Bionic

I'm looking for a supplier to quote me for a batch of replacement computers, can anyone offer any recommendations? Thanks.

Interesting; were they encouraging the use of Google Drive in favour of OneDrive and SharePoint?

That's good to know, thanks for this.

I specifically remember openly stating in a meeting in 2012 with Welsh Government officials, regional consortia, and school representatives that the Hwb+ project would NOT work. They refused to divulge to me how much it was costing the Welsh tax payer. Anybody know who the project manager was?

Are there any clues in eventvwr as to why it is taking so long?

I'm not so sure. Even organisational provided accounts are likely to have personal data relating to the child. It may fall to the school or LA to seek consent from parents/guardians for the child, but I'd be very surprised if that isn't made a requirement.

With O365 being a Microsoft service I would be very surprised if it didn't apply.

Yep, scheduled task runs every evening to shut down PC's. Our PC's start-up in about a minute so no need to have them switch on automagically in the mornings ready for staff. Some staff used to complain about having to press the power button themselves, some staff complained that they couldn't find the power button. Quite comical really!

This is a good bit of advice and one that I would encourage you to follow if possible. Network audits can be very expensive, and you've already stated that "...budgets are shrinking...". If you start spending lots of money on network audits which highlight issues but don't actually fix the issues, the school governors will rightly start asking questions. I'm sure there will be a lot of free expertise in local schools who would be happy to work in partnership for the benefit of both parties.

Ok, I assume that you have sat down with the IT support staff and discussed the issues you are having? Was it mutually agreed to have a 3rd party come in to conduct an audit with the aim of helping resolve the issues?

Tried that too. I have kept a copy of an email that I sent to them in July last year expressing the importance of the need to plan for GDPR and set money aside to train staff. I have emailed them regularly since to 'remind them' of the importance. May 25th is 4 weeks away; we have no DPO, no DPIA's, no road-map and no training. I am sure that they are all excellent teachers. However, when it comes to personnel management, budgetary management, buildings management and project planning....well it's a shambles, there's no other word for it.

It is SLT's fault. I have honestly lost count of the number of times over the past 6 years that I have urged that we should be meeting regularly to discuss IT strategy and IT modernisation projects; it falls on deaf ears every time.

I am a school Network Manager, but have no sight of, nor any control of the IT budget. I don't think any of the senior leadership team has a clue what I do on a day-to-day basis, or an understanding of what is required to ensure the network 'works'.

Hot off the press... https://hwb.gov.wales/news/articles/e11da86e-be0d-4e67-aaf2-9ae5f4e2c373

Exactly this...

How much influence does your NM actually have over the network infrastructure? Does the Local Authority or MAT have any control over it?

If you are using Google accounts you could whitelist/blacklist certain videos, but that would mean you need to be given the URL's of the videos, and that becomes a management overhead that may become problematic if you don't have the resources! I would say this is less of a technical issue and more of a 'be more careful' issue. Teachers should be vetting videos before showing them in the classroom. I know teachers are busy but, speaking from experience, so are school IT support staff.

Better late than never!

I'm sure most schools in Wales are aware that Hwb+ is being withdrawn from the Hwb toolset. Currently, using Hwb+ is the only way that school IT staff can change user passwords and manually create new accounts in the Hwb tenancy. Has anyone heard any news on how IT staff will be able to do this once Hwb+ has been withdrawn?

I don't understand why O365 was chosen over G-Suite to be honest. With ever shrinking budgets it just doesn't appear as though anybody in charge has properly thought about the long term. The potential of G-Suite combined with Chromebooks and Android tablets in education is far beyond what Microsoft Office/Windows on PC/laptop can offer. We are teaching the minds of the future using technology of the past, it makes absolutely no sense.

I'm very interested in how they intend to incorporate Google tools!

I have been trying to get SLT to treat the use of CCTV more seriously with respect to data protection etc. For whatever reason, they don't seem interested. We have no log of who requests footage, who views footage, or the reason why it is being viewed. I have tried to raise awareness of data security time and time again, but I seem to be getting nowhere.