Steven_Cleaver

You would need to repeat the process for the 100 Apps to be honest we had 480 (Apps, Shortcuts. etc) at my last place but just had Burconix on a couple of machines moved the Apps before we fully moved over we moved a few over as we went along if that makes sense, but to be honest Burconix might have a better way of doing it, obviously a bit of work but once this is done it is easy to add in new Apps shortcuts etc.But I don't know your current setup, I have tackled this two ways to completely move last place I had the summer and knew my setup really well and(moved from CSE) been their a few years so re-imaged all my machines re-deployed all the Apps with Burconix's help the reason I did this is so the machines were clean and was worried as regards issues with left over CSE components on machines.Current job didn't have as much time or have as much knowledge of their infrastructure applications etc. and it was Vanilla so created images of various machine types with Burconix help but just deployed their software and am only re-imaging machines where required, which is only occasionally.

If say the computers and users are in groups (OU's) then you simply select the Application or shortcut click in the right hand side and add these groups of stations so say IT Suite, Science Classrooms etc, then select the group of users the same. If not in groups you can multi select the users and computers. To be honest takes a few second if using groups and a minute or two if that if you have to multi select.

I have used CSE at two schools for some years and to be honest it was reasonable it could be a bit sluggish on older PC's the back end Database getting corrupt at times, I had some major issues when I converted to the .Net version but I was one of the very early schools and in the end reverted back to the older version and as someone has mentioned the Recovery Manager tool was very good although we now use Shadow Copy. I have now moved to the BCX tools at my previous school and my present one as I have found these tools much better and never looked back, no performance issues much stabler and any minor issues resolved extremely quickly (Excellent Support) I have also looked at BCX's version two of the tools and even these have improved adding extra functionality so will be moving to version 2 over Easter. To be totally honest I have used RM, CSE and Burconix BCX as well as Vanilla and prefer BCX as they give me a set of tools that are easy to use reliable and that don't effect performance. By using a set of tools instead of Vanilla it just gives me more time to develop other things within the school as rolling out applications, shortcuts, printers and rebuilding machines is done with ease using these tools, built on top of the Microsoft technologies and working with these seamlessly which I don't feel is the case with CSE or RM's tools.

Nice one .

Hi Raj We mostly use a Vanilla network with extra seperate tools that we use for ease of management ABTutor for workststion control, Papercut for printer management, WDS for Imaging, Prism for Application deployment.I have used a company called Burconix (Burconix - Professional ICT Solutions for Education and SME ) to help with some of the setups and would help you with the move if you wanted from RM, they also have some of their own management tools which would help with ease of Management of your network if you want without locking anything down that you don't want, but as people of said you can just use Vanilla just what ever you feel is best for your environment

I manage the network myself and their is a team of three of us 360 PC's 40 laptops,5 Physical servers ( with 12 Vitrual on these boxes) Curriculum and Admin, network including SIM's etc our own hosted VLE Moodle, website etc. We run a Vanilla Network with some management tools for user creation and desktop, printer, application deployment and much more these are provided by a support company we use who will also supply you with as much support or as little as you require, will do Managed Service or telephone or Server Warranties with emergency cover.They will also support you during large projects if you require. I have found their support invaluable Burconix - Professional ICT Solutions for Education and SME and great value for money.I have been using them for a few years now and they have never let me down.

To be honest I had this with Stone a few years back, they must have replaced about 20 hard drives the first year, they replaced these as you said straight away, when we mentioned the issue they held their hands up and said their had been a problem with a batch of hard drives silicon in contamination in the assembly process and they offered to replace all the hard drives.If you contact them I am sure they would look at resolving this, especially as they will have records of your issues. Still a happy Stone customer as I feel their support is second to none.

I reckon those are just screen savers no one is that unlucky:)

I think I know what you mean Yes you can purposely run the snap shot from start to the NAS box.

We have a script that bassically Shuts down the VM Server then exports to backup, for backing up them restarts the Server all run on a schedule. If I want to Export a Snapshot I created I just Right click on the Snap shot and Export as long as where your exporting it to is mapped to your machine say NAS box or Terrastation you just select your location. We don't use any backup software. I use Shadow copy setup to the Terrastation to do user araes and shared areas backups and usually evey Half Term run an NT backup to backup user data and shared areas as due to the restrictions on shadow copy number of backups.

Hi It still does use the same space for snap shoting but at the moment it isn't a worry as the SAN has enough storage capacity, and I only usually keep a couple of snapshots of Servers I am making changes to or developing, you can also export the Snap shots somewhere else if you want to keep these, we use a 8TB Buffalo station as that is how we do our backups export to Terrastation then to USB Hardrive for offsite backups, and USB hard disks on rotating basis.

Another vote for XEN here I have used this at two sites now and have found it really reliable and has some great features Snap Shotting of VM Servers, Monitoring all the Servers quickly from one Console, Live Migration of VM's, Build one template for a Server, then build other Servers from this templare etc. and much more as well as all these features being available on the free version.I have also found this a great way of developing new funtionality on the Network as you can build a VM Server from a template pretty quickly, test things without causing you problems on other Servers, Snapshot it before making large configuration changes if the changes don't work return it to its previous state.I could go on.

The First year it would be the current person in the position constructing the Whole Timetable with the new postholder just making slight changes under their guidance and also the postholder being trained to construct the Timetable this may also include Time Table training externely. But to be honest the person who is currently doing the job and Time Table is very helpful and would possibly extend the year and continue with support if this was felt neccessary as they are retiring and just helping the school out where required on a part time basis after March.

I have had a word with the Head and he has said that they would be willing to assist with support in any relocation but any Financial package would need to possiblly be discussed at the interview. The date for final applications has also been extended to 31/01/2011 as they didn't get as much response as they were expecting as they haven't really advertised the post widely, this information should be updated later today on the schools website.

Hi Moodle is open source as you probably know so software is free as long as you have someone with reasonable technical knowledge, it can be set up by them it could probably do with its own Server so again this would be a cost and I have set this up over SSL (Encryted data) for security reasons and it is a requirement of our LEA of any web services we provide to the outside world. You can get an outside company to do this but it could prove costly as we had a look at this route ( anywhere between £7,000 and £20,000 for the whole thing) but decided to do it ourselves in the end. Very rough estimates Server depending on Specification: £2000 - £4000 including Server Licence. Domain name and SSL Certificate etc 3 years £200 approx or though you may be able to get this cheaper we used godaddy. Obviously the time in setting this up. We were lucky as I had already gone down the Server Virtualisation route so to be honest I didn't have to purchase a new Server just created a virtual Server to do this. The other benefit of hosting it internally is if for any reason you have internet issues students and staff can still access the VLE. If you want to have a look please find link below although it is in its early stages. https://moodle.lodeheath.org.uk The other good thing with Moodle is if you have Active Directory you can set it so users can use the same login for the network and Moodle.Before we set it up I found a couple of colleges in the area that were already using Moodle and visited these to see what it could do and for ideas. You can also download Moodle onto a USB stick and have a play with this if you type moodle on a stick into Google.

Hi We were in the same position about eight months back, we had the LEA's VLE for about 3 years for free and were just about to get the bill for it, same as you really we had a couple of departments using it well with a lot of resources but don't let this put you off going for Moodle we found although it took a bit of work you were able to move your resources to Moodle which we did over the summer and when staff came back we did some training with them and to be honest the ones that were using the previous VLE well took to Moodle really easily. We found Moodle much more user friendly than the previous VLE and to be honest alot more people are using Moodle than ever used the old VLE. Their is also bags of information on the web as regards Moodle and a lot of schools using it, we are also hosting this internally so we handle all the support for this and we can resolve any issues quickly and don't have to log support calls and wait for someone to get back to you. Good luck

The school is looking to appoint an INFORMATION MANAGEMENT OFFICER to work on their MIS System (SIM's) the person currently in this position is retiring but will be in place to do initial training and will work with this person for the first year on a part time basis in setting up the school Time Table for the first year. Details Can be found on the schools website Lode Heath School INFORMATION MANAGEMENT OFFICER BAND D (£19,126-£27,052 p.a.) pro rata 37 hours per week/40 weeks per year Required for March 2011 Please feel free to post any informal queries on the forum or pm me.

I have used a number of VLE's in over the past few years Learnwise, Uniservity, Kaliedos, Frog and Moodle I have found Frog to be the best closely followed by Moodle if you have the funding then I think Frog seems the easiest to get users involved in as it is very easy to use for both staff and students, Moodle I have also found to be execellent and because it is open source and free as long as you are willing to do a lot of work at the beginning to set this up. The main reasons I prefer Moodle or Frog is they are hosted internally so you are not relying on an internet connection speed when using resources (Video content etc) also you have almost complete control in supporting these particularly in the case of Moodle if you host this yourself. We are currently using Moodle having moved from a different platform over the summer someone from here set this up over the summer integrating some of the content from our previous VLE and adding extra funtionality. Staff have received this reasonably well and because it is hosted internally and the performance is a lot better as well as any issues resolved with the VLE are resolved internally much more quickly, it has been received very possitively. I have found one of the best ways of getting staff involved is to provide access to useful things like the the Cover list, Heads Bulletin, Staff Time table, Room Bookings, ICT Help desk, School Policies, Calendar showing events such as meetings etc even if you don't commpletely build them into your VLE you can usually link them in so staff are going to one place to access a variety of useful resources.I have also linked in Home Access Plus which someone has developed and is open source and is on the forum (thanks again Nick) http://www.edugeek.net/forums/web-development/59485-home-access-plus.html which gives staff and students access to their documents from home and our parental reporting system although both are still in their early stages and have only been released to a few staff and parents for testing and feed back. Next get a small number of keen staff as ICT champions one per department if possible and try to get them to develop some resources on their and support them with this. I have always tried to get someone from Senior Management onboard Head or Deputy Head as like a few people have said if Senior Leadership aren't behind this then you are probably onto a loser from the start as I have had this exeperience with past VLE's. Getting students involved is usually easier than the staff the Social Networking Side of both Frog and Moodle are pretty good and this is usually where you get students in but also useful information and try to make it fun. To be honest you have to realise that integrating a succesful VLE into a school isn't short term and is going to take some time and a lot of work.I also usually try to set the VLE as their start page in internet explorer it at least makes everybody aware it is their and what is available. Good luck

Virtualisation Xen Backup Scripts to Backup Virtual Images and Windows Backup Shadow Copy for User\shared areas Quick restore Backup to Terrastation Script to USB disk for offsite backup

I have worked on both and found that as long as you secure everyting correctly a single Domain is much easier to manage, in fact one of the first things I was asked at my interview for my present position was wether I prefered single or split as they had Admin/Curriculum on seperate Domains and wanted to move these together. To be honest we Virtualised the Curriculum Network first and put in a better backup solution. Then it wasn't to difficult to add in the Admin Systems and P to V the admin Server and move over the admin workstations onto the Curriculum Domain.We did this with some support from an external company as we wanted to do this pretty quickly and support the Admin side more as previously this had been done by the LEA although this was done pretty well we were just trying to bring as much as possible in house.

Logon on hours on user accounts got the staff to send me times the students would be sitting the controlled Assessment so that I could preset the hours for the accounts.

Hi Try Format Factory its free & converts almost all video formats that I have found as well as images and Audio. Format Factory - Free media file format converter Steve

Hi Data Manager job going at my previous school encompassing some of the things I did before I left with some new components. Contact Closing date for applications this Wednesday 26/05/2010 Band E £26,276-£32,800

You could also try Porta can convert hole folder of images in one go Porta photo album generator

I use Stone have been using these for about eight years now with two different schools.