Children & Families

Ewan’s blog highlights teachers frustrations

By The Basa ⋅ February 7, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Ewan Aitken’s blog at http://ewanaitkens.blogspot.com/ has now being used for anonymous members of Rasputin’s former department to tell him of his failings.

The council’s contract with BT Syntegra which has cost schools and community centres dearly comes in for a hammering today by a teacher who sounds totally frustrated and seems to echo the opinion of most (if not all) headmasters in the City (click here).
Hi Ewan, can you tell me what the council are doing to support teachers like Susan Ward with respect to the terrible service BT Syntegra are providing to schools and teachers in Edinburgh at the moment. The “refresh” has made teaching much more difficult than before, with software that used to be on computers no longer there, teachers having to install software themselves, and control for the most basic functions like managing printer queues being taken away from schools and turned into chargable services. I have been waiting since October for faults to be rectified in my classroom. I am told that headteachers many (if not all) schools in the council are lodging their complaints, yet nothing seems to be changing. Can you tell me what can be done to rectify the situation please?
For the uninitiated, the “refresh” is the method by which computers are upgraded.  We at EdSucks have been told of community centres who are begging to be let out of the refresh because the replacement computers that are supposed to be the “upgraded” ones are in fact of a lesser standard than the ones they currently have.

What sort of system would allow “control for the most basic functions like managing printer queues being taken away from schools and turned into chargable services.” ? Only a very bad one for the users.  We’d like to meet the idiot that signed that contract.  Equally we’d like 10% of the commission of the BT guy that sold them it.

That is just the tip of the iceberg.  The vast majority of community centre computers are running illegal software.  This is not just silly little programmes that are downloaded.  We know of community centres which are running with illegal copies of Windows XP with that software being years out of date so the machines are totally unsafe because when they try to upgrade and get all the security patches using the Microsoft site they are not allowed because the operating system is illegal.  This leaves all users of community centre computers open to identity theft.

A not uncommon scenario.  Elderly person cannot afford computer but goes to community centre to use computer.  Does some online banking, bill paying and the odd ebay purchase.  Because that community centre is using illegal software not updated with security patches, all usernames, passwords, account numbers, addresses go to an identity thief. 

If the someone from council would like to contact us, who is not dodgy, we can have someone prove it to them. 

What happened to the Labour promise of Education, Education, Education!  Did someone miss the end of the slogan – “Screw it!”

UPDATE

We received the following message today from Paul which is contradicts our article:
Paul wrote:
You are way off the mark about refresh, you have published wrong information,refresh hasnt started at CLD / COMED yet. The computers are the latest ones off from HP so how could they be lesser spec? Even then, the schools can keep kit if they want it. Are you going to correct these faults with your site? As a teacher from a refreshed school, I am now able to deliver learning and teaching to an entire class, at the same time, all logged in at the same time for the first time. My refresh was great.

IP: 193.113.57.167
The message came from the IP Address 193.113.57.167 which resolves to BT-CORPORATE – Click Here.

and then more messages arrived…….
Paul – again wrote:
Dont know what happened to my last post but it appears to be half chopped on your update re refresh. The last bit is a quote from a teacher, I am not the teacher because as you obviously stated, the post came from  a BT machine. Can you amend please as the first bit is mine, the last bit is a legit quote from a school in refresh. Ta.

IP: 193.113.57.167
and then another……
Hello there

I’m not sure what happened to my original message, but a bit is missing, I’m not the teacher, the bottom bit is a genuine quote from a teacher who has had refresh. Could you amend please before I get my arse kicked for trying to impersonate a teacher?

Cheers

Paul
Now, I am not sure how they do it over at BT, but I would have expected the first email to have been sent from a BT email address (not a wannadoo one) with them explaining their side of the story and then tacking on the teacher’s quote and giving us the information to confirm the quote.

Maybe they just think we are stupid.

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