Tim_H

The age limit is an american thing, as far as I am aware it has no basis in law in the UK. The comment about "owning" their own data at 13 is not entirely correct as far as I am aware - it is still a parent/guardians responsibility at age 13. See Answers.com - Why is facebooks age limit 13 Which is a better option? Raise the age limit to 18 and pretend the problem doesn't exist (it will still exist and even if kids don't lie about their age and sign up anyway they will move to other sites such as Bebo, or some other upstart company will make an online space for that age group) OR Lower or leave the age limit unchanged and educate about appropriate use, educate about risks and actually teach kids to be able to manage their accounts Banning kids from FB (or similar sites) is not only unrealistic, it will leave them completely unprepared to be responsible online when they do actually reach the age where FB is suddenly acceptable for them to use. The tobacco example doesn't gain traction with me at all. Cigarettes are not available in the way that internet access is available, on devices already in pockets and in unmonitored bedrooms using unfiltered internet access. It is far harder for a child to buy cigarettes than it is to sign up for a facebook account and there is a very different social stigma attached to smoking. There are people who are trying to use facebook educationally (and at a time when schools are investing so much time and money in VLEs!) just have a look at The Why and How of Using Facebook For Educators – No Need to be Friends At All! | The Edublogger As with most things, I can see pros and cons... There are educationalists who are pushing ahead with these ideas whether you like them or not and whether they turn out to be good or not is yet to be answered. When this type of activity is going on do you really think there is ever going to be a chance of banning signups to under 18s? Not to mention the fact that it wouldn't make good business sense for FB to do it anyway - and they are in the world of business... A far better option is to encourage (or force using legislation?) FB to use better privacy options and create better tools for parents to see their children's online activities. Maybe accounts for younger kids should have to be set up by an existing account holder and the child accounts tied to the master account. I'm sure they are more than capable of building this type of system at FB - but it boils down to whether they see it as a worthwhile investment.

We have been a Music specialist school since 2005 and have used Windows exclusively. With the exception of the odd request for Logic we have never been unable to fill the needs of the school - there is an arguement that Logic is not really needed as such - but it is very widely used in music production and in HE. It is usually NQTs or placement students who request Logic as they have had access to it (I even had one NQT argue that macs were better than PCs because macs have logic and PCs don't! hardly an advantage of the platform itself IMO) We started with XP workstations on a vanilla 2003 domain, we are now running 64 bit Windows 7 on a 2008R2 domain. Sibelius is great, very few problems with it and good support on the very rare occasion I have had to contact them - not sure if the support is still as good now that Sibelius have been bought by Avid, but I haven't had to find out so that's a good sign. Cubase - currently we use Cubase 5 and that works well most of the time, there are a few performance issues once in a while but nothing too bad. Steinbergs support isn't that great as a rule. Earlier versions of Cubase could be a little quirky, but on the whole everything needed in the classroom has been delivered without too many headaches! Cubase 5 does require a dongle - we mount these inside the case to prevent "borrowing" Reason - currently we use Reason 4, we haven't bothered with Record as we have Cubase. Very few issues with Reason with one notable exception - rewire doesn't work with 64 bit (last time I checked anyway) and this has been an issue for quite a while now - I should probably have another look at whether this has been solved yet! In terms of effectiveness, we run NCFE music tech, music GCSE, Music and Music Tech A levels and some of the Exams for these subjects are computer based. We have never found any course requirement that we have been unable to meet - so I think that PCs are just as effective as macs for provision of education although it is worth exposing students to as many different technologies as possible in my opinion, but this is held in check by the reality of cost and supporting more equipment.

Thanks very much for the info ZeroHour - just saved me some time

To Catch A Predator wouldn't be my first choice for educating parents (or anyone else for that matter). Charlie Brooker on To Catch A Predator | Culture | The Guardian (the TCAP bit is about half way through)

The radeon 6800 series of cards came out just over a week ago, the 6870 is a pretty good mid-range card is extremely close to the nvidia 470 in performance. More info at AMD Radeon HD 6870 And 6850: Is Barts A Step Forward? : The New Radeon HD 6000 Family

This took a bit of working out but I do have an answer now. I managed to get this one solved using another adm template based on EJWill's - see http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/46809-windows-7-removing-libraries.html#post430548 Using this as a basis and finding more information about 64 bit windows 7 registry keys needing to be changed in the wow6432node location (see step 9 on Libraries Folder - Add or Remove from Navigation Pane - Windows 7 Forums) I put together the following adm which does the trick - even on open/save dialogs that I didn't expect it to work on. CLASS MACHINE CATEGORY "Windows 7 Open and Save Navigation Items" POLICY "Hide Libraries" KEYNAME "Software\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}\ShellFolder" VALUENAME Attributes VALUEON NUMERIC 2962227469 VALUEOFF NUMERIC 2961178893 END POLICY POLICY "Hide Homegroup" KEYNAME "Software\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}\ShellFolder" VALUENAME Attributes VALUEON NUMERIC 2962489612 VALUEOFF NUMERIC 2961441036 END POLICY POLICY "Hide Networking" KEYNAME "Software\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}\ShellFolder" VALUENAME Attributes VALUEON NUMERIC 2962489444 VALUEOFF NUMERIC 2953052260 END POLICY POLICY "Hide Computer" KEYNAME "Software\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}\ShellFolder" VALUENAME Attributes VALUEON NUMERIC 2962489612 VALUEOFF NUMERIC 2961441036 END POLICY POLICY "Hide Favourites" KEYNAME "Software\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}\ShellFolder" VALUENAME Attributes VALUEON NUMERIC 2839544064 VALUEOFF NUMERIC 2693792000 END POLICY POLICY "Hide Control Panel" KEYNAME "Software\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}\ShellFolder" VALUENAME Attributes VALUEON NUMERIC 2693791748 VALUEOFF NUMERIC 2684354564 END POLICY END CATEGORY; For some additional hiding of features I have used some registry fragments imported in a startup script to remove the libraries pane from the open/save dialogs and windows explorer, and also remove the navigation pane from windows explorer - I know I can do this with GP prefs but haven't had time to look at that yet. I haven't been able to lock down access to the "organise" button yet where pupils and staff can change these settings, but they are currently reset every time they log in so I'm hoping that's good enough to get them started. I hope that saves someone some time anyway

Hi jamesfed, Thanks for your response. Could you confirm whether this is controlled by the policies in Link-Layer Topology in Admin Templates - Network? I have already disabled the following computer policies: Computer Configuration -->> Administrative Templates -->> Network -->> Link-Layer Topology Discovery -->> Turn on Mapper I/O (LLTDIO) driver Computer Configuration -->> Administrative Templates -->> Network -->> Link-Layer Topology Discovery -->> Turn on Responder (RSPNDR) driver However I still have the same problem.

Hi, I have a domain where we have changed the clients from XP over to windows 7. This is one of multiple domains in the school, so we don't want users to be able to view the network. I have managed through a couple of registry hacks and an adm template to hide all references to the network in windows explorer, however the file open/save dialogs don't respect this setting and the entire network is browsable. I managed to control this behaviour in windows xp by using the policies "no entire network in network locations" and "no computers near me in network locations", but these policies are supported on "Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 operating systems only". Can anyone help with any suggestion to stop users being able to see and browse the network in this way? I have scoured the group policies but I haven't yet been able to track down a setting that will let me control this behaviour. Thanks in advance for any help.

Do you consider copyright issues when using this approach? Last time I checked YouTube's terms and conditions prohibit this kind of use. We are experimenting with a tversity server to dish out content, but I am trying to concentrate on content that has an appropriate licence attached (eg creative commons or the creative archive licence), but I think we are opening a can of worms with downloading youtube videos - unless permission can be sought from the user/person who uploaded the video in question (assuming that user hasn't ripped it off from somewhere else of course!) Has anyone looked into this much or have any advice? Going back to the original question about unblocking, with the use of something like a tvserity server you may be able to avoid opening up some sites to teachers and get a much better stream by internal hosting - but I think this may be opening up a different can of worms!

A friend of mine very recently picked up a new Focus ST and he hasn't stopped ranting about how nice it is. I haven't had a drive of it yet though! It is a group 17 for insurance purposes however, so it may be something to bear in mind when comparing it with other options and its not the best for fuel economy (but fuel economy can't be at the forefront of your mind when buying a 2.5 ltr turbo car!).

+1 for Foxit and possibly Scribus - scribus.net | Scribus Open Source Desktop Publishing

Sounds like a nice setup, especially as you got it "playing nicely" with CC3!

If all your net access is provided by RM, don't you have a Smartcache 2 server on site? You can set up all sorts of filtering lists on that and have different filtering policies for staff/pupils etc. The alternative may be to use Smoothwall express - I use this at home but don't have a need to run it in school here so haven't really looked in to what is possible with it in this environment. You could point all your machines at the smoothwall (or squid, or whatever local proxy you like) using group policy (or if your an RM school using the RM Management Console) and then do your filtering on the local proxy.

We train staff to put a lesson starter on the board and then "freeze" the projector before doing the register in SIMS. Currently they do not have access to IEP writer from the classroom so we don't worry about that aspect, but I do have some concerns that some sensitive data is being displayed on boards in front of kids. Basically there is only so much you can do and often the only way you can spot a problem is if you happen to be in (or passing) a classroom when something like that happens. I do put a note in the staff handbook and cover it in all training sessions for new staff so hopefully we're covered pretty well. If anyone has any other tips for getting this message across it would be great to hear them! Thanks for the comment Russ - that is news to me as it was our senco who wanted IEP writer. Do you know if that is your particular senco who is moving away from IEP or is this a trend that is likely to affect lots of people?

Logic is mac only - we weren't going to spend on Macs to run that. Pro Tools is now available on PC but my music tech tells me that it only works with some M-audio interface box apparently. He says that Pro Tool on Mac is actually 3 soundcards with 2 processor chips on each soundcard and there isn't a software install - does that sound about right?

I'll give it a try when I get chance - thanks for your input

Is the AD integration any good with it? Have you got it playing nicely with CC3? or do you use a different system?

I've just spotted this is an older thread, but as I've typed the response I might as well add it in case its any use to anyone! We use a system from Devize's school which can be found at: Booking System Web Site. We are using the 2.3 version, but will consider moving to v3 over the summer holiday. I also spotted this the other day, again I will look at this one over the summer holiday and decide which to use: MRBS: Introduction

I actually went and asked the SEN Coordinator here about it after reading this thread, she said that she is very happy with it. I fortunately don't have to worry too much about it as its not the kind of tool I use. One possible problem I could see with having access to this type of data in every classroom is if a member of staff looks at information when they shouldn't (i.e. when the projector is turned on and not "frozen" and SIMS/IEP data is displayed on a whiteboard in front of a whole class) - worth considering when any training is given out.

We are a specialist Music School and we have a seperate Music domain (this wasn't going to play nice with CC3). We use PCs (currently on XP, but we are considering Vista or Windows 7 when we upgrade the hardware this summer) and they run fine most of the time. We mainly use Cubase, Reason, Sibelius and sometimes DanceEJ (but thats a bit crap tbh and is only used with younger kids). Cubase isn't geared up for Network use and we have had a couple of strange issues in the past, but thats all fine for us at the minute. Reason works nicely, however after the machines are imaged you do need to put both the soundbank CDs in the drive for the software to validate them. I think with Cubase 5 (which we are hoping to standardise on this summer) a USB dongle is a requirement (unlike for older versions like Cubase SE) so we need to make sure these are inside the cases to avoid any possibility of these being nicked. I do hear requests for Logic on occasion, but the cost of the equipment compared to PCs rules this out as a realistic option. We also don't do any standalone machines with one exception - the studio PC, but the studio always has the music technician in there so we don't see problems with that. We have folder redirects for the home drives and I was concerned about the performance when working with audio, but we haven't had any problems with performance. The music domain has 40 PCs on it, 16 each in two classrooms, a couple more in other classrooms and the music office and a small cluster for 6th form use. Shared drives - we use standard shares for distributing resources to kids, hand-in folders, staff only shares and this achieves everything we need. We also have a KAAN system for the keyboards, these can connect to midi programs without any issue and on the whole they work fairly nicely but we do get the odd hardware problem with those. Let me know if you have any other questions

If you want to get into education you could contact a few local schools/colleges and offer to do some unpaid work experience. I bet quite a few of them would jump at the chance of an extra pair of hands and you should be able to get some experience and a reference out of them and its something to put on the CV.

I'd started writing a reply then spotted SteveB had hit the nail on the head. I knew Capita bought out IEP writer, we had to purchase it direct from Capita. I don't think development has stopped (although if it is developed as fast as the replacement for the archaic system manager you might be waiting a while for any changes ) AFAIK it does what they need it to do in the SEN department, but they are not the best users for actually reporting problems! Also you get a choice of licensing options (1 user, 5 users or site from memory), we had the usual line "we only need it on one computer, it will only be accessed by [our SEN coordinator]". Despite our warnings they insisted on 1 licence, I'm sure you can guess the next request we had about it when another member of staff saw it in action...

yes - we have that problem too, but that is also the case with any method of contacting parents

We use "Call Parents" it is another offering from the company that operates "Truancy Call". See Truancy Call - Welcome This integrates nicely with SIMS, but I can't comment on integration with another MIS although I'm sure they support all the major ones. Basically you can mass text important information to those who need it, worked a treat when we had a school closure due to snow earlier this year.

Thanks to everyone involved in organising and running the day yesterday, well worth attending.