rayfleming

As I said in the blog post, it definitely wasn't a representative sample (it was based on a researcher interviewing a small number of individual teachers and network managers, rather than searching through EduGeek or elsewhere). The reason for publishing it was to share a bit of the insight that we've seen at this early stage (we've got another couple of phases to come) and perhaps stimulate a discussion. We've definitely not rushed to any conclusions from it!

14th May is now full, but Mike Herrity's persuaded me to give him a room for a second date - 14th June. Details on Mike's blog Introduction to SharePoint 2010 event now full! Second date now added- Monday June 14th : SharePoint in Education (And the 14th June is nearly full, so now looking for a third date)

Whoops - should resist the "helpful" gene sometimes

FYI - the Second Shot vouchers are available globally - you just need to register: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/career/en/us/career-offer.aspx#certification Vouchers work until end June Ray

Within School Agreement, the Windows licence is for the Enterprise edition - so now it is Windows 7 Enterprise. Enterprise and Ultimate both have the same features, but Enterprise has Volume Licence activation, whereas Ultimate is a consumer version, so each version needs activating with an individual key. Here's the detail of what's in each version: Microsoft UK Schools : What features are in which version of Windows 7? The other reason to install Enterprise is that you automatically get BitLocker encryption. (And, as a bonus answer, the version included with a Select licence is Professional - you can get Enterprise under Select if you buy your licences with Software Assurance)

If you've bought your licences under Select or a School Agreement, then you may be able to use Work At Home rights (not just for these computers, but for any staff member who qualifies): http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/schools/software-licensing/buying-for-staff.aspx And if you do have a School Agreement, then it's worth knowing about the Home Use Programme - staff place the order themselves for home use, pay around a tenner, and you don't have any administration to do, so it's easier than Work At Home rights: Microsoft UK Schools : Lowest cost for Office 2007 - Home Use Programme for schools

As it happens, I hadn't (at that particular time) but I do follow along when I get the chance (not much in the last month, as I've been away from the office for 'conference season' - Harrogate for UCISA, Blackpool for NAACE, and London for the FE Day. Oh, the glamour of travel Anyway, back to the subject in hand. If you have got Office 2003 Select licences, and you're considering a School Agreement, then make sure that you mention to your EdLAR the "Upgrade The Desktop" offer, as that may save you some money (at the moment) As ever, unsure about whether this counts as inappropriate advertising, so I'll stop there. And go on holiday before you all fill up the foreign shores during the Easter hols.

Our development cycle must be really fast - we read your brainwaves at BETT, developed it and then went back in time to launch it at BETT and demo it on the stand by 10am on the first day Suddenly even more impressed with our developers - not only mind-reading, but time travel For the benefit of the tape, definitely intended as humour

Yes, it can be blocked through WSUS - you'll see it as an update that you can then choose not to deploy. Phew!

Yes, I'm drafting a blog post (which will go on our UK Schools blog) - and when I've got it finished, I'll pop a link here. It's likely to be next week. (Because of the sensitivities, I thought I'd better get some other people to check it for me first!) The browser ballot screen will be available through WSUS, but of course, you would probably choose not to deploy it, assuming that you don't want every student choosing their own browser There'll be other ways for you to manage it too, but the articles describing those aren't yet up on TechNet etc. As they are published, I'll drop a link here if others haven't already done so. The update will not be rolled out until March, and so there is time to get things sorted. Be aware though that it will normally automatically deploy to every Windows XP/Vista/7 computer, through Windows Update, not just new ones.

Hi Wes, No there won't be anything for SharePoint 2007. The other way to access the Office Web Apps (eg for students at home) will be through Windows Live SkyDrive, but that will be a 'consumer' way to get it - ie completely unmanaged by the school. You can see that way in action already, by using the Office 2010 beta, and choosing the "Save to SkyDrive" option - that then activates the beta of the Office Web Apps on your SkyDrive acccount Ray

I've got it on a Samsung NC20 and it installed very easily, found all the drivers automatically, and works a treat. Not quite got enough processor power to become my main machine, but when I'm travelling up to London, the long battery life makes up for it, and so my bag weighs half as much on those days. No longer need big laptop and power adapters etc Declaration of interest: I do work for Microsoft, so I recognise I may be biased Other netbook examples from last year are here: Microsoft UK Schools : What does Windows 7 run on?

Although I'm trying to answer earlier queries in this thread, I'm aware it may well cross the boundaries into becoming a commercial, so I'll write carefully! If there are specific follow up questions, which aren't of interest to the whole EduGeek community, I'm happy to respond by PM if there's a follow up Just had the chance to chat to the Great Mark A'Bear on Forefront pricing, and he checked the price list, which contains the mythical "ERP" figures (Estimated Retail Price), which is normally the top-end price. He's explained enough that now I know why the misleading price of £30 a month may have appeared! All the following prices are ERP's on the Select Price list: "Forefront protection client" has an ERP of 17 pence per month "Forefront protection suite" has an ERP of 72 pence per month And there is something called "Forefront Client Management Console" (which also includes SQL Server), which has an ERP of £33 a month. But this is the central control system (think top deck of the USS Enterprise) and you would only run that on one machine in your IT-nerve-centre! I think that's what was quoted for every single client. So I think we're to blame here for the confusion, by having too many products on our price list, and too many product names which confuse (eg start the name with "Forefront Client", and people think it's a client!). But hopefully there's enough info above to help clear things up a bit

Sorry all, but have been offline today, so tardy in my response! The Security Essentials licence doesn't cover school use, unless it is on a student-owned or staff-owned laptop that just happens to be used in school at some of the time. And "no", it hasn't changed recently, as it has always been like that since launch. Although I don't have Forefront figures to hand, the pricing quoted is either completely wrong, or we've lost some marbles! As we don't set pricing directly ourselves - it's our partners that set the prices you buy at - the best bet would be to get a quote from an authorised EdLAR or AER. Ray

If it's just "YouTube without comments" that's needed, then there's: YouTube XL Apparently designed for people with media centre PCs, but an absolute gift for teachers wanting to use YouTube on an interactive whiteboard. No comments, no related videos etc Not only free, but it's YouTube run, so no problems with some of the copyright problems created by downloads.

Finally, I've reached Day 7 of the my Top 10 ICT Money Saving Tips series on my blog, which is all about printing. I always knew today was the day to write about printing, so it was strange to see the thread start at the same time! Anyway, I've added a lot of detail following my contribution here earlier, and it's all laid bare for you to read and debate with! Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : Top 10 ICT Money Saving Tips ? 7 ? Stop printing so much One respondent commented that 1.2 million sheets of paper seems a little on the low side, and they constantly come across a 2 million figure. (BTW Thanks for the EduGeekers that contributed to this work) The whole series is based on the presentation I did at BETT (by the very same name!), and the reason I did it was that many network managers are saying that their budgets are being cut - at the same time pointing out how much money they could save the school if they aren't. Up to article 7, it looks like there's a £200,000+ saving per year possible. But much of that money is in somebody else's budget - printing, electricity, cover staff - and that may be at the root of the problem. How many schools work is that they look across the budgets, and say "cut it 10%" - but without necessarily seeing the opportunity to change the way things are done across the budget silos. So the whole point of the series is to help find ways for network/ICT managers to be able to describe the ways that they can help the rest of the school budget (eg spend a bit of money on virtualisation software, save £20,000 on electricity; or spend a bit of money on upgrading to current software, save £15,000 by dropping other software). I recognise that it's very self-serving doing this, but the logic stands up here. If you could save your school significant lumps of budget on things it thinks it can't save on, then you're helping. Especially if that saving isn't in the ICT budget

I did a small sample survey of some schools I know before Christmas (getting ready for my cost-saving session at BETT) and it seemed that over a million copies isn't unusual for a secondary school, including both the printer and reprographics. The easiest way people find to get the answers was to persuade somebody in the office to add it up from the stationery orders/invoices. That'll give you a good overall figure to go from. Then you can work out what goes through your printers, and what goes through reprographics. Typically reprographics is 1/6 of the cost of classroom laser printing, so by doing this work, there's a way of going back to the SLT and suggesting how you can save them money. Sadly, because in some schools it's regarded as "somebody else's budget", it doesn't get looked it holistically, but there's nothing it being done. Many schools are spending more on paper & photocopying/printing than on the their ICT - but there's tons of ways the ICT systems should be reducing the amount of paper used up. Just realising, 1,000,000 copies over 1,000 students is 1,000 sheets a student a year! That makes it seem even bigger

I don't believe that there are now targets. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, (when they were still called DfES) there were central targets for computer:pupil ratio, but these disappeared - along with the NGfL grants Since then, the targets for ICT which are in place are for broadband connections; online parental reporting; a personal learning space for every student (ie disk on a server!) and for every school to provide a Learning Platform.

[Declaration: I'm a Microsoft-insider!] Now that this is article is out, let me share what we're thinking in the UK education market for this: - It may have some limited relevance in primary schools (but as it is fixed, probably not as useful as a trolley of laptops/netbooks), eg in IT suites, which are becoming less common. - Even more limited application in secondary schools, who are heading towards 1:1 pretty rapidly - Good setup for a simple cybercafe setup, where all the screens are close together So, in a world of Microsoft where were launching a new product every week, and the UK education team tend to look at this as a pick'n'mix shop (ie we choose to spend time talking about the ones that we think are most relevant to UK schools, and don't talk much about the other 1,000+ products) this is probably second order. I think it's most relevant to developing markets (including some markets in europe where their student:pc ratio is waaaay behind the UK). And so, because 20% of the people that come to BETT are international visitors, we'll have it on the stand for them to see - and so you to can come along and make your own judgement too. But as happens now and again , we can be wrong, so feedback on the above appreciated!

Thanks to TheAngryTechnician for prompting me - I went away to check what the 'official' line is for use in schools. The following answer is provided by the group responsible for releasing Security Essentials, so I believe is definitive! “Microsoft Security Essentials is a product designed for home use and the license agreement allows users to install it on their home PC or home based business PCs. So if you are asking if a school can install Microsoft Security Essentials on all its school PCs, that would be a violation of the license agreement and therefore is an unsupported scenario. Moreover Microsoft Security Essentials does not provide any centralized management to manage all the PCs on the schools network, so it is really not the right solution for them. The school should look at products like Forefront Client Security.” There are some believe that because we don't forbid use in the licence, it should be allowed. I think the corollary is the reality - we don't allow it in the licence! Although this is a licensing based answer, I think the reality is that you don't really want to cut corners on centralised management of anti-virus protection, because the risk it introduces is much more significant than any potential savings on a enterprise-ready anti-virus solution. However, it is a good solution for staff and students to use at home - and which would have a knock-on benefit from you (if all your users had up-to-date virus protection on their home PCs) Ray

Nath is right - your Schools Agreement gives you the upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise; but you need a Windows operating system licence (normally the OEM licence) which arrives with your hardware. These OEM licences aren't transferrable between computers (and I'm not skilled enough to work out the finesses of the last two posts!). For others, a handy hint: - Buy a new PC with pre-installed Windows Professional (ie OEM version), and you cannot transfer the licence to another. - Buy a new PC with pre-installed Windows Home Premium, and then buy an upgrade to Windows Professional/Enterprise via Select or School Agreement, and you can transfer the Upgrade bit of the licence. This is because although OEM licences cannot be transferred between computers, volume licences can be, so the 'upgrade' bit is transferrable. In many cases it can be cheaper to do the second option, as well as giving you more flexibility.

If you have Software Assurance with it, then yes, but not without. You can still use Work at Home instead - just involves a little more work for you.

Hi All, Have heard that the event is now full - it seems we had over 1,000 registrations overnight. Seems that if an event has "Windows 7" in the content, it fills up very rapidly, but to get 1,000+ registrations in 24 hours is unheard of. You can add yourself to the waitlist still - I think the team organising it are probably working out how to fit in more people (maybe we should move it from the conference room to the pitch ) Ray

If you've got a School Agreement (or Campus Agreement if you're from FE/HE), then I think an easier-to-manage option is to use the Home Use Programme. Basically, it means that once you've taken one step (a tick box in the MVLS system) you then simply send staff to a webpage, where they place their order directly and it is shipped to them. It avoids you having to manage media etc, and staff receive a licensed media pack and licence key directly from us. And it costs them a tenner. (There's also a Mac version available on this scheme) It's also lower workload for you than Work At Home eg it's the employee who owns the responsibility for making sure they're correctly licensed - eg to stop using it if they leave your employment There's a blog post on the Schools blog from earlier this year with the details and links: Microsoft UK Schools News Blog : Lowest cost for Office 2007 - Home Use Programme for schools And finally, I think the main reason to put the small print in the Work At Home rights about work use, not personal, is to avoid a potential tax liability for your staff. Home Use Rights has been separately cleared by one of the Big 3 accountants as having no liability

The infamous USB Button. I suspect you'll find a ready demand from each of the presenters! That'll be 6 then