tim.dalton

Sorry for the delay, had to actually do some work... Do you mean when you take them out of the site roles section it works as it should? If that's the case that's what I would expect. As mentioned in the post above, assign your students to courses using the assign roles part of each course. Ta, Tim

Hi Andy, It is really easy to use, I would just sit down and have a play with a couple of test users. Having it installed on a machine that's setup with the same software as your clients helps for some things, but you can control just about everything running it on the server. If you are only down in Dorset I'm sure I or one of the other guys here would consider a day trip if you find you can't get the hang of it. Tim

Have a look at at 'assign system roles'. It's in the main admin section, under users, permissions. I think if you have users set as a certain role over the whole system (student for example), then they will be automatically enrolled into every course that isn't set up as not-enrollable on the whole site. Tim

Seen similar problems here, never really got it to work from workgroup manager. Setting the options on the local machine does seem more successful though. Tim

We're just getting into this now, going to be using Joomla I think. We're not going to be offering public blogs to all, but certain staff/students/groups that we think would have something useful to tell the World. We're also playing with Mahara, I expect we'll end up with blogs for all through that or Wordpress (with restricted access) with just the higher profile stuff on the main Joomla site. Tim

Strange one, just had a look at my machine and couldn't even find the file... This thread seems to suggest it is a server side permissions issue. I would try creating a new user on the server & see if the same problem occurs. If not, recreate her user and all should be ok (being careful not to destroy all her documents...) Ta, Tim

Not 100% sure but I think simple finder may only take away the menu item, not the ability to connect to servers. Try using the keyboard shortcut to do the same thing (cmd-k) to see if it still works. If it does you could then just drop a shortcut to the server onto the desktop. There's probably a way to poke at the user interface in simple finder to enable the Go menu, but it would be a bit of a hack. I'd suggest the way forward is to get playing with workgroup manager & lock down your computers/accounts that way, simple finder is incredibly restricting, Let me know if you need anything else, Tim

There seems to be quite a lot of interest in Wales. Nothing really concrete to tell you but I did a thing for the SSAT iNet project a while ago in Cardiff, lots of Moodle schools there. Link for them here, you might be able to find a contact there. Tim

I guess my role kind of covers overseeing VLE as a whole, but the job tends to be split across various people. What should appear on course pages is decided by SLT & our IT group, responsibility for making sure this is there is with the heads of department. We then have a few different teaching staff with responsibilities that are in someway linked to use of the VLE. Examples I can think of now- new technologies, student voice, AfL. All these make use of the site in different ways & these people often provide a lead to others. Guess the most important part here is that responsibility for the day-to-day use is with the teaching staff, direction/future vision/etc is covered by the leadership team & our long-term planning. Cheers, Tim

Basically- everything that has been said already... The point about login times is big- the difference between how a school network and an office is used is quite significant. In addition to the short periods (which mean quick fixes to problems are needed to not destroy an entire lesson) it's also about how it's used. With us, relatively no activity during lesson but hammered at the start and finish with log in/out. Means the network needs to be built to stand up to these times. At the moment talking about failover seems popular too. If one box dies having another take over automatically. Definitely achievable when you're looking at virtualisation. Backups, & a quick and easy way to recover data... Teaching and Learning is a very good phrase... Maybe think about open access- students & staff bringing devices in & just being able to work without a huge amount of time spent getting permission from IT. Would be interesting to have a bit of knowledge of the current setup where you're interviewing for this kind of thing. Having an idea of the current problems is a very good way to become popular. The efficiency question is also about staffing. How would you deal with/monitor ICT issues? Quick responses, useful feedback to staff, etc, etc. Think about future developments too- what students experience in school should be as close as possible a replication to systems they would experience outside when they get to the 'real world'. Tim

Not 100% sure why this is happening, but I have another way round it. What I would do is install Workgroup Manager on one of the iMacs that has all the applications you want to add (just copy/paste it from the XServe). Open it, connect to the XServe there, add the applications. That has certainly worked for us with no problems. Wonder if they're showing up as ?'s because it's looking for the application in a slightly strange place (as you added it from a share on the XServe). Tim

Currently looking after 7 primaries. They vary a bit in the time we spend there from 1 day/week to half day/fortnight. Also just started looking at doing call-out type contracts for a couple of the local secondaries. With the current staffing I don't think we'd extend much more than this as it seems to have that member doing Wildern work about half the time, primary work the rest. If push this ratio any further the other way it doesn't seem like we'd be benefiting our own school as much as we should be. Tim

Performance management at our place is a fairly open thing- we don't measure against set criteria for all members for example. At the start of the year each member sits down with relevant department head and they come up with 4/5 targets for the year. These can be things related to a specific project they are taking on, keeping some service/equipment up and running, installing some new service that's in our development plan, etc. We also tend to set some kind of target for learning a new skill as well. The key with all the targets is they have to be measurable in some way. For example, this year we have staff with targets related to keeping the Moodles up to date, one about putting new printing network in place, some have research projects, one wanted to learn CSS, etc, etc. We look at progress halfway through the year, & then at the end look at whether they have been met. Current system for rewarding is staff who meet their targets move up a grade on the pay scale, staff that exceed go up two, staff that don't meet them stay where they are. This is (just about...) the only way to improve your pay so people tend to be very motivated. I think the key for us is the targets are decided on by the employee themselves. With the line manager in we can obviously direct towards areas that we are looking at, but they are always agreed. It is also discussed at that point how they will be measured, and it's down to the employee to come up with that evidence where required. Cheers, Tim

We got into this by going to the primaries and asking if they needed any help at about the time we were thinking about extending the team. This was early days when it was still a small group. Found out the primaries could use somebody for about half a week (& pay the wages for half through the SLAs), the other half he could be in school. Was quite a good way to put forward the need for an extra staff member as allocating the cost of wages was made far easier. Tim

I got a freebie swiss army job from an event I went to a couple of weeks ago. Won't ever use it so you're welcome- let me know where & I'll get it mailed up to you when I get a chance. Tim

Makes sense, and is a very smart idea... I think the tricky bit would be adding files to the H:/ share & then getting them to display on the main moodle course page. Certainly getting them to appear in the Files... should be easy, actually changing course appearance this way would require something a bit clever. Tim

For us, the major things we have felt are missing are- 1) ePortfolio. Mahara has gone most of the way to sorting this out though, and integrates nicely. 2) Video collaboration/etc. We're currently looking at DimDim here, again works with Moodle well. 3) School management things. This is an interesting one. Integration with SIMs, doing reports, marks, etc. We thought for a long time about whether these would be Moodle modules we could create, but felt that they weren't really things a VLE should do. Our current thinking is that these sort of functions live inside our Joomla web site, the Moodle links off from there for all the classroom type things. Other than that we're pretty happy. I would second the mention earlier in the thread about online editing of documents. Combining that with web access to home directories would be very cool. Tim

Pretty sure it does, although with an update and a couple of Mac specific patches. Good article on the subject on Bombich.com about this- Bombich.com: Remote Backup of Mac OS X Using rsync Ta, Tim

We use rsync a fair bit with no problems at all. Think the problem is with the app rather than the command. I've used Rsync X a couple of times recently & it does seem to be a little buggy- some of the options just don't work on 10.5. I played around a bit- took out a few things & came up with a script that worked for a simple manual home directory backup for some staff laptops. I'm certainly not good enough with rsync to be able to come up with the command you need confidently, but work with a guy who is. If you send me a private message or similar I'll pass on the contact. Cheers, Tim

Just had a quick look, thought I had this or something like it. Couple of things that are in the right area- BECTA deadlines for real-time reporting Learning Platform Technical Specifications BECTA Learning Platform deadlines The government e-strategy document mentioned in the last link is probably one to look at as well. Ta, Tim

Thought I might be able to add something useful to this. We have an IT/media department of 13 at the moment with no problem giving them enough to do. 1800ish kids, 600ish machines. We do a couple of things that have already been mentioned here, but thought I'd point out the bits that work for us. - Give people specific tasks. Within the team we have people that are specifically graphics/video for example. - Make the most of helpdesk software, very good way to keep an eye on what is happening and how long it's taking. - Get your performance management working well and linked into salary. Our staff have specific things to achieve in the year linked to this, often they are research type projects that we want to try out. We really push the new ideas, and encourage/fund the guys to come up with good things. - Meet regularly to discuss projects/deadlines/etc. Each of our smaller groups within the 13 meet once a month, projects that are taking place are talked about, everybody knows what is going on and when. Maybe think about doing more than supporting the network. Lots of creative things your ICT people could be doing- our technicians run regular activities with groups of staff & students in addition to the normal day to day stuff. The other point that might be worth thinking about is about supporting others. If you are in a situation where you feel you have more people than you need to run your school think about others around you. One of the main reasons our team is so large is a number of the group spend a lot of the week working in other schools. Feeder primaries are an obvious place to start, always need help & an SLA for regular support would work well. Hope this is useful, welcome to come have a chat if you think it would be interesting. Cheers, Tim

You should be able to remove the computer from the list in Workgroup Manager and that'll do it. Can't get access to ours from here but could have a look in the morning if you're still stuck. I thought that finding a duplicate computer didn't stop you from joining though, that message was just a warning. Ta, Tim

Assistant Web Applications Developer (37 hours per week, 52 weeks per year) Wildern School are seeking a highly motivated person to join our development team. The core of your role will be working with the team to research and create new software tools. Our long-term goal is to make all aspects of teaching and school management available online and all of the projects you will be involved with are linked to this aim. A good knowledge of PHP, MySQL, unix scripting, and LDAP are useful qualities, but more important is a willingness to learn. The team are involved in creating software for use in UK schools, so the ideal candidate must be confident experimenting with new technologies for this purpose. A positive attitude and good communication skills are important, but self-reliance and motivation are vital as you will often be required to problem solve independently. Salary £17,634 plus 24 days holiday. Applications should be on Hampshire County Council forms, individual CV’s will not be accepted. Application forms can be downloaded from our website http://www.wildern.co.uk where you can also find further details of the above vacancy. Wildern School is committed to safeguarding children. Closing Date: Tuesday 4th November 2008