I am all packed up, and ready to depart on a much needed holiday. In 4 years the longest I have had off was a 2 week holiday, which involved me ultimately leaving my car in France, along with a lot of money, a dog dying and 6 hire cars Read more…
Thursday was an important day. I’d been telling my team this for a couple of months. But in a short term where we have battled staff unexpectedly leaving, unbelievable pressure, our highest ever ticket numbers and organising the biggest network rebuild we have ever done in the biggest middle school Read more…
For lots of schools budgets are being squeezed like never before. IT expenditure, like all departments are being cut, in some cases obliterated and in some cases were never a lot to start with. The thing is, you don’t have to spend all your budget on new kit, on new Read more…
I have been trying to work out how we are going to keep in touch with people off on 4 different sites a day if not more and the logistics of not missing issues across 8 sites now. It’s so important we continue to work as a team. This is Read more…
When I turned up at my latest school I was shown to a cupboard, which housed the central switch, stock, spares and paperwork and all the servers. No desk, and no space for a computer. No air con. I had seen it briefly on the walk around, and hadn’t thought Read more…
I’ve been following reaction to a blog post on Twitter, by Mark Anderson the problem with technicians (@ictevangalist) http://ictevangelist.com/the-problem-with-technicians/ and a subsequent follow up from @jonwitts http://www.jonwitts.co.uk/archives/760 in defence of technicians. Mark’s post describes the infuriation of teaching for staff when IT seemingly block their desire to embrace new technology. Jon Read more…
This month has been like no other I have experienced in my role. In fact, there are days when I don’t even remember my role from a few months ago. On January the first we start supporting our seventh school. Walkwood are a large middle school and we have taken Read more…
It’s no surprise I haven’t kept to my blogging, I moved into my own house in September, I have been trying my best to help my 2 kids fit into new schools and nurseries and on the rare occasion I am not working or being a single dad I have Read more…
Free office! For pretty much every youngster and educator in the UK. Crikey, what a deal! It’s definitely something that gets parents and staff’s attention, with office costing circa £90 for home and student, it is a significant saving, and with the cross device usability (you can install on 5 Read more…
Recently I decided that I wanted to give all my users the free office they can get under EES Student Advantage. I had looked into this before and it was one hell of a nightmare to set up I thought, looking at the poor Microsoft documentation, and my own lack Read more…