deerwood

This really depends why it has been turned down. The usual reason seems to be not enough detail in the bid. In which case the Authority has to add the missing details and re-submit the bid. This would seem to be the case in Gloucestershire. "Mr Balls confirmed that Birmingham, Cumbria and Gloucestershire came close to being selected - but with some extra work in certain areas they are first in line to enter the programme at the next available opportunity." pppFocus.com

You are correct to say that Espresso allows you to take its content and use it in school by pasting into Powerpoint, Word, Movie Maker or any program that accepts cut and paste. However, that is only an entitlement to use the content. It does not mean that you have copyright (how could you have the copyright?). While you may use the content within your school as you wish, giving the content to another school that does not subscribe is not permitted neither is selling any of the content in any way. As for the VLE, you are entitled to use the content in any non-public areas of the VLE. I do not really understand why anyone would want to stop their subscription to Espresso. The content appears to be first rate, more content is being developed all the time and the school benefits from fresh up to date material broadcast each week. The company has recently bought out Channel 4 Learning and so now has access to a wealth of new content to re-purpose for educational use in primary and secondary schools. (End of advert!)

Are you still able to use Outlook to connect to a Hotmail account? The last time I tried, it failed and I was informed that free hotmail accounts were no longer accessible with Outlook.

Are you using IE7 by any chance? I have seen this problem with IE7 but do not understand why it happens. The 'workaround' seems to be to right click the attachment and then open it in a new tab. see here also http://www.edugeek.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13144

I have the new O2 Orbit2. It is basically the HTC Touch in O2 guise. The original poster requested GPS built in. True, the O2 Orbit 2 does have GPS but the CoPilot software is naff; the maps are outdated (my street isn't included though it was constructed 8 years ago!) and GPS reception is very flaky without an external antenna.

I don't think it is that easy. The only way to get a CRB check on yourself is to join an agency. Umbrella bodies cannot be used by individuals to get a check on themselves. see here; http://www.crb.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=289&qid=506 I think the whole system would be wide open to abuse if individuals, rather than employers, were able to get checks on themselves.

I wonder which version of NOD32 you are using? I agree that versions 2.5 to 2.7 were excellent but the latest incarnation version3 seems to hog resources and cripply slow machines.

Go for the free stuff only if you really must. You do not say whether the software is for pupils, staff or both to use. What phase or keystages would the school intend to use the mindmapping tool. Almost invariably, the best way to start is with pen and paper so that the concepts and principles of mindmapping can be got accross first. If you then wish to take computer based mindmapping seriously, you would need to consider the following programs; Mindmanager - the market leader, suitable for business, commerce, higher education and secondary education. Inspiration - leading 'educational' mind mapping program suitable for Juniors and upwards plus staff use. Kidspiration- Primary school mindmapping program 2Connect- from 2 simple, primary school mindmapping program with interesting collaboration facilities. There are, of course, others including Mind Genius and iMind. The latter follows the Buzan method best.

Quotes ... "It's the content not what it looks like that is important." "Surely the content is the most important thing not how jazzy it looks." Oh come on, guys, surely nobody seriously believes this. If something does not look good, then who is going to look at it or take any notice of it!? The problem with PowerPoint is that, in the hands on most of us, it simply does not look good and nobody takes the blindest bit of notice; ... NO MATTER HOW GOOD THE CONTENT. It is probably easier to create a better presentation without PowerPoint than it is with PowerPoint.

I think you can guess the answer ... after school, lunch times, before school, weekends and school holidays. ... I guess ICT co-ordinators should be grateful that they have network managers and technicians (unless, of course they haven't got them!)

To be honest, Fresco is quite old software. If you are having serious problems with it, I'd suggest looking at newer alternatives, maybe Dazzle, Revelation or the new Paint package from 2Simple, all of which do everything Fresco does and more. Have a chat with your ICT co-ordinator.

I guess I am in a fortunate position in that I go around many schols and can see different styles of ICT setups and working arrangements. What seems clear to me from these visits and it appears echoed in this thread, is that things work best when staff with different roles work together and recognise the responsibilities, skills and expertise of each other. In our modern schools things are constantly changing; sometimes slowly, sometimes too fast. These constant changes mean that people's roles and responsibilities also change. Several years ago, the roles of network manager or network technician did not exist in schools and those roles were carried out by the ICT co-ordinator (who was also a full time teacher and probably had responsibility for other AV aids). I'd guess that maybe some ICT co-ordinators have difficulty in letting go of previous roles and focusing upon ICT as a curriculum tool (which I'd suggest should be the role of an ICT co-ordinator).

But that was the installer program NOT the software itself. The errors SimpleSi seems to have encountered were probably due to trying to 'upgrade' from an earlier version instead of uninstalling the old version first.

Did it? Can't see any mention of crashes in that thread.

Crashes? Wot Crashes?