Pottsey

How much time varies a lot from none to way too much. Today’s jobs went too well now I have 1 hour with nothing to do apart from clean screens and keyboards. Then it’s online testing at 11am and helping the arts diploma people after dinner.

Not 100% sure I am right on these. “work of a complex nature that would require detailed knowledge and skills in a diverse range of specialist disciplines” Surly that would be managing the server and network. You have to have a diverse range of skills from knowledge of switches, network cables to changing server policies/ Windows server OS and setting up networked software. “Work which requires a range of imaginative solutions or responses and involves applicationof fresh and innovatory thinking“ Have you ever had to come up with a solution for SEN children? A technology solution for SEN children might be putting a switch on a metal bar under the PC so the child can access a PC with his foot. That seems like an imaginative solution to me. What about suddenly being asked to setup something for a school play/talent show? Not sure if it counts as imaginative solutions but for the x-mess dinner I set up a projector in the hall to project a laptop animated background. Setup the colour theatre lights and plugged in laptops to the TV's and put animated backgrounds on to create a nice atmosphere. Have you setup talent show or other theatre stuff like that? Pretty sure we all come up with imaginative solutions to problems is just thinking of good ones.

What do these meeting do? Do we just swap ideas? Not really sure if it’s a good idea or not as I have no idea what the meting would be for.

We have two Acorns still in use. Wonderful little computers as the rare times something goes wrong you just power cycle it. Our oldest PC’s are 5 years old as we work on a 4 to 5 year rolling replacement.

Horse's Crabbie, Hannah, Annie. Had one called Henersy but she's died years back.

EMBC here and no problems. You can still use the old version if you have the install file. For some reason my server never updated to the new version but its working fine. Workstations are with the new version.

I wouldn’t give up a mobile. Perhaps swap to a pay as you go mobile that almost always turned off. Just for the times when your car break down, get lost or some other such time a mobile phone is a god send.

A few techs that ended up in BSF who talked before got asked not to post anymore once they got into BSF. I don’t think you will find anyone in BSF willing to talk as least not publicly. Your best bet is to ring around some schools or send some PM’s.

No idea what the law is. But if it’s just for Sims with no good reason common sense should say they have the right to refuse. Some people do not like photos so unless there is a good reason and needed reason to take their photo they should have the right to refuse. This photo ID thing seems like a waste of time and money. I can understand it in a large school but we have just been told all staff need a photo ID which seems rather pointless in a small school where everyone knows everyone.

sparkeh said “There is a learning curve with Fronter, some of this down to understanding the methodology, but nothing that can't be overcome by training.” I don’t agree no matter how much training you give some parts of Fronter just don’t work well enough. Take a look at the Calendar is has to be the worst online calendar I have ever seen. There are no decent printout options, it’s a pain to read, looks a mess and just doesn’t work when you have more than a few appointments on. I agree with a lot of what the writer said. Many of our staff members say the same thing. Its slow and looks like FrontPage97 designed website when using the Fronter tools. The only bit I don’t agree with or should that be problem I have not run into is needing two or more usernames and passwords.

The biggest problem with Fronter is how SEN unfriendly it is. That and we just cannot find a use for it. So far it’s just a giant waste of money.

“Is the content that they provide worth the additional cost over a standard digital signage system?” Yes more so if you are short of time. Do you really want to spends lots of hours a week making new content? I find it very useful to use there content and just slot its bits of my own when I get time. A lot of people saying they can do it cheaper in house with their own system don’t factor in the time and resources needed to make hours of content. If you don’t need the life channel content it’s not worth getting, but if you factor in all the content you get compared to making it all yourself it is reasonable value. "Is the content easy enough to create?" You are given no software to create content. How hard or easy content is to make depends on which software package you buy. You can send in a limited amount of content to them and they will edit it for you. You can also download extra optional free content. If you are skilled at packages like Pinnacle Studio 12 then content should not be hard to make but still time consuming. “Is the content that you create limited by the system in place?” Yes it’s limited compared to other digital systems. Content is pretty much videos and picture only although I recommend using pictures in video files. There interface is very unfriendly when it comes to pictures. Your limited by whatever your video editing package lets you do. With a few exceptions like a ticker, but it’s still a limitedsystem.

Long enough to cool the drive down. I would have thought 1 or 2 hours would be enough. All depends just how cold your freezer is.

SSD’s in RAID might not be good. As far as I know no raid controlers support the TRIM command and you need that to avoid SSD slow down. Assuming server OS’s support TRIM. I know Vista does not and Windows 7 does. What about server OS’s? When SSD’s do fail you dont normaly lose the data like other harddrives. A failed SSD means you can read it but not write to it.

You have to love the BBC's way of reporting. How dare they pay headteachers 5 figures salaries! Why we should pay them 4 figures salaries max.

Someone last week asked me to help them as they had trouble with the school direy. I imminently pictured the staff member trying and failing to open the pages and then holding the pen upside down.

Do not go in trying to shake the place up right away. Get a feel for the place first, then slowly introduce new things.

30 seconds unless its the first time on that PC then 40 to 50seconds.

Could the LEA buy it for all the schools in one area?

Not sure if anyone has done a large survey but a lot of IT staff in schools only work overtime in holidays if a big project is on. A lot of others work all year around with only 4 ish weeks of holiday. I find IT contracts are a mix of the two there is no common one. Generally speaking those that get full school holidays take home less pay. Average pay might not be the best way to look at it. Pay change a lot based on the size of a school. An IT manager in a small school might be as low as 18k while I would expect a larger secondary school is 23k+

It appears you can make websites outside of Fronter and run them from Fronter. This lets you create far more useful and better looking sites then whats possible from within Fronter. Go to Login: secondary Password: London https://fronter.com/ukusers/ Now go to the GCSE ICT room for an example.

russdev said “Was it seen by your brother who dosn't live with you then yes was public. Was it seen by best friend who you have known from school yes was public. I am not sure how clear I can make this to people as I hate seeing young staff as often they are ones who do get caught out like this. Website = public” I really don’t agree. A private page between friends and family is just that a private page. It’s not a public page anyone can see. Website does not = public. It’s not open to the community as a whole. It’s not open to all persons or for all to view. Now if her private settings are off and anyone can view then I agree its public. But saying website = public is going too far. There should be nothing wrong with talking about your day to other people. No names of children or school name was mentioned so nothing wrong was done. If you have a bad day and/or the class is bad we shouldn’t have to worry about saying the class was bad to other people.

HannahBanana said “at the prices they are charging im not surprised! “ The prices they are charging are cheap for what you get. If you compare there system to similar systems that offer the same amount of content I bit the price is one of if not the cheapest. With the other cheaper systems it doesn’t always work out cheaper as you then have to pay someone full time to make content for it or have a system that’s not updated often as someone is just doing it in their spare time. It seems to me people are comparing there system with regular content to other systems without content and going look how expensive they are.

It depends on time. You could use the websites and a free or cheaper system but that requires a lot more time. The website only has a small collection of shows and most are very short only a few minutes long. You no longer get school content made for you either. What I like about the lifechannel is if I am busy for a few months the shows change and people don’t get bored with the same old content all day every day. Then when I am less busy I can work on and upload new school content. That and the shows in-between the school content are constantly changing making a few more intresting playlist. It all comes down to do you want to create a lot of content in-house and regularly create new content. Or do you want content made for you.

It’s not all free. You have the broadcast mini shows which they choose and change you cannot get those for free. You have the website where you have to be a TLC Schools members todown load short 1 to 5mins shows to uploaded to your box ,this used to be free but not sure if it still is. Basically its short content they created but is optional. Lastly you have your own content. EDIT Don’t forgot the 8k or what ever it is covers the TV’s, PC(s), new TV shows, installation, cabling, software updates and pretty much everything else. There are no hidden charges at least I never found any its one fee for eveything. You can even send them your content and they will edit it and put it on the TV system.