Pete10141748

I tend to say Breakfast Lunch and Dinner. I consider Tea (or High Tea if you want to go that way ) is when you have a cuppa and a cake, mid-afternoon. TBH in these days of such convenience, half the time I don't think proper meal-terms apply anyway; I've seen people prepare what I would consider breakfast (cereal, toast and juice) at 1pm for lunch, some put a microwave meal in to have for lunch (which I would consider to be something to have for dinner), others go home and have cereal for dinner, or a snack...... to me, lunch involves a sandwich of some kind, otherwise it's not lunch! (Pasties are acceptable too ) Then there's my girlfriend who is in a league of her own as far as I'm concerned; eating last night's leftover pizza for breakfast.... I dunno how she does it, makes me feel ill

I suppose because of the un-filtered and in-controllable nature of the dongle-internet you have only two real options; allow them to use them but only during free periods when they are allowed, or a blanket ban of all internet dongles. If it was my school, I would be banning them tbh. There is no need for them if staff have laptops, and pupils have sufficient access to computers for ICT lessons and research if required; allowing them to be used on the basis of educational purposes (ie trying to argue that it gives pupils greater access to learning resources) would be very difficult to prove, especially when pupils can get unfiltered internet for things like Facebook and YouTube; that's a very dodgy road to go down!

Do you allow staff and students to connect their own laptops to your network? Or are they simply bringing them in to do offline things and some have twigged they can use a dongle to get internet without needing a 'school computer' and without being filtered and tracked? Policy-wise you could go down the route of adding something to the AUP that states any website visited while on the school grounds must only be accessed using a school-provided computer which is connected to your domain and accesses the internet via your proxy and by using the appropriate filtering levels (however that is done at your school/college). As was said above though, the problem is not so much the 'putting it in the policy' as it is in the enforcing of it - what are going to be the consequences to individuals if they break the AUP and bring in a dongle? Confiscation of the dongle until the end of day? Banning of their user accounts? It's a very tricky one, and we all know that telling a child they can't do something often results in them wanting to do it all the more! Ultimately the reason is a safeguarding children one, not merely an ICT issue; perhaps you should discuss it with your management and make them aware of the risks and consequences of a pupil accessing something inappropriate via their own internet dongle in school?

Not having a car is a plus and minus I think..... yeah I don't have to deal with de-icing and driving on icy roads, but instead I have to walk in the freezing cold for 20 minutes and back when the snow was really bad in Feb this year (I think) I was twice nearly hit by idiots driving too fast and skidding onto the pavement! It's a good job I have quick reactions!

Some of these have already been mentioned, but a few of my favourite gaming moments have been/are: When you first step out onto Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time When you first become Adult Link in Ocarina of Time When you climb down the rope out of Midgar and step out onto the world map for the first time in Final Fantasy 7 Aerith's death cut-scene (the stabby one and the one where Cloud puts her in the water) Playing the "Golden Gun" mode on GoldenEye on the N64 The SNES Mario Kart, spent months of my life on that thing when I was a kid! The first chainsaw battle you get into Gears of War 2, such an awesome addition to the game Everything in Mirror's Edge and Portal That'll do for now I think! lol

Xbox360 and PS3 are going to be around for some time yet, MS and Sony have taken the clever route and chosen to keep their console updated by improving the software running on it instead of asking you to buy new hardware every 12 months (anyone remember the first Xbox360 software update from the old-style Blades to the new-style scrolling boxes? Was like having an almost new console!) Graphics-wise only Nintendo need to up their game and get their "Wii v2" to do HD (or close to it) as it is so poor by comparison (when in the cinema yesterday my girlfriend remarked on seeing the trailer for "Epic Mickey" on how poor the graphics looked). The fact that the Xbox360 and PS3 play DVD (&bluray for PS3), output HDMI, have large hard drives to download/install games and so on, there's no real 'need' for entirely new hardware right now imo; accessories like the Kinect or the PS3 'Wand' are the way to go for a few years yet. Sony are even keeping their PS2 around for another couple of years yet too as they have said that they still get a great market for it, so they certainly aren't going to be releasing a PS4 anytime soon, and MS releasing the Kinect is a good indicator that they are not just going to scrap the whole thing in a year for something else as like JJonas said, it's intended as a kind of mid-life revamp for the hardware.

Thanks guys. I don't think a replacement is going to be hired tbh, as the Head didn't see the need for 2 term-time only Tech's which is partly why the technician changed job anyway. I might have worded the "TA roles" a bit wrongly, I was mainly referring to that fact that my colleague has been helping improve the use of ICT in the curriculum by being in a number of lessons each day promoting ICT and showing how it can be effectivly used; something which I really don't have time for but might well be asked to do anyway. He also still covered minor IT-related jobs such as helping people with photocopying and resource prepping, again something which I can do now and then but not for hours every day. I also just learned today that the school is about to spend upward of £40k on new devices including laptops, netbooks, ipads, visualisers etc and again it is going to fall solely to me to set everything up, train people on it, support it's use in lessons and fix it when it goes wrong on top of all the existing stuff too. I think elsie hit the nail on the head when she said I need to create a plan to show how the holidays would be used and the effect that would then have in term-time too, but whether or not management will actually see it that way is debatable. At least I know I am not being unreasonable to ask for more time to actually do the extra work coming my way

OK so some of this might sound a bit daft but having never asked for/been through a job re-evaluation, contract change or had someone leave my department I could really use some outsider perspective on the situation Long story short: My colleague (who used to be my assistant ICT Technician, who then became an ICT Specialist TA but retained some of the ICT Tech roles) is now due to leave at Christmas, and it is basically certain that everything he was doing as the ICT Tech will be falling on me to do now, and maybe some of his 'new' TA roles too. Obviously there is a reason why there was 2 of us working here, and I'm finding it tough to see how I am going to do the job of 2 people from now on without either a)producing less-quality work in areas or b)making a lot of people annoyed at having to wait longer for service (or services being unavailable). Obviously I will point all this out to management when I request a meeting to discuss stuff, but I am thinking that this might also be a prime time to ask for a job re-evaluation / contract change; currently I am term-time only and so performing maintenance that could be done during holidays takes up a fair chunk of time some weeks - the idea being that scheduled maintenance during holidays covered by extending my contract would increase my ability to be "on demand" during term time. I have a helpdesk to show how "in demand" I currently am (very!) in the hope that this will make it plain to them that I don't have an extra 20+ hours a week free to do someone else's job too! What do you guys think? Does extending my contract to full-time sound a reasonable request, or am I just foolishly hoping that SMT might see sense in all this when really I should just be 'getting on with it'? Thanks in advance for any advice or comments!

My favourite that I currently own simply says: "SARCASM: Just another service I provide"

No legal requirement no, there used to be some sort of "Laptops for Teachers" scheme but that was before my time! In this place, class teachers get laptops, HLTA's get laptops, Intervention TA's get laptops, all of management get laptops, the Head has a laptop & a desktop, the Family Workers have laptops....... in fact I'd say about 75% of the computers in the school are actually laptops. If I tried to take laptops away and replace them with desktops in the classrooms I think I would be kicked to death by the end of day 1! From my POV though it's very convenient for staff to be able to take their own laptop and work anywhere (halls, corridors for groups, PPA room, staffroom, and yes, even at home!) and in this place it's surprising just how mobile the staff are throughout the day. I ensure though that they cannot install their own software (no iTunes, no Limewire, etc), and thanks to 1 very public example made of a teacher a few years ago, no-one really dares use them for anything beyond school work. OK we get the odd photo album of a holiday or someone checks their bank account online, but nothing to really complain about.

Have a kettle and mini-fridge here. Don't think I'd be allowed a toaster though, as my room is used by pupils + other staff, health&safety madness and all that

Have you not got a card reader that you can use with the microSD card inside the phone? Might be worth looking into.

I agree, I was a bit dissapointed that there was no Proxy setting available on Android. There are ways around it, as was posted earlier in their thread, but they're not as easy as having a simple user interface for it, which yes, really, should be there. It's not like it stops you using the web completely - chances are if you have an Android phone you have an unlimited data transfer deal meaning you can still have all the internet access you want as part of your contract anyway.

Nicely done. It's crazy how FB keep changing their security settings!

Let's face it, it's an Apple product, the price sin't going to drop that much even if they do release a newer model! You can always wait for "the new model" but at some point you just gotta buy what it is you want.

Wow, I want some of this for my flat! It'd be awesome, not least to see the look on people's faces when you just start doodling all over the wall! lol

I think he was trying to point out that if you had the Xbox for 3 years then you need to add 3 years' worth of Xbox Live payments, and then if you want to play BluRays you need to buy a BluRay player whereas the PS3 wil play them as well as the games and the online being free. Personally, I have an Xbox360 and a PS3. My PS3 is used for DVD/BluRay and my 360 for gaming, because I just prefer it, and for every PS3 game that I can't get on the 360 there are 10+ other 360 games I'd rather play anyway!

the software they insisted was essential to the cirriculum, which then got delivered and put in the drawer never to be installed or used.....

It's released on July 16th, so a month yet

New Xbox 360 design = win! I love the new look, will be donating my current Elite to a mate who's Xbox recently blew up and getting one for myself as soon as it's released in the UK!

I openly admit I took the following from a mate of mine's blog detailling how he has been using his iPad. It was the first thing I read about the iPad that didn't leave me feeling indifferent or thinking "meh, it's cool but doesn't do anything new" : You wake up, your iPad is sounding an alarm, you slide and it tells you it’s 8am, open up the menu and the weather for today pops up letting you know it’s sunshine for the next 7 days. You grab your iPad from it’s dock next to your bed and carry it to the bathroom and pop it in the dock there, you open up some music and do your daily business, shower brush teeth etc. you grab a towel, dry your hands and go back to the bedroom with iPad in hand still playing music, you dock it while you get dry and dressed, it blaring music through your 3rd party dock speakers. You tie your shoes, grab your iPad and head down stairs. Poor some cereal and switch to the BBC news app, reading the days going ons while you eat. you finish slam bowl in sink and head to the car. in there you connect it to the radio via an FM device and your music plays through the car stereo. Get to work, transfer the work you saved to it the night before and all those other files you’ve got for the day. While at work, it keeps your email updated on your person even when away from your desk. Work finishes, head home with iPad once again playing your music in your own car. Straight in the door, you head to the kitchen poping the iPad on a dock and bring up the Jamie Oliver app; now it’s a recipe book, showing you how to cook something nice for you and your other half. You switch to iTunes while you eat and do the dishes. Off to the front room, you plug in the TV adapter, now your iPad is streaming a locally-saved movie to your HD screen. You take your iPad upstairs, turn the light out and read some comics while the wife sleeps (and the iPad is GLORIOUS to read comics on). Switch to the alarm app again and pop it in it’s dock, ready for tomorrow tio do it all again. So for all those haters, just think, think for five minutes of the possibilities, they are truly endless. How you could integrate this into your life, it all depends on how and what you want to do with it, how much you would use it. Thus, I think anyone buying one is well justified and it’s a cool £429 well spent. Well spent indeed. The key thing for me is, yes, all of these things can be done at the moment by something. But this is one piece of tech, not several. He also found a very cool blogging app that makes the iPad look exactly like a datapad from Star Trek

I'd probably help out, so long as the job wasn't huge and they wern't just asking me to do it for them. Actually, just before half term I had someone call from another school around here asking for help setting up their SIMS data extract to a VLP. It took longer than I anticipated but I wasn't exactly busy that day anyway.

Spending tomorrow at the London Expo, Sunday and Monday in Canterbury, in work on Wednesday to upgrade my PC to Windows 7. Other than that, just relaxing in the (hopefully) nice weather and getting some reading/gaming done

I pay for an "Unlimited" CineWorld card, so see almost everything on the day it comes out After paying only £15 a month to go see as many films as I want as many times as I want, I'd never go back to paying £8 to see a single film now. As for showing durations, 8 weeks is tons of time to get to see a film, these days 12 weeks is pushing it from my POV especially with the sheer volume of titles that get released on a weekly basis.

I'm sorry, but how the heck can you *not realise* that's not a regular whiteboard? Surely the pen tray, the big "SMARTBoard writing" in the top-right, the plasicty feel, the coloured outline, the projector mounted and pointing at it........ ANY of that would be a clue?!?!? If it were me, ideally, I'd be billing her department/company for either the professional cleaning, or a new one. But knowing this place, my budget would have to pay for it.