[aklug] Re: Zangle info

From: Tim Gibney <timgibney76@gmail.com>
Date: Thu Jan 28 2010 - 17:13:29 AKST

This is nothing.
My wife was a teacher in a school district in California (I wont provide
names here) where they blew $30,000,000 to replace all the macs with gateway
pc's. It turns out one of the new superintendents at the district just
happened to be on Gateway's board of directors. What a strange coincidence?

They also switched to Zangle. Be at least glad they use Unix and Macs still
at ASD unlike other districts that had nice sales deals with Windows OEMs.

Schools all have Zangle mouse pads and pens which sounds like the salesmen
made quite an impression. Businesses work the same way with sales and
contacts which is why executives make so much money. Its who they know
rather than how well they can work. Inside sales do wonders.

In Zangle's defense the product does work and works well. Automation and
data storage can save tens of millions and increase productivity. Its a
nightmare to track attendance for every student and reporting attendance for
No Child Left Behind committees. If Zangle meets the districts needs best
then it should be used.

I find it odd that a Windows client needs to be installed rather than having
it all web based, but I bet C-innovations can make more money if they charge
per seat licensing as well with the client.

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Arthur Corliss
<acorliss@nevaeh-linux.org>wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, Marc Grober wrote:
>
> > Zangle is a proprietary offering of C-innovations
> > see, http://www.cinnov.com/products_overview.htm
> > It was purchased after the ASD IT Budget Review Team objected and after
> members
> > of the BRT refuted the claims of the consultants then hired to address
> the BRT's
> > objections. See http://asdtech.wik.is
> >
> > Zangle at ASD is apparently based on one web server and one mSSQL server.
> All
> > web based data which includes for example all attendance for every
> student must
> > be reported via the web engine.
> >
> > It turned out that the admin zangle client is only pc based and there is
> no web
> > access, so ASD had to implement a windows terminal server to provide
> school
> > admins and registrars on Macs access to the pc client on the windows term
> servers
> >
> > Most parents I have spoken to are disgusted with the expenditure of the
> millions
> > of dollars with no benefit as yet to them, and attendance etc is still
> not real
> > time.
> >
> > While SpEd records was intended to be included in the SIS, it was not,
> so SpEd
> > records continues to maintain and expand multiple FileMaker Pro servers
> for
> > which they purchased a web front end which they apparently have been
> unable to
> > implement.... yes, another disaster....
> >
> > The zangle PM is Mary McKean whose claim to fame is certainly not IT
> matters,
> > she WAS an asst. principal that ASD moved to PM when the prior PM, who
> the BRT
> > pointed out was NOT qualified, was let go..... Mary couldn't carry the
> prior
> > PM's brief case IT cred wise. The ASD zangle progress site was
> apparently
> > discontinued when folk started asking questions about zangle. My
> personal
> > attempts to obtain specific data on zangle implementation details were
> largely
> > obstructed by ASD (they provided completely obscure and meaningless
> responses
> > and have now refused to consider appeals re document requests... I
> decided not
> > to bother litigating same as apparently the public is in love with the
> Board and
> > the administration and the public deserves what it wants, after all....
> >
> > Need to know more?
>
> Thanks for being the watch dog on this, Marc. ASD is clearly incompetent
> in
> nearly every aspect of education, and this shows their incompetence goes
> beyond even that.
>
> Some day this town won't consider education to be the third rail of local
> politics and we'll be able to hold people accountable.
>
> --Arthur Corliss
> Live Free or Die
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Received on Thu Jan 28 17:14:03 2010

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