ninja-lewis

I crashed Higher Computing Studies in Sixth Year back in 2005/6. It suffered the same issue as "ICT" - namely too simple, boring and out of date for those interested in IT. Those who weren't of course didn't take the subject. In my experience, I'd have to agree with those who see no requirement for discrete ICT core skill lessons. The last pupils who might, if at all, needed such lessons were those who started school in the early-mid 90s and left 5-6 years ago. I can still remember my first morning of P1, waiting outside the classroom while just inside my two best friends were playing on the class computer (an old BBC or Amiga I think). In P1/2 the computer was mainly used for fun much like the more traditional wet areas. In P3 we were introduced to the Crystal Rain Forest but that was pretty much the extent of IT teaching at that stage back then. Not many had computers at home (mainly Win 3.11 back then), usually only if their parent's work required it, and their only educational use was to do homework with a broken arm. In P4 we began to use the class computer individually to type out bits to stick on posters etc. There was a short lived after school computer club (using the senior school IT suite but run by one of the new P4 teachers interested in IT, rather than the senior school IT teachers oddly enough. In P4 we'd also be allowed on the library computers once a week to surf the internet under supervision. But it was still mostly trial and error under supervision of the class teacher. In P7, the school bought a cabinet of eMates. These were used to type up project work and it was the class teacher who taught us how to print and even use the rudimentary infrared p2p networking. It was only in senior school that we began to have proper discrete ICT "core skills" lessons. Unfortunately they pretty much ignored what their own primary school had taught us and instead held extremely unambitious lessons to teach us basic functions of Appleworks. Meanwhile some of the more enlightened teachers in other subjects made the most of computing - for instance, in Geography they used the cabinet of iBooks to do internet research, projectors to replace slides (personally I prefer the old blackboards and OHP to IWBs), English teachers would use same cabinet to have us type up essays, the Head of Maths taught the top S1 set to programme on his network of TI calculators while the Technology department let us loose on their workstations to do vector drawing in Freehand, Vectorworks CAD and PIC programming. Meanwhile back in Core IT, it was Logo programming (at a level less demanding than Crystal Rain Forest) and web design that wasn't really web deisgn - none of which those not interested in IT were interested in either. Those who were interested in IT learned more just hanging around the Open Access computers at lunchtime with older boys, investigating directories in between playing Planetarium and watching videos on punchbaby. The big difference between S1 (2000) and S6 (2005) was that in S1 it was only the nerds on the computers really - there weren't many girls on MSN Messenger back then. It changed a bit when iPods came along and by S4/5 about 70% of the year were on Bebo. But by S6, nearly everyone would take one of the S6 iBooks out of the library in free periods, supposedly for UCAS and coursework, but mostly for Youtube. By the time we were off to university, pretty much everyone was on Facebook. University wasn't better mind. Most departments still insisted on compulsory Word/Excel/Powerpoint courses for all first years, which most people could complete in 20 minutes (even the types who wouldn't have been interested or struggled 10 years earlier) and spend the rest of the time on Facebook/FitFinder. Any course that actually required specialised software (MS Project in mycase) taught you how to use it as part of the course anyway. Likewise most major employers put you through their own IT induction when you joined anway. Which brings me back to Higher Computing. I only crashed it while doing 3 other Advanced Highers because I wanted some sort of formal recognition of my interest in IT. I had attended a local computer class, which had started as a Futurekids franchise, for several years. The original curriculum for P4-S2 was similar to what was taught in school Core IT lessons for S1/S2, albeit better developed scenarios and in a wider range of programmes. They quickly got through the curriculum so started teaching CLAIT and later ECDL courses for the more advanced classes but we still passed these by S1/2. After that, they brought in a school network manager (they were expanding into providing repairs at the time) who also showed us how to put our own computers together, set up wireless networks at home, let us loose in Virtual PC and Linux and demonstrated various backup strategies. By this stage, we were all very comfortable with WinXP (enough to fix issues for others using the Polish language version) and some of us were considering doing Computer Science at university - I got as far as applying for a CompSci course alongside my Business choices. Thus for preparation, we took Higher Computing at school. The course effectively took us back five years, if not more, requiring us to learn about token ring networks as if they're were still competitive with normal Ethernet structures, very basic java programming and design a specification for a server to a budget - unfortunately the mark scheme didn't allow for the fact that prices had come down hugely and technology had moved on such that even a Mac Mini wold blow the specification away. All taught by a teacher with no practical experience who had been taught to use computers in a very different way to way in which many children use them today. All in all, it was pretty irrelevant to the real world and personally put me off taking up my CompSci offer in favour of Business Studies. Meanwhile I look after three year olds who are as equally at home with Win7 as they are with their colouring in crayons. I've long believed the best way to get comfortable with computers is to use them all the time whether playing Doom, checking Facebook or writing essays - not IT lessons and type touching software that see themselves as the goal, rather than a means to an end. Hence I don't believe discrete ICT lessons are required to teach "core skills" when in the last five years computing has become even more central in most classrooms, in which case there is no need for it to be part of the NC. Meanwhile proper computing studies is as much a option subject as proper Economics is and therefore shouldn't be a compulsory part of the NC either - it just needs to be made relevant and rigorous for those interested in the subject matter as every other serious subject is.

Definitely not Schumacher. But I'm not sure he is that egotistical. I understand he does a lot for charity in private.

I don't think Time Machine supports backups to any shares other than Time Capsules - I remember finding no answer last year anyway. What about a HP Mediasmart server though? HP have announced new models that will support Mac backups. WHS will manage nightly backups of the vista laptops with minimal hassle and you can add more storage as necessary. Probably more than you wish to spend though.

I have an unused HP Laserjet 1022N Black & white network laser printer (Q5913A) for sale. It has been sitting unsealed in the box in a corner of the office for the past year. Specifications from HP site. I haven't opened it but presumably everything is present and working. It also comes with a HP 3 year Standard Exchange Consumer Laserjet Extended Service Care Pack. This will expire on 06/09/2010. I'm looking for £180 including postage.

Have a look at Firefly. HP use this in their MediaSmart Windows Home Server products to support iTunes libraries. They also have their own proprietary software that aggregates itunes libraries on client machines. WHS is built on Server 2003 so it should work fine on 2003 too.

Bought my dad one last Christmas. Just a basic model out of Costco but it seems alright. PC Pro did a pair of articles since covering getting the music from the Vinyl to your computer and encoding it with Audacity. Worth a look. My knowledge of AV kit is pretty limited but I understand you don't even need a USB turntable - any decent soundcard should be able to use line in from a normal turntable.

If you can, wait until August/September for Back to School/Uni offers. Or even better, wait until your son reaches university as he may be able to buy through the university at a good discount (more likely if he's in an engineering/science department) or at least through one of the various external student stores. I bought a Toshiba M400 through Student Laptops, Notebooks and Computers | Student Store (no choice as that was the supplier specified on the DSA form). Just watch when buying through the university as they tend to have their favourites, perhaps because they get money back or because it's simpler for them to maintain the single make. This might not always suit you. Likewise, software such as MS Office, maths packages, even anti-virus can be purchased through the Uni at a good discount, if not freely available through the department. For example, Microsoft ran a promotion in the past academic year : Office 2007 Ultimate for about £40. They now have a programme giving free design and development tools (including Server 2003, Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio to name a few) to any student regardless of whether they're doing a computer-related course or not. I'm not a fan of Apple personally, but before you dismiss them as too costly have you checked the Apple Higher Education store? They normally have decent discounts for students there. Best tip I can give you is to check out the uni's IT Department website to see what's available to him.

I believe I read in amongst all the multitouch bits and pieces that Windows 7 will still have a 32bit version.

SimpleSi, could you share the php script you use on the CMSimple sites to autogenerate the list of newsletters? I'm using CMS Made Simple and would like to do this too but there isn't an extension for CMSMS to do this yet. I'm not familiar with Joomla but CMS Made Simple allows editors to upload images and files from within the normal editing area, using file and image upload managers. I'd expect Joomla to have the same. It could be possible to use these to upload the PDFs to the specified folder and then just use your existing script to display the contents of that folder - I can't see any reason why your script would care how the files reached the folder it's watching. Lewis

If you're a registered charity, try Charity Logistics (now VSC UK). We received a 40% discount when we ordered through them from Dell last year.

They've published a few British collections in partnership with the BBC as part of the 'How We Built Britain' series that's on at the moment.

In case anyone else is considering this: The school I went to had a Business Management class full of these using original iMacs with the keyboard and mouse on pull out drawers. From a pupil POV they weren't very comfortable (therefore unproductive too). It was difficult to have the drawer out and still see the bottom of the screen if you were short, and craning over can't encourage very good posture. Finally, the iMac took up a lot of room under the desk, and with the keyboard drawer, most of the S6 boys couldn't actually get their legs under the table!