Chafftech

Eurotek make desks with pop up lids that are lockable. We have these and they look good. But they dont take much of battering to break so I am not sure they are suitable for a Design Tech environment

Im with you on the B&Q stacking - and I am only 26!! (Not that im implying you are old!) @indiegirl Tell the teacher its not your problem if they want grants to be sorted they should go to SLT ask why it has not been made. As usuall the middle teachers take it out on technicians / network staff because they aint got the guts to go to senior management.

Yes I do mean locally on the servers. To aid balancing they should both see each other as secondary DNS. But I don't think this will make a massive difference to the problem you are experiencing (although something is better than nothing). It probably is a cpu / memory / hard disk bottleneck if you are sure that it is not network bandwidth related. How many user profiles do you have on that server 1)in total 2)logon at the same time

The logons probably are baing load balanced between the DC's (have you made sure they see each other as secondary DNS server?) If you run all the user profiles from one server then it will get hammered more than the other (especially if they are roaming profiles).

Is anyone making any changes to their network for the 2007 pilot based on experiences of the 2006/5 pilots. For example we here had 120 or 90 pupil sessions which is way above the recommended 60 but had reletively few crashes and those that did happen we could attribute to printing being on that server. So my changes so far: Moved printing from this server to a new dedicated print server Moved the staff shared documents from this server area to new NAS box Ordered additional memory to upgrade from 2GB to 4GB RAM by xmas. I am interested in what people have to say on this.

How can you be suspended for 2 years. Surely contract would be terminated even before 1 year is up?? Sorry dont want to be nosey but I cant understand how someone could be on a disciplinary of such a serious nature for so long. I don't know much about it as we don't get (officially) told, but something like. He was suspended two years ago (for something I won't go into). He span that enquiry out and didn't turn up for the final meeting when the decision of the outcome would have happened. He then started an enquiry into how he'd been treated, which he lost. He had another enquiry into how that was carried out. Which he lost. We're now about back to the original thing the suspension was for. That's the basic gist. Essentially he's spun it out while management have 'sought legal recommendations on how to procede' at ever turn. Rumour has it that said suspended person has had other work anyway, which is a sackable offence, but then, if management had balls to sack him they'd have done it to start with. Thanks for the reply. Wow that is really strange. They should have really sacked him if they have something serious but then thats not for me to say I suppose as I am not privy to all info. Sorry to all about going off topic.

How can you be suspended for 2 years. Surely contract would be terminated even before 1 year is up?? Sorry dont want to be nosey but I cant understand how someone could be on a disciplinary of such a serious nature for so long.

In my experience, any problem management system becomes an obstacle in itself. Ticket systems basically just seem to delay resolutions. Often problems are not mentionned because staff do not know how to use the ticket system (basically they just want the problem fixed .. why should they have to learn how to use a ticket system?). Tickets are then rated as urgent or otherwise by people who have not experienced the problem and non-urgent tickets just get pushed further down the queue as more tickets are raised, consequently a small problem gets left, gets worse or is simply forgotten about;-which is not a very effective system. It sometimes seems as if more time is spent working the system rather than solving problems. Basically, we shouldn't allow our heads to get too buried in the system that we lose sight of the purpose of the technology, which is to primarily to help pupils learn. I am not sure you have fully realised the potential of a helpdesk system yet. Maybe you had a bad experience due to lack of support. Give the FITS pocket guide service desk section a read to give you a good overview of what can be acomplished. We have Liberum setup for 10 months and it has helped a lot when staff have used it, yes it requires training them and constant reminding them to use it. But when they do use it we get great results with it. As for telling them to wait, I do try this by reminding them to log it on the helpdesk then it will be looked at in turn. I can only do so many things in a day and need to prioritise. Also I can prepare well for each job as I will know what tools / software to take with me will be needed if they log it accurately.

Same here. Just make sure its a good server and not the one where your profiles are kept if you have multiple servers.

Agreed, I have never had shown to me in writing, I think it is LGFL trying to kow tow everyone into digital brain simply because they bought it and dont want the money they spend going to waste

We are on LGFL as well; basically we cannot use the Digital Brain at the moment because it is not suitable for secondary schools; It does not integrate with any systems and it is completely alien environment. We have been told by our ICT secondary avisor that Moodle is against DFES guidelines. So at the moment we have no VLE.

We use it for our website. They have good product but poor support sometimes as they dont always have the one programmer avialable for quick changes. We have it linked with AD and logs onto the domain allowing access to intranet applications from home after typing in domain/user and password. (effectively an extranet) Look at our website to see what you think.

Ok check this out...I went through the results with our Head of ICT and he has spotted some serious question marks over the QCAs marking scheme. One student who he knows did nothing apart from sleep for the first test came out level 5. There is also the case where a bright student who took his time on both tests, came out level 4. There is no way the first student should be a level ahead as he is in the bottom band only just above SEN and the other student is in the top band! This worries me! Please any comments or similar results from any out there?

Hmm, first I have ever heard of this. I was always under the impression that it physically moves the files. Found this on the wikipedia: Defragmentation From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search In the context of administering computer systems, defragmentation (or defragging) is a process that eliminates fragmentation in file systems. It does this by physically reorganizing the contents of the disk in order to store the pieces of each file close together and in order (contiguously). It also attempts to create large regions of free space using compaction, to impede the return of fragmentation.

Webman, It sounds as if the school has proper shafted you. You need to get your union rep in on a meeting with the Headteacher have it properly minuted and discuss job descriptions. They cannot change your job without a new job description; therefore it has not happened as the council are unaware of job role and are still paying you as ICT Technician. The meeting should conclude with you being allowed to get on with ICT Technician duties as before OR they come up with new job decription and pay level agreement and not allow you to perform ANY ICT Techician job roles unless they wish to pay you for both in which case is additional workload and requires a remuneration for this (usually next scale). I have been in a few similar scrapes with a certain previous school I worked at. Hope this helps

Theres no need to rip out RM if you know what you are doing. It is possible that if the place is small then you might want to go down a vanilla windows route. First thing to do would be to get the RM network running properly, if you have bought support from RM / borough then use it. Personally I think the wage is too low for quality candidate it sounds like is needed there.

Looks like the kids from my school must be tesco voucher gangsters as we have enough to get 3!

RM ones are pretty good in terms of usage within school. Complete pain to open and fix it yourself when it runs out of warranty.

I remember you saying about this - I found it funny. Any updates / news you can shed any light on?

I have to say having the NAACEMark in itself will prove nothing either. A CCNA or MCSE is equally valid. The aptitude of whether or not someone is suitable to work as a technician / network manager in a school needs to be assessed at the interview by someone who is already technical enough to make these decisions i.e LEA ICT Support. This is not happening. We are here to make the network run as effeciently as possible, the ICT Director / co-ordinator is the person who should be analysing what methods of ICT teaching is to take place then pass that analysis to Network Manager to project manage and oversee implementation. Do you see this happening - no because most teachers are idiots. I am all for having NAACEmark if you want to increase educational awareness among IT support staff but please do not confuse this with technical expertise and apptitude in IT. This should not be a qualification you MUST have but should be recommended as plus point after any other experience or industry certs.

Agree with Geoff on I/O. You could possibly change the HDD for 15k rpm to increase through put on what will be a fairly large RAID (5?) array.

We have a 4108gl for our core switching, this is fully managed and layer 3 so it supports QoS and VLAN's etc etc. As far as i am concerned it meets all requirements for next 3 years. I would not worry too much over this BECTA document, it is good look at and use when buying new stock so that over the coming months / years you eventually move into a fully BECTA compliant network. As for smart switches it is worth checking their features meet your requirements a some are fully layer3 some are not. Personally I would use Procurve switches such as 2600 series for the sattelite data cabinets as you know these will be fully compliant with the 4108gl. But do your research as only you know whats best for your schools site and budget.

Given its bandwidth requiremants I can't see that hapening unless schools get given cheap/free high capacity conections and even then probably not. No way will it be able to run over the web. We have 10mb connection and it is slow to upload the results. The software is not great, but it is a pilot. The only way to make it better is to get onboard and put your feedback in. The more feedback they have the better it gets. This year the DPS was a lot better than last years for us so it is slowly getting there.

With a website like that they really do need someone!

We have VI children, if this is inputted into the students information on the APS then during the summative test (dont know about practice) the writing on the screen is bigger. I recommend you keep the resolution in XGA and let the APS sort out who gets what. As long as all SEN information is provided to you and entered via APS Manage Students you have done all you need to.