cbeeching

This seems to be exactly what i've been looking for! Thanks

Hellooo, Right I want to make a simple yet animated screensaver to have displaying on our computers when they're not in use. Thought I could get children's recent work, upcoming events, stuff like that flashing up. Now I think a simple looping powerpoint would do the trick, is there any easy way to get a PPT to be a screensaver? I know there's the method of exporting your PPT as individual pictures, and using the good old microsoft picture slideshow SS, but then you can't have transitions etc.. I've been digging and have found a few older threads on here. Some have suggested various applications that seem to fit the bill, however the common method seems to be convert your PPT to a flash file and then convert that to a screensaver using yet another application. But it seems that it's impossible to find an application that can convert a PPT into flash properly (transitions and all!). I've been using Showpoint in a similar fashion to display a constant PPT, but I don't think that would work effectively as a screensaver (i.e to stop as soon as someone moves the mouse, and also to play before logging in). Any suggestions would be brill! Thanks in advance.

Sorry dos, like I say, i'm learning

Sounds interesting. It does seem that there a lot of other options out there other than RM CC£. Like I say I feel i'm too new to this kind've position to be saying 'let's outlaw RM'. But it seems to me it would be better in the long run to go with something less suffocating and then I could hopefully learn more valuable longterm skills and possibly save the school a lot of money.. Maybe i'm jumping the gun though. Haha, thanks, I knew I wasn't alone

35 Servers! I'm assuming you're not alone looking after all that! What do you use to manage them? That's nice of you to offer, though i'm down near Stevenage so a bit of a trek away.

Hehe, I don't get much peace in my office anyway! It's like the central hub for all teacher gossip as its just off the main corridor and I share it with two other members of general admin. The staff are all fine really, though I am slightly outnumbered, with only 3 or 4 male members of staff, none of which generally frequent the staff room except for morning meetings (it get's pretty heated in there)! Might check out Nagios/Cacti, on a quick google it looks a little like spiceworks? Though I might be wrong!

Thanks for the quick replies there! Yeah I do feel I should use the support more than I should, and I think I definitely will be phoning them up soon to discuss some big changes the Headteacher has in mind. He's looking to ditch desktops and go ALL wireless laptops.. which I just know is going to be a headache and a half! Also RM have been in touch with me to discuss moving from CC3 to CC4 which i'm slightly dubious about. Seems like it's so expensive, and it also seems that most things can be achieved through standard windows processes. Maybe i'm just being ignorant though..

Hello there, Here I am, a couple of months into my first IT-based job - 'Network Manager' at a medium sized primary school (400ish children). I have no 'official' training in the IT field. All I have is self-taught knowledge from using, breaking, and sometimes fixing computers since a young age (i'm 22 now). Like I say, my title is 'Network Manager', but just from reading this forum for the last month (which I am SO glad I’ve found – Thankyou edugeek!) I appreciate that my schools version of a 'Network Manager' is probably very different to another schools. My predecessor was here for a long time, and she began as a volunteer. She was here from the start, and was part of getting the school to where it is now in terms of IT today. The result of that development is that my role of ‘Network Manager’ is part time, and nearly all the technical side of things are handled by an external support team who work closely with RM. So far being here, I’ve been taking each day as it comes, trying to unravel and understand a position of somebody who had literally been at the school since the day I was born. Since I’m without any official training or experience, I would not want for a second to assume I know everything, because I know I don’t. I appreciate that managing a network alone is not a walk in the park, and it is not a part time job. However the school is currently on a CC3 network and everything is controlled by that. The external support team logs in remotely time to time to our server to check everything is in order, and I just look after the general housekeeping, and help the teachers and students with their immediate problems (which as I’m sure you all know, there are a lot of ! ). Our external support team offers Mon-Fri phone support on ALL things IT, and I know the previous lady used that a lot. I have been holding back from phoning them mostly, as I prefer to have a go at fixing things myself, plus I find that’s the best way to learn sometimes. To be honest I stepped into the role as a gap-filler after finishing my degree (which was in music technology – try finding some work in that!) but now I can really see myself taking this as a serious career path. The only problem is at the moment I feel like I’m bubble wrapped because all the big parts of what I expected to be a technicians job seem to be somebody else’s. After pestering the head teacher I’m nearer to full time than I was in the beginning but I still feel I could be doing a whole lot more than I am at the moment. I’m sure this position is a brilliant opportunity for me to develop my skills and I really want to learn, though I’m finding it difficult to get involved when outside entities seem to have such a big hold over everything. All my life I’ve enjoyed problem solving, and getting to the route of the problem. I genuinely enjoy helping people with their computer troubles – I mean that’s what IT support is all about isn’t it? I feel like this should be posted anonymously to an agony aunt section in Heat magazine, but I thought this forum might get me some more useful answers. I wonder if anybody else has found themselves in a similar position. Perhaps I should seek some official training, although being paid by the hour at little more than the minimum wage I’m hardly in a position to fund that myself! If anybody could offer even the smallest piece of advice I’d be very grateful. Thanks for your time.

Hello there! I've got a couple of trolleys (16 lappys in each), all RM-Nbook 4400's (not my choice, they were here when I got here!). We seem to be lacking chargers for a few of them though. After pulling out all the chargers there seems to be a mix of chargers in there, the main one being an 'APD, Model No: NB-65B19' and the other a 'LITEON Model No: PA-1750-01', neither of which I seem to be able to find much on through the power of google. The AC/DC on the chargers is the same, which is AC input: 100-240v, DC output: 19v I'm assuming there many chargers out there that would be compatible, but i'm no electrician and I don't want to gamble putting any old charger in em. I had a look over the RM website and it seems they sell a charger that matches this range, though it says delivery time 3-4 weeks, and they are about 30 quid each which seemed steep to me! Could anyone recommend a cheap replacement charger? I think the Nbook 4400 is a rebadged toshiba, but I might be wrong? Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the suggestions, they look they could stand up to the job! Just gave the company a ring to see if I could wangle an evaluation unit but no luck hehe! Think i'll get one ordered to try out and then maybe get a set if it seems worth it. Cheers!

Hello there, A teacher asked me today if we had any portable audio recording devices for the children to do interviews etc, i.e dictaphones. So i'm charged with the task of finding a good affordable solution. Now personally, i've got a Zoom H2 Recorder, but thats a bit high spec for a primary school really. I suggested some cheap USB microphones, which could then be used on our laptops, however I think they'd like something more standalone. I know there's plenty of cheap nasty USB stick style ones, but I think we might as well go for something that will last a bit longer. Now i've no personal experience with Olympus products, but there's the Olympus 5500 which seems around £25-30, then the Olympus 5500PC which is more like £40+, but sports a USB connection for direct file transfer to a computer (what we'd want!). There seems to be a lot of confusion over which model allows USB connection, but i'm pretty sure ONLY the PC one does, hence the higher price. There seems to be a whole host of digital dictaphones within the £30 region, however most don't seem to offer a direct USB connection, which is really essential to avoid children having to take SD cards in and out .. (I can imagine the horror now!!) So if anyone has any suggestions that'd be great, Also, we're looking for about 15 units if anyone would like to PM me up a quote. Thanks.

Priceless!

Sounds like you've put a lot of work into it. I think that is how I will have to begin, one snippet at a time.

Just tried it too. It's playing for me fine on Audacity 1.3.11 Beta Maybe try reinstalling Audacity?

Yeah I think that's probably the best thing to do. I'm still trying to work out what we're paying/paid for this thing! Seems mad that it's sitting there being unused. Thanks.

Being new to the educational IT support world I came here hoping my initial frustrations with the Kaleidos learning platform might just be down to my inexperience. But from reading this thread it appears i'm not alone in finding it a bit of a shocker to deal with. I work at a medium sized primary school, 400-ish children, and I am the Network Manager here. I have only been in the full position since the start of January, as in December I was shadowing the previous lady who has now left. She had taken on the Kaleidos learning platform, and had a good slog at getting it going, she had setup learning spaces for different groups, the teachers, governors etc. It all seems to be there, and ready to go, but it is not being used. I've mentioned to a few teachers that I might try to revive it and get it going, which has mainly received the response 'well we did try using it'.. and that's where it ends! Now, i'm in a difficult situation because I'm new to the school, and there's this system that is in place that has obviously failed. I was trying to work out why it hadn't added me as a user and found out that our MIS uploader service hadn't worked since October 09 (that's now fixed.. so one step forward lol!) Since i'm new to this area of expertise I don't really want to be so bold and say Kaleidos is rubbish, because I don't have any experience in managing any other systems. Plus, the situation in my school is probably partly down to the schools initial implementation of it and not necessarily a failure within the platform's design itself. I'm not sure what to do really. I'm trying to get my head around it at the moment, but because I wasn't there for the launch I feel a bit disillusioned with it. I'm going to keep fiddling here and there but I do feel like i'm banging my head against a brick wall a tad.

That's true. Bout time they learnt their lesson! Hohoho.

Haha, brilliant. I'm definitely tempted. Thanks for all the replies everyone, I think radio clocks probably are the answer for timekeeping. We do have a dedicated teachers station in each class room so I guess I could go with computer based alarms. Only problem is the teachers have a habit of leaving their speakers on MAX volume.. could be a bit of a health hazard hehe!!

XBL : ChazamoN At the moment mainly Cod MW2 and Left 4 Dead 2 - Anyone else hooked to 'scavenge' mode on that? It's tha beez kneeeez! Add me up, always happy to play alongside others!

Hello there! I'm new to this forum, and fairly new to this job! (Network Manager at a Primary School). I was sat in our daily morning meeting the other day, and the hot topic was punctuality. The head wants to clamp down on child lateness, but at the moment our own schedule can be a bit varied since we have no automatic time keeping system. Our 'system', is currently a child carrying a handheld bell down the corridor to mark for breaks/dinners. Which I think is pretty 'old skool', if you'll mind the pun.. Well naturally, as i'm the techy, it's fallen on me to find a modern solution to time keeping. Now I just said, 'use the computer clock', because that's synced with our server, and therefore it's all good and proper. But it seems they want more than that! So i've been looking up synchronised clock systems etc , but it all sounds a little OTT to me. I don't think we need an automatic bell system really, as I think the manual approach is quite a nice touch, we just need a central time that everybodys working on (Hence the computer clock hurrah!). But I the teachers like having an actual clock to look at. Anyway, just wondered how other people tackled this in their schools and if anybody had any suggestions? Thanks!

.....Ditto