JF10

Hello What does everyone do relating to PAT testing student-owned laptops as part of a 1:1 scheme? These are owned by the student, but we manage the devices and the scheme. All students own the same Lenovo Thinkpad. Our normal PAT testing is during the holidays when obviously the students are not around. What does everyone else do or recommend with regard to the law or advise?

Hello Does any one have experience with Lenovo laptops with their "insurance" policy for Accidental Protection? Previously we have used 3rd parties to cover all aspects of warranty and insurance but this time we are looking at reducing costs and simplifying the process by having the cover direct with Lenovo. Thanks in advance.

Yeh, do a Minecraft project. Instantly engaging and kids already have a good knowledge of it. We are discussing it here. PM for any ideas or questions. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/165184-minecraft-help-needed-i-know-nothing.html

No. We have 10 school owned accounts and obviously kids who already have their own account can join. We say 20 users per club. That can be a combination of 6 school-owned accounts and 14 personal ones. Or 20 personal accounts. EDIT: I see what you're saying. Yes every student needs to have a log in for Minecraft, be it an account that we have bought and logged in for them or one that their parents have bought. For the school accounts, never reveal the password for the Minecraft account to them. You open the launcher on their computer, type in the details and log in. It will always remember the username and password so you won't need to log in everytime for them. We have been doing this club for about 4 years and it has worked perfectly for us. We have a 1:1 laptop scheme. For the 4 months that we run the club. Those 10 kids who get the school owned accounts can use Minecraft when they get home. When their 4 months of the club is expired, we just change the password so that they can no longer log in.

Don't know why it has duplicated, but please see the post below

I run a Minecraft club. I use an iMac for my day-to-day workings and just open the server command for the lunch time duration of the club. For the Mac you just download the Minecraft Server .JAR file from minecraft.net and then create the equivelent to a Command file that I just double click to enable the server. When it is done, I stop the server command. Our club is only accessible to our internal LAN. I imagine by default your firewall will prevent Minecraft ports from getting in or out to the internet so you will only be accessible to your LAN too. You can whitelist certain users, blacklist certain users or just have a free for all. Once you have the server running, open the Minecraft client on the kids machine, Multiplayer, Add Server, Server Name = Type anything. IP = Your servers IP. In my case 192.168.21.183. PM if you need help. As I say, I only have experience with running Server from OS X and running Minecraft from kids Windows laptops. EDIT Some more info about our set up: We have 10 school owned accounts and obviously kids who already have their own account can join. We say 20 users per club. That can be a combination of 6 school-owned accounts and 14 personal ones. Or 20 personal accounts. Every student that plays needs to have a log in for the paid version of Minecraft, be it an account that we have bought and logged in for them or one that their parents have bought. For the school accounts, never reveal the password for the Minecraft account to them. You open the launcher on their computer, type in the details and log in. It will always remember the username and password so you won't need to log in everytime for them. We have been doing this club for about 4 years and it has worked perfectly for us. We have a 1:1 laptop scheme. For the 4 months that we run the club. Those 10 kids who get the school owned accounts can use Minecraft when they get home. When their 4 months of the club is expired, we just change the password so that they can no longer log in. By default, IIRC, the Minecraft Server runs off 1GB RAM by default. I have 12Gb for my iMac so I have given it 2GB or 3GB for the server. Make sure you run it on a Cat5 network cable and not over wireless. I imagine most Windows laptops built within the last 5 years would handle just a pure Minecraft Server and nothing else. Top it up with some extra RAM or a SSD and you will definitely be fine.

Hi, we are independent. Thanks a lot for finding this UPDATE - We have been given some stock code from Capita for us to place on our school website. Parent fills in the form on our school website, an XML is generated our end and we can then upload the XML in to SIMS R&A. We are currently at the stage of submitting the code to our website creator. Thank you for everyone that helped.

Hello all We are looking to speed up the admissions process and make it more efficient. We currently use SIMS and an admin lady to manually enter the data from hand written forms for new parents/students. Is anyone aware of any SIMS or 3rd party SIMS plugin that would allow us to to automate this process? Will consider all possibilities as long as it is compatible with SIMS and it can be relied upon. Thank you

Hi Building first Windows 8.1 Pro image for new laptops. Would be happier doing Windows 7 image. Unfortunately the touch screen driver is not available on Windows 7, so even though Win10 is just round the corner. We have to have a working image for about 2 weeks time. So anyway, I have logged in with my student user and done my usual configurations, firefox certificate, homepages, start menu order (classic shell) blah blah. Go in as administrator, copy the profile to C:\Users\Default, log in with a new student account and all my settings have come across. Well all except one. Unlike Windows 7, my file extensions default programs are not opening with the designated program I have told it to in my original student user. Does anyone know a quick way to export these settings and put them in group policy instead? Or another simple method like a Batch file that I could run one time when we log in with the students user that sets the correct programs. Thanks

Thank you everyone for your useful feedback on Lenovo.

Hi all We are looking to but in the region of 150+ laptops as part of our 1:1 scheme and we were looking to see if anyone has any positive or negative experiences with the warranty and repair process. We are going for the Yoga 11E Thinkpads, but we are more interested to here how you have found their customer service, turnaround times, administration, quality of repair etc. Thank you in advance

Apparantly a trick insurers use is that they take your insurance money upfront but don't actually register the device with the underwriter until the devices first claim. It means if there is never a claim, they keep the insurance money. If there is, they register the device and it is covered. Cheeky and a bit of a scam really. We are hoping to hear that all of our devices insurance are registered and valid.

We used them. Were very good. The rumour is that they have gone bust. Account managers not returning calls. "Closed for the holidays" what business does that? All phone calls diverted to World of Warranty now. AVOID!

Hello My manager is looking for some advice on how to best roll-out SLG to parents. Should he initially do a year group? Just interested parents? Things of this nature and any other advice that you think would be useful to an independent school with SLG. Could you PM me and we arrange a phone call at some point for him to discuss? Thank you very much.

Hello all I would like some advice on getting WinShortcutter configured. Winshortcutter for those that are not aware of it Installed the latest version from their website and browsing and navigating through windows .lnk shortcuts is working great. I am running OS X Yosemite, Microsoft Office Outlook 2011. When I am sent hyperlink from my Windows collegues via Email on Outlook I get The file ///server/Share$/Folder" could not be found. (please note I am aware there is a 3rd backslash, this is automatically inserted when clicking on Windows hyperlinks) So I want to get WinShortcutter to open these links, which, from reading, I assume can be done. I have configured the "Open as Windows Link" in services. My settings for this are as follows: When I open the email hyperlink as "Windows Link" I get an error from Outlook telling me that WinShortcutter can't find this mapping. Essentially what I am looking for is if anyone has any ideas how I can get my T: (Windows Network Share that hypothetically is on \\server\share$) opening through hyperlinks in Outlook for Mac. I can right click the link and "Open as Window Link" but it doesn't appear to be mapping its way back to WinShortcutter. Thank you