Pete10141748

WOW now that is very pretty and an awesome design concept, its almost like a giant-sized Nintendo DS! But only "up to" 3 hours of battery life and a weight of nearly 3Kg doesn't make it anywhere near as portable as an iPad / XOOM etc.

Yup same here, 24 PDA boxes stacked in my room was the first I knew of them, was asked if staff could use them for SIMS to do registers etc. The damn things can barely run the calender and clock features, God knows where they came from. No-one ever asked about them again after the delivery day, think the current SLT doesn't even know we have them!

There is no plan to change the network to accomodate the iPads, even if/when the staff figure out what to do with them the 'vision' (hah!) of the Head is that the iPads will be taken out into a class for 10-15 minutes for a certain specific activity using 1 or 2 apps and then put away again. They are not intended to become the primary focus or an all-singing-all-dancing resource of the school, just as something still-IT but slightly-different to keep the pupils interested and for the pupils to use now and again. But yeah, overall I think they are going to go largely unused an be a great waste of money, especially as we are also getting 6 trolleys of laptops as well and that's what most teachers are going to want to use. She has had the idea of the iPads put into her head by someone from the LEA, and from the people who have provided the funding to the school for these devices (the funding can be spent on *any* ICT device though), we were also advised to buy THREE Nintendo Wii's, are going to be getting a set of 32 Nintendo DSi's, and possibly some PSP's as well..... And here I am thinking that school was meant for LEARNING things, evidentally it's actually for playing computer games on flashy devices......

Yup I know and that's why me and the Deputy Head have talked the Head out of doing this 2 times already since January, but she (the Head) is adamant that she wants them so we've just had to do it. It'll mostly be money down the drain, and just like the set of 24 PDA's that came before them they will be used by 1 or 2 people for a couple of things in the first term and then forgotten about, either because staff don't want the training hassle or there just is no use for them You never know though, I might be proven wrong....... doubt it, but you never know.......

I was instructed by the Deputy Head yesterday to order 30 iPads so we can give 1 to each member of staff and give everyone a chance to see how they can integrate it into teaching&learning (which will then become a set of 30 that can be booked out after they have figured out good uses for it) so quite soon I will be getting one to use for a bit too, though at the speed of ordering around here I'll be playing with my own iPad2 before the school gets it's iPad1's!

I'm sure I can find time to do it for them if you can't........

How about this? Wireless Battery Spy Camera [PAK830U] - £119.99

My busiest is usually a Monday, though I have no idea why. Amazing how many people forget how to do things in just 2 days away from the school...... Thursday is the quietest day as there are lots of staff on PPA/non-contact time and due to parking difficulties they are encouraged to work at home on those days, so there is less of them here to report problems or ask me to do stuff for them!

Already had them in last week, I reckon that's what the rush was from, 2 days' of jobs not getting reported as they were too preoccupied! Yeah now and then I get it down to 0, only stays there for an hour or so, and it's a rare occasion! Even rarer these days what with just having a load of new kit bought in.......

Today might just have been the most manic, busiest day I have had in the 4 years I have been here. At 8am this morning, I had 0 jobs in my helpdesk and was very happy that everything was up to date and running smoothly. By 3pm, I had taken care of 39 jobs I even managed to forget to have lunch I was so caught up in the mayhem! Usually get 10 or 12 a day plus minor requests like a blank CD or new VGA cable and spend the rest of my time on my own jobs/plans/schedule, but I've never had 39 requested jobs from staff in one day before! Crazy!

Still feeling the effects of all the sugar today lol lunch was an apple and a pear and I feel stuffed are just that!

Had 6 mates round for P-Day yesterday, and some of the pancakes we created were simply awesome! We had pancakes with; Cheddar cheese and smoked ham Brie and Cranberry Jam Marshmallow, Strawberry sauce and white choc chips A Guinness pancake (literally made with batter mix and a can of Guinness!) Haagan Das cookies&ice cream + choc sauce White chocolate spread with dark chocolate chips Duck, plum sauce and spring onions I cracked open and spread 1 Cadbury's Creme Egg over one which then melted a little bit Though the last one was the most extreme, we made it like a pizza (so open-faced not rolled up) in a wok so it was huge (we all had a piece!) using white choc spread as a base, with choc sauce over that, marshmallows, dark choc chips, white choc chips, hundreds&thousands, orange&lemon jelly pieces, dolly mixture, a few jelly babies, some melted Galaxy choc, and another Creme Egg cracked over the top of it. So, so, SO sickly, and felt dreadful afterwards, but IT. WAS. AWESOME. Sadly I forgot to get a picture before we tucked in

Me! iPancake iPhone application - AppStoreHQ LMAO!

Agreed that it costs more to get on contract (by above calculations it works out to just under £4 a month more over 24 months) and the luxury to walk away from the 3G as it's not a 'contract' is a good thing, but at this point in time it's far easier for me to add £25 to my direct-debits each month and pay that extra £90 over the 2 years than it is to find that £429 in one go; on my wages by the time I save up £429 for it the ipad3 will have come along! lol I wonder if my bank will just let me skip my mortgage payment this month.......

I'm looking into getting an ipad2 on contract from either Orange or Vodaphone. The deals on the current ipads really aren't too bad when compared to the cost of buying one outright plus you get the 3G connection as part of the package too, and paying £25ish a month to have the use of one doesn't seem so bad compared to forking out £600 in one go either.

A few months? Wow you're generous! I'd hate to see the state of a white keyboard in this place after one week!

Departure lounge - geriatric ward made me LOL like an idiot, I'm remembering that one! Hahaha!

Thinking about it, one route could be to just use layers in something like Paint.net Set the school map as the background image, then create a new layer for each different type of info you want (1 for network, 1 for power, 1 for projectors, and so forth) and then you can just choose which layers to show/hide when you need to?

No idea but am interested to see if such a thing does exist, it'd be a great tool to have handy........

It's crazy how these fizzy pop and 'energy drinks' can get so addictive so quickly!

2 or 3 of the 500ml cans a day, and maybe a large can (473ml) of Red Bull on top of that too... :S

How about; "Broken Objects Fixed Here"

Oh yeah, forgot about my recent addictive spell with Monster drinks too! lol Guess I just have an addictive personality

I've almost always got a laptop on my desk from a teacher/TA that has a infection of this kind, though not seen this one exactly so far. Such a PITA but I usually just remove the entire infected profile from the laptop and build them a new one, luckily staff here are (mostly) good at saving work in their mapped drive and not on the desktop so only standard set of icons have to be put back anyway.

Whilst at Uni 5/6 years ago I gained a rather unhealthy Pepsi Max addiction thanks to a BOGOF offer than ran for what seemed like months on end on the stuff, by the end of which I was easily gulping down 2x 6-can packs every day. Something about it (or in it) became really addictive, and I found I actually felt depressed\sad\unmotivated to do anything if I stopped drinking it (worse than when I quit smoking), which really worried me! Had to wean myself off it, took a few months, and if I drink it now I feel sick.....