TechMonkey

We were discussing a study that showed excessive use of AI leads to shallower understanding so doing less well in exams and tests. This is taken from a longer presentation, where the graphs were shown individually and explained better, but gives the idea. Although pupils get better scores on homework, less time is taken and exam scores are worse. Would that be the same in this schools case? No idea, but I fear that the surface level knowledge would be concentrated on, rather than indepth knowledge. Though I still want my Diamond Age illustrated Primer.

They don't say it is no longer an issue, they say they are reallocating resources due to the problem it was solving becomeing less needed, niche. It is financial decision. There are other options, like DynDNS, but with cloud resources being pretty reasonable and the ever-changing cybersecurity landscape I imagine fewer people are hosting things at home for access outside, or they are using systems that use proxy access rather than direct. I know Synology moved to a system where you access their website to access your home box rather than direct. As ever, what are you trying to achieve? Have you spoken to your ISP and asked if you could have a fixed IP?

Just had a quick look at config.office.com, and there are two settings - Open Directly in Office Client Application - Open Office document directly in Office application That both mention opening documents stored online being opened in the registered application or in the web browser. Depends on where you have your configuration setup though.

There is a setting in Office options that can make web documents always open in the desktop app, but that has to be set by the user, and I haven't looked into if there is a way to set that centrally yet. EDIT: THe setting would be useful wouldn't it!! In any Office app go "File" > "Options" (down the bottom of the the left column). Then select "Advanced", scroll to the "File open preference" section and set "Open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files using:" to "Desktop".

If it is a static sig, then a mail flow rule will add it on, just ensure you have an exception if it finds the sig already there. Otherwise it is publish it to all staff with instructions on how to add it themselves.

Cloud based to Wasabi. No tape backups.

Have a good read of the DfE expectations and KCSIE. I seem to recall it says in one or both of them that (roughly) any device on a school connection must be filtered to some level and not be able to bypass. If you only have agent based, then a device not under your control can connect to your network and not be filtered. Now, would a DfE SWAT team helicopter down the moment that device connected? No. Would the wrong question asked by a switched-on inspector cause issues or deeper digging? Possibly. This may be mitigated by ISP hard filters or forwarders, but personally I would be very hesitant to rely on only cloud based fitlering and have nothing on your edge connection. Also, as sigma points out, DNS filtering is not compliant.

As there is no mention of independents or sixth forms/colleges/universities in the poll then yes, yes it is! 😋

I normally leave a year, to allow staff to get anything from last year, and then run a script that deletes all teams starting with a specified year. Not sure how retention would affect this.

ohhhhh, I thought this wasn't available until 19th. Nice surprise (probably a lack of reading comprehension more than a forward release!) Must finish Reacher first.

I have mixed feelings about this. There is a lot of advice and guidance about AI and about it in Education so why are school leaders not acting on that? I agree that exam boards need to get a kick up the posterior to move on things like online exams and how the whole exam process needs to be updated to fit the modern world, but beyond that a school or Trust needs to decide its own guidelines. I can't count the number of times teachers have said the Government or the DfE need to keep out of schools more, but here they want top cover?

I don't mean forums as in this hallowed digital establishment, but the kind I seem to get constant emails about that are bringing the top C-Suite minds together to connect, or round table, or discuss. I seem to get loads of them, they are free and sometimes look interesting, but my first thought is that they are just a money-making device for the organisers and I would be the product being served up to the suppliers on a platter. It is very flattering to be included, but are they worth the time or slap-up meal/drinks/networking? Then there are the conferences that seem to be run all the time for AI, Security, specific tech or manufacturers, or general IT future gazing. Excluding BETT, EduGeek and ANME conferences, do others find the time to attend these? I sometimes wonder if I am missing out. I also know I am not great at networking so often consider going to get out of my comfort zone and work on that, but I also feel that they would just be either a bit of a jolly or just a waste of time. Am I missing out? (Classic Betteridge's Law I'm sure)

Only issue I had was TPM entries being wrong and taking an age to update for AMD chips. I guess they must have fixed that by now.

Check on the device first, not in Intune. That option is found in Settings > Personalisation > Taskbar and expand Taskbar Behaviours. In inTune it is in Admin Templates and the setting is named "Do not allow taskbars on more than one monitor." Best to just search for taskbar and then scroll down. But as I said, I would check on the device first as that will give a hint to where the issue lies.

Have you confirmed on the account that it is missing from that the option "Show my taskbar on all displays" is ticked? If it is ticked and not showing there is an odd bug, if it isn't ticked and greyed out, there is definitely a policy restricting it.

Totally get that, and I was in a similar position with Wikipedia a while back at a different employer. I think it is one of those situations you have to pull out your zen and consider the Serentiy prayer.

I would ask, what's the harm? You say annoying, but how is it annoying you or the school? Seems like it would be a benefit to have a non-school affiliated person tending to and curating a well-rounded page.

Doh... Sorry you totally said that 😄 It's the PTSD from having to troubleshoot and then deal with the systems stopping!

Which SMTP details are you using? Has this occurred since MS restricted SMTP access? You will need to use direct send details, I think. These instructions https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mail-flow-best-practices/how-to-set-up-a-multifunction-device-or-application-to-send-email-using-microsoft-365-or-office-365

Never enough coats!!! 😄 But, from your description you have a few that are no longer coats, but are decoration. So, you can either take them out of the count, or do something decorative with them. My minimalist head says it will hurt but get rid of them. Saying that I have: - Puffer jacket for dry but cold - Bodywarmer for dry but not as cold - light waterproof for going in bags just in case - Sensible coat for work/nice places - Overcoat for formal - Dry robe for really cold or standing still -Rough coat for silliness.

Here we do all the big planning in the software. Once it has been imported to the MIS unless something major happens there would be more disruption trying to get the info out and back into the timetable software (small changes happen all the time once the timetable is live in the MIS).

If a timetable had to be changed at that point I think it would be done manually, not put through Timetabler, but yes it can lead to some unravelling and shifting. Completely the other way, GCSE and A-Level classes tend to get done first so that the other lessons, which are less dependent on staff, can then be fitted around.

We are only just taking full ownership of Timetable, so possibly are missing some data but from the last year of working with the old timetabler, and working with timetablers in the past, these are my impressions. 1. Depends, if Options are a thing it starts January, to get what the current Y9 want to do, as this affects what lessons run. Easter seems to be when things really start and planning beginning. 2. Seems to be having the enough of the right staff and liaising and negotiating with staff and HR to work out what days part-time staff are working. 3 Currently working with Timetabler, which isn't bad and does the job. The biggest issue I can see is that the software seems to just brute force it, so it is very time consuming, and needs to be done in stages so is very repetitive. Add in that the process can end up down a cul-de-sac or something changes from management and it needs to be started again, especially with teh above staffing and part-time issues. It saves the time of a human bean shuffling around lessons, but it does seem still to be a very laborious task.

We had this when an uber efficient tech was creating the Inventry users by hand and then the MIS link was creating a duplicate overnight. Check both records for a "Person ID" as this is what is linked to the MIS. If one record has one and the other doesn't, I would say either delete the record without one or remove the ID from the other record and assign it to the record you want to keep. If it appears again after that I would agree with Buzzer and say you have two link sources somehow.

An idea of your structure would be good too. I have found it useful to keep the Smoothwall out of the main structure, as a spur heading out. So all our switches have their gateway set as the core switch, the core switch has it's gateway set to the Smoothwall, Smoothwall's gateway set to the edge router. This way all traffic gets funnelled towards the exit.