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Customers of Precedence TechnologiesPrecedence Technologies Network Computer solutions are being used by tens of thousands of pupils daily throughout the UK. Some people just had to shout about how great they were...Highlights include:
Sutton-on-Sea CP School, LincsSutton-on-Sea Primary School currently has 18 NCs as part of a distributed network of 35 workstations in total. Since installation in September 1998 they have provided an extremely reliable and cost effective solution to increasing the school's pupil:computer ratio. Once configured through the NCManager server, staff and pupils have instant access to all their familiar RiscOS applications, email and the internet. As well as serving these resources to the NCs, NCManager robustly handles all email and internet services for all the other clients on our network. A new NC terminal can be up and running with access to all network resources within 30 minutes of the delivery van arriving.As network administrator, I love them, as I spend far less time on maintenance and support on NCs than I do with other machines on the network. This is also made possible by the excellent remote support received from Dr Stephen Borrill. Where we have wanted to configure something in a bespoke way to integrate with our network, Stephen has responded quickly and helpfully. There is a very strong 'partnership' relationship with client schools. NCs feature strongly in our future ICT development plans. In 1999/2000 we plan to commission a separate suite of NCs in our library and install Windows NT Terminal Server/Citrix Metaframe to allow them to operate in a Windows NT environment as well as in Acorn RiscOS. We are very much looking forward to the continued development of the NC concept, which is ideally suited to the needs of schools, by Precedence Technologies Ltd. We are confident that there is an exciting future.
Chris Flanagan
The Burgate School, HantsWe have a network of 40 NCs and a few PCs and RiscPCs. NCs have proved to be as easy to manage as I had hoped, causing me fewer problems than the 2 PCs available on the network. The PCs are already too slow for the pupils more used to the latest technology available at home.The pupils and students love the ease with which they can access the Internet, use e-mail and switch between the Acorn and PC platforms. At KS4 we mainly use Microsoft Office Pro 97 successfully (the server is a Pentium II 350) whilst at KS3 we teach skills with the Acorn software we have traditionally used in this school - and for which we have the site licences! Pupils are able to use NCWorks to take images and text from the Internet and include them in their work. They can save images in different formats and convert them if necessary for the alternative platform. The system was installed in October. There were some teething problems but these were solved with good humour and expertise. I have nothing but praise for the way in which I have been helped by Stephen Borrill, he has been patient and swift in his responses to my e-mails, often solving a problem remotely. His support web pages are a very useful resource. There are a number of improvements that I believe are being worked on and I look forward to an even better system in the future!
Mrs Jan Mansi
Coombe Dean School, PlymouthIn September 1997 Coombe Dean School had an NC network installed consisting of 40 NC computers, 10 RISCPCs, Windows Application Server and NCManager. We are now absolutely delighted that we went down this road for our I.C.T. solution. We now have 55 more NC's and have connected 12 PC's to the same system. many more machines will be attached in the near future. The support from Dr. Stephen Borrill is exceptional. A telephone call with a problem or an enhancement has him telnet into our system updating or solving problems. One major advance was his writing of our E-Mail sieve. All students have their own E-Mail address and access to the Internet. Every E-Mail goes through the sieve and if unsuitable content is found it is diverted to the administrator. Within a very short space of time our E-Mail system was only being used as a school would like.Finally I would say that today, faced with the problems of budgets, high support costs and the ever present demand for the latest technology, you have to have a very good reason for not going for NC computers. Martyn Spencer
Robert Wilkinson Primary School, YorkWe are a large primary school with 20 NC's running Acorn software in a single room. (soon to be networked around the school) We have found the network computers brilliant. In a very short period of time the staff have taken to them and even the most computerphobic have begun to use the NC's for themselves. We have children from the ages of 6 to 11 using the NC's throughout the day from morning 'till night and it has proved reliable and friendly. We run a whole range of software taken from the wealth of educational software available for the Acorn (we already owned) plus we have the benefits of the built in software that comes with the NC.Our teaching staff love the fact that the NC's can be plugged into a large screen TV and ICT can be taught first before they touch a keyboard. This is especially popular with the infant classes who say that without it they would be rushing around from screen to screen or having to use a great deal of helpers in the room. Our most used piece of software has to be Pages for its ease of use. (soon to be upgraded to Multimedia Textease which is brilliant) This software also has a PC reader/printer (available on the Internet) so that children can print out their work at home it they wish on the PC. They may also buy a student copy of the software for the PC and the files are totally interchangeable. Other software we use regularly are NCWriter, NCBase, PicturePoint (infant database), NCSheet, Dazzle, MusicBox, Banner, Sherlock, MyWorld, Crystal Rainforst 1&2, TableAliens etc etc (in fact all your old favourites). We even found some Anglia Multimedia Web pages on Kenya as part of the included Intranet resources (ideal for our locality topic) In our recent Ofsted inspection the inspector said that it was the best ICT he had seen in 35 Ofsted inspections and we've only been using the NC's since November! He went on to say that in a lot of schools he has to search for evidence of ICT but in ours he found that he opened a book and some fell out. We have found Precedence Technologies extremely helpful. Stephen Borrill the expert behind the NCManager will give you that personal touch that it is hard to get from many other companies. Recently, he was able to sort out my enquiries on his car phone on the way to Manchester. I have felt secure in the knowledge that he is always at the end of the phone and it makes the support contract well worth the money. (no please ring back later, here) When we first thought about spending our hard earned money on computers our first consideration was to buy PC's but after careful thought about our needs (not the governor who works in industry) we felt that the NC's woud serve our purpose perfectly. We wanted to teach ICT directly, we wanted to abe able to use the vast amount of software we already owned, we wanted a system that could access the internet and we wanted a system that was cheap and reliable. We have not been disappointed. Follow your heart - not the crowd. Clint Lees
Winton SchoolI work as an ICT co-ordination/Head of ICT/Network Manager at Winton School in Andover, Hampshire. We have over 880 pupils in the school. Just over a year ago I was charged with finding a solution to our aging RISC OS network of computers. We had over 30 machines running on the server. There problems both technically and of the management variety.Technically the system was overloaded and would crash about once a fortnight. On the curriculum and management side we did not have enough machines and there a rising demand for machines that could run MS Windows based packages. However the school had a lot of expertise, time and software invested in the RISC OS system and did not want to throw that out. The headteacher and I went to a, then Acorn, presentation about the NCs. I had read and heard about these and thought that they might be a potential answer in all this thin client stuff. I was genuinely worried that if I had to maintain a suite of PCs I would be spending a large proportion of my time sorting out problems due to machine/software configurations. I had experience of this and did not relish the prospect again. The presentation was wonderful; RISC OS programs running side-by-side with MS stuff. The interconnectivity problem of running RISC OS, MS, and almost anything solved. Normally if anything sounds to good to be true, it is too good; theres a catch. In this case there didnt seem to be. The Head, who generally favoured PCs, was amazed at the simplicity of the solution. I contacted our local agent, Alsystems, and Philip Beale one of the sales agents came out to meeting of the Head, Deputy Head and myself. Mr Beale listened, took notes and asked some very pertinent questions about our intentions as regards our ICT plans. There was no hard sales push; everything was open and above board. Well, it turned out there was a catch! The catch was that we would have to refurbish at least one room and spend a serious amount of money, at least in education terms, in implementing this solution. The shopping list comprised:
Having set out on this path the sum of money involved about £45,000! Not having all those pennies in hand we decided to lease the equipment. Our friendly agent came to aid and helped us sort out all the leasing arrangements. All the work was planned and eventually installed. There were hiccups along the way. The single biggest issue was getting !Style working over the new system. With only one day to go before going live (i.e. the start of term) even that was solved. Why was it all sounding suddenly so desperate? I had to implement a Year 7 and 8 course that was machine intensive from the first day of term. In addition I had to have all the old Y11 coursework files transferred and all the pupils registered as users with passwords. I set all the pupils user names and passwords and Alsystems did the actual work. Once the system was up and running it has been ease itself to run. The internet-based support has been marvellous. Despite many years working in IT I still find it nerve wrecking putting in fixes to software. The system of downloading and installing hot fixes is simplicity itself. Once we are on the internet I look forward to doing the whole thing on line. Support via either Alsystems or Precedence/Xemplar has always been good with an excellent turn-round time. However Ive rarely had to use it with the NCs as there is so little to go wrong. They are so simple to use; children and staff love the ease of use. Logging on and accessing all the programs could not be easier. The whole system has removed a level of techno-fear from members of staff who were reluctant users before. Access to all our RISC OS programs and Windows(tm) is an absolute boon. It all makes my life as Network Manager and IT Co-ordinator much easier to manage. Using the thin-client removes the worry of pupils mangling a machine configuration as it provides central control of Windows; there are no special programs to lock this, that and the other; pupils and staff dont have to worry about wrecking a program; Citrix winframe/metaframe doesnt let them. Every time someone logs on they are presented with the same interface wether it is NC OS, RISC OS or Windows. A superb system that lets staff and pupils concentrate on the work and not the platform We are looking to expand our current system. There is no thought about what we want to do. It has to be another set of NCs. I can recommend the NCs to anyone wanting peace of mind, ease of use, good, friendly support and to get on with the job of teaching.
R D Skegg (Mr)
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