flyinghaggis

I've always thought the Microsoft Surface would be the ideal device for me as, in theory at least, it should have been able to replace both a laptop and a tablet. However in practice every version of it I've spend time playing with in a shop has always felt really clunky to use whenever I've removed the keyboard cover to use it as a tablet device. Based on my previous experiences I'd rather just have a regular laptop and an ipad/etc to use alongside it rather than the surface.They're rather pricey as well so you could literally buy both a tablet and laptop for the price of one which is personally what I'd do. I never use my devices for artwork/drawing so it might be more beneficial for yourself depending on how much you value that aspect. I know some people love them but I've always found the Surface a bit awkward to use in practice because of the form factor and Windows never really being intended for a touchscreen interface.

As suspected you can only recover the most recent version of a document so if you have multiple 'versions' of non-Google document you can only ever recover the most recent copy which is a bit limiting. To add a bit of balance to the debate there are some valid reasons why Google Vault shouldn't be considered a 'backup' solution. Backupify vs. Google Vault: Features And Functionality Google Vault and Spanning Backup: Two Great Products. Two Different Purposes. | Spanning In addition to the 'versioning' issue above the other risk regarding Vault is that all it's doing is linking to copies of files stored in Google Drive so if anything happens to Google's storage system or there's any kind of data corruption/malware/ransomware there isn't a separate backup to recover the files from. Also, any recovered files will lose their directory structure and sharing permissions. However given that Vault is free and the alternatives carry hefty annual subscriptions I'm still mulling over whether it's feasible to just go with Vault. Probably a case of taking it to the IT Director / Bursar to letting them make the call. I'd be interested to know what other school's thoughts are on whether Vault could be used as an effective 'Backup' solution?

I just have a pc, laptop and phone generally. I do have a weakness for collecting old video game consoles and still own every system I've bought since about 1993 so most of the Sega, Sony and Nintendo ones since then! Actually more of a problem is the vast number of DVD's and CDs I've accumulated over the years. They seem kind of pointless in the digital age but they aren't really worth anything to sell and i cant bring myself to throw them out...

I'm not sure exactly how that would work. I'm going to sit down and have a play with it just to make sure there aren't any gotchas. One thing I did notice is that versioning only appears to be supported with Google documents. To me this possibly implied if you uploaded a Word document and then re-uploaded an updated version with the same file name (or edited the existing Word Doc) you'd never be able to recover the original? Or would it recognise the file as being different even though the name was identical? Something else to test I think Export point-in-time Google Drive files Vault only searches the latest version of a file. However, you can now add a version date to your search to view and export Google files as they existed on that date. Versioning is supported in most Google file types: Docs Slides Sheets Drawings Versioning isn't supported in Google Forms, Apps Script, or any non-Google file type.

I've found a chart on Spanning's website comparing Google Vault with Spanning for anyone who'd find it helpful. On first impressions I think we're going to ditch the third party solution and just go with Google Vault given it's provided free to education. The extra features they offer don't really seem to add much functionality for the (substantial) extra cost from what I've seen of Vault so far. Especially as it now supports Google Drive.

Thanks for the info. I'll need to try this out. I'd been told by our Google Apps partner that Vault wasn't a viable backup solution but they obviously have a vested interest in selling us another 3rd party solution so I shouldn't take their response as gospel.......! In fact the last time we looked at Vault I don't think it even supported Google Drive so wasn't an option at the time.

Isn't Google Vault just a data retention facility or does it actually let you recover documents/emails which users have accidentally deleted? I always understood Vault was more of a data archiving/retention/legal hold facility than an actual backup solution as such? Perhaps I've misunderstood how it works? I'd be happy to be wrong if Google Vault does actually offer a viable alternative to Backupify/Spanning/etc!

Cost , pure and simple money saving I think the issue is that after moving to Google Apps Cloud backup is rapidly becoming on of our bigger expenses and it's in addition to our existing onsite backups. I personally hadn't anticipated the costs for backing up several terabytes of cloud data being anything like as high as they are based on what we pay for onsite backups. If we backup pupil accounts that takes us to around £30,000 per year which is substantially more than we're paying just now. And the bursar is already unhappy with the amount we're currently paying! Has anyone looked at backing up GAFE to Amazon glacier as we very rarely restore data so I'm thinking something like that could work out better?

That's another question as to whether we can safely ditch backup entirely and go with just Google's own built in offerings like Vault. I kind of feel apprehensive about not having a more traditional backup solution in place for data but with Google offering unlimited storage to education and no ability to implement any kind of quotas we've effectively written a blank cheque when it comes to paying for cloud data backup by the gigabyte!

We've been looking at options for changing our GAFE backup strategy. Currently we backup up all of the pupil and staff data using Backupify but the costs are starting to spiral since we're unable to effectively quota users. The per user options are all looking like they'd work out too expensive unless we revert to only backing up staff accounts. Are there any cheaper options out there worth considering?

It would probably be helpful to clarify whether the people spending time outside work are actually working at/for the school or doing training/CPD at home to learn systems the school has rolled out and they're expected to support? For me the main issue isn't so much doing a couple of hours occasionally when something major goes down but the amount of time training/CPD outside work is taking up. There's increasingly a situation at my school where staff are buying in new hardware/software, adopting new cloud systems and third party companies are installing hardware without IT involvement. Rightly or wrongly there's an expectation we should automatically be spending time outside work learning these new systems. Like others have said I've also been suffering health issues from spending too much time sitting at a desk outside work trying to keep up and I've had to scale back. Where do you guys draw the line when it comes to learning new technologies outside work for your employer?

We've been looking at implementing some kind of online web based solution for digital exams and wondered what kind of setups other schools are using? We currently have a bunch of AD 'ExamUser' accounts which staff can use for pupil exams but the number we now require (given each pupil needs their own login whilst consecutively doing an exam) is forever increasing to the point where it's becoming impractical to manage and setup. Because of this we were considering moving to some kind of online web-based solution such as DigiExam or similar? Is anyone using any kind of online website for digital exams which they'd recommend?

Given the current climate in education at the moment (and the increasing number of redundancy, outsourcing, restructuring, etc threads) I thought it would be helpful to have a thread with some feedback from Edugeekers who've left educational IT support and want to share their experiences of what they're doing now? Is there life after leaving education...........?

From what I've heard PSA diesel engines are pretty much some of the best on the market. It's just the rest of the Peugeot/Citroen car surrounding their engines that are the problem Not really a fan of either brand personally but hopefully the merger will benefit both companies.

Doesn't having FireOS in place of regular Android limit their usability? I was going to buy one myself until I realised it comes with Amazon's own customised OS. Can you still manage them using Google Apps device management and are most of the Google App store apps available on the Amazon Store? I haven't used one myself so wondered what the main differences were other than the lack of Google Play Store access.

Is that a euphemism mine's en route just now !

Seems like a perfectly reasonable arrangement to me! That's how things work in virtually every other profession/trade out there and they seem to cope with it just fine? Personally I'd far rather have an independent professional body handing out more generalised certifications which are seen as industry standard. There are far too many vendors out there running certifications which only focus on their own specific products and it discourages them from adopting more open standards IMO. I think something like a more formalised and recognised version of CompTIA is the direction I'd like to see things head in future.

A bit of both I guess. My health over the last year hasn't been great and I've been finding it difficult to devote the time I normally do to keeping up a technical training regime outside work. Also, lack of input and direction from my place of work has left me wondering what to even study? This is largely why I'm so concerned about the issue of training/CPD and the expectations surrounding it.

A bit of both I guess. My health over the last year hasn't been great and I've been finding it difficult to devote the time I normally do to keeping up a technical training regime outside work. Also, lack of input and direction from my place of work has left me wondering what to even study? This is largely why I'm so concerned about the issue of training/CPD and the expectations surrounding it.

Before we get derailed discussing specific technologies I think it's important to say I only mentioned Microsoft as a reference to how things used to be and not an endorsement of their platform! We're far from a Microsoft shop these days and have to support the full gamut of Google, Apple and MS platforms and technologies. The issue to me isn't the changes in technology or the specific platforms we have to support. I'm perfectly happy learning new technologies but my concern is that within education there seems to exist this expectation that supporting any technology staff buy in or adopt is immediately our job and we shouldn't expect any incentive, support or time in school to do it. You know, perhaps I've been in education too long and I'm wrong to expect training for systems I have to support or any input into the direction of IT within education! It certainly isn't happening anyway so maybe I should take that as a hint of things to come....!

Before we get derailed discussing specific technologies I think it's important to say I only mentioned Microsoft as a reference to how things used to be and not an endorsement of their platform! We're far from a Microsoft shop these days and have to support the full gamut of Google, Apple and MS platforms and technologies. The issue to me isn't the changes in technology or the specific platforms we have to support. I'm perfectly happy learning new technologies but my concern is that within education there seems to exist this expectation that supporting any technology staff buy in or adopt is immediately our job and we shouldn't expect any incentive, support or time in school to do it. You know, perhaps I've been in education too long and I'm wrong to expect training for systems I have to support or any input into the direction of IT within education! It certainly isn't happening anyway so maybe I should take that as a hint of things to come....!

Fair point, but for myself and all of the people I've spoken to on here and elsewhere have commented the same thing in education so it's far from just my own personal experience. Contrast that to people I've discussed the same with in the NHS/Council/etc (or industry generally) and the responses regarding CPD/training were very different. What level of CPD is offered at your place of work for example (if you're comfortable discussing it)? Or if anyone else wants to chime in what kind of CPD/Training is offered by their school/LEA/etc?

Fair point, but for myself and all of the people I've spoken to on here and elsewhere have commented the same thing in education so it's far from just my own personal experience. Contrast that to people I've discussed the same with in the NHS/Council/etc (or industry generally) and the responses regarding CPD/training were very different. What level of CPD is offered at your place of work for example (if you're comfortable discussing it)? Or if anyone else wants to chime in what kind of CPD/Training is offered by their school/LEA/etc?

The fear I have for the future of educational IT support work isn't that we'll be out of a job. We can all see that there's an ever increasing dependence on IT systems in education (and all business sectors) so clearly that isn't an issue in the short term. The worry I have is what level of IT jobs will remain in educational IT. With an ever diversifying portfolio of kit to look after the role of technical support is even more of a jack-of-all-trades one than it was previously in the days when it was purely a Windows Server/client, AV and networking job. The problem seems to be one where non-teaching staff increasingly have no input over the direction of technology in education. Given the lack of training, support and development in schools the only outcome I can see in future is the more skilled/specialist IT work being outsourced. I don't know whether it's down to politics or budget limitations but there seems to be no will to offer any career progression for non-teaching staff in schools. It doesn't work this way in other public sector organisations so I'm not sure why education seems to be different?

Reviews are starting to come out.... I haven't received any updates for my pre-order but it's still stating Friday as the delivery date so fingers crossed