to wonder why anyone would want or pay more than what say £30 for a webcam running any of the many free conferencing options available as how often would you ever use it ! Comes back to The mistake of the past is too much emphasis on technology – e.g. fast computers, expensive multimedia centres and broadcast stations, but with little attention to how they can effectively transform learning. Schools were wrong in adapting students to technology instead of adapting technology to students one of our English teachers bought a £400 visualiser without consulting us , then got very upset when they realised they needed a projector to use it doh! even more upset when I told them we could have set them a webcam up with macro on their laptop for them for about £30 that would have been fine for what they wanted It ended up in our office time after time and every time I explained it would not work without a projector/monitor etc - in the end I told them if it came back again I would take great pleasure in seeing how well it would withstand a 40 foot drop in to a skip Did I b0ll0ck them oh yes, they are supposed to consult us before any IT purchases

Just a thought with a managed service, would the ICT staff left behind (if any) Look After? Sims (or whatever admin program used) - run all updates assist with all support installs etc. DSAS (or whatever accounts package) the website - keep it working and up to date etc Display Screens - keep them working and up to date etc Looking after our mediastation Pohtographing events Videoing events converting video,music etc to cd/dvd CCTV - keep them working and monitor them (we have to least review events once a day for some kind of skirmish) Assist ICT teachers when they can’t suss things out Investigate and price up new equipment or would these not be seen as part of the roll ?

Isn’t this just so annoying that you have to pay to dispose of old kit We must get 3 calls a week from companies wanting to dispose of our old kit for free , though strangely enough when we tell them they can gladly have all our old CRT monitors they want to charge us and then they have the cheek to ask us if we have any XP machines we are throwing away like err no Anyways back to my original post So I talked to our union rep and he informs me the unions are not happy at all about BSF and have a lot of complaints !

Well said, that’s I (we ) are looking in to this now ,our build is set for 2017 Though I made this comment At the fact that there are more people with knowledge of Microsoft based systems, than remote managed systems that use their own unique software - (are RM still on XP SP2) so why would you want or pay for it ! I spoke to a network contractor yesterday that has a lot of BSF contracts , I asked him what kind of job he was doing and he said to be honest their work is all low budget unless you specifically ask for what you want you get the bottom end 100mb budget switches, cat5e, single location cabinets(rather than in each room) he said he would love to quote better specs but then they would not get the contracts!

Lol I must have it so easy (sorry), what i say goes if i want to change somthing then i change it and they have to live with it I think this stems through the years of reading the BOFH for those who have never heard of the BOFH where have you been THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL Though to be honest we always try and give the staff what they ask for unless they ask for something stupid, like the guy who asked for 20 copies of a CD he made yesterday , yeh like I would do this or let my techies do this, - it is just easier to convert it to wma and stick it on our websites homework folder for the kids to login to and download

very well said:) just have to tell you this little jewel I recently visited a school where the head took great pride in using RM and in telling me how his IT manger and 2 technicians where expendable because of RM and he wanted it this way as IT guys never keep records (pr@t) I didn’t bother explaining to him any competent IT technician should be able jump straight in to any Microsoft based network. yes we should keep records however You have to ask why you would need it! When I first started my role the previous IT manager (who it soon became apparent did not even know how to set a backup running, he got the office staff to eject the tapes at night and put new ones in for over 3 years no schedules where set and the tapes where all blank lol) did not even leave the admin passwords and there was also no network layout plan. It took me about 20 minutes to reset the servers admin passwords (ERD) then 10 minutes to set group policy (that had never been configured doh!) to run a script to reset all pc’s admin passwords – it was just then a matter of mapping out the network The annoyance I found was there was no audit data, however after renaming all computer descriptions to Location-Number-PCimage-SerialNUmber-MonitorSerailnumber e.g. ‘ICT1-01-A-PCGD232434-MON-JHJ978347289’ then setting a script to copy this over to active directory description on start-up and shutdown with a little extra to capture the user logon/Logoff and time/date we could then see who is logged on where and when, who used the PC last and print of the computer OU for a quick audit Oh err yes the licensing took some finding had to trawl the purchase records! but none of this was impossible to do Anyway after that little rant, when you have heads like that what can we ever expect

OK from my other post and moving on Ok I know not one individual has the time to do this, but if we work together We could set up a generic response so that it can be used as 1) A proposal that can be used by all schools that will better BSF's It should not be hard to better any remote service In fact a lot of business must be loosing out to others with long term contracts with BSF I know the company we buy our computers, whiteboards etc... From relies heavily on schools for its business I’m sure they would help out with a proposal that beats BSF but does not include remote management You guys must have access to companies that will do the same, what do you think? What we need is a list of suppliers that would be willing help! 2) Pros and Cons From reading 1) If you get a new build and it's all thin client- Virtual desktops and you choose to opt out after the contact ends you will have buy all new kit 2)

Ok I know not one individual has the time to do this, but if we work together We could set up a generic response so that it can be used as 1) A proposal that can be used by all schools that will better BSF's 2) Showing all the pitfalls of signing up to a remote service It should not be hard to better any remote service In fact a lot of business must be loosing out to others with long term contracts with BSF I know the company we buy our computers, whiteboards etc.. From relies heavily on schools for its business I’m sure they would help out with a proposal that beats BSF but does not include remote management You guys must have access to companies that will do the same, what do you think? What we need is a list of suppliers that would be willing help! I can see that I'm going to have to get a website built to accommodate this; there must be someone who has the skills, time and experience better than me to do this surely we may only be the IT guys but we are the ones who who always find a way around things are we not !

No offence taken I know your right, it just makes me sick that we are having our arms twisted - thankfully our SMT and Governors hate the way our local government treat us and have no desire to be told how to run our ICT so hopefully they will try and stop it, but I don’t hold out much hope The carrot is just to Big, but hey lol it will come back to bite them all in a few years

The point is being missed here big style and the reason that is I started this post we as IT Mangers are paid to provide a service - provide the best possible results for minimal cost and we should have no problem :- Setting up a web server using IIS and installing and implementing a free VLE such as Moodle Using IIS to give remotes access to shares Creating a website and hosting it [*]Installing switches , networks etc.. [*]Managing group policy [*]setting up wireless points [*]creating accounts [*]setting user quotas [*]setting antivirus schedules [*]auditing hardware [*]and so on ...... and we will do this with the best intensions for the school , not for profit if you where in it to make money you would cut every corner possible to maximise the most profit that’s just the way business works and after spending the last 20 years or so as an it Manager and the first 15 of those in business I can tell you thats how it is and that is that, anyone who wants remote managed services you are welcome to it , but I would guess you are doing this because you feel incapable of doing a better job yourself - 'but trust me i'm sure most could' sorry to be cynical and put the cat amongst the pigeons - no offence meant PS I say use IIS and Moodle etc because they are free or even LDAP for single sign on, they are there already why pay someone to reinvent the wheel - madness !

Lol just talked the boss and in his words 'This has already been discussed in depth with the head, the SMT, and the governors and under no circumstances whatsoever will we ever go to Managed ICT services as they could never be any benefit for us in doing so’ Have to hope they stay true to their word It is quite obvious that the ICT side of the BSF is the big sweetener my guess this is what will happen A Remote provider is given a 5 year contract, so can afford to sell initial Hardware at a loss ICT Managers are given the elbow or demoted to technicians On site support is dropped to one technician to teach staff how change toners and to ring the support line One year on the ICT technician’s contract is not renewed (come on why you need to pay someone to put toners in and ring India) 3 years on time for some new PC’s only this time at full price as these machines are out of date and will no longer be supported that will be £500,000 please 4 years on a whole year with no support everything begins to fall apart 5 years on contract over, re-employ and IT Manager and some Technicians to make all the old work again only to find it’s all licensed to your RM service and you cant do anything with it Dohhh Sorry to be a little cynical, but if I was a remote service provider this is exactly what I would do to maximise profit I came across this little bit of wisdom whilst browsing The mistake of the past is too much emphasis on technology – e.g. fast computers, expensive multimedia centres and broadcast stations, but with little attention to how they can effectively transform learning. Schools were wrong in adapting students to technology instead of adapting technology to students ps for what it's worth our ofsted report was the best in our area with lots of outstanding Lol we had someone the other day trying to sell us a single sign on package, I'm sure they didn’t believe me when I told them we all ready had this lol! why would you pay for what microsoft does for free LDAP