Duranis

I might be wrong but I think the Edu version is completely separate from standard. Unless it has changed minecraftedu only gives you a licence to run a minecraftedu server and however many client licenses you have (not standard minecraft). Therefore you wont be able to use any of the modded minecraft launchers (AT, FTB, etc) which need a standard minecraft account to run. Assuming you are running the server yourself (you did say LAN server) you can mod it and the clients but it will be a pain. Once you start adding more than 1 mod you will start running into conflicts and performance issues. A lot of mods give users ways to accidentally crash the server (mainly by automatically generating thousands of entities) and permanently corrupt chunks so it will take a lot more admin work to keep things running. If you aren't running the server and don't have direct access to the files then you will need to contact your server host and ask them to do it for you. This makes life even more difficult. Short version: It's possible but I really wouldn't unless you are only going to use a couple of mods or you want to spend a lot of time on it. More info: Taking it Further - MinecraftEdu wiki Mods - MinecraftEdu wiki

I set one up using dropbox pro (about £80 a year) as the governors wanted access without a bunch of extra online accounts and I wanted something that was really easy for the secretary to use. The secretary can access the shared folder from her PC just like a normal local drive and the governors only need to use the link and password to get read only access (so no accounts to worry about). I looked to do something similar with Google but could not find an option to have something shared by a link with a single password, it was either shared by a link and fully public or shared by a link and required a Google account to log in. We have a new website going live soon though and that will let me do it properly with a password protected area with shared documents, calendar, etc.

I have looked at it but would need to buy a bunch of devices to run it on and they would have limited use for anything else. If I could get the teachers on board with using VR videos as part of their lessons then it might be worth it but as it is they would probably just gather dust. Realistically your probably looking at around at least £100 per device for something running a minimum of 4.2 with a semi decent gyro, processor and at least a 720p display. It would be much better to get something with a 1080 display as 720p on cardboard can be a bit blurry, that will add quite a bit to the price. More likely you will want something around the £150 mark + £30ish for a semi decent headset, the actual cardboard ones wont last 10 minutes in a classroom. Recommending exact devices is fairly difficult as there are just a ton of them out there. I have seen the Moto G and OnePlusX recommended as cheap phones that hit the minimum requires but ideally I would recommend testing them out first. Some of the cheaper Android devices have really terrible gyros which means the view will be constantly drifting or moving in odd directions. Also worth taking note of how often the manufacture releases Android updates and how likely it is for the devices to get any in the future. A lot of the cheaper devices are unlikely to get updated to the latest OS version for more than a year (if your lucky) so you might soon find they are obsolete. This is less of a problem on Android as you will still be able to find older app's for them but still something to think about. Then you need to consider if you have a few of them how you are going to manage and lock them down. I used Meraki in the past and it is pretty easy to set up and use.

Try and check with people in your area to see what their connection is like. Someone I used to work with had Virgin fiber put in and it was complete junk. In the 2-3 months he had it the connection was down more than it was up. Even when it was working it was slow as hell. Had multiple engineer callouts and in the end canceled and went with someone else. They tried to charge him cancellation fee's but he basically told them to do one.

Our main shared drives are not too bad. In theory everything is saved under the yeargroup folder or in one of the relevant "resources" folder. Teachers have full access to create and edit files and folders as they see fit. In practice it is not quite that tidy but it is workable and the teachers know where things are so I don't want to mess with it too much. This thread did prompt me to do a little clean up though and I archived a bunch of old files (anything not accessed within the last 18 months that didn't look important). Cleared up about 15GB in total. Our media share though is a complete mess, every picture video or sound clip has been just dumped on there. I'm going to restructure it at some point so there is a folder for each class that will have all photos and media for that class saved to it through their time at the school. That way if you want to find pictures from a Y6 when they where in reception it will be easy to find it. Easy to set up but the hard part is getting the teachers to go through the thousands of files and move them to the correct places.

I'm way more excited about this than a 35 year old man should be I would like to say its because my kid is really going to enjoy it but he really ain't that fussed.

Would have to go via a courier and be labeled up correctly (depends on courier but they will have some code for Li-ion that needs to be on the package). Not sure on the cost to be honest but probably at least a few quid. I have seen Li-ion batteries blow and I'm not surprised RM don't want to handle them. I used to "stress test" the Li-ion and Li-Poly batteries we used in product design and you would be surprised how much damage even a small battery can do (and how much fun it can be to explode batteries as part of your job ).

Could you point me in the direction of where you got that price from for a 65" promthean screen please as I would be very interested.

How long have you had them in for? Completely agree that you normally get what you pay for when it comes to warranty and aftersales support. However as these are coming out at similar prices to a halfway decent lampless short throw projector I'm seriously considering giving them a look.

Currently I have 16 rooms that are running some form of projector (mix of epson's with 1 short throw) and a Smart IWB. They are mostly working well but a few of the projectors are coming to end of life and I'm trying to work out what the best course of action for replacement is. Just looking for peoples opinions, espically anyone that has been using touchscreens for a decent period of timer and can comment on their reliability (seen a lot of issues with Smarts ones for example which is putting me off). Ideally I would love to just dump them all and get 65" touch panels in. Given that my budget is around £10k though and I might need to replace our wifi infrastructure soon at best I could probably only do 1 or 2 rooms with screens this year. At least 2 projectors need replacing now (one is in a meeting room though and not essential) and one is in a room that has a lot of direct sunlight for the whole day so need something that is bright and can deal with glare. The IWB's are working fine so would you try and push for touchscreen panels (if so are there any proven models around the 65" size) or would you go for a short throw or lampless model? The situation as SLT are likely to see it though is: Spend £400 and replace the projector, life goes on as normal. Spend around a grand for a short throw or lampless one, minor upgrade but pretty much life as normal. Spend around £3k for a touch panel for 1 room. If it doesn't work out then we have one room with an unhappy teacher. If it does work out we have 15 rooms using old equipment with unhappy teachers What would you recommend?

Ahhh that's so sweet.... Must be something big she is after if that is what she is letting him think

No. Even after changing the bios settings it has still crashed a couple of times. However it is not as frequently as it was (maybe once every few days rather than at least once or twice every time it is used). Hate trying to fix things that are just completely random and have no consistent way of triggering them. At some point I put the old CPU back in and remove the SSD to see if that helps but at this stage I'm fed up of messing with it and would rather chuck it in the sea than take it apart again

lol ok that makes more sense and I now understand what BC stands for

Yeah I was really disappoint. Me and the Mrs have played COD games split screen for ages but BOIII is completely unplayable in split screen as the black borders at the side and the crappy resolution make it impossible to see or shoot anything that isn't right in front of you. I have had similar issues as you also. More than once I have shot someone in the face at point blank range with a shotgun which should be a 1 hit kill, they then don't die and kill me instead. Kill cam shows that there where in a different position to what I saw on my screen and that I hadn't even hit them. I have never been amazing at FPS games but I normally came within the top 4 in previous COD games with a pretty decent KD. In BOIII I struggle to even get a 3 or 4 KS going. It is a shame because I actually really like the flow and mechanics of it and quite like a lot of the maps.

Apparently not, what they thought to be wreckage is unrelated.

I need to watch some videos on how the war and combat works I think. Declared war on someone last night and couldn't see the option for "I want to destroy everything they have" so went with making them a vassel and ceding a couple of their planets that was on my border. I went through and destroyed their fleet, landed armies on their homeworld and killed all the defenders. However I couldn't figure out a way to completely kick them off the planet and make it neutral again or put my own pop on the planet. Once I one the war they became my vassel and ceded the plants but then the ceded planets still have their people on.

Brill' thanks. Will take a look at that tomorrow. I really don't wont to have to rebuild all these machines.

Sorry to necro post but having the same issue. Out of 8 systems I have updated so far 6 of them have failed like this. Can get logged into them but cannot see where the core update is located on the server to try and manually copy it over and install it. RMMC is also pretty useless as it is showing that they are still in progress despite them having been sat with the update failed message on screen all day.

Tech up the better mining networks and mineral processing can help a lot (and these techs should pop up fairly early on in the game). Most of my mineral production comes from buildings on colonised planets, also using the edict that gives +10% production can be a nice boost early on. Colonise any world that is at least 60% habitable, even if it is already within your influence as then you can have more buildings. Set up some planets with just mining networks and 1 mineral processing and keep the production edict running on them constantly. Look out for governors that give increased production. If your ok with slaves they can also get a 10% production increase as well Edit: Also if you are tight on resources coverette spam is better than destroyers/cruisers. They have a higher evasion so tend to last a little longer and having 3 corvettes instead of 1 destroyer gives you more guns, so more damage. Weapon size only really effects range so unless you are killing everything before it gets close anyway it doesn't really matter what size guns you use.

I had started a second playthrough and got really far. Decided it was time to start taking care of the competition and declared war on the closest rival. Flew in my fleet of 8K military powers worth of destroyers and swept through their systems destroying everything. Went to claim their planets and... apparently I need ground troops... why did nobody tell me there was ground troops, why can't I just nuke the site from orbit, just to be sure. While I was faffing trying to figure how the hell I get ground troops they counter attacked with another empires ships helping them and wiped out most of my fleet. Fun times

100% agree, over the course of their entire education. One lesson though, not a big deal. You know there are some people that struggle to afford even "local" holidays at peak prices. I know because growing up my family was one of them. We rarely went on holiday (both parents worked full time, my mum worked two jobs) but when we did it was always off peak and a local(ish) campsite. It was always during school times as it was cheaper and the only time it would fit in with both parents being able to take time off at the same time. Did it hurt my education, not in the slightest. Did it create memories that me and my sisters still talk about on occasions 30 years later, yep it sure did. Some of the few memories I have of my old man before he passed was when we were on holiday together and I strongly disagree that anyone has a right to take that away from a family "for the sake of the children". Yes there are some people that could afford to take whatever holiday they want, whenever they want and they probably shouldn't be taking their kids out of school as they have a viable alternative. However there are a large number of people that don't have that option and effectively telling them "You don't deserve a holiday, live within your means and if you take your kids out of school they will grow up to be a useless as you" is pretty unfair. If a kid has poor attainment and attendance already then sure that parent needs to be pushed into prioritizing their child's education. However if the kid has good grades/attendance and takes a week off to spend time with family doing something fun I don't see any harm in that and don't think anyone has a right to tell them they can't. If my parents hadn't taken me out of school to go on holiday with my family I would have missed out on a lot more important stuff than I did from the small amount of school I missed.

Looking at this closer though (and this is only my opinion and expect people to disagree, that's ok ) 1 lesson of art, music, french, drama, RE, PSHE and arguably geography- Honestly who cares. Unless the child has a keen interesting in going into these areas they are pretty much pointless in terms of useful life skills. If the child does have an interest in these areas they will probably get on ok in that subject anyway and missing 1 lesson wont hurt. 1 lesson of IT - Unless it is a very tech based school I don't know how they will ever get by missing that one lesson in 20 on MS office products....... Maths, Science and English - again IMO. The only things that are applicable no matter what you do in life that you miss out something important on. English and Maths you will most likely be covering one area for more than a week. Science you might cover a single topic in a week but that could be covered by sending a worksheet home and a little home study to make up. Weigh that against going on holiday with parents, siblings, maybe extended family and doing something with them that you might remember for the rest of your life, that helps shape the bonds you have with the people you love. Sounds like a fair trade to me. For some people it is the choice between taking them on holiday during term time or not taking them at all. Is it fair to say a family can't go on holiday because they don't have a lot of money?

I honestly doubt that there is any part of the current curriculum (excluding maybe A levels and the period before exams) that is so intense that a child missing a week off school is going to seriously set them back. Also if the school knows that the child wont be there they can tell the parent what they are going to be doing and it is then their place to make sure you child knows what is going on. I would say it is unfair that someone else tells you what you can do with your own kids.

I really disagree. Unless the child is being taken out of school a lot, at really bad times (i.e. before or during exams) or for extended periods (more than a week) then I honestly don't see the harm in it. They might have to do a little bit more catch up work when they get back but the experience of going on holiday with the family, building on family bonds, experiencing new places and things is just as important IMO as anything they would have learn in school that week. There are lots of reasons why parents cant just take their kids on holiday during the school holidays (price, their ability to be able to book time off, what time other other siblings might have, etc) and I don't think schools should have the power to dictate what you do with your children (a week off really isn't harming a child). I remember back in the day most schools used to allow you to have up to 2 weeks off. This works for me, the school can know in advance the child wont be there and advise the parents on what they might be missing. As it is now parents will just end up saying their child is sick for the week. I may be slightly cynical but the fine system seems to be purely there to make money. The people that it is supposed to be stopping (the ones who have kids that are constantly not at school) don't care and wont pay it anyway and the only ones it does effect are the people with legitimate reasons for having to take a holiday in term time. And yes I think having the occasional family time away together is a perfectly legitimate reason for a kid to not be in school.

Yeah I played Stellaris for a few* hours last night after disabling temp sensors and all the parts that change CPU speed, etc and it seems to be working (so far). I don't think I have bought a physical copy of a PC game for at least 10 years *Few = Between 10pm last night and 3am this morning. Stupid gaming making me forget I need sleep to be a functional human being.