GrumbleDook

But I want it fixed and I want it now!!! (stamps foot) erm ... I think I may be hanging round my daughter too much. I'll be patient ... (pulls up a chair and gets out a book) :-)

I work across Wales, but mainly doing meetings in Cardiff or Swansea at the moment.

Dropbox advice and support has a link which when used in a browser directs fine but when used in the app it directs to the forum thread number rather than the article number. Tested on iOS 9 on iPhone but others have shown fault too.

Ah. I can see the issue. The app directs to forum threads (number 310 in the case) rather than the full URL link which is to the news article. Will report the fault to ZH. Leaving as is for the moment so it can be looked at.

Link works fine for me. Anyone else have a problem? Here is the follow up but on my blog, from there you can get the original thread as well. http://grumbledook.org/blog/2014/07/02/cloud-storage-update/

I'll do a longer reply later but have a read through this article, including the update where DropBox have signed the Safe Harbor Agreement. http://www.edugeek.net/s/articles/310-dropbox-ok-use.html TLDR version? Caveat Emptor!

Been running the Mac version since release and pulled the full version for Windows to see if it broke my test VM, but all looking good so far.

Is it the missing bit from the Heart of Gold?

Becta did a special intro purely for primary schools when it comes to IT Support. The official version was all about communication, shared knowledge and resources, ensuring staff could grow to be self-sufficient and so on ... The unofficial version was that you have 2 roles. 1 - Ensure the key stuff gets done that will save the school in the event of nasty things happening. This is your backups and DR, working accounts and devices, protecting the learners from the nasty stuff on tinter web. 2 - A whole heap of stuff that might be vaguely related to your job but realistically takes some of the burden off classroom teachers who have no-one else to support them in that area. If number 1 is not getting done then it is not about getting out the JD and banging on the Head's table ... it is about pointing out the jobs that need to be done as the school will be in a world of hurt if they are not. Go in with estimates about how long it will take to do them so that you can block time out, and make sure staff know that you are blocked out for those time periods ... unless there s a major disaster. Tell them what a disaster looks like and get the Head's agreement to be able to politely tell people to go away if it doesn't fit that criteria. It will be painful to start with ... but stick with it ... Primary schools are some of the most exciting and appreciative places to work.

It is, but the policy needs to clearly state expectations and appropriateness of use. There can be expectations to some privacy unless explicitly published and staff are made aware. This is an area where unions seriously advise against it and for very good reasons. Does the school have a policy for ensuring only limited staff have access to the results? Does the school keep records of when it was accessed and why? Treat it as you would CCTV ... and there is plenty of good advice on EG already on that, or you can just go straight to the ICO for their policies and practices advice.

I love articles like this. The Journo version of the report takes out what they see as key facts (aka the facts that will grab attention most and that *they* think is most relevant) and they it gets put in front of others who may not have seen the full report and the responses are then selected for sound bites suitable to the piece. What actually goes on is that the report comes out, people quickly read the abstract and the summary/conclusions and correlations are picked out as the report gets skimmed over. The report is 204 pages long (including the fiddly bits) Students, Computers and Learning | OECD READ edition and the executive summary is what most folk will have looked at. The first thing to note is that this is based on PISA scores, and you will get some who question the value of that as the basis. The next thing is the report talks a lot about 'browsing the internet' and similar phrases where the internet is mentioned. When you rid into the tasks they actually looked at, there is no weighting applied to the relevance or importance of certain tasks. I know few teachers who would say that 'Chat on line at school" has the same impact as 'Use school computers for group work end communication with other students", though given half a chance most students *will* do the former. The paper is awash with stats and that means people will pick and choose how they want to report it. No doubt, this will get used by some politicians for justification (again) about why some QANGOs were cut, but they will fail to mention that the report also says that we are not realising the full potential of technology. The Exec Summary has a few choice lines in it, but people should read the full summary so that you understand the context. I think this one covers it for me ... Have a reason for using it as a tool and make sure that the way you are using it is beneficial. That is no different from any other tool in the hands of good teachers. The same can be said about pretty much any tool ... the one place where I would disagree with this, is where technology allows poor teaching to be replaced by great teaching. Whether through MOOCs or similar, the old CB network of teaching in Australia, there are good research examples where great teaching is amplified and spread via tech ... I would have preferred the phrase "... but great technology cannot fix poor teaching."

When we converted the garage in our last house (situated away from the house with a 3m separation) we patched it out and then had a cable run from the router location in the house to the converted garage. Having the cable between house and garage added £1000 on its own. I regret not getting the whole house done, but we didn't have any extensive works going on. We have to do the electrics in this house at some point and I will be getting it cabled at the same time. I am looking at hollow skirting boards (some good ones about) or getting tubular ducts in to allow for easy re-running of cables. It won't be for a year or two yet so interested to see how the OP's install goes.

If this records safeguarding issues then be careful where you store it. Either an extremely secure service (and I get to bang on about security accreditations if folk want me to) or hosted locally. These will contain personal and/or sensitive, personal data at some point.

The one on the wiki is a bit out of date, but a quick check on the ICO site will bring it up to speed.

IIRC the carrier pigeon service doesn't run to Shetlands ... you have to use an albatross to get messages back over this way. However, they are notoriously easy to distract and go missing ... often into Monty Python sketches.

'Twas the night before SysAdmin day and all through the school could be heard the utterance, "oh no, the bloody tool!" As techie and geek are sat in despair as they acknowledge the problem between keyboard and chair. The servers where humming in racks tall and cool and the muttering continues, "The stupid old fool!" The dulcet tones rant high and rant lo As they sigh at the depths a virus can go "How many pictures?" is followed by a jaded, small laugh when finding those snaps of the holiday in Bath A recover job for that friendly deputy head Who is probably now tucked up and snoring in bed But after Recuva and Wise Data have completed their job And you have stopped calling people, "neanderthal ... idiots!" Away to your home for a few hours sleep Then back to your day job you know you will creep ... And there let us find you surrounded by cheer Whether chocolate, wine, roses, books or some beer And know that you are appreciated by many a user And the others ... will find out who is BoFH and who is Luser! Hope everyone had a good day.

Ok ... let's have a complete look at the lifecycle on records and archiving. As part of the daily toil all staff will produce copious amounts of documents and the official stuff needs to be formally recorded. Generally this will be held in designated locations such as the MIS, recorded in minutes of meetings, etc .. but some won't. Emails of discussions around disclosures, SEN, etc can sometimes be needed for reviews once staff have left. It is easy enough for those emails to be dragged and dropped onto a centrally kept area on a file share, with a name for the student or uploaded as attachments on their record on the MIS. This should be done as part of ongoing daily tasks and not a last minute clear out before the member of staff leaves. However, before they go you should check with them that they have put all relevant conversations and files on the MIS or whatever location the school has chosen. Materials created by the member of staff during their employment are, if other arrangement has been put in place, the IP of the school. These should be stored centrally and under the control of the HoD, where appropriate. This should be done as part of ongoing work and not a last minute thing ... Personal documents should be removed prior to the member of staff leaving. Remind them that the Head or other authorised and designated staff may review the home area, emails , etc for a period of time after they have left ... It will usually be the Business Manager or Bursar who has the Information and Records Management Schedule, which tells you how long information and records has to be kept for your school. By doing the above it should make it easier to comply with this without creating a massive burden for archiving. If you don't do the above then you face needing to archive all emails, files, etc for the maximum amount of time in the IRMS ... mainly because you don't know what is where. Simple rules ... if something has to be kept a long time never leave the sole copy in an individual area (home area, mailbox), make sure people keep things up to date and if in doubt then archive against your agreed schedule.

I miss my old '77 Reynolds 531 based setup ... not good for mountains ... but covered miles and miles on it.

Been running it on a VM with few issues. It started crashing Photos a lot but a rebuild of the library sorted that. General file access on office 2016 is good but saving back to local network mapped drive is buggy (says it cannot find it, etc) ... Not really tried anything else yet.

Where appropriate please use admission number .... Which should be unique in most MIS. Also be warned that's asking the ICO that question will get them pointing you at the DfE ... Who will point you at the ICO and MIS providers ... You *will* get dizzy going in circles.

Another problem is buying in bulk, if done through one point, can fall foul of procurement rules ... Negotiation on pricing can work very well, where collective bargaining is used to drive a price but no guarantee of purchases is made. Work on this with Dell and Fujitsu previously and it is amazing what you can get sorted.

As far as I remember (and I will check again) there is still no equivalent to the US Safe Harbor Agreement between EU and Canada. The equivalent of the ICO in Canada and our ICO have worked together on a number of projects and there is clear connection between relevant laws, but that doesn't mean companies would follow it. You would have to do your own assessment of the company and the relevant local laws (which you should still do for Safe Harbor, to be honest). The other people to have a conversation on this is the ICO Helpline https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ They are an extremely helpful bunch and will point you in the right direction. Sorry I can't give a more specific response at the moment. If I find anything else I will update the thread.

Or as a discussion item to see what exceptions or changes you might want to make ... and get people to justify them.

Tony, of course I am being belligerent. My problem with your stance is that each report has to have its own set of verifiable research and that you are ignoring base data. The Byron reports were heavily evidence based and those involved in review agreed with the methodology behind them. Using the scientific method is not the only way of conducting research either, and you know this as well. There are times when application is not always possible so pure observation takes a key position. You can follow this from application of laws. Another one to agree to disagree probably, but before you knock the report consider that it has been reviewed by experts who have applied their own healthy weight of experience to their comments and recommendations on it.

Unlike a lot of England, there are still folk on the ground in most places that can help there ... For everything else, there is EduGeek To be honest, if in Wales and unsure on eSafety, chat to the eSafety Wales team. SWGfL have done a cracking job and there are a lot of other folk out there too in LAs.