DrBeaker

Good point - any software/server/network based solution would have latency or any number of issues that could have a serious delay on a first-aid or 999 response. The network was slow, switch had died, server hosting it had died etc. any number of reasons. Walkie-talkie, rotated first aider on duty, care plans in place for the students/staff. E.g. why do they tell you not to use the lift in a fire in a tall building - you could but the risk increased dramatically of something happening/going wrong during that time. If in doubt remember the KISS principle.

Well it's generally an extra £10-20 for a hard glass TFT versus a normal one. So there is a real-world cost attached to the damage. Especially in schools with tight IT budgets, e.g. in a typical IT suite paying an extra £300 for that feature as a preventative measure, could pay for some kit in another classroom. Litter, swearing, bullying, etc are dealt with under student behaviour policies - why is IT the exception? I find it very odd yet an indicator of how IT is viewed in schools - as unimportant.

Would be interesting to see what everyone else thinks, but that's a classroom management problem (student vandalism of working IT equipment) looking for a technical solution IMHO and it's a cop-out trying to get IT to fix it for them. It's a combination of lack of respect from students and teachers towards the IT team and lazy, bad management. You saw my post on the subject - imagine how much of my time and effort over the years that took. Still with no solution and as I looked at it - no "convictions" for the crimes committed. Sadly in the end, you had to give up and accept it as part of the job. Just imagine how much wastage over the years there is due to this . The only thing is take a tip of some other posters here like I've done from their posts - track how much this damage costs over time and present it to SLT. Then maybe they'll take notice, maybe not.

Surely this will be included in the (cough, cough) DRP's or BCP's the school has in place?

Sometimes low-tech is the best tech to use! Things don't always require a hi-tech cutting edge solution.

Not myself no - but always been interested to see if it could be adopted within schools. Probably going to have to pay for those DELL keyboards with the card reader though? That's going to be a big factor and looks like they're gonna be £30 upwards compared to £5-10 for a normal keyboard that I assume you're currently using. Or an external card reader. Either way that's additional costs on top, probably not gonna be cheap.

The little darlings just figured out where the blind spots in the cameras were and broke the computers that were in those spots. Of course it "was like that when I got here" excuses prevailed and despite investigations there were never any repercussions for those students or staff. Over the years we tried: Daily room checks at the start and end of the day. Logging issues we found. Taking photos/videos or damage Repairs and audits of the rooms. Random spot checks throughout the day/week IT Suite fault reporting sheets. Sitting in on lessons/drop-ins on lessons. Installing CCTV in IT suites and checking the footage. None of this reduced the level of vandalism to IT kit. When we DID manage to find anything with any substantial proof, it was escalated to the manager and SLT lead - I'll leave it up to your imagination as to what happened! I'm sure you can guess. I suggested charging the faculties FD and staff who last used used the rooms if they couldn't prove otherwise, it didn't happen.

Well maybe I'm the odd one out here - I've written a cheque tonight for something! Contactless, card payment etc is all well and good but again it's the data they're after - footfall, sales, total spent per day, per visitor etc that they're after and with electronic payments there's always tracking to some degree and not always to our benefit.

One school I worked at the bells were never in sync, never on time etc. Sometimes the bell in the classroom next door would ring at a different time to the one next to it. I never considered it to be an IT problem of any kind as it was well outside the scope of IT support as to me that was a facilities issue, not an IT one. Don't mean that to sound harsh but IT have enough essential systems already without adequate resources to manage them without taking on something like that.

There's far more things to go wrong with a computer-based setup for the purpose of the bells, than a "low-tech solution" of bells etc on a timer or a manually push-button etc. I think this is a bit of over-engineering for a simple problem that there's already solutions for.

Would you be willing to share some pics of the setup at all? I'm just curious as to how other schools have done it. Being a lone techie you don't get to bounce ideas off anyone else

We have the same - I see the argument "it's not Facebook" but as Sylv3r posted - to be honest our seem to staff like it and it does saves writing yet another e-mail just to say 'Thanks' etc. After all "Facebook for Work" is a concept, Yammer, Slack etc are "enterprise social networks designed for better teamwork". Maybe they need to get with the times? Surely some communication is better than the "none at all" we've got used to over the years?

We all know how ubiquitous VGA is in education! Probably got another 10 years in it at least - especially considering the state of budgets!

Thanks. I came across your post and it gave me some ideas. Building upon your idea - a dual-monitor mount/stand of some kind on the desk, would allow them to view the 2x screens either side-by-side or one above the other. Gives them the option depending on desk/room layout etc and also frees up desk space. As we've got some TVs I'm tempted to give this a try myself when I get chance to see it it pans out.

Hi, Did you get much further with this? Our school is in a similar position with teacher desks being in all kinds of awkward places and sometimes with the board/TV to the back of them altogether. I wondered how far you got with this or did it not get out of R&D/trial stage?

I carry a set of keys, pen, pocket screwdriver, swiss army knife, sharpie, encrypted USB stuck and a small torch when I'm at work. Same as you I'd sooner be able to sort out the job there and then if I can. But normally if it requires more tools it's going to be taken out of service for a while anyway.

If you ever find one, let me know - I've been looking for an all-encompassing kit since for the better part of 15x years and still to find one. This is the best I've found for the money. I have it myself and Yes - I know it has a soldering iron. But you'd pay that much for a decent model anyway if you ever needed one. You'll have to invest and build your kit up over time. https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-s-kit/1pk-302nc-cpc/pc-tool-kit-with-soldering-iron/dp/TL00195?mckv=sQiOO8X8x_dc|pcrid|224686838591|kword||match||plid||slid||product|TL00195|pgrid|45804914126|ptaid|pla-562659265156|&CMP=KNC-GUK-CPC-SHOPPING&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0_u1oLbm3wIV7ZTtCh3n5w_TEAQYBSABEgKdDPD_BwE One place I worked had no tools at all when I started. It took 5x years to build up to a decent standard/collection of tools.

The best yet (give it time) was trying to find a missing, undocumented server needed for some exams - it was offline and unplugged, so no amount of network scans helped me there!

Had the same recently. Zero documentation on things from an IT perspective. However we do have RM support for the key parts, but there's a hell of a lot of internal (tribal knowledge) sort of stuff that I'm having to unpick. If you want to share ideas etc let me know. Would be good to bounce ideas of someone else for things. Good luck with the Apple issue and let us know how you get on.

Exactly - it's this "Lets get an IT solution to a non-IT problem" philosophy e.g. https://angrytechnician.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/lets-solve-everything-with-technology-1/

Yep. Especially with the latest news of https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/20/18150531/amazon-alexa-voice-recordings-wrong-user-gdpr-privacy-ai

Do you have any requirements for video editing, Photostop etc that sort of thing?. Despite the Chromebooks phase a lost of schools seem to be going through Chromebooks will never meet those needs.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-killer-windows-7-patch-breaks-networking-bricks-legit-not-genuine-pcs/

Debates on religion aside - It's interesting how Science is disproving some religious claims yet giving us more questions rather than answers. I think the mystery of science doesn't answer our own questions as a the human race and our demand for 'answers' as the human spirit wants. Maybe we've just not yet developed our emotional intelligence enough (despite what we think) to realise this yet.

If the Earth is flat - how come my polos rolled off my desk today?