Voodoo

Has anyone had any experience of using the Learning on Screen service (https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/bob/) as an alternative to Clickview?

Hello All, Anyone out there using PythonAnywhere as an online development environment for programming? Up till now, we have been using VirtualBox as an internal environment for pupils, and Replit as an external one until it's recent demise for schools. So we're looking for a new ODE for Python programming, and wanted to garner opinions of PythonAnywhere. Would appreciate any thoughts.

Just a quick note to say we received the following update from Google, saying the underlying problem has now been fixed. We removed the temporary workaround from our xml file, and their permanent fix seems to work ok. From Google... "The issue with maxResults for Admin SDK has been resolved for all affected users as of Friday, 2019-08-09 13:00 US/Pacific."

Yup, while waiting for Google support for the same problem, we tried that "maxResults" setting. This worked for us too.

So, I think we still haven't established if "competitors boards" licences are still required. In other words, if we want to install Classflow Desktop software on a computer with a Smartboard attached, do I have to pay a "competitors" licence for that machine? OR, is this what the regular activation between Classflow Desktop and an ActivPanel is all about? If there's no Promethean device attached, the Classflow Desktop software won't work and therefore no possibility of using it with a competitors board; thus the competitors licence requirement is now moot?

We are having a similar problem here. We are using GAfE. A couple of users have reported that if they have a profile on our network and they try to log in at home, Chrome crashes on them, and vice versa. Allegedly, removing their Chrome profile locally appears to allow them to log in at home. Or if they don't log into Chrome at one location, they don't have a problem at the other location. We only have a couple of reports of this Chrome "roaming" profiles issue (so far) but we don't really know what to do about it at this time.

Yeah we have GAFE and get that a lot too. In our case it usually just meant our pupil had logged onto a machine that is in a different location from their usual one. For example they've logged in at home rather than at school. It soon dried up. Our kids are all on new iPads.

We used to have a network in the early 2000's that was pretty much open and unrestricted. Everyone (staff and pupils) was told and expected to behave responsibly and professionally. It didn't work and led to a culture of misuse. Restrictions eventually had to be introduced, and although we used Becta and accepted good business practice as a guide, we are now seen as being oppressive...despite the fact that the misuse was brought under control, and we don't have anything particularly draconian in place. We are now being pushed from all angles to return to the "free for all" days. Having seen both sides of the coin, I would say that most of the points being made above are falsehoods, and I the use of our computer systems to degenerate back to the "culture of misuse" days. How can Senior Management and organisations achieve the most basic of IT Compliancy if they don't have good control over what's going on their network or on the internet? I think they need tools like filtering to help them achieve that...or some extraordinary policing method that I think we'd all be keen to hear of...I'm definitely all ears for that!

We seem to be having similar problem. Only just started looking into it, but if anyone else has thoughts/experience of it, would be obliged for any info. EDIT: Seems to be quite an interesting thread about it here, with two different approaches being taken to try and solve it by different folks. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-AU/winservergen/thread/f5855b60-f29c-4c90-b364-e364589e5267

Couldn't agree more with Flyinghaggis there. We're going to have to seriously consider an alternative to the Raisers Edge product if Blackbaud don't come out with an Office 2010 compatible version soon. Our entire site has been Office 2010 since last summer but we can't move our development office forward and they're still stuck on Office XP. (Although we have their MIS product, I have nothing constructive I can say about WCBS and PASS.)

I would add my support for Axel terminals. We don't have a huge number on the go, but we'd originally looked at several different terminals, including Wyse, and decided the Axel M80 was a great little box. Easy to set up, small size, good performance, and inexpensive at around the £150 mark. Also came supplied with a standard mounting bracket to attach it to the back of an LCD monitor. Axel themselves provided us with good support too.

Thanks for your replies, everyone. @ Mike (maniac) - do you judge your situation to have been a success and are planning to continue/expand that strategy in the future? If I'm summarising properly the comments made so far, I'm seeing the main reasons given for adopting a laptop solution as being: 1. Lack of hard-wired wired facilities. 2. Increase the local availability of computers, allowing them to be integrated into more lessons as standard practice. Our own Junior SMT gave me the following reasons for why they want to implement wireless laptops: a) Other schools are doing it. b) It's the way forward with IT. c) It will allow computers to be integrated into lessons without disrupting the lesson flow. On point a), Whilst it's true that some schools are of course doing this, it's not really an argument in support of the proposal. On point b), SMT couldn't expand on that...I think it was more of a comment from the "Populist IT" school of thought than anything else. On point c), this seemed to be the most tangible reason given. However, based on a practical evaluation of wireless laptops we carried out a couple of years back in our Senior school, we found (technical issues aside) that one of the problems was the time lost to set up and take down. This came to around 5 minutes at the start and again at the end of a class. In a Junior classroom where the teacher will probably have to do all the set up and take down by themselves for each of the kids I can see this taking even longer. I'm sceptical therefore that losing an anticipated 10 - 20 minutes per lesson will be less disruptive to lesson flow than walking the kids along to a wired computer suite. It's not really making it a winning business case for me at this juncture. So, given that we have an extensive wired network here with a number of permanent IT Suites (with reasonably good availability) I'm still struggling with the rationale of going down the laptop cabinet path. But thanks for giving analyses of your own decision making processes. That's very useful, cheers.

My question is, to ask what reasons your school may have had for adopting a laptop cabinet solution for whole-class use? We have a number of threads discussing the best cabinets and the many technical issues surrounding laptop use. But I would like to focus on what the business reasons were behind your school deciding to go for the laptop cabinet solution? (All information gratefully received since we, despite having an extensive wired network and readily available computer suites, are being pressed to introduce laptops and wheeled cabs throughout our primary school.)

Although we already have anti-virus and anti-spam products running on our gateway systems we wondered whether there were any benefits in running the MS hosted Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange. It's available to us as part of our Enterprise CAL's so it's not a cost-driven decision (but presumably a bit of reconfiguring of our Exchange/gateway). Just wondering whether anyone has experience of the product and your thoughts...good/bad/hassle/etc?

To go back just a bit to the original post...since we're in a similar situation...have a need for a video camera that takes MiniDV tape (HD not specifically reqd though). Looking for something in the £200 - £300 range. Previously used Canon MV's but having trouble finding anything now. Tape still has it's uses here...PE dept do very little post processing...they like to film the event then put the tape into storage for use the following year. Tape's quite handy when no editing needed. They also have stock of recordings that they don't want to lose (but don't have time or desire to convert). Would be grateful if anyone could suggest good current supplier for MiniDV cameras?

Just to add that we have also decided to diversify our desktop a bit, and are adopting Axel terminals in some roles (with TS 2008 backend). Only a small number (5) to start with, initially to replace PC's in Admin and Management locations. We spent some time testing out a couple of different models with the help of Axel and were very impressed with the M80F model...ideal for the role and scored highly on all counts (price, performance, ease of management, TCO). On top of that Axel themselves provided us with exceptional support at our evaluation stage when we were having some local technical problems. So if these first 5 shape up as we expect, I hope to see a lot more of them on site in the future.

Don't rule out the option of the HAWM (Height Adjustable Wall Mount) if your walls can take the weight and you've got around £400 extra to spend on the board. It solves the problem in our book, and means you just don't don't need that famous safety hazard - the step!

Any schools in Scotland using Bromcom? If so does it have modules to tie in with SQA requirements? And how are you finding it, of course?

Sorry, folks, just giving this one a little bump...wondering if we are the only people experiencing this problem with Smart Notebook? Any and all info appreciated if anyone has hit this before. Cheers.

We have a recurrent problem with Smart Notebook (version 10). It works fine for a while and then eventually it seems to lose its ink awareness. Basically, instead of the Notebook application recognising when you've picked up a pen in order to write in the Notebook app, it switches instead to overlay mode. Literally the app has become ink un-aware. And once its gone, it doesn't come back. We asked for assistance via the Smart website but have had no response. We can't find any setting to re-enable the ink-awareness in the app. So far, the only way we have been able to cure the problem is to re-install Notebook (which is of course not a practical solution). Anyone experiencing same/had any response from Smart Support/got a fix?

Whilst both companies offer ever-expanding functionality in their dedicated software for their boards, we strongly encourage our teachers to concentrate on developing resources using board-independent software. That helps reduce the decision making process down quite a bit to what is the easiest to use hardware. And if you have a mixed bag of boards, like we have, it's a plus.

Yeah, I was just wondering because Steve from Steljes had mentioned this "Smart Hub" above.

We are very happy with the 680i2 model and are now adopting these throughout. But there was one feature we liked about the old model that the new one didn't have and that was the ability to switch on the integrated board and projector without needing the computer, allowing you to quickly use the board for simple presentations or writing. We have many visiting lecturers doing S6 courses at our school and they don't have computer accounts so this feature would have been very useful on the 680i2. Is that going to be, or is it already, one of the features now available for 680i2's?

Yeah, the top one is the new model and the bottom one is the old model (now end-of-line I believe). My own staff have seen both models and say the new 680i version looks better. We have just put in 5 Smartboards, in 3 different types of configuration. The Smart Speaker sound arrangements are great and lots less cabling required compared to Promethean. Don't know if any of our teachers are using the remotes, because the hardware panel mounted beside the board is so simple to use to switch between computer and DVD/VHS/whatever device. One button to press and a single volume control on the speakers makes it all so much simpler all round. :)

And as the moon has now circled our fair planet once since we last visited this thread, dare I ask...did anyone ever receive their sticks?