Cobalt

I too went for the 30-day trial and unfortunately thoes teaching staff that we asled were not wholly impressed by the material at all. The main problem for us is that much of the content did not tie in well enough with the courses that we run, hence a lot of the money - and it is a lot of money - was for material we simply wouldn't use. We sent it back with a thank you note and that was that - We are now looking into producing much of our own content with the aid of various other lovely bits of software, most of which are considerably cheaper even if they do require a bit more time and effort to get the end product.

Hi, I wondered if anyone would be willing to let me have a sneak peek at their Kaleidos platforms - We signed up last year and have made a start developing it, though in reality it's not going to get much attention until the start of the school year when the plan is to get everybody using it to some degree and to start building on the content. We realise a VLE is a long-term investment in terms of time and results so aren't expecting any miracles, but it would be really good to see what other schools that either have had more time devoted to it thus far, or who had a headstart, have done with Kaleidos and where they are looking to go next with it. I won't get into a debate as to why we went with Kaleidos as it wasn't in my hands, though now we're using it I am really keen to get the best out of it and any advice/input from those that have seen or used it would be more than appreciated. If anyone wants a chat, please don't hesitate to drop me a PM and we can swap contact details. Cheers, John

That may be an option in the future when our feeder schools send kids through that are already on Kaleidos (I believe all Primary schools in our area are now using this as their weapon of choice), though at present it would rock the boat to too much of a degree to be practical - Obviously the kids are familiar with the present choice of usernames and structure, and we also tie these to various other systems such as our printing card system.

We've taken on Kaleidos thanks to a subsidised offering and we're now tied into it for several years I believe. It's alright, nothing spectacular though. On the plus side, it's very intuitive and I don't think anyone can argue that it's difficult to use, either as a staff member creating content or as a pupil navigating. However it has a major flaw - Speed. If you've got a slow or unreliable connection, forget it. We're running a 2Mb connection due to costs of upgrading and it's very sluggish with just a handful of users, so getting an entire class on is going to be a no-no for the time being which is a big limiting factor. It seems reasonably responsive from home on my 8Mb broadband so it would probably be acceptable in schools with a half-decent connection. The other problem is that student's logins are generated, meaning that we have no control over them. Ideally, we'd have liked something tied into AD so we could stick with a single set of login credentials for ease but again it's just another niggle and another set of passwords to constantly have to change. I know that somebody mentioned in-house solutions like Frog can be used even if the Internet is down, and whilst that's obviously true, the same applies in reverse - Nobody can access it from home if the connection is down. Yes, I like services to be available in school, though it's important that VLE's can be accessed from anywhere, so again a lot rides on the quality of your connection.

We've got a curious mixture of both and can agree with a lot of the above - There are pro's and con's to both setups. Personally, I prefer desktops - Luckily we have very little vandalism or theft so that's not really an issue, and having wired networking and a permanent connection to the projector/IWB means that we're seldom called in there with connection problems of any description which is always nice. However, laptops are more suitable for certain staff members who work in rooms across school where it might not be possible to have applications that they use installed. Additionally, even if the network is down for whatever reason, laptops remain usable as teaching staff have a local logon so may still be able to proceed with a lesson as long as they've got a backup of any resources they intend to use on hand... or they can at least stick a DVD on

Thanks for the link - I think we're going to go with the kit from Rapid Electronics which is almost identical apart from the lack of a plug and carry pouch. I believe they were about £25 for a mat, wriststrap and cables and another £5 or so for an Earth Bonding Plug which is cheaper than elsewhere so we're talking about £30 a student which isn't all that bad. We'll only be doing this in groups of three so one kit each plus one for the demonstrator (since I suppose I'd best appear to be doing things by the book as well!) comes to around £120 and I think that even qualifies for free delivery. Not bad at all - Thanks very much for everyone's help, that's another job ticked off the list for the summer. John

Thanks for the input guys, looks like ESD Service Kits and Earth Bonding Plugs all round. Better to be safe than sorry John

Thanks for the reply - The machines will of course be switched off at the wall - it was whether or not we are allowed to leave them plugged in for earthing purposes or not that we're not sure about. As I said, my initial idea was to get mats and wriststraps with crocodile clips and use the bare metal chassis since they should learn how to do it "properly" anyway, I was just seeing if we could avoid buying the plugs with earthing points on them or not seeing as they just about double the cost of the kit per student! Cheers, John

Hi, I've read a previous thread here on antistatic precautions though it didn't fully answer my question, so, here goes... In September we're doing AS Level Applied ICT at Key Stage 4 for those students who did well at GCSE ICT in Year 9 last year. Though it's only expected that the single award will be completed within the 2 years, the teacher is keen to do an additional module from the double award which is building PC's, mainly as we think that the students will enjoy it and will probably get more from it than sitting looking at pictures of hardware in a textbook. Since I'm the IT Technician/Curriculum Support Assistant for ICT that suits me down to the ground, which - on an unfortunate and entirely unintended pun - leads me to my next question: Antistatic. Personally, I'm happy to leave the case plugged into the wall albeit switched off and touch the bare metal of the case now and again. However, we're not sure - and seemingly nobody else is - what we can do in terms of letting students do. My original intention was to buy antistatic mats and wristbands with crocodile clips, using the case chassis (plugged in but switched off at the main) as an earthing point as this is relatively inexpensive and will more than do the job, even with clumsy hands grasping RAM like some sort of light sabre... Are we alright to let kids work on machines that are plugged in or are we better off buying the plugs for antistatic kit with just an earth pin and leaving the cases unplugged entirely? I'm pretty confident the former is safe enough though naturally I'd just be happier if I'd heard what one or two other schools did, especially if there's any sort of legal/health and safety issues involved. I guess we could get all their parents to sign a disclaimer... Thanks very much in advance, John