A Week of Investigation

It's been a funny week: good, busy but odd at times.  But I can't nail why it's felt that way.  I think it's because it's been almost exclusively a week of investigations.  And if you have similar work to me you'll understand that investigations can lead to a lot of input, with little - or no - permanent output.

OK, here's a snapshot of the more useful elements of my week, in no particular order of importance or effort:

1. Dipped into my mailbox to address a few operational issues
2. Investigated how VLC might provide a network-based video streaming solution (using existing client technology) to a piece of cross-phase work being proposed by our DT departments.  Half a day's work
3. Investigated the latest upgrade of our MIS (we use Engage by DoubleFirst).  A full day (and a bit of the next)
4. Dipped into my mailbox to address a few operational issues
5. Upset a few members of staff over a trial I'm putting in place (a trial that excluded them - apologies, but it is a trial and, necessarily can't include everyone).  All week maybe?
6. Investigated how Google Apps might provide a short-term solution to a BSME Recruitment development.  Maybe a few hours
7. Began inspecting, in more detail, the ICT Bids by the various school's budget holders.  Half a day
8. Stole mini bars of chocolate from the HR Office, once or twice (a day)
9. Dipped into my mailbox to address a few operational issues

Let me pick on one of these: Item 3

Our Latest MIS Upgrade
We're into our third year of Engage.  They try to release an upgrade about once a month.  Now that's good and that's bad.  Good, in that clients know they're actively improving the product and listening to client feedback (well, at least I hope they are).  Bad, in that it is sometimes difficult to absorb (and hence, plan to roll-out) some of the juicier upgrades.

This one looks good, though, and one I hope to not only absorb, but recommend we exploit.  You see, for the last few months, we've been preparing to release our Parent Portal, which is part of the MIS.  This will give families access to various elements of information about their children (e.g. timetable, assessments).  There are also nice Notices and Events widgets to help us fine-tune communications.

But this release includes Lesson Planning and Lesson Templates.  Aimed at teachers (er, to plan lessons), it allows staff to 'publish to Contacts' and 'publish to Pupils'.  Although, in this release, the act of selecting this doesn't actually publish to Parent Portal, it will in next month's release (a good reason for monthly releases).

[The Pupil Portal is another development and will form part of a near-future release ... and blog, no doubt]

But when the lesson does get published, it will also provide details of assignments (aka homework).
So, no more:
"Hey, Ben.  Your homework diary is empty.  No homework today?"
"No, Mum.  We finished everything in class"
"Really?  That's interesting, because I've logged into my Parent Portal account and that suggests something quite different"
"Erm ..." stutter, stammer

Possibly, by the time our Parent Portal gets released (it's been a long process trying to get up-to-date email addresses), the next upgrade might already have been made available.  I still need to understand Lesson Planning more but my feeling so far is that it will be a good step forward, not only for home|school communications, but for remote access to lesson details, resources, deadlines, etc.

And you never know when the next school closure is!
____________

Oh, and my mailbox still has an operating level of about 280 unread emails in my inbox (and are likely to remain unread unless anyone knows how I can freeze time for a month or so).  And that doesn't account for those that get filtered out into other folders.