GrumbleDook

@localzuk If I was to offer you a 100 meg bearer but you could only use 50 meg and the rest was cordoned off for someone else to use, but you only paid for 50 meg would that be acceptable?

For all services in schools paying for the exact same service based on ability to pay (shown by number of learners) rather than paying for what you get is always a contentious issue (remembering that some tools from RBCs / LAs are used on an individual user basis such as filtering, email, etc). It is the same across lots of areas, including health, the Post Office, rail services and so on. One of the problem with contracts is that to get the aggregated benefit over a long period (and also reducing risk) the legal hoops are a nightmare. In the same way that $ISP can decide that they are no longer offering a service (eg BT pulling out bonding kit to make space for FTTC ... even though it is not being delivered there for 18-24 months is one that I think was covered before) and just turn it off ... even if you are making good use of it. Google did the same with a number of really good tools, but since you aren't paying or have a good lock on the delivery of that service then you don't have a leg to stand on. This is part of the risk that needs to be understood when buying into something (for 'buying' also take it to mean investing time and effort, as well as hard-earned cash). I'm not saying that RBCs / LAs are for everyone ... and some compromises are needed (on both sides) but having seen the good and bad that arises from people not understanding even the contentious area of contention ... I think Gloria has a good point that shouldn't be ignored just because it comes from an RBC.

I'll have to check whether I can release the info I hold (which I gained from the ICO) as I have to abide by DP / FoI with my info too ... it might be quicker to ask ICO directly.

And it seems that members of a *community* have seemed to miss the reference to COIN. It seems to me that if anyone mentions the idea of working together to have a collectively appropriate service then they are accused of forgetting the responsibility of an individual in an individual school to get the best deal. Don't get me wrong ... I know the pressures of making sure that everything is fine for your school, and that the intense competition between schools, the shortfall in funding and the anti-centralisation agenda which is out there makes it difficult to justify thinking of others. The politics behind who runs things is also an interesting thing ... and I'll make no friends (and lose some) when I say that the power battle between LA and School, when done at a technical level, is petty, often wrongly placed and is often not done for the benefit of the school but for the benefit of individuals (and this applies on both sides to be completely honest). Gloria raises an interesting point about sharing of lines (which applies in other grids when you consider back hauls, exchange locations, etc) and the impact on other schools should one decide to listen to spin and hype. No disrespect is meant to colleagues in ISPs, the movement away from using contention but to congestion to describe the exact same thing has not helped. It has just put another marketing term in and it will not be long until it gets abused as well. I could rant on a number of things around this ... the politics of LA / RBC control, of schools power struggles, of the wealth of collective expertise sometimes hiding the individual lack of knowledge, the lack of CPD for school technical staff and so on ... but I would just say that Gloria deserves a break for highlighting an important area where more mis-selling is likely to occur in the coming years. Of course ... contention / congestion is not the only think to consider ... and some of the extra support that some schools need is often missed by some of the membership here ... remembering that most of the regular members are the more adept, more capable and more open to sharing. It is a shame that not all schools are in that position.

Where to start ... I am presently writing a report on this, and I was thinking about including a list of schools who have signed undertakings. This might be a tad harsh on those schools though, especially if they have changed where they went wrong. You would have to go through each undertaking which has been signed by a school and analyse exactly what went wrong. This can be gathered from the ICO, of course, by requesting the information via a FoI request ;-) A good place to start on the training is the previously issued guidance from Becta ... still available via the National Archive site. (The last cut is available at [ARCHIVED CONTENT] Becta Schools - Leadership and management - Data management - Data handling security guidance for schools) The ICO has also recently released a very good report aimed at schools which might also answer most of your needs. ICO news release: Report offers school data protection advice I hope this gives you a good start.

I've always used the following: Technically, it would mean that good teachers are also geeks ;-)

Because it has a lot of the people that previously did jobs in other sections, NDRBs, etc in there. PfS is now part of EFA and still deals with Academies, new school builds, etc. Some Becta staff went in ... and are still doing an essential job (leading on safeguarding work for UKCCIS for example). The DfE brought back in a lot of work done elsewhere so the previous cut of staff was almost unnoticed ... this one is likely to hit hard. The priority of back office staff going will only work if things are made more efficient (a common thread across the whole of the public sector) but I worry that it will just mean corners being cut instead because there simply aren't the staff to cope with the need.

You give access to whatever is deemed relevant and then combine it with policies to ensure that it is accesses, processed and shared appropriately. Access to DOB, etc might be given to allow pastoral staff (eg form tutors) to plan for birthdays or other notable events. Address might allow for planning of home visits. Other details might be part of letters home ... The list could go on but it has to be agreed by the schools and it has to also be appropriate for work / life balance. It is not so much what data can be shared, but where. You might allow remote access but how to do you specify that it should be done on a machine which is not viewable by others (ie those who have no rights to see or process the data)? You can do some of this with tech (ie lock it down so it is not accessible outside of school) or you can use policies / procedures. This is related to Data Protection Principle 7.

You are only susceptible if a) your present system is not set up correctly, b) if access to your present system is open to abuse due to human security failings (similar to lost passwords, etc) or c) there is a known issue with your present system which cannot be fixed (ie the system is no longer supported for security fixes) and needs to be replaced.

A public space is where members of the public can be clearly seen and where the primary activity for them being there is not that of the organisation. In a school this would mean that your CCTV might have an area blanked out if it can clearly see a public footpath where people not related to the school might be clearly seen and identified. As a public building it is expected that anyone going onto *your* premises (as opposed to public space) is doing so for the purposes of the school (even if they are simply coming in to complain ... it is related to the school) and so your *clear signage* telling them CCTV is in operation is enough to inform them of what is going on. It is all around the expectation of privacy. Someone walking on the pavement next to the school has a reasonable expectation that they will not be on CCTV. If there is a high burglary rate in the area and the school has been broken into on many occasions then it might go to the local community to say it is going to keep an eye on public spaces as well, to try to a) deter people casing the school and b) help the authorities identify people who have committed crimes. It is sometimes a fine line a a chat with your local community bobby can help with identifying the best thing for you to do.

It is not only loss of earnings you have to cover but loss of the client's ability to deliver a service (contracted or voluntary). This clearly covers schools.

This will vary depending on how the Academy is being set up, who the original school was, who purchased the assets (and licences are assets) and so on. The EFA is the best place to ask (and IIRC this is one area they have previously given advice but I will check again) and there are a number of groups who specifically sell legal and contractual advice to schools as the become or convert to academies.

The aim is for these to be personal devices which can be used within schools as part of 1:1 schemes.

From what I can gather, this is part of a long planned strategy with equivalent programmes in other countries too. Shape The Future is part of a well establish project to close the gap between rich and poor when it comes to accessing kit. Similar schemes have been things like "Get Online". They could have done this at any point in the next year but it makes sense to tie it into the existing marketing strategy used to raise the profile of Windows 8.

The SSAT are aware of the issue and have published the following on their website SSAT | ICT Register website They are still looking at options to get the domain again and they continue with their good work to help schools support each other.

The group owner has set it as a closed group on LinkedIn but any member of the group can invite you in. If you are on LinkedIn then drop me line and I'll invite you in (as can a number of others).

@Divaldo it sounds like your issue is different to the others, and could be network / DNS related. Can you connect to any other *.inthehive.net service? Have you checked your DNS forwarders are set to those specified by your connectivity provider?

I was chatting with someone about this over the weekend and they are going to try using an Apple Airport Express as a bridge from wireless to wired for the Apple TV. It is only a temporary solution to check if it works in his setup, and if it does then he is going to stick in a few more network points to deal with it. It does seem a tad expensive if you were going to buy an Airport Express with every AppleTV, but he has a few spare to test with. In his situation (listed building) using the Airport Express is probably going to be cheaper than running points though.

Computing is not just about coding. It is about analytic problem solving, learning vocabulary and language structure, creative design, time management and group work. No ... I can't see any of the above used in working life. The problem with coding is that people tend to stick it in a silo of its own ... and not link it with activities in other subjects. That means that the common skills and concepts also get put in there too and it means massive opportunities are missed. Computing is not unique with this though and only an integrated curriculum will really deal with this.

You can view the page at http://www.edugeek.net/content.php?r=413-The-Importance-of-Domains

The relevant section on the ICO site is Can I Send Personal Data Overseas? - ICO and the Assessing Adequacy document is essential reading. I would also go through and search for previous discussions on a similar theme (the article on Dropbox as an example) to help understand how people manage risk. Local laws can be used to gain data but you have to judge the risk of this, and there are similar laws across the globe dealing with this issue anyway (Patriot Act and associated laws, Section 28 of DPA, etc)

The following was shared via the [safetynet] mailing list earlier today.

Office 2013 is not free, SharePoint Online (as part of the A2 offering of Office 365) is has no direct cost but is not a full SharePoint implementation (but still pretty good). Google Apps for Education also has no direct cost. The costs for both of the above is time, training, blah, blah, blah ... In the words of Miles Berry ... think of free as in free kittens. They might be given for free but they still have to be fed, watered, taken to the vet, etc. Google Apps and Office365 both have their quirks on a range of browsers and platforms and are designed to work best with their accompanying OSes. Neither wins ... but neither loses.

There were a few of us at the launch on Friday at QPR. I'll put up a report shortly including links to what a few others have said about the event.

Used and using a variety, but they all have common tools of discussion, blog, document storage / allocation / return and wiki. There are a few other additions such as IM, vidchat / video conferencing (there is a difference), scorm objects, etc. You can, of course, do all of these individually and join them together yourself. Personally, SharePoint or Moodle ... making sure you work with the right partner on either to get AD integration and/or SSO to other resources.