mthomas08

I'm sure bromcom can be permissioned so staff can't see it. Maybe that would be the solution.

I have to agree with this. I've walked in to jobs and could tell straight away when schemes were all about that WOW factor instead of practicality. You forget the purpose of T&L and it ends up being a waste of tax payers money, not to mention the sheer amout of hours wasted then for the scheme to be scrapped. I do get it. Parents like it. Governors like it but Ofsted don't care. Does it improve grades? Does it improve something? Does it improve access? If you want IT + fancy? 30 iPads can do that but it takes time setting all that up and MUST improve something. Would 30 iPads right now make it look pretty to replace an IT suite being used just for internet/basic documents? Sure but that is a LOT of money just for internet/documents. Apologies if this sounds a bit blunt, but I've been here before.. and many others have. Surely the money is better put somewhere else. What about laptops being damaged? When a keyboard/mice are damaged.. it is cheap.. easy to replace. When a laptop is damaged, the cost is higher and time taken to repair is high. Also much easier to damage a laptop + battery conditioning. We have two depts using laptops and damages... failures.. battery issues..

This has tickled my fancy. I honestly thought this wasn't possible but there it is.. on the list. https://www.papercut.com/discover/integrations-and-customizations/integrations/ I'd be interested in this and I might ask PaperCut.

Not the top 2

Thank you everyone for the votes, the pecking order is pretty much what I expected. Smoothwall - by a clear mile and half. Lightspeed Securly / Net Sweeper Sophos The others seem to be a mixture of 1s and 2 votes each with a total of 70-80. This helps in our current discussion or shall I say comment made by a visitor and if we did choose to run a tender process.. odds are we wouldn't be going for their recommended one.

Just about internet filtering for education. Nothing more. Nothing less. Ty

Thank you this is perfect actually. Ours is indeed there and the poll + posts all helps.

Nothing urgent but covering all the angles. Some comments were made about our current one and believe we have one of the top 4.

Oh i'm not taking it personal or anything. People can state which ones I've missed. I really appreciate everything!!!!!!! I know how busy everyone is and need a rough image of schools around the country and which products people use.

Sorry! Yes. I had to use Google to find the list and every site was useless providing a list. Also missed Sophos! ugh.. typical. Thanks guys keep it coming.

Sorry, I hope this is allowed. Some questions popped up due to some visits and we're after knowing what EduGeekers have regarding Internet Filtering. Apologies if this is a repeat, I had a look and couldn't find anything. This isn't a 'I prefer' or 'fed up with product X' but an interest what everyone at EG has. Oh and another apology for any missed products -... like an easy one OTHER. If you do use anything else please post and state which it is. I can collate that data myself. REALLY APPRECIATE YOU ALL! Thank you!!!!!!

Am I the only one starting to notice how scam calls and sales calls are getting worse?

We did it Easter and perfect time. Things were chaotic when everyone returned and we dedicated our support time for Bromcom. September is one of our worst periods, I will fight it with all my energy to avoid migrating at September - not unless I could persuade the HT to tell staff to avoid us unless critical.

Toshiba and Ricoh are pretty good. We use one and rarely have problems.

We rarely get downtime with Orbital. DT sounds like a dirty word because it's that rare.

I'll add some tweaks but this was a few years ago. EduLinkOne - there are differences in this. The parent evening system on Bromcom isn't as fluid or simple to use so we pay School Cloud for theirs and currently signing up to a different one which might do most things we want. EduLink would automatically roll on the next person for virtual parents evenings. One of the best and easiest systems I've ever used. Once in - that is it. I'll also add, sending invites to parents for the system is easy - customise the templte with everything you need and highlight the inactive parents with an email address - press a button and send. Bromcom is nothing but simple, they've made improvements but it's still miles away from what we want. Likewise for getting students on the system. EduLinkOne was so easy and I miss it. NovaT - Last I checked it required another package to pull the NovaT timetable and import in to Bromcom. This was a while ago.

Wonder how many IT staff are being asked to safeguard their systems from impact... What can WE do to prevent this......

I ugh... looks like a B movie...

I mentioned this to the SBM, we were discussing the state of some schools and issues in our surrounding areas. He has quite a bit of knowledge outside of T&L. He had a heart attack. The risk alone is serious and aware of local schools suffering serious breaches. I'd be in serious trouble if I had that attitude of.. don't bother updating....

Not forgetting the bots in the thousands.... and the fake posts.. the fake links... the fake memes... the lies being spread..... just too much. Only going to get worse with tech giants duck shoving responsibility and cutting back staff numbers. Problem is, all this is now flooded - particularly on Twitter. My mother gets duped all the time on Facebook... the same ones constantly suffering "I've been hacked, don't accept a friend request from this fake account!!"... While she sits there constantly clicking on links.... all from the same type of dodgy accounts. I feel sorry for the kids growing up in all this if they get to sit on social media all day. Worse in schools if they allow social media.... talk about 24/7 access to poison... We sometimes see the repercussions with the kids.... not necessarily down to the tech influence, but more like the people in their lives...

Parents need to do their part. Schools need to do their part. Social media needs to do their part. Society needs to do their part. Nothing is 100% but we all need to do our part... As a parent, the buck starts and stops with me. I can't rely on others... certainly don't feel like social media are going to do anything. I find it very strange when the media are quick to slaughter say TikTok but never Twitter (X) or Facebook. Hell, I'm old enough to remember when both Twitter/Facebook went through heavy criticism....... all the big names demanded they do better. This was usually evolved around terrorism and incitement to commit acts of terror. Yet, recent years this has magically toned down unless directed at TikTok.. So I have no faith at all in these companies doing anything to improve things. We have MDM + internet filtering for a reason and going down the route where any device should be controlled with MDM. Do I blame schools for banning phones? Nope. I was a governor when it was discussed and I'd say 99% of staff and parents were united on it. The 1% had concerns over travel to/from school which was put at ease because they can bring them, just not be seen or heard. So off or silent.. in the bag.. and stay there. Considering the digital standards and safeguarding changes in recent years, we should be doing more MDM on anything possible. Our safeguarding has jumped through a lot of hoops to tighten things and now more involved with this kind of a thing. Some of this reminds me of comments about internet filtering... it will stop T&L.. it will make it look like we're controlling it all... it will discourage device usage... slow down lessons... make things difficult.. why block when a new one is found 2 minutes later.. the kid swill find a way around it.... If they're not a problem, I'd simply prepare a plan for it and file it away to review every year - governor level. From our point of view, I have a list of every risk device and the final ones are in progress for possible MDM iPads. We already ban phones and I will be shocked if the school considered a u-turn, even when we join a MAT. I see more and more down the route of banning phones. In a perfect world it would be great to just whip them out and use them for a bit of research or email access etc and have no filtering.... no MDM worries...... but we don't live in a perfect world.

Comedy gold really. All the issues in the world.. and this is the one major thing needing to change for Americans.

Sent a DM. Not sure if I can publicly state the name, I once did.. and got a slight note.

We use FreePBX and works fine. The company providing it are low cost and their support has been 2nd to none. Relatively local-ish though. They provide the Yealink phones and no complaints.

Security updates aren't important... Let me get this list of schools that suffered breaches. Once upon a time, I worked at a school that ignored Windows Updates.. we suffered viruses galore and it cause dmajor problems site wide... to all.. 300-400 PCs.... Any consultant ignoring windows updates.. is questionable... remember the NHS shut down? Ugh.. just UGHHHH