seanmh

Most ICT Co-ordinators at schools I've worked at haven't got a clue. E.g. Come blustering into the office because some teacher has planned their whole lesson around a website and the website is down - "what can we do about it?" Start spluttering etc when you say you want to buy a new switch or server - "but we've already got thoses and curriuclum will suffer as we can't buy more PCs to make our classrooms look good or to brag to other schools about how many computers we have" - regardless of the fact that the server/switch is either outmoded or failing. A program doesn't have the functionality that they we're expecting - can you fix it? I could go on and on! It makes sense for schools to have someone technically minded in charge of ICT tech support and development and leave the ICT Co-ordinator to sort out the curriculum - thankfully that's the situation I am in.

New to this site, but not to IT in education. Worked for over 11 years now as a techie in education, inbetween getting a degree in computing and informatics at uni (worked part-time as a technician in a school at the same time). Have had various roles in secondary and primary education on the IT side - now network manager for a large primary school.

When I was a student I worked at PC World for a short time. I can confirm that they are a nightmare to work for and have unethical sales practices with many people leaving the store with inappropriate kit for what they need it for. Their biggest "Money spinner" was the "serivce level agreement" (now called "whatever happens" I believe. Sales staff where bullied by management into pushing this (which was extortionate with loads of "get out of jail free" clauses for PC World) at all costs, as they make more on this than the actual kit. PC World is useful if you just want to go and have a play with some kit and then go off and buy elsewhere.

Peform a custom install of the smartboard software instead of default install and just install the Smart Notebook software and not the smart tools, which are only really useful if you have a smartboard connected anyway.

I get requests like this all the time. Most of the time I say no, unless the licensing for the product states otherwise (few do), you can try contacting the software publisher to see if you're allowed to do this and they class this as educational use (don't hold your breath though!). Think you're skating on thin Ice with Corel and Photoshop especially as Adobe aren't too generous. When will teachers etc realise that they can't just have a copy of all your software for their own use at home? One other way round the problem (expensive though) would be for your ALC to purchase laptops for use by your tutors to use at home that would be the property of the school, providing you have licences for these then you could install the software legally.

Hi I am currently the network manager in a large primary school. I have worked in Educational ICT for over 10 years in various roles from a lowly technician to ICT manager of a large sports college. I have a BSc in Computing and informatics. It is only recently that I have earned a salary on a par with a teacher and got the recognition for my skills and expertise ... I think more and more schools are realising that they must make these positions attractive to obtain the correct calibre of staff rather than some greasy joe with a spanner who can actually just turn a PC on! as these positions are now more and more demanding, with emerging technologies that schools are now required to use. I know that more often or not we are looked down upon by people who work in IT in the "real world" as they would have us believe , but often not only do we have more PCs and systems to look after than them, but our job is more demanding as we are often expencted to hold teachers hands as well in respect of ICT. 8O

I believe that I am the only primary school in Torbay, Devon not on the SWGFL, this is through choice and my extensive experience of working in education, mainly in secondary in various role in educational ICT. I chose to not use the SWGFL for a number of reasons and experiences that I have had using it and non-SWGFL ISPs. Cost - the SWGFL is EXPENSIVE for what you get Reliability - over the years that I used it I found it to be unreliable Port assignment and filtering - Paper chase to get any ports open and filtering is a pain. RM Cheesy-Mail (oh sorry....... Easy Mail) - Not good. Virus infection - approx 4 years ago whole of SWGFL was hit by blaster. I have an 8MB ADSL Business connection with Eclipse that costs £54 a month with hosting, for filering I have a RM Smart Cache II box with RM Safety-Net (which I must say I find to be very good - despite what others are saying on this forum), this also runs Espresso. Downside of not using SWGFL if anyone is interested: Cannot access parts of the Torbay Portal (no loss there then!) ScoMIS cannot provide remote support. Attix Backup problem (ScoMIS looking into as I write this). Upside: Total Firewall control - have been able to set up VPN, Moodle, FTP etc etc with no fuss. Fast, reliable connection. Decent webmail and POP3 access. Total filtering control.