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CAM

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  1. CAM
    I am currently testing out Internet Explorer 9 64-bit on a copy of Windows 7 Home. Very smart looking, I like the Facebook web slice and the browser seems fast. Visiting YouTube however was less then enthralling as it starts demanding me to install Flash.
     
    But wait, doesn't IE9 support HTML5 meaning Flash isn't required for YouTube? Correct, but it takes an extra step to get it to work courtesy of YouTube putting obstacles in the way.
     
    To enable the YouTube HTML5 player in IE9 visit YouTube - HTML5 to visit the opt-in service for the new player. Read the text, click Opt-In at the bottom and refresh the page with the video nagging you about Flash. You will now get a video displayed in HTML5 (but it will still nag you about Flash).
     
    The video played perfectly fine and was of decent quality. I couldn't really see a need to install Flash Player. I'll update with more as I explore this new version of IE9.
     



  2. CAM

    Off to Reading!

    By CAM,


    Amusement
    Soon! I'll be heading off tomorrow, time to get packing I guess. Should get my gadgets charged just in-case, and find the charger for my netbook. Those universal ones are useless.
     
    Hmmm, DSi with Advance Wars will keep me occupied on the train. If my next blog post is from Wales you will know I missed my stop because of it.
     
    Geeky T-Shirt, got plenty. Which one to pick!
     
    Have I forgotten something? Oh yes, a pen and notepad so I actually remember what was said! See you guys there!
  3. CAM

    Bored kids III

    By CAM,

    Following on from the previous posts in this series, I am continuing to find weird things in the school library. The kids appear to be slowly building a menagerie of animals created from bits and bobs found round the school during after hours study, though I'm not sure what they made this out of.
     

     
    And what is with the words kraken along the top?
     
    Me and my library co-worker think it may be a cake decoration but we didn't want to take it out of the packaging, it looked too delicate!
  4. CAM

    CMD - What Is Wrong?

    By CAM,


    Amusement
    A little game for you. Exceptionally geeky folks may get this immediately (or even know already what this post will be about). What is wrong with this picture?
     

     
    I'll let you look at that for a minute. See anything?
     
    OK? Done.
     
     
    Note the command itself:

    dir "windows/logs"
     
    I had no idea until today that, if you include the full path in double quotes, Windows will happily accept the / symbol in place of the normal \ symbol for separating folder names. Go try it now, but wildcards won't work when the path is enclosed in double quotes so it isn't that useful, just a "geeky/nerdy" trick.
  5. CAM

    OK I Have To Admit Some Mistakes

    By CAM,


    SIMS
    And I made a biggy!
     
    This year we decided to set up SIMS Learning Gateway to comply with the 2010 Online Reporting requirements. These required us to provide a means of serving school reports to parents online for which Learning Gateway does perfectly. But as we roll into the close of the written reports cycle, there are lessons to learn.
     
    First off I overestimated how much Assessment Manager can cope with. Figuring staff were used to it for single grades, it is terrible when it comes to written reports. Much feedback was left by our Heads of Year during the written report cycles that checking them takes too long and double clicking to open them is tedious. It is clear users want to read the information on the page and edit it as they read, preferably with all of a student's reports visible at once.
     
    Next up was the importance of clear visual cues to tell staff what to do when filling in reports. To a technical person like myself and many users of EduGeek, CTRL+C and CTRL+V are taken for granted. We know how to use them, but give a member of staff a box missing the cut and paste buttons as seen in Assessment Manager and they may not know how to use it. The same with the multiple step saving process in Assessment Manager; Apply & Next then Save the marksheet, takes too long with too many clicks.
     
    Reviewing was also an issue, with staff finding it difficult to review a year group's reports.
     
    Lastly, home access is a must have as staff love to fill reports in at home (well, prefer may be the stronger word here ). If they can't for any reason, then you soon hear about it! Unfortunately our SLG server seems to hate Comment Aspects and runs slowly if too many are included. So never use too many of them on a marksheet being used in the web interface.
     
    We went down the Assessment Manager route due to a mixture of good knowledge of how to set up advanced templates and the Published Documents feature still in the works when we were making plans. This year I will be taking a very close look at Profiles and seeing how we can implement that in place of Assessment Manager for next year's written reports. Until then, anyone who wishes to try Assessment Manager for anything beyond a gradebook is advised to tread lightly and consider if Profiles training will save hassle in the long run.
  6. CAM

    Bored Kids II

    By CAM,


    Amusement
    Some may remember my previous post about what bored kids do with their time afterschool. Recently, the cousin to the confectionary based caterpillar turned up. I present to you, the Tiny Paper Snail.
     

     
    Only school kids can take something so simple and make you go awww.
  7. CAM

    Sandwiches

    By CAM,


    Work
    To my local newsagent, please correctly label your sandwiches. When I buy a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich I expect tuna and sweetcorn as a filling, not for half the tuna to be replaced with shredded cabbage. If the sandwich was labelled "Tuna and Cabbage with Occasional Flecks of Sweetcorn" I would have left it on the shelf.
     
    And thus, a rants category is born on the blog.
  8. CAM

    Cursed Tick Grids

    By CAM,


    Work
    A while ago, I recall Angry Technician discussing how he had a chronic case of "The Ear," an ability to walk past any machine, stop and instinctively know something is wrong and require fixing.
     
    I had such an episode today dealing with tick grids for the end of year process in SIMS. I believe they call it curriculum assignment but after a while, hours of ticking boxes against a list causes the brain to melt slightly and simplify the entire system down to "Tick Grids." And I had a feeling that said ticks would disappear on me all of a sudden so I saved. Nice, half a year group later I save again:
     
    "Unable to save data. The curriculum structure has changed since last load."
     
    Then the tick grids go blank. Me and the boss learned a hard lesson today, never do curriculum assignment and send the timetable to SQL at the same time.
  9. CAM

    Wait I Recognise Those Biscuits...

    By CAM,


    Amusement
    Nothing makes your mouth water quite like two large boxes of biscuits appearing on your desk. We are talking nearly 100 per box of various delicacies from jammy dodgers to shortbread. Tasty!
     
    But wait, these biscuits, I recognise that box. We had those for supervised study...a couple of...years...back...
     
    Librarian: "Oh those are for the bin. I found them in the store cupboard and they went off September 2008."
     
    Surprisingly, they still look like biscuits. Even more surprisingly, someone dared to eat one and described it as tasting "quite odd."
  10. CAM

    Newspapers; From Bad to Worse

    By CAM,


    Rants
    This blog post breaks from the site's tech theme. I know, it's a tech site and this is probably a tech-based blog system but it's also my only blog at the moment. It gets a little political, think of it as a personal post.
     
    As some are aware, I've been taking an interest in the surroundings of the Hackney fox attacks and particularly the diabolical news coverage of it. One particular paper has been it's usual shameful self and I find it pretty sad I have to see it's front page when I go to buy my sandwiches in the morning. Somehow they have stooped even lower and after a protracted campaign against the native British species are now going after the story's detractors.
     
    The start
    The situation began when a claim was made that a fox snuck through an open door in Hackney, London and "mauled" two infant twins in their beds. Newspapers reported the matter and you think that would be the end after radio reports (from XFM) described it as "the first incident of it's kind in over ten years" and a "one in a million occurence."
     
    However, not long after the incident the infamous Daily Mail newspaper ran a story about foxes being spotted in the local area. This was poor reporting in itself given foxes are common in London and it is effectively their natural habitat. The stories kept flowing with the incident being dragged out by the newspaper about the twins recovering but being permanently scarred and of more foxes being spotted, trapped and killed in the garden.
     
    The Decline
    Then the public need for greed took over, suddenly there were reports ranging from the petty to the downright absurd. Schools locking doors and windows and keeping pupils inside because a fox was spotted on the grounds, people being bitten on the foot by one, even reports appearing of a fox defecating inside a house was deemed newsworthy.
     
    Thanks to some of the most hyped up and horrific media coverage of a minor incident, the British Red Fox was turned from the timid and minor nuisance it is to something portrayed as "a werewolf running round and attacking everybody" as one friend put it. Suddenly, desperate for a bit of fame, people were pulling out stories of foxes being brave and popping their heads in windows and claiming to have been bitten. One story involved a child touching a sleeping fox's tail and a rather irate fox turning round and biting him. What else would happen if you surprise a wild animal and touch it?
     
    The Dangerous
    Now the fearmongering has taken a more absurd and dangerous turn. A recent article by the very same paper was published attacking the detractors of the story in a vicious manner. The paper had gone out of it's way to hunt down people posting offensive comments on the Internet aimed at the couple (people posting abuse on the Internet? Oh no!), claiming to have smashed their anonymity and casting their own slurs at the posters. The article linked above really is the most terrible and shocking example of journalism I have seen and more in keeping with a personal blog then a professional article in it's tone. The comments system has also been suspiciously docked, with posts supporting the couple rated obscenely high and ones criticising the article and the people involved given a very deep negative rating.
     
    The article also has a go at the job status of the people involved, including criticism of one Internet user who is in the traditional family role of housewife with working husband as an unemployed and lazy individual who is funded by taxpayers for her "vile activities." This is the point where the hyped up reporting on the Hackney attacks has hit rock bottom and become completely unacceptable. Surely the regulators need to step in and find out what is going on and why the story is being permitted to continue to run?
     
    The End?
    So I'll close the post with the following; I am a well educated professional in full-time work and I think the family are behaving in a disgusting manner by milking the story. Yes, I feel for the Koupparis family as injury to any child can be shocking for the parents, but enough is enough. It is encouraging some terrible events with the mindless slaughter of a native British species and absurd media coverage handled with the finesse of a blunt hammer. It is far from the public interest and frankly enough is enough.
  11. CAM
    Sometimes strange kit get's pulled up from the depths of the school and sent off to the school's technical team as "potentially useful." It's a common occurance and every technician with a blog has probably posted recollections of their old kit found in the dark corner of a classroom or server room.
     
    Today is no exception when I was handed some old kit that the PE Department had cleared out of their gym. Amongst them was a still camera with a likely usable lens and couple of camcorders. There was even a laptop running Windows ME that surprisingly still worked and ran pretty well (kept off the network of course!) though it thought it was 1980 on turning it on.
     
    However, the sheer size of one of the camcorders surprised even me with it's big, black plastic casing and an eyepiece that stuck out in a most eyepoking manner. It was old, had no charger and the battery pack had leaked white stuff all over the inside of the bag and back of the unit. But it's not until you see old kit like this that you realise how lucky we are today to have such small devices.
     
    I got some snaps of it and added them to this post. Enjoy!
  12. CAM

    Windows Numbers

    By CAM,


    Technical
    A few things I didn't realise about the Windows key in Windows 7:
     
    - The Windows key plus any number "clicks" on the corresponding icon pinned to the start menu, reading from left to right.
    - Use Windows key and space to hide all windows until you release the Windows key.
    - Windows key and = will zoom in with Magnifier by 100% per press of the key.
    - Windows key and Home did err, something. One moment it switched windows, the next minimised and restored one.
    - Windows key and Delete brought up a window saying Open Folder and an option to Recurse directories. I didn't go any further then that given it had no explanation what it did.
  13. CAM

    LGfL Site Changing

    By CAM,


    Technical
    London Grid for Learning has announced that it's site will be changing. On the 28th June, they will move to http://www.lgfl.info and a preview of the new site is available at http://portal2.lgfl.org.uk/
     
    The old site will remain up for now and be accessible, but no longer updated.
  14. CAM

    Digital Brain Closing

    By CAM,


    Work
    The former LGfL Portal of choice, Digitalbrain, will be closing it's doors at the end of July. Anyone still using the service will need to back-up their Digitalbrain content by the 31st July as anything could happen to it after that time. Namely websites ending up in the virtual limbo of Internet Time Machine sites and Google Cache but I wouldn't rely on those as a hosting solution.
  15. CAM
    The EduGeek conference in Chorley went very well this year, with suppliers and school technical staff alike descending on the Woodlands Conference centre for another day of talks, raffles and free coffee and curries. There was much on the agenda with software such as the EduGeek Logon Tracker to the mind-blowing Mobotix cameras and a glimpse to the future from Microsoft's teams of anthropologists predicting what IT will be like in 2019.
     
    Please note that, while links to companies and suppliers are mentioned in this post, I am not affiliated with any of them. And apologies if you are forgotten about, jumping from MCM Expo to the other side of the country for the conference with only one night in-between scatters your brain a bit.
     
    Conference talks included:
     
    Bunnyfoot attended asking attendees to contact them regarding any useful resources they find to study what school staff find useful when looking for help. Contact them at Eyetracking, usability testing, user centred design - from Bunnyfoot UK if you do find anything you feel useful.
     
    Will Townsend, formerly Special Agent but now running his own company Education Support Professionals, gave a talk on career development in the education sector for IT workers and how outsourcing companies look like a strong position. I'd go into more details but I was fixing my netbook at the time. Will can be contacted at his company site at Education Support Professionals
     
    EduGeek Logon Tracker was discussed and provides an updated version compatible with the Windows 7 era of networking.
     
    Capita came for a discussion on SIMS and the future they plan on taking. It looks liek they are taking the stance towards cloud software and the competition between VLE and MIS software. There was even screenshots of past SIMS user interfaces including the a scrapped project where the program was running in Internet Explorer 6! A fascinating look into where a widely used piece of school software could have been many years ago.
     
    Smoothwall came to talk about their recent releases plus recent security trends. Gambling, Hate, Gore and Fake Antivirus threats have increased over the past year with pornography remaining at a steady level. Plans for Java-based games filters also came up with a Flash filter already in operation plus improved malware detection. Games sites have also been proving a steadily growing pain over the past year. Check them out at SmoothWall | Web Content Filtering and Network Security
     
    FITS stopped by to showcase their plans for providing a framework for IT support in schools and helping to support workers in the education sector following the collapse of Becta. A number of training courses were mentioned in communications and management skills required to run a network (and as a school tech, a lot of different skills are used!) More information can be obtained from The FITS Foundation - Professional qualifications and support for ICT staff within education
     
    Mobotix came by with some frankly jaw-dropping technology in the form of their IP CCTV cameras. I’ll be honest, looking at the graffiti on the train home, I was wondering how many were caught by one of these cameras. Demos were given of how a single fish-eye camera could zoom in on the face of a vandal on a bus no matter where he is. Same for class-rooms, on seeing the demo I thought that many cameras were used. It was surprising to see just one. Find them at MOBOTIX AG - The HiRes Video Company / IP Video Cameras
     
    By and far my favourite talk was by Microsoft and their vision of the future. Some seemed a bit far fetched, with walls plastered with transparent displays and devices instantly capturing data with a flick of a hand. But with Project Natal coming and Lucid Touch providing touch screens without actually touching the screen (you touch behind it), maybe the frankly crazy ideas from Microsoft are closer then we think. Check out the video below to see what was shown by the Microsoft representative and tell me, what important device in most computers is deliberately missing?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO7ICgqV7dM
     
    Lastly Ruckus came along for their talk on wireless technology but I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my favourite of the lot. After all, why would I need a 50km wireless signal that can serve 3000 people per 15 access points or something? The ideas of load balancing were good but it didn’t feel as relevant to education as the other talks apart from the few bits on the Access Points in a conference room. Sorry guys, though larger educational institutions such as universities may find it useful, unless your LA plans to make a borough-wide Wireless Network.
     
    Back to recovering from the large amount of food and drink consumed at Prego using my swag from MCM Expo. DVDs that play the movie on the surface, now there is a futuristic idea.
  16. CAM

    The Answer Is 1

    By CAM,


    Rants
    Back in the days of limited memory and general user-unfriendliness, cryptic error messsages were common place and understandable only by the computing elite. As time moved on, error messages became friendlier and geared towards the user by hiding the cryptic error codes and debug information. Microsoft even announced this as a key design concept of Windows 7 compared to earlier versions.
     
    However, some software manufacturers have other ideas, especially with SIMS (connection error spouting more verbal diahorrea then useful text) and Fronter (Unknown error occurring when uploading a SCORM Course that Pearson themselves provided on a CD).
     
    Feel free to comment with your own examples.
  17. CAM

    It's a Tornado of Sticky

    By CAM,


    Amusement
    Year 13 chose today as their "muck-up day" as the pupils call it. Hence the current sights of Post-It notes declaring how we are going to miss them (amongst other messages) scattered accross the whole school. I'm not kidding either, every wall in every corridor and room accessible to the pupils are scattered with Post-It notes. It's like a tornado of sticky bits of paper whisked through the school over Period 1 and as fast as they come down, the walls are covered again.
     
    It's pretty hilarious to watch to be honest. I'd rather they let off end-of-year steam with a non-destructive act like this then what happens in some schools. I still recall the Police being called when I left school after a few "nitwits," as a polite term, vandalised the school toilets. Thankfully I never see that here.
     
    I guess other schools have the same things to look forwards to over the coming week as exam season kicks into full swing and study leave begins. Now to wonder how the caretakers will remove the Post-It notes covering the school's sign by the front gate...
  18. CAM
    I spotted a little quirk today in Assessment Manager that anyone using it for reporting should be aware of. Over time, staff members will change and the Marksheets that have been assigned will slowly become out of date. In our case, a baby boom amongst the staff population led to a large number of maternity cover teachers being employed and thus assigned to the now teacherless classes.
     
    This lead to the Marksheets that were assigned at the start of term to be out of date and still bound to the absent staff members account and not the one for the new staff member. This means it is important to know who is and isn't on leave.
     
    Luckily Assessment Manager made it relatively easy to update the sheets. Section 3 of the Template screen lets the Assessment Co-Ordinator delete all the marksheets for a subject and re-assign them. This refreshes the list (though a Refresh button would have been preferable). Repeat for all the marksheets in your collection. You don't even have to know who is covering the staff member as whoever is responsible for keeping that information up-to-date will have handled that already. SIMS will assign the new staff member when you re-assign the marksheets.
     
    Unfortunately if you have a lot of marksheets this could be a time consuming process in which case it is time to settle down with a cup of coffee and update every sheet one-by-one. If there is a faster way to do this (like some magical auto-update wand to change every sheet in Assessment Manager to the new owner) please post below with your ideas.
  19. CAM

    An Accurate Job Description

    By CAM,


    Work
    When I went to attempt registration of Visual Studio Express 2010, Microsoft had the forethought to ensure everyone was included in the list of roles in the company. Even "that guy in every company who knows computer-based stuff and does it when he probably shouldn't be" is included.
  20. CAM

    Double Update Whammy

    By CAM,


    Work
    Today looked set to be another normal day, camped at my desk with a cup of coffee and tinkering with the homebrew system to set up school reports. As it stands, my heart sank when I fired up SIMS and an update appeared (also interfering with my project monitoring the SIMS server through MMC). At the same time, the webmail system was upgraded by external providers to a new one. We knew it was going to happen but not when. Today just got interesting.
     
    Fortunately training the Admin staff in both the webmail and the new Class Lists feature (formerly in Nova-T4) went pretty well for an ad-hoc session. I now need to sit down and work out who needs more support and how to deliver it while quickly learning the system myself and reporting/squishing bugs on the way. Days like this I wish I used a helpdesk, but Sunbird will need to stand-in instead. But a different day is a good day.
  21. CAM

    Eyfajallawatavadavaak

    By CAM,


    Work
    Unless you have been under a rock over the weekend, you will have heard of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano blowing it's top. Ironically, World Earth Day is this Thursday giving Geography or Library departments a perfect chance to run displays based on current events. What ideas could you use?
     

    Teach pupils to say the name correctly
    Explain how to spot the ash by looking for the sky going from blue to grey as you look towards the horizon
    Explain how volcanoes work and the effects
    What economic effects have occured beyond the transport industry?
    Videos on the BBC site of news teams driving through the ash cloud to meet people still living in it's fallout

     
    Those are a few ideas for a poster display or content to go on the front page of your VLE on Thursdays. Add in the Katla volcano if you want to hook the kids on a bit of potential apocalypse, particularly if you mention Yellowstone Park.
  22. CAM

    Alpine Computing

    By CAM,


    Amusement
    One of my jobs each week is to assemble the school's display that is shown above reception. This typically involves a slideshow of images, which this week was provided by staff who were on a ski trip.
     
    While looking at one image something stood out. That familiar stall where something isn't right or unusual on the screen and prevents me from moving on until I twig what it is. Students, check. Restaurant, OK that's normal so check. Appears to be at the top of the slopes, nice view in the background! Check.
     
    Isn't that one of the school netbooks on the table?
  23. CAM

    In Soviet Library...

    By CAM,


    Amusement
    ...you stick pins in marshmellow caterpillars. Wait I don't think I got the little Internet meme correct there.
     
    Some may recall my previous blog entry of why the education secotor is so enjoyable. The discovery of this little chap when cleaning up after the afterschool crowd further reinforces this. How random but cute!
  24. CAM

    Extreme Webserver Hosting

    By CAM,


    Technical
    Recently, I was asked by the Headteacher to look into using a centralised system for the internal school display. I settled on Xibo, a system I could set up for little or no cost to the school. Unfortunately I lacked a machine to test it on.
     
    The end result is a working Xibo install running on a Ubuntu-based Apache webserver. This proof-of-concept test server is installed on my...memory stick?
     
    No fast hard disk, no large space to store files, just an 8Gb memory stick plugged into a random office PC streaming a low bandwidth test display.
     
    It isn't much but it's a start. And a fun little experiment too.
  25. CAM
    First of all a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone on Edugeek. A new year has begun and schools are enjoying their first day back to work, but 2010 looks set to start as 2009 ended.
     
    Already there has been a lot of closures accross the country due to snow. More looks set to arrive tonight (if it hasn't already) and that means more risk of school closure. It is best to test your notification systems now rather then later, bearing in mind how much strain your school websites will be under.
     
    A perfect example was the end of last term, where heavy snow closed many schools again. LGfL has been promoting their OpenCheck system that unfortunately went down at 7.00am, about the time kids are screaming out the window at the snow while their beleagured parents are frantically checking the news and school websites.
     
    So plan now and ensure you have a backup plan. Inform students to check the school website before they travel in addition to systems like OpenCheck. The message should also be small and use a low bandwidth page, possibly replacing the front page of your site with a simple line of text explaining closure. Otherwise you might find your website overloaded with traffic and confused parents and staff alike.
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