RoyG

Hard luck Peter - I think the bean-counters at your school have got it badly wrong! I wish you well in the task or installing & securing such a large replacement system. True - as long as you have a little bit of instruction first!! All I can say is that the Reborn Card system (I guess a hardware version of DeepFreeze) really does work for us. Agree with you, but emphasis on "reasonable"! But I also believe that you need to do what is reasonably possible to provide as stimulating a working environment as possible, which is not strangled by excessive controls & restrictions. What's the problem with kids changing their desktops or installing Portable Firefox, or compiling and testing some VB programs etc etc ......? Also agree, there are some things best not experienced at a young age, but care needs to be taken that restrictions don't also remove a bunch of valuable experiences. A balance is necessary. Final thought... By far the biggest benefit is to me! Using these cards has dramatically reduced the boring bit of my workload (fiddling with Group Policies, restoring images and so on). This academic year I have only had to do any repair or restoration work on 3 desktop machines that the kids use - 1 RAM failure and 2 HDD failures. Because the kids know how the cards work they simply don't bother any more to try to hack them. We actively encourage them to try new things, with no instances of any real hassle due to any exe files they run. The only example of problems was when some bright spark dumped a file called something like "the best game in the universe.exe" into a shared area. Anyone daft enough to run it found their home directory blitzed (easily restored from backup)! A month's ban from Computer Rooms (highly publicised!) seems to have prevented any other such tricks. I rest my case! RoyG P.S. Apologies for the long post. Have a good weekend!

Use any projector & add one of these - Projector Server Fine apart from jerky video. RoyG

Sorry - just far too crude. There are plenty of .exe files I'm more than happy for them to run, to encourage them to experiment, to encourage them to program & compile etc. etc. If you apply such a sledge-hammer approach the kids will never be onside with you and will find other less subtle ways of screwing things up! If you've found a web filter that blocks ALL games sites, let me know and I'll recommend E2BL to use it! RoyG

Ooops! Try again! Very rarely log on as admin, and if I do the computer always gets restarted - problem solved! The log-off user option is disabled so kids have to restart machines after use - that's about the only policy used. Games - you really could spend your entire life trying to physically prevent kids from playing games - and still fail! Block every known games .exe file? Block every known games website? The responsibility for keeping kids on task in a lesson is the teacher's. It really doesn't matter whether the gamer is using a PC, a PSP, a pack of cards or pair of dice! By all means help the teacher, but don't take sole responsibility for their class discipline! RoyG (ex-teacher!)

Got to disagree on this. Your server security needs to be 100%, but there's no need at all to worry about the workstations if you have this card installed. Anyway, the little darlings are perfectly capable of bringing nasty stuff in on disc, CD or USB stick - so why worry about them downloading to a workstation? RoyG

Reborn card! Made by Lenten Technologies in Taiwan, variously known in the past as Teacher Smart Card, PC Cure, Safekey, now Reborn card. I'm amazed that more people aren't using these devices - we have had no instances of hacked or messed-up workstations (zero, none whatsoever!) in the 7 years we've been using them. Don't bother with any policy restrictions whatsoever on the workstations, except a BIOS password. Just restart the machine and it reverts to its original state, without any imaging across the network. They are BRILLIANT!!! Check out http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=574&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 for some of my previous posts on this subject. I really can't imagine running a school network without them. Details on http://www.bits.uk.com/ RoyG

Whilst still hoping against hope that this heap of cr*p dies a death, I suppose I need to consider the possibility of having to install it! We have a Novell Netware network and I have zero experience of Windows 2003 Server so don't relish the thought of setting one up. However, we have an XP machine running on the network as a licence server for Sibelius, Quark etc. Could the KS3 Test Server be run on this? Any comments greatly appreciated. RoyG

Does it actually matter?! The main reason I hope these tests die the death (unlikely as some believe this may be) is that the tests themselves are so completely crap! They have no educational benefit whatsoever and the only schools which will show up well on whatever dodgy statistics that happen to be in vogue (League Tables, Value Added, Contextual Value Added or whatever) are those schools which choose to "teach to the test" - for which schools have been recently slated by Ofsted!! There is no way that techies on their own will have any influence on whether these ill-conceived tests go ahead. But, if everyone involved makes their views and feelings known, there is an outside chance that some sense might prevail. Check out http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/thread.aspx?story_id=2216616&path=/ict/&threadPage=4&messagePage=1 to see how teachers feel about the tests. Talk to your teaching colleagues, talk to SMT, talk to your Head. Make them all take a long, objective look at what's proposed and maybe, just maybe, these views might be taken seriously. But please, please - for the sake of the kids - don't just accept that this heap of junk must go ahead. RoyG

There are some demon deals on HP4250n at the moment. Got one just before half-term from http://www.bechtle.co.uk for £525 + VAT! We've pretty much standardised on HP printers - absolutely bullet-proof. We've had several LaserJet 4000/4050s running in Computer Rooms & Staff Room for 7 or 8 years without a single glitch. RoyG

Slightly different market!! RoyG

Slightly different market!! RoyG

Methinks I might order one of those!!! RoyG

Try teaching!! I'm seriously unstressed since I metamorphosed into an NM!! Chill! RoyG

Our Music department is looking to buy a bunch of laptops. Main software used is Sibelius and Cubasis. Obviously need Midi input. Anyone got experience of speccing & setting up laptops for music? Any advice re. spec. of laptops gratefully received. RoyG

Can anyone using Bromcom or similar give me a rough estimate of how much time they spend on technical support for it? Also if possible how much admin time is spent on it. Thanks, RoyG

I've heard on the grape-vine that our SMT are getting Bromcom in for a demo the week after next. I guess I'll be invited, otherwise I'll invite myself, as I'll be the one to implement anything that any sweet-talking salesman may persuade them to buy! What sort of questions should I be asking? We have a Novell Netware network and use RM Integris as our MIS software. I don't know if SMT have looked at any other options - I think it may be down to the fact that the new Deputy used Bromcom at his previous school. Any thoughts/advice gratefully received. RoyG

P.S. The price is right too!

I've got one of these - Acer tablet - great for scribbling or typing! Comes with XP Tablet edition, chuck on OpenOffice & you've got a superb, flexible bit of kit. I love it!! RoyG

McAfee, free from LEA. Fine, no problems. RoyG

Click Gallery (of someone just a bit over 21!)

My main point is that the results of a test like this are meaningless. The only reason anyone will be interested in the results is the effect it might have on the school's League Table & Value-Added scores - as a measure of kids real ability in ICT it's pretty much a waste of time for all concerned and a waste of millions of tax-payers' money!) RoyG

God help us! As someone who'se spent the last 30 odd years persuading kids to have some sort of individuality, creativity & imagination, rather than being able to jump through pointless hoops - I can only say, if you're right, the future's more depressing than I could imagine! What the f***'s an NDA? Not the point - there will be schools where they'll train kids on this piece of cr*p, who'll get better results, and those who'll not bother wasting the kids' time, who may get worse results. I can only hope there will be a significant number in the latter category, who'll carry on trying to give the kids a more meaningful IT experience. Most kids will be able to "transfer skills" - they seem to cope pretty well with the latest generation of mobile phones, mp3 players, PSPs etc. etc. - but why test them on this in such a prescriptive, pointless exercise? Who's whinging??!! The longer they take to make this cr*p work on my Netware system, the better!! I shan't be busting a gut to solve their problems! 1. I shan't be volunteering for the Netware alpha test! 2. 2009 is after my retirement date! Hallelujah! 3. Odds on for the "Wembley syndrome" methinks! Rant over! RoyG

Suggestion - move this thread to FFS!!! Hadn't taken a lot of notice until the Head of ICT mentioned that the school has received "requests" to participate in the Pilot. Apparently so far the Deputy with responsibility for ICT has fended off these requests, but I thought I'd better take a look. Forgetting for a moment the technical issues (as I'm sure many of you would want to do!) the only thing the results of such tests will show is how much time schools waste in training the kids to use a pathetic bit of software. To describe it as donkey-crap is seriously unfair - to donkey-crap. Most of our kids will have lost the will to live in the first 5 minutes of the test. Pointless exercise or what! Then - are the DFES & RM seriously suggesting they can make the thing work on the huge variety of systems in use in the country's secondary schools - I'm pretty sure I'll have retired before they make a Netware-compatible version!! No doubt RM will suggest that we migrate to CC3! Yeah, right! Let's just hope that this farce goes the same way as various national mega-IT schemes - i.e. binned! RoyG

Other options, which include direct wireless access- http://www.rm.com/Secondary/Products/Product.asp?cref=PD184373 - expensive http://www.lindy.com/uk/productfolder/03/32/32500/index.php - same thing, but cheaper