RobW

Hi peeps! First real post on here so be gentle with me!! Looking for a bit of advice to clarify things in my/our head(s). At present all of our services are provided through the council in the form of a contract that runs out next year end Q1. The prices for renewal are a tad on the high side to say the least, which has sent us down the road of looking at alternatives. The stage we are at is that we have suitable quotes for ISP link provision but are now seriously looking at Office 365 to essentially provide email for the school (plus we get the other goodies of Lync, Team Sites etc.) Microsoft have put us in touch with one of their partners and they have set us up with a trial which has impressed us so...... 1) What do we need to do to get the domain verified so that we get educational pricing then eventually swung over to 365? We have mentioned it to the contact in the council and we are getting some hmms and aaghs at the mo. We will also need it redirecting/moved at some stage - which? 2) Can the email accounts and data be copied into 365 from the councils exchange set up? If so how? 2) We are looking to move the website to another host as it currently built in Joomla and we don't want to have to do too much whilst the rest of things are kicking off. Would we have to move the domain to 365 then redirect web traffic to the external host or get web traffic moved directly to the new host? Sorry if some of this is a bit basic to some but we need pointing in the right direction.. Thanks, Rob

Academic evidence would say that wouldn't it? Kids are taught completely differently nowadays - they pass more exams (albeit containing lots of coursework) but, in my opinion, know less. It's a case of pass the exam/module then forget it. It may be perception but the general opinion is that standards have gone down especially in the corporate world that wants a competent and able workforce. As an aside I know somebody who recently went on an educational visit to Japan and they use virtually no IT in teaching, just "chalk, talk & discuss" - that holds them back doesn't it??

Managed services are viable when they can use economies of scale .i.e they provide infrastructure & common software that is used by a company (Microsoft as has been quoted as an example). The trouble with schools is most use a hotchpotch of software and have different network designs so to support these would be very expensive as they all are, effectively, bespoke. Unless you can group schools together to use common infrastructure, common software etc. ( & will need initial investment) then the economies of scale cannot be achieve, which is where BSF came in......

Read somewhere that any schemes that have not reached Finacial Close will be in jeopardy and will not be guaranteed...only time will tell! Link to BSF progress so far which shows which have Financial Close and which have not: Partnerships for Schools:

Hi Kevin & Siuko, I'm at Murray Park and have been told the meeting will probably be at Derby College. Don't think we will told too much just an outline of the process. The real information will probably come once a contact has been signed - Oct 2010?. Did you get the briefing letter - this contains a few snippets of info? Hope that helps