Speculator

Hi all, I've got a question for you. It doesn't quite fit under the "Technical" heading, but it's a a "how do you do it", so here it is: I'd like to know what your structure of IT Governance and decision making looks like in your school. We've been doing the same thing for 15 years now and I'm starting to wonder if it's outdated. So, to use my school as an example: We have an oversight committee that includes the ICT Manager (chair), our head of Learning and Teaching, Business Manager, E-Learning person, and two general teachers. This body reports to the Principal, who has final say, and often turns up to meetings too. The main areas of responsibility for the committee are budget, policy and strategic planning. Most of the time we're bogged down in budget, policy and logistics though. Two members of the committee are part of the Faculty Heads team, two are part of the Leadership Team, which is supposed to feed information to and from those groups. Aside from that we form working parties to address other needs around new projects and deployments. So anyway, I'd like to hear what others are doing around this sort of formalised decision making, if you can spare a minute. Thanks.

Yup, been using it for a year now. It's okay. Better student data integration than Moodle, they even managed to integrate it with our custom Filemaker-based student information system. The interface feels a little tired, but apparently that's being addressed with a new SP2013 based version. L8r.

Funny you should ask. We moved into our new offices a couple of weeks ago. It's been great, we did the work on a budget but still got a lot out of it. A rough account of the transformation is here - tisit-innit.tumblr.com Thanks.

Since starting this thread, I've got one for myself. It really is one of the easiest things to use. Casting from a Chrome tab or a mobile app is as simple as you'd imagine. If I had HDMI compatible projectors I think I'd fit them all out with something like this. L8r.

Yup, we actually kept our students on Google Apps rather than having them sign up with O365, because at least the signup process isn't horribly confusing that way. When they go to verify their account and it asks them to login to your Microsoft Account users have no idea if that's their Microsoft Account or their Office 365 Account... and rightly so. They're both 'Microsoft' accounts.

Thanks Domino, All very solid ideas. I'm actually getting quite a decent list, I'll post back here with the results when I've completed my research (a lofty term for asking questions in a few forums). The whiteboard idea keeps coming up again and again. It made me think - I knew you could get backboard paint, and it turns out you can get whiteboard paint too - why not pant a whole wall to make it a surface you can write on? L8r.

Hi everyone, I’ve been given the opportunity to expand our I.T. Department office space before the end of the year. We’re getting a new staff member and we haven’t got anywhere for them to work (and not really enough space for us now), so we thought we’d renovate our offices as a whole. I’ve been given the option of expanding into a soon-to-be-unused small classroom, which is easily enough space. I want to use the space well though, and do as much as I can on what will be a small budget. I’m a bit out of my depth with this sort of thing though, I’ve never had to rethink an office space before, so I was wondering if anyone out there has had to design or redesign a space for IT workers? If so, have you got any good ideas, good resources (books, websites etc)? I’m open to anything except making it look like Google’s offices. That would be cool, but let’s be realistic eh? All suggestions welcome!

Seconded!

Hi all, Does anyone know whether it supports 802.1x authentication? This was a problem with the AppleTV IIRC. L8r.

Hi all, I was recently lamenting that it's not available in my county, but I'd really like to try one. What service are you using to get hold of it in the UK? L8r.

Dammit, I did a search for similar threads before I posted this but it came up with nothing (now I look, I think I used the wrong search box, my bad). So anyway, I'd still love to hear from people in the US or UK that get one. If an admin wants to merge this into the other thread for neatness, please go ahead.

Hi all, So I was just banging on about Chromecast on my blog, and lamenting the fact that it's not available in my country (Australia), then it occurred to me that there might be some US Edugeeks who're keen on the device for classroom use. Firstly, are other people interested in the Chromecast for education use? Secondly, do any of our stateside friends on here have an order in for one? I'd love it if you could let us know what it's like! L8r.

We'll have to do that, there's not much of a choice. The point is not hat we can't but that we shouldn't have to. It's also an awful process of filling out forms with hundreds of students and then there's an email verification which is all quite annoying. Essentially this is very similar to what you'd go through with an iPad setup, but I think I speak for every Microsoft customer when I say that it's the manageability they provide that's at the core of why we choose them over iPads or Android. L8r.

I'm starting to think someone needs to do some rabble-rousing around this and the Store purchasing problem. Maybe we could put together some sort of open letter to Microsoft, or a petition? L8r.

Hi all, I think this is really for the Win 8 area, not the Office 365 area, even though it deals with both it's really more about a stupid failing in Win8. So, it turns out that there's no way to provide your users with a "Microsoft Account" for use in Windows 8 (with the store, syncing of settings etc). Rather bafflingly, an Outlook.com account works, but the institution supplied equivalent, an Office 365 account does not. So users are faced with an irritating situation where they have to maintain a separate set of credentials for these couple of services. If that wasn't confusing enough, the process for signing up for a Microsoft account with an Office 365 is even more baffling. During the process, the user will be directed to confirm their account by clicking the link in an email they're sent (pretty normal there, if ultimately unnecessary). The user receives the email, clicks the link and is then asked to logon to their Microsoft account. At which point they try to logon with their Office 365 account (because that's what they're used to), but it doesn't work because it's asking them to logon with their newly created Microsoft Account. But they don't understand the difference. I'm seriously considering shelving our move from Google Apps to Office 365 thanks to this confusing situation (they should understand the difference between a Microsoft and a Google account). Our setup with students using Win8 devices just got a whole lot more complicated, when I'd really hoped Microsoft would've integrated these two solutions to make it easier. I don't suppose anyone has a solution to the "Microsoft Account" absurdity? L8r.