TheScarfedOne

Did Bett break @PhilNeal @David_Grashoff?! Sorry we never got chance to catch up this year. @GREED...interesting article and thread

Plus one here as well...my new infrastructure wired and wireless is provided through them! 3rd phase on install coming up

Yep, they are preparing a new version of it at the moment...

Coffee number two here, thanks to @StoneComputers for the coffee which we all need!!

Ssssssseeesh.

Your session hosts need to be told from the session host config that they are part of a farm. That's where the farm name is specified. You also need to install the connection broker role on your connection broker server

Ah yes...I remember the saga of the missing PC!!

Ok, so this post needs to start with an apology to the team that gave up their time to speak to me - namely Phil Neal, Graham Cooper and Cath Lane for excellent organising skills as always. Back in the Summer, I was privileged to attend the Capita SIMS Annual Conference - where I was treated to the latest news and developments from the inside. This post serves both as a record of the event - and as a eye-opener to where Capita are taking SIMS. There's some really interesting things coming up, some of which some people may already know about. Its fitting in some ways that this is posted on the dawn of BETT - where you will get to see some of the great work that is going on. At the same time, its key to see that there is not just "new-ness" here, Capita are listening; and some of the developments are in direct response to customer (ie us Technica folk!) feedback. Priorities... Straight from the horses mouth "Sims easy to deploy easy to configure" - Phil Neal. Well theres a gauntlet laid down then. A cursery browse of the forums show a selection of member gripes about installations and upgrades. Well - both of these are going to be the focus of a lot of time. Im also told that there will be published recommended configurations, going much further than the current "specifications" documents. This is very "Microsoft", and can only be a good thing. It provides extra support for technical services on the ground. Improving the installation and upgrades process should also be helped by reducing the need for patches by AMPARK and PI resources - by putting these online. As has now happened, the patching and database numbering has been changed. Why? Well this is to help a move towards consolidated patches. Now that the SIMS ecosystem has grown to more than just SIMS.net, there is a need to consolidate some of the code and services as well. Look at a machine with Discover and all the rest on it! Integration is the key - and work to unify SiMs windows services and ensure services do not require restarts is coming. This will also increase performance especially on startup. Products continually evolve, and as new features have been added in the past - some of the routes have become a bit cluttered. So, the team want to look at the big picture again. This will aim to "remove niggles" as Graham put it - on extra clicks, screen redraws. I guess what we are really talking is completing polish on high traffic areas, eg registers and assessment. Nice. Under the hood things are happening too - XP and Vista are "dying", so support is ending. Take note! Server OS and Platforms (ie SQL) continue to develop - and te product is improving and taking advantage of new features. Solus upgrades and SQL version support are moving on. That means migrations. Tools are coming (some are already out there) for SQL migrations. The best time will be Spring - although that, in reality means most Schools will be considering this for Summer. This next one is bound to get a cheer...move installers to MSI wrappers. Yes, really - commitment from Phil himself. A nod to the community there. See... feedback makes a difference. The desire to improve team support is a nod to the excellent work by LA support teams. Information is scattered so far and wide about performance etc, so one idea to combat this is to effectively manage complete set of assessment resources. This would unify Capita and LA/National Curriculum guidelines. How could this look? Well, one clear example would be to provide Discover with pre configured templates and graphing. There are some interesting statistics around surrounding use of SIMS and the associated products in the Classroom. Harking back to previous posts about the importance of the centralised data and use of it, show the difference it can make in School Improvement. Aside from that, its a component Ofsted look at too. Schools must be data literate throughout. On this note, Phil has set himself and the team the challenge of improving uptake in classroom. I guess the Technical Teams will say once the earlier notes above are completed it will be easier! well, take that a step further and "melting-pot" ideas include... ..teacher setup can be done remotely, dump a configuration file onto a machine for example ..increase primary widgets for home page ..develop AFFORDABLE tablet apps Yes, I did just say develop Apps. Capita are coming to the App party. Capita have always supported the great work that Partners do, but now - they are taking this one on themselves. Apps are great for delivering and consuming data. Everyone uses them now. However, they are often poor for input, although HTML 5 improving this. I strongly suggest you take a look at what Capita are showing at Bett. Its very, very exciting. This is only the start though, and its important you remember this. That being said though - it is complete and very exciting. So, I hear you say, what does that mean for SIMS.net and the future? That one is relatively simple as an observer -Sims as a service ..hosted Sims and FMS (already provided by Capita direct, some LAs and also some Academy groups0 ..hosted SLG (as above) ..inTouch ..Agora ..SIMS Multiview (Multiview takes data from Academy Schools, to central repository with dashboards) So, why now announce all this? Key to SIMS for the furture is that customers (and by that I mean Academies and LAs) understand what future developments are underway - and to inform future purchases. Sims 8 is a long way away, and the market needs to know the more immediate future. Its key that SIMS isn't seen to be stagnating and just "following legislation" changes. Its well accepted that the move to the cloud fully will happen. It has already started - Agora is a cloud product, and many LAs and Schools run Local clouds. Growing school of thought that this is how apps will be developed, to link to cloud based resources. So... go and take a look at what is changing. Keep posing the difficult questions. Here, is a case of a product changing to meet changing School, Academy and Free School needs. Im hoping to post a follow up article post-Bett after I "pester" the team again. Any questions, please send them over...

Here's a first for me - a guest blog! Whilst Ive been busy writing new articles (there are about 5 part written at the moment...note to self, must finish those) - technology continues to move on. Xbox One, Google Glass and many more - and with BETT around the corner, that list of "new" will continue to grow! So, it was quite fitting that I was approached by Cath Lane and her team (http://www.catherinelane.co.uk) with an interesting post about how technology can be used to bring equality. Now, this is right up my "integrated" street - so here it is... Technology’s role in closing the gap by Jonathan Ovenden The increasing focus from the government on closing the stubborn gap that persists between higher and lower achievers means schools are having to focus much of their time and effort ensuring they make progress in this area. As schools’ minister, David Laws, so succinctly put it, “If gaps are not being narrowed, Ofsted will want to know why not.” The problem is that schools are still having to meet all the other objectives laid down for them at the same time. Technology has a role to play here; giving teachers access to resources designed specifically to raise the achievement of the hard to reach so they can make progress more quickly. But what sort of technology will have the biggest impact? Give children the skills to learn “One of the issues you can find with lower ability learners is that they are often spoon fed learning and so are unable to apply what they have learnt in one subject to other learning,” says David Godfrey, the principal of two schools in a deprived area in the North East. As a result, choose resources that are designed specifically for lower ability learners. You want something that does not simply revise key topic areas, but also helps children understand the topic by breaking it down and encourages them to discover things for themselves. Online means flexible Online tools are the most flexible as a pupil can access resources from class, at a breakfast club or at home with their parents by their side. “Parents hold the key to a child’s achievement so anything that offers the ability to share results or activities with parents is ideal,” says David. According to a report by the Centre for Social Justice, if parents engage with their child’s education, their attainment increases by 15 per cent, regardless of the social background of the family; reason enough to ensure parents are given access to tools to help their children. It’s all about you The time teachers have with a pupil to make a difference is very limited so you do not want children covering topics that they have already mastered. The best resources help teachers diagnose a child’s weak areas and deliver content that is specifically designed to work on these gaps – meaning learning is personalised and time is not wasted. By choosing the right online learning technologies that are suited to this hard-to-reach group, you can have an impact on their achievement and make the most of available teaching time. Jonathan Ovenden is a director at vision2learn who will be at Bett 2014 (stand F346) if any readers want to discuss these issues with him further.

Hahaha, someone needs to go costume shopping for @russdev

Innuendo bingo there @vikpaw. @GrumbleDook, yay, face paint Friday! @russdev, tiger herding this year then lol.

Purple @Little-Miss where are you??!! The tabs on the purple do something really wierd, or its my browser being funky. Hows the vbulletin change looking ZH?

Does that means theres gonna be some geeks cutting some shapes :-p

All in one here with item level targeting. You can order in gpp as well

Poke for @EduTech here...

Depending what you are needing - as Slax is freeware, I could try and put our iso and config file up on my blog for you. I am writing a post about it, so if it would help, let me know

@BKGarry - this is pretty much how I do it! Virtual box has an additions client which you install in your vm, much like you do for hyperv and virtual pc - where it is called integration services. The vm im using is based on the SLAX live CD, where there is info on running it from a usb so that you can make changes and save them. once you have this, there is a make_iso option in it...bosh job done!

Yes, there is a separate discover autumn 2013 update available either from your la or supportnet

I've seen this two, where all the redirecting to the edu version works, but then how do you login to add videos to your allow list. Going to do some more tests on my local tmg as well

+1 for this. 6 hosts which are r720s, with two md3200s as the hyperv storage

Have a chat with Stone @StoneComputers.... Got over 200 of their laptops here and work well

Plus 1 for ABtutor here. Even came to a good costing for site licence. Well worth talking about your situation with them.

I've built a vm on virtual box from the slax live cd. Added scratch, python and others. Also include guest additions, and you can map the logged on my docs into the vm for saving files (as it's a live cd). Disable network access, and it's all safe. The ISO is on every machine so quick to run too.

Yikes..... XMA! They were behind the laptop for teachers scheme down here and stuffed it up (was Toshiba kit I think). Wonder how they will "look after" class link! Saw a school recently with it!

If you pop over to my blog (link in sig) I've got some posts on how I've done this