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Re: [LUG] Schools Computing - what have they got?

 

On 20/01/2009 18:19, Dave Foxcroft wrote:
> Rob Beard wrote:
>    
>> On 20/01/2009 16:06, Tom Potts wrote:
>>
>>      
>>> I've finally managed to corner my daughters primary school headmaster and he
>>> wants to look at setting up password accessed records for the kids+parents
>>> etc and I was under the impression that the schools network provided by the
>>> government should have at least some of the capabilities to do this.
>>> He says everytime he tries anything it says 'server not available' so it
>>> sounds like  he's on the MS network alright!
>>> Is there anywhere I can find out what capabilities are on offer and how to get
>>> at them?
>>> Tom te tom te tom
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>> Records of what?
>>
>> Might be worth looking at Moodle or Karoshi.  Something like that should
>> be accessible over the web so students can access their work online etc.
>>
>> Rob
>>
>>
>>      
> All schools are being required to provide kids&  parents  access to
> records such as achievement and attendance as part of the Gov' education
> 'strategy' so the county may have provided a means to do this via some
> online app (I know CCC is touting Merlin for it's primary schools - not
> sure if this will allow access to records etc) - the 'server not
> available' may well be where this app is going to be accessed.
>
>    
I see, I didn't realise that.  My kids Primary School hasn't got 
anything like that, at least they don't appear to.
> The biggest problem with primaries is that most of them pay the county
> for support and if the county is committed to the M$ way than trying to
> get anything else in there is a real headache as it will probably not be
> supported.
>
>    
Sounds about right.  From what I understand when I was working at DCC on 
their First Line Support they were pretty much in M$'s pocket.  I guess 
one way of looking at it though is there are hundreds if not thousands 
of people out there who do IT Support and know Windows.  I was 
contracted there doing what was considered Helldesk.  I was running 
Linux at home on my desktop though and I gathered that maybe one or two 
of the Third Line support team ran Linux in one form or another.
> Having spoken to a couple of primary schools on the subject - moodle
> seen as overkill (remember the network is normally managed by the main
> teacher of ICT - they are paid to teach not run networks!)
>    
Yup I guess not having a full time ICT Techician around to sort it out 
and possibly the local Secondary School's ICT Technician maybe once a 
week it's probably either not going to happen or be low down on a list 
of priorities.
> Karoshi - well I know one of the schools that is using it  - they have
> WinXP PC's - all the same local logon, windows workgroup - no domain
> with no need for a DC so they are only using it as a file server which
> is a real shame as Karoshi does pretty much everything you would need on
> a primary school network.
>    
Hmm... so they're not using it to their full potential then I guess.  I 
presume it's the same problem, no full time ICT staff so I guess it was 
put in to maybe replace an old server which was on it's last legs as a 
cheap option?

Rob

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