MrBitey

Hi, thanks for that. I think my problems stem from the Learnpad's relationship with the proxy. Proxy is all set up on the tablet. Browsers/app store etc are all fine online. Learnpad is showing me a question mark and then after a while a red cross next to the 'Get online' section (in which the instruction to 'Tap here to scan your proxy QrKey' is given.) On tapping this, no scanner appears, only a dialog box asking me to 'Enter QrKey Text'. Sadly there is no QRkey text by this QR code other than the proxy address itself (which has to be filled in due to the boxes being plank) I've tried typing LP:http://proxy.lea.xxx.co.uk:8080 but no change occurs. MrB

Hi. I've certainly been able to take our Learnpads back to stock Android (Nexus 7 2012). Did a factory reset, popped in the proxy settings/security certificate, set up a Google account and Bob was my uncle!

Hi all, we have 50 Learnpads in our school running on Google Nexus 7 2012 tablets. They have been running very slowly (issues with Android 5.0 and the Nexus 2012 - unfortunately they were all upgraded from Android 4 before I started here). Quite a few of them I've had to factory reset (thus wiping Learnpad). I thought they would run more smoothly using something like Google Now launcher and a restricted profile for the children. I would ultimately like to put Learnpad back on the newly wiped machines as running more than one profile seems a bit taxing for the tablets. Have been in contact with Learnpad support and they pointed me to this link to install the latest APK: Install Beta - ClassConnect However I'm having issues enrolling the newly installed Learnpad. Classconnect want the enrollment to happen via a QR code but the the camera/scanner does not start and instead asks me to 'Enter QRKey Text:' I do this (inputting the 4 digit number below the QR code) but nothing happens at all. I also thing Learnpad needs to have the proxy set up in the same way but there is no QRKey text on this section (have tried typing the the proxy details here but to no avail). I am finding email exchanges with LP support to be difficult as there is a big time lag before replies. I would like to try installing an older version of Learnpad (as I know this works on a number of our tablets). Version 4.xx would hopefully be better (the link is to 5.xx) Does anyone have a link to this/knw of somewhere I could get hold of it?

Hi there, we will be upgrading our server in the new financial year (primary school, around 450 children). The folks we have a tech contract have quoted for a system with Server 2012 and a 1TB hard drive. I suggested that 3TB might be better (after all our 5 year old server has 600GB so 1TB doesn't seem like a huge upgrade). They seem reluctant to do that saying it will cost lost more and that a larger drive will be slower. Now I may be being foolish but looking on Amazon, basic 3TB drives seem to be about 40-50 pounds more than 1TB which is not prohibitive. Am I missing something there? Big question though, in your experience, does a larger drive bring with it a performance hit? thanks very much in advance for any help! MrB

Thanks, Dave. Will give that a crack! MrB

Hi there, we have just upgraded our school network to Windows 7. We are using Server 2008 for user accounts etc. The main issue I am having at the moment is that default file associations are not set for users on individual computers until they have opened the application once on that machine. So, if I set up an Excel spreadsheet for a class of children to open, I want to put a copy in their home folder which they then double click to open. At the moment, Windows complains that it doesn't know what to do with the file. To get around this, the children have to open Excel itself first , let it do a bit of final setting up, close it and go back to the file they want to open (which will now open). The same happens for Firefox shortcuts. Windows complains, they have to open Firefox, let it do its setup routine (ie copy bookmarks from Internet Explorer etc). They then have to agree to it being the default browser. After this routing, they can open the shortcut. This would be ok if they just had to do it once, but every whenever they use a new machine, they must go through the routine. As we are a primary school, the younger ones have to be hand-held all through it. Similarly, teachers are unable to open pdfs as they are not associated with Acrobat Reader. Obviously, I have made all of these associations in the Admin account, but they need to be set up by each user too. Our tech, who visits us once a week, does not know how to do this so I wonder if anyone can help me out! cheers MrB

Hi there, nice to meet you. @Edu-IT, I am still getting my head around the stuff in place already. Currently, I'm in class full-time, so haven't had much of a chance. Will have a good look soon though, hopefully with the folks who currently manage the network. Ideally, I'd like to maybe have it all set up fairly fresh (we are still on WinXP and really need to upgrade!) and then I can be present, see how it all works and go from there... :-) MrB

Thanks Steve21, that makes sense! I was looking at the checkbox on the router DHCP and thinking 'hmm, maybe I should disable that' - didn't try it as I ran out of time and was ejected by the schoolkeeper... will try that next time I get time!

Hi all, I've been here before once or twice before but I think I am soon going to need to immerse myself in the community! I'm going to be teaching ICT (PPA) in my primary school next year as well as being the resident 'tech'. Now, I am reasonably tech savvy when t comes to windows, websites, MLEs desktop hardware etc. However, networking and server side stuff is newish (well, I am fairly well versed in Apple OSX server but not so much Windows) So I'll need to get up to speed pronto.. :-) Anywhere I can look for some good, friendly basics... cheers MrB

Hello there, I'm trying to increase the wireless coverage in our little (but sprawling) primary school. at the mo, we have a fairly old windows network running classroom pcs and old laptops on XP we have two netgear wireless routers plugged in - one directly into the switch and another plugged into an ethernet point on the other side of the building between them, these two probably cover about 60% of the school. I'm hoping to be able to plug a couple more in to increase the coverage. Hopefully it will suit our needs and not cost us the £5000 we've been quoted for a managed wifi system. Today, I had a fiddle around with an old netgear wireless router of mine. Plugged it into an ethernet point in my classroom and it seemed to work fine Next I logged into the router to change the network name ('reception' as it's going down in the early years dept - hopefully) and password to something more obvious for the school. Logged back in. It worked fine for about 20 seconds then stopped working. The laptops I was trying it with were still connected with a strong signal and could disconnect/reconnect. But I could not get connected to the internet or connect to the server... Any ideas as to what pitfalls I may have fallen into? Is it just not a go-er? thanks very much - not really an expert on this but having to learn out of necessity! cheers MrB

Hi there we don't log into windows via domain accounts,no. Historically all our networking has been apple. these windows logins are a new development and I know nothing about windows servers and networking. Is there not some setting I can enable in OSX server and on the XP machine to give a list of network logins?

Hello all, we have iMacs in our classrooms (older white intelones) and in both of our ICT suites. I want users to be able to boot into windows on occasion to use certain sotware.I have set up one machine with a windows bootcamp partition and it works well. Is there any way I culd use OSX server to manage logging in to the computer and network? I'd like users to have access to their roving docs folder etc and to be shown an initial login chooser like they are when they log in to OSX. I have a halfway house at the moment with a couple of shortcuts to shared areas on the desktop which then asks for a username and password. Is this possible? On a second note - Ihave managed to link the windows partition to 2 of our printers using Bonjour for windows but not a third (which I guess must be linked to the network using some other protocol -although it is the same type as one of the working ones). Is there any way of discovering' the third printer so I can add it to the printer list as well? cheers MrBitey

Hello there, We have an OSX 10.6 network with individual logins/profiles. I wonder if it is possible to set up some sort of remote dropbox or way of working on a file at home (either create at home then 'drop' it into the school network or maybe even access the user's home/docs/shared folders from home... Anyone do ths? Is it easy /cheap to set up? cheers! MrB

Hello there, In light of recent govenment cuts, I am looking at alternatives to some of our current IT subscriptions... We are a primary school and have an MLE that we mostly use for sharing and disseminating the reams of paperwork our teachers generate. I'm trying to find a cloud storage solution that would be secure and free (hopefully) but also easy to use and navigate for users. For personal use I like 4shared and had a go at box.net which seemed pretty good. (Seems like some educators are using it at least... - Box.net - K21 Schools - Ketchikan, Alaska) Does anyone have any good ideas or would care to share what their schools are using? thanks in advance Mr. B

Thanks for that... do you have any good suggestions for good domain name hosts with dns editing that I could use? cheers MrB

Hi, as a result of the cuts to the education budget in our LA, we are now faced with finding much more of our ICT-related money from the main school budget. We need to make savings and I need to find areas to cut... We currently have Fronter in our school and use it as our MLE and also to create and publish the school website. It's pricey though and to be honest we don't really use all its features... (many of them are more appropriate for secondary I feel)... So, I'd like to use Google Apps for Education to cover the Website (half of it is already built/hosted there) and to cover a basic MLE... I want children to have an area where their teachers can place links, information and news and where the pupils can upload work. I think this should be easily doable... particularly if we use the Google word processors etc. Main thing would be - some sort of password access to keep the 'child only' part of the website separate from the public part and possibly some way of the children being directed to an appropriate 'classroom' or year group area... Anyone have any ideas? Anyone doing this? Is there a good place to go to get ideas and advice? cheers in advance Mr B

Hi there, Fronter Y10 is working fine on Safari here... we are going through the LGFL proxy and so far no problems anyway. We also use it on Firefox and I do have issues there... The Multiple File upload tool doesn't work (some sort of Java issue I guess). So whilst I use Firefox for most of my browsing/Fronter stuff I have to switch over to Safari to upload anything big or more than one file at a time. Kids are using Safari with no issues though... cheers MrB

Dynamic sizing looks like a good solution. I have very little web coding knowledge (usually use iWeb) but I noticed that Fronter (our MLE) dynamically adjusts page layout in this way... So I re did the front page using webfronter... Of course, not my twitter feed does not work now as Fronter doesn't like to include 'unsafe code'... Twitter have also disabled their flash twitter widgets (which I could embed) as they have a security breach... S

Hello there, I have decided to do a version of our school website specifically for mobile phones. Just started and what I have done is here: index Not sure of the best size etc to make it... This version fits my Samsung Wave but may be too big for other phones... Does anyone know of any other Schools' mobile websites that I could have a look at to get some ideas about functionality, content etc... thanks in advance for any help or suggestions. Steve

Well so far we have a forum (0 posts in 6 months!). Going to use Fronter logins for Nursery kids as a way of sharing general info, times etc... S