Jamman960

You need to buy 1 license per pupil with Mathletics as they each get their own logon's

We've been using this recently, the only time I've ever come accross tests being classed as abandoned is when its been closed before the results were submitted. When the pupil gets to the end of the test they have to press the end button and then wait until it goes back to the main interface where you'll see a checkered flag next to the test name instead of the red one you see at the beginning. We've been using this for the last month or so and have put most of the school(Y3-8) through maths tests. So far all students except 2 of our year 8's managed to complete the tests without any "technical" issues. One of them claimed to have accidentally clicked on the X and another in the same class shortly after claimed that he had pressed enter and the test closed itself(this pupil is a known trouble maker so he probably thought he could get away with it).

I'll have a word with our head of maths, I can't remember the exact price but its no way near £39 per student. I'm pretty sure it was below £5 per student. James

We're also using Spellodrome, we haven't got/found anything similar for any other subjects. The pupils are very keen at the moment, many are even using it at home.

Our maths department have just purchased licences for Mathletics, is anyone else using it? At the moment the pupils can't get enough of it and our head of maths would like to try and get 1 lesson per week into the timetable for next year however as we only have 1 IT suite he's going to try and include a batch of PC's or laptops in his budget. I suspect that the novelty factor will wear off at some point, possibly before next september, has anyone else had any experience of this and roughly how long pupils have kept their interest in it? James

The jobs I hate are any that involve certain teachers running up to me shouting "the networks down, the networks down"... they almost all turn out to be more "My computers not working therefore the entire network MUST be down!" I had this from the head of our pre prep earlier, it turned out that 1 person had forogtten their password(after using the same one since she joined...) and the other one had their network lead unplugged.

I've just set it up on our test server ready for some onsite training today, everything seems to have gone ok. I've not heard any mention of plans for sims to use MSI deployment

As a rule I usually go for the highest spec the school can afford in IT suites(without any gamer extras) to ensure that pupils spend more time learning than waiting for application X to load. Hopefully when they come up for replacement the spec is still high enough to be used elsewhere - it makes putting forward a case for renewal so much easier when you can say that X number of classrooms will recieve upgrades as well as the suite being upgraded. As a rule I always try and set an expiry date on IT suites as soon as they're put in place, theres nothing worse than getting to a point where your having to firefight to keep enough pc's working and having teachers/students complaining that they're too slow.

I'd ask them to clarify their recommendations... did they not provide a recommended spec at the same time? They'd have trouble sourcing parts for a computer that low powered When they can't provide a pc close enough to that spec just say you'll use ebay instead they'll soon come up with some sensible suggestions. James

One thing I considered implimenting at a school was setting up a folder within each users home directory which isn't backed up or at least isn't backed up during regular term time backups or could even be redirected to a large/cheap nas drive... the school was in a similar position with backups increasing by 10gb per week on average. At least then only the important data is being backed up... I'm not going to lose any sleep if Mrs X's family photos are lost due to server failure when she knows that they're technically not supposed to be there. What really didn't help was one of their senior management team having a backup of their 80gb portable hard drive on the server lol Also if they haven't got the time to sort out their data I'd just delete it on the basis that you don't have time to prove whether it's legal or not.

The 10 user limit is only on SMB as far as I can remember. The spec should be ok unless its a bandwidth heavy site James

try running dmconfig.exe from within program files\sims\sims.net document server\ via the command prompt, that'll tell you exectly what setting s the document server is configured to use, make sure your sims db is setup with the same values. If they need changing edit SIMSDocumentServer_.config you'll need to restart the document server service whenever you make a change.

I saw a wake on lan by workstation name option within lanview3, all either of them will do is send a wol packet based on the computers recorded mac address. The easiest way to find the mac's of all your workstations is via their DHCP leases - if your using server 2003 for DHCP the mac address is listed as the unique ID for each lease.

Other than workstations/routers I'd guess that the main hurdle at the moment would be network printers & IP cameras - I don't think any of ours support IPV6 at the moment although it may be possible via firmware upgrades.

I *may* be able to make an offer, would need to speak to my manager first though. The newer ones come with an ActivHub(USB) so you wouldn't need promethean boards, they also come with software for powerpoint so you could just use it with that or buy some standalone copies of ActivPriamary.

Ringtone - Wii sports theme(will probably change it soon lol) Message tone - nothing special... just one of the few that came on the phone

In a RAID array the data is spread accross the drives entirely, one chunk of a file will be on 1 drive and the other will be on the next drive. they don't fill one drive up and start using the next. Data recovery from one drive would probably yeild very very little usable data. I would get in touch with dell and see what they can suggest, failing that if the data MUST be recovered then contact a data recovery company ASAP. Its expensive but then again so is losing the data.

Has anyone got an Aastra system installed? we're currently leasing an aging Ascom system(7-8+ years old) and the rep from our supplier has said that we should upgrade to an Aastra Hybrid PBX system. I just need to convince our Bursar to go ahead with the move... the current system is really begining to show its age

Yes- you should be able to just install veritas, catalog the tape and restore from there. If your concerned that the tape drive is going to play up I'd install it and do a few test backup and restores before putting the tape containing the actual data in just to be sure that its installed and working correctly. If the above works the risk of the drive damaging your tape is minimal. James

We're also having colour reproduction issues with an older Infocus projector... it just happens to be in our hall argh! Reds come out black, Greens come out yellow etc. It may just be due to age though(I wasn't around when it was first brought)

I know of one school where one of the subject's IT rooms were routinely left open for pupils at lunch times and know one could be bothered to supervise it... the result was a room full of broken computers, no mice and lots of damaged keyboards. I think they have now started locking the rooms and installed CCTV but it really shouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the first place. Where I'm working now theres no danger of pupils causing damage but we still don't allow any pupils to use the room without an adult present.

We use it for attendance so all teachers have access to it, our secetarys are using it more and more(although one of them pretty much does as little as possible) We also use it for our 3 weekly marks and Fee's management. I had been looking into using it for behaviour management but it seems to be easier to use sharepoint/infopath forms for it all. We're also using NovaT6 for timetabling... the only thing thats bugging us at the moment is the way we can't register pupils in sets in the afternoon via the dashboard without purchasing lesson monitor(a minor niggle but annoying). Overall Sims has enough features in some ways but is lacking in others.

I've seen a few self cleaning projectors on the projector point website, also DLP projectors have no filters. here's one I looked at getting a while ago for our hall: Panasonic PT-F200NTEA projector James

I have a 15" Dell XPS provided by the school, I got it mainly for use when I'm on our second site... without it I'd end up having to use the server most of the time Its had its uses other than that, I have it setup with a copy of our sims database to test new patches etc, when a required update knocked out reporting on our main sims db I restored a backup to the laptop and got the secetarys to use it for the reports they needed to run. Its also handy as a hot spare... if a PC fails or needs looking at I just leave the lappy in its place while I sort out the pc. Having it around when I'm working on the cabs is also useful. I could do without it but it makes some things much easier.

We're an independent prep & pre-prep Each department has to buy their own printers, in the past they all brought inkjets but I've now got them into buying £50-70 Brother mono lasers. They all look after their own printers and have to buy consumables with their own budgets. There is also a colour laser in the IT suite/staff room which they can print to. Some still have Canon inkjet printers which were provided by the IT department a few years ago before I got here, baring the occasional paper tray switch problem they've been fairly solid. Every classroom at the Pre-Prep has Canon inkjets... as above they seem to just keep going I setup 1 primary school in southampton with a networked colour laser in each room(hp2600).. just a bit excessive!