mthomas08

Was thinking that, although I dont have trouble at home since we pestered them to giving us a new router. Once that turned up we have not been disconnected once, iPhone, PC and Laptop all wortk without a snag. *touch wood*.

Nice to see other people got more on their plate! Although I still find my self keeping busy every second of the day while fighting off a cold and a very sore throat. No phone answering for me today I am currently working on Frog, got a long list of things which need sorting out on our current site - mainly getting all the information on to it while improving the look. Nothing else really need doing except I need to create an account for the new HT! Seems an alright chap though.

What ever version of Mac server we have on our little mac box... I hate touching it so I won't even bother looking what version it is !

As Steven Cleaver has mentioned all that list is going to be difficult, as a Frog user which is considered to be one of the top VLE's out there it still has a lot of work to do to accomplish our big list of "wants". I have to say though it is getting there, we recently learnt from BETT that their Lesson Planner is being created (although they currently have a SET Work which you use for the Lesson Plan). If I was you I would contact Frog, i know they currently have a support structure for other countries which is something else you have to consider but I am not sure Pakistan is on their list. I do know they have a FrogAsia so you might want to give them a call. Frog though is relatively expensive because you are purchasing more of a platform than a simple VLE solution but due to that it can be individually grown to suit your needs and developed. You may get a different price though considering that Frog may want to get developing in more countries - they recently won a VLE production for Bermuda and Cayman Islands so they are wanting to expand. I am happy for them to expand because it means they release more on their updates If you do have questions about Frog, don't hesitate to PM me I will never be afraid to say that Frog does have its flaws but then again so does every VLE.

Guess I am not doing my job then? Even though we currently have it installed on 1/3 of our system and never gets used? In fact the main reason why it is there are those who have it installed at home. What I was saying is if the Gov is pushing for Open Source we will indeed be pushing back telling them Office 2010 is what we want and we will kick up as much fuss as they can and now we are an academy we are pulled away from KCC (if they decide as well if Open Source is the way).

OUCH! Thats almost our budget right there a year, did you plan a massive upgrade/install? With us here we purchased upgrade licenses as we brought new PCs/Laptops, now though we pay an annual fee to MS which allows us to upgrade all our PCS to any future MS product. Even that fee is no where near your 60k and we are paying for roughly 200 staff. It's why the saved 100k didnt exist for us, we already had been paying over 10 years worth of MS licenses, some allowed us to 2000-2003 others allowed us 2003-2007 etc.

We do plan on doing this, we have already done a "Hopes and Fears" survey for our Frog Representatives (one per Dept) who is responsible for their Dept data on Frog. So there is one thing for you, a hopes and fears - what their hopes are on the VLE and what their fears are.

As much as things change, they stay the same. If the gov pushes for open source, sounds like they had a falling out with MS. We here will not be going Open Source for as long as my self and the current IS Manager is here, we had some one tell us we could save 100k a year through that (long story with this guy). End result was the Head now listens to far more what we say then ever before and everything goes through us. If every business switches to the likes of Open Office we will install it on every PC for students to get used to it but till that happens we stick to the far better much improved office 2010 thank you very much

Thats the problem, although there are "other solutions" you could indeed make things much worse and not just for your own system but for the kids. We rarely have staff who come here who have dealt with other type of systems, in fact top of my head there has been only one who had never touched a PC/Windows before. She was a MAC user and this is the problem, if staff are coming here with basic know how of PC/Windows whats the point in teaching kids some thing different so they go out in the world not even prepared correctly. In the end they are the ones the schools are for: Students. No point teaching them E-Safety about a website/facilities rarely used, instead you teach them E-Safety about Facebook/webcams/Messengers which are widely used every where. I recently had to convert a word file from a program I had never seen before, perhaps we should use that just because "It's different".

Just adding that usually a server will rarely reach capacity even in the peak times on the Networking. I do not think I have ever seen one of our servers struggle on that level. I have occasionally though had to switch from one port to another on our older servers due to one port failing. Not on our newest ones though. Also useful as a Bridge, we have one server with a NIC dedicated through a VLAN for an outside link through our service provider (bit complicated). That NIC is unreachable from internally, only the server it self can access it. Usually it's HD's/Memories and rarely processors.

And it will still go over budget, delayed about 4 times and be too expensive for your average rail user. As for BSA, is that the BSF? Either way, BSF was fantastic, they threw loads of that money down the drain instead of actually giving schools the money then the responsibility would have been down to the schools. Oh wait have some schools been accused of wasting money for not reading inbetween the lines? In the words of Doc Brown (Back to the future) in the moment he was about to show off the 88MPH trick "You're about to see some serious......."

Strange I thought you was talking about my car... I own the Fiesta Titanium model and it makes squeeky noises from the back passenger seat (they couldnt sort this out at the last service) theres a squeek in a wheel some where when turning left a bit (when going slow) again they cant find it because its not happening all the time and theres also a rattle on a bit of plastic at times bottom right of the windscreen (inside plastic). If I had the chance to get another car I would have, I would of spent more money for the Focus or the Sorroco.

Well I still don't agree with this but if it works then good, if it improves the students ability to use computers and doesnt degrade what they learn then congratulations the government has actually done something right. If it doesn't work then I will be there to say "I told you so". I will also add, I did Business NVQ 2 and we learnt how to do letters correctly, data protection act (confidential info) not use word processor/powerpoint/excel etc. Then again this was back .... 11-12 years ago... showing my age.

That's fine then, I was under the impression they were just totally scrapping it. Just thought it was crazy, I could write a long list of jobs (even teaching) that use word processing, powerpoints etc.

Although I agree a little bit of program knowledge is good, how many kids these days actually need to know this stuff compared to some one who uses office apps? In my job I have done a bit of coding but because most of the work is done through GUI's then I have rarely needed to know, but even though I am IT Support I still end up having to use Office Apps often. In fact with more and more lessons becoming IT Based surely there is more need to learn word compared to programming? Oh well if things change this way then I look forward to it being scrapped in two years time.

+1 frog here. We have had it a while and this is the year where we start to get Staff/Students trained in its usage and then the Representative training. Some people will say "Well theres all these flaws!" Its true but frankly find me one VLE which is perfect. No such thing. We spent a lot of time looking at fronter/moodle and with fronter it wasnt for us, with moodle it was simple we dont have the man power to sit there and make it in to some thing that we wanted. The fresh basic install of Frog was brilliant, it gives you what a VLE is supposed to and it gives it pretty well like other top VLEs it gives a MIS (SIMs for us) exporting tool which is run over night. It gives all the basics with Assigning home work, online resources and access to Home/Public drives from home. There is the parent portal which can be purchased (we got everything) and they can also setup your Frog Site (Costs) which again meets your needs, they also did our Main College site which again looks very nice. They look professionally done, individual touch to your school and good looking for Students. We also purchased Secure GateWay which we have yet to sort out at our end but that will give the final piece of our External Access Puzzle (Allowing students/staff to remote in and access our system from home). The cost is the biggest downside for Frog but if you want a VLE which takes weeks to get up and running (Still looking good) then you are having to pay a lot of money. As for the Cost - Forgetting one VERY important thing they do not charge per user or per GB used as other VLEs have been doing. If your school signs up additional Staff/Students or even takes on External Centres which ours is doing then the Cost of frog is worth it. Is it perfect? No - Some one like me who wants to do all sorts but isnt really a programmer I have found limitations. I wanted to produce a help centre similar to what we got on SharePoint (its like an online access database) this doesnt work in Frog but they are improving their version (Called Forms). That is another bonus - it is constantly growing and it is among the top UK growing companies (people dont realise their company wasnt that big not that long ago). One piece of advice I can say is - take your time to investigate the VLE you choose before purchasing it. The more time I spent with Frog I did find it more appealing and the strange thing was two of my colleagues agreed (usually we never agree on anything). The good thing I find with Frog is, the more time you spend on it the more you will think wow I could do that, I could do this (of course you will again find limitations at times - this month it has been no Wiki) but frog are constantly developing and the more ideas they get thrown at them the better the platform is. If your after JUST a VLE then Frog is still brilliant but if you are after a Platform Frog is by far the best one out there. I have recently been doing a Frog Note list which is just something to show staff what they can currently do in frog and it is currently three pages long and I am still working on it. I have also setup websites for MFL, Food Hall, IT Support and the recent Frog Representatives & Champions website with nice fancy Crystal menu's. If you want more Frog Info or even Screenshots by all means let me know, I will never claim Frog to be perfect but the criticisms of Frog seem very limited to Costs and its few limitations. Considering the man hours I have put in to Frog to get what is currently there is a small % of what I would have if I went some where else especially towards the Moodle route.

+1 for FOG here too, our Techy who has set it up has done wonders for our imaging. Not perfect as we encountered with two sets of laptops, one type refuses to show the screen the other freezes at please wait - just typical really. Still with Windows 7, doesnt take long to build a laptop etc.

I did see the report and think - I am not surprised. I have seen staff here promoted through the ranks who I would question, I my self used to have zero experience in network managing let alone any management experience. I worked hard to and sacrificed a lot to be what I am today although I wasnt qualified or experienced and as a result we did have problems. The school was not willing to pay for a proper network manager so we stuck with the in house technicians. How many of us are doing our jobs and are not technically qualified? or have (like me) gained the experienced by doing the job? Yes its wrong but unless schools are given more money and time to actually Employ fully qualified staff (and also realise its much more complicated of a job) then simply it won't happen, its such a shame and frankly wrong but it happens every where. I totally agree that the job title Head Teacher or Deputy Head these days must require some management skills (Frankly reading between the lines should be common sense before signing anything). It happens though.. sad but true.

*2nd Try after editing the screen shots Our Staff/IT Intranet area - we are working on Frog - I will post Screenies on that shortly if you require.

A member of our staff actually fell for this and while he was copying files over she unplugged her cable.... you wouldnt think anyone would fall for it but they do.

Apparently Walking Dead - never watched it, so that's a load of cob!

Exactly.

It was supposed to Rain/Snow tomorrow morning, looks like the weather decided to come a day early it's been raining and snowing here this morning.

Send Chuck Norris.

Merry Christmas Si, us here too will be closed for the two week period as every year. So two weeks where I won't be on here much either. I expect to see many more great discussions in 2012, arguements, complaints and moans - good fun I say.