As with any other devices or technology, technical issues are inevitable. We will all someday, somehow be affected as was the case in our lab at Redlands Primary School the first week of November when we had a faulty server. I believe that anyone who knows anything about running a lab or a network of Pc's, whether it be at work or school, knows the server is the most important aspect of keeping your lab up and running, but fortunately for us at Redlands primary, we are able to have a fully active lab without the server.

As we are a multigrade school with a limited amount of staff it is absolutely paramount that all resources are fully functioning at all times and all staff be hands on. The lab periods is a great opportunity for the teacher, that has a class of approximately 3 grades, can send one or two grades to the lab so that they can have a focused learning session with only one grade. So imagine the panic I felt when I noted that our server is faulty. Our server would switch itself off and restart for about 4 times in one hour .

I made the decision to switch off the server completely and reported the issue to our tech support, who told me that he would have to come and fetch the server to service it. Some would have been worried about having to shut down the lab in this instance, and even though I had a bit of a worry, I knew that we could still allow learners in the lab and have a semi- functional lab during the times the server is down.

Redlands lab consists of 19 mini pc's and with the help of our tech support, Easton Pretorius, configured our pc's to function as a mobile android devices, so that we can use any apps installed on it, without actually being connected to the server. So my students and my teachers could have those lab periods without fail for the duration of the server being down. For all the other things like research having to be done, we used the teacher station and data projector . I would pull up the research, project it on the board, so that the kids can write it down. I also printed the needed information for them to use.

The fact that we could have a active lab during these times is a tremendous help for the school and the teachers. And I can be happy knowing that my students won't ever miss out on all the learning fun.