AM_LHS

I am currently a Director of IT and ultimately my aim would be to become a Deputy Head or Head / Principal. I know that many would disagree with me that someone without a QTLS and significant in classroom experience should not be a Head Teacher. However if you have been in the school / education environment for several years and gained genuine experience and skills including senior management training then why can’t a IT Network Manager one day rise to become a Head. Especially with the increase focus of technology and e-learning strategies it might actually be a good situation for a school to have a leader who has the knowledge and experience of technology strategies to develop and lead the school. However unfortunately I don’t see this happening which is a shame not just for me but for driving education towards the next generation with a change in leadership directions in education.

Learning Assistant (ILT) Reference Number: B1026 £18,096-£20,965 per annum Full Time (37 hours per week), Permanent Sandwell College is an exciting ever changing place to work. Our staff are so passionate, energetic and dynamic in their approach to everything they do. This exciting role requires flexibility and versatility within the ILT department. You will be working across Central Campus in a variety of roles and must be eager to update skills and knowledge with the ability to share this. The Learning Assistant (ILT) role includes the maintenance and development of cross college IT and AV resources, support for staff developing and using ILT, plus during busy times provide cover for staff absences and assist with the traditional work of the Learning Centre in the loan of learning resources and learner support. This successful candidate must be self motivated and be able to work without direct supervision. The ideal candidate must be computer literate and have direct experience of working in a team. Closing date: 18 September 2013 Full Job Description, Person Specification and an application form can be downloaded from the job and vacancies section of the College’s website Home. Sandwell College is committed to safeguarding children, young people, and vulnerable adults. All appointments are subject to satisfactory enhanced Disclosure and Barring Checks. To apply please send your completed application form to [email protected] or to the Human Resources Department, Central Campus Sandwell College, 1 Spon Lane, West Bromwich, West Midlands, B70 6AW. Please ensure you quote the reference number of this advert when completing your application form.

I am Director of ILT (Information Learning Technologies) and work in a large further education college. My role is SMT and therefore also have other responsibilities which are not only IT related but my main responsibilities are Learning Technologies, Learning Resource Centres, Library, IT support and Network Services. Director of ILT/IT roles are very common in further education colleges as you don’t necessarily need a QTS in colleges however having a good knowledge/experience of teaching helps. I previously worked as an IT Network Manager and Technician at two schools and would say the Director role is very different from that role as you are in an Assistant Head role and have fully accountability for IT along with other whole college/school issues. I personally feel that schools should have proper Director of ILT/IT roles at SMT or Assistant head level as commonly the SMT member who is accountable for IT does not have the knowledge or expertise to make the final decisions and overall strategy alignment. I don’t think a QTS should matter because if that is the case then should it be a requirement that the SLT member accountable for IT should have an IT qualification.

Hi All In our new building we have a Door Access System which was installed by ADT and runs on their Kantech software. Has anyone here managed to install and get working the Kantech Software WebStation and also the CardGateway connection to automate the card registration process. Also if you do have the ADT Kantech software where do you get any techincal support from is it direct from ADT or do you go to any third party. Regards

So I take it then that no one uses Novell Teaming or has heard of it.

Hi, Is anyone using or have any experience of Novell Teaming ,as a VLE or for staff collaboration and communication.

Hi All, I am having a bit of trouble getting my head around the idea of what exactly is a 24 core multi-mode fibre optic cable. I know what multi mode is. However I do not fully understand what is meant by 24 core. Is it like having 24 individual fibres in one wire. If so how does each of these individual wires connect to the switches or media convertor and do they allow diffrent data to be carried down each of the cores. Thanks in advance for your help

I am bit confused with the new Intel i family brand processors. What I have been trying to find out is what is the current processor, nearest equivalent of the new i3 , i5 and i7. Dose anybody know as I still have not managed to get a proper answer serching on intel site.

I think edugeek is great, how ever it seems very much geared up with information and people who work in a school environment rather than a more of a broader education environment. Can any one suggest a similar site as edugeek which is more of target audience to FE college environments. Thanks

Yes its a Further Education College. I put in FE to distinguish this has a term for a different type of college compared to sixth form colleges as part of a school, where mostly the ethos and environment is still like a school. Also the term FE College helps to clear up any confusion to schools who also now have "college" attached to part of their name i.e. sports college , language college, science college etc. I personally do not like this idea of schools having "college" as part of their name because they are a school at the end of the day and it is a bit misleading in a trade description sort of scenario to call themselves a college.

Hi All, I have recently moved from working in a secondary school to a FE College. I have used edugeek when I was working in the school and found it very useful. I wanted to find out how many of edugeek users work in a FE college, so that that I can determine how relevant edugeek will be to me and others in a FE college environment. Thanks

Hi All, Firstly I am not sure how many edugeek users work in a FE College, as my question is on implementing a web based helpdesk in a FE College. We are a large college and currently have 3 campuses and are looking for a professional online web helpdesk system. Can anyone please recommend a web based helpdesk system that has the following functions / spec: • Email-to-Ticket Conversion • Needs to be compatible with Novell Groupwise mail \calendar • Email users about notifications of update • Auto close non responded verification of close calls • Auto email notify relevant technicians • Front end is Web based – cross browser platform • Single sign on internally • Admins can Log tickets on behalf of someone else • Easy one screen to log calls, allow attachments of print screens • Customer survey / rating (using a 5 star tick or full survey if below certain stars) • SLA built in monitoring • ITIL3 process complaint • Asset monitoring (link in with Novell Zen works) • Stats and reports (extractable to csv, Excel ) • Knowledgebase easy to search and allow attachments • Low cost support \ Training \ upgrades solution • Can be run on VM ware Thank you for any suggestions or help.

Thank you Williot for your nice words about the school. This is currently my job. I am leaving due to getting a promotion as Director of Information and Learning Technologies, a Senior Management role at a College. Firstly I must comment on Richard_S post “Just had a look and they can't spell Cisco. Makes me wonder what the rest of the school is like if they cannot simple word correctly” Fair enough there is a spelling mistake and thank you for pointing that out. Well it is a typo error as I would call it. Mistakes do happen as I am sure you are aware as with your comment that you have grammar mistake “cannot simple word correctly” (cannot spell a simple word correctly) If you are wondering what the school is like then please feel free to read our OFSTED report and you will realise that Lode Heath was graded Outstanding. It is a High Performing Specialists school and has sports and science specialism’s. Tech_guy, “Yes, it looks a bit of a mishmash - part admin part technical part visionary part we-don't know-what-we-want-but-it-sounds-good....” I do not agree that the job role is mishmash. The school know exactly what they want as I have been doing this role for over 5 years now. A similar job role is also in place at another school in Solihull. Yes there are different elements in the job specs, it requires someone who is technical who can lead the technical team, hence the need for a relevant qualification. But at the same time the persons needs to lead on the development of the strategies in putting technology to successful use in the curriculum. It is a whole school role and therefore the salary reflects this. This role ensures that school continues to build and further move ahead with the use of technology to develop and support teaching and learning. It is an interesting and different role to that of your normal network manager. There is currently no plan for BSF at the school and I do not think there will be BSF at this school for a fair while. It is a great school to work in. Good luck for anyone applying. If you require any further information please contact the school as I am unable to answer any direct questions as these are my views and not those officially of the school

We have a virus outbreak on our network. The virus in concern is Mal/AutoInf-A. The virus initially seems to have come via USB memory sticks. Mal/AutoInf-A then spreads to all mapped network drives, it drops "Troj/VB-CSA" and also creates a ctfmon.exe Win32/FakeRecycled.A - CA I have disabled the autorun on memory sticks and applied the Microsoft patch. We have Sophos on the server and all client PC's and is fully up-to-date with daily scheduled scans. However Sophos finds the virus and says it has deleted it on the server but then 30 seconds later finds the virus again. The client PCs Sophos reports on daily scan "The attempt to delete the infected file H:autorun.inf failed the user dose not have the rights to perform the action on the infected file." I have placed all the users in the Sophos Power user group. It is the first year that we have used Sophos and I think it has been a real let down as we it should be blocking the virus or cleaning it up because we never had a virus problem with Symantec before. Any advice would be appreciated on how to get rid of this virus? Thanks

We are having the same problem as you have described. Have you managed to find a soloution for this. --- AM