ADM: Venting: AR and STAR

[Kay Goss <fup001@MAIL.CONNECT.MORE.NET>]

Dear LM_NETter's:

Please bear with me. One day last week I announced to some colleagues
across the hall, "I hate AR with every fiber of my being!"
Today, I confirm that fact.

We have AR and STAR running on a WIN NT network with IBM machines.  Our
server has gone down three times so far this year. (power surges,
construction, etc.)
Each time the server goes down we lose information in both programs.  I
lost two days of tests last week in AR.
I lost STAR test scores and student names for all year.
I spent one whole day last week with technical support working out
problems.  Today I am still trying to fix the program at 2:15 p.m.
I think I could have read aloud a book, written and given and graded a
test in the time I have spent with these programs.
AR does seem to be improving reading levels in our elementary.  But, in
the secondary school, only our sixth grade teachers and one 7-8 teacher
are really using the program.
In addition, my secondary students will not pick up anything to read
that is not AR. They are missing out on a lot of good literature. I
began by ordering the sets and the tests but discovered that many of the
titles were old.  Now I order my books and then the AR tests that are
available.

One more thing, AR tells us that each time new hardware or software is
added to our network, the Vreader and opportunistic locking and one
other file should be run on each computer. We have 50 running AR.
Our part-time technician refuses to do so, saying it isn't necessary.
It seems like such an expensive and greatly touted program such as
AR/STAR should not require working on each machine or constant tech
support.

Thanks for listening again.


--
Kay Goss
Director, Library Media Services
Mansfield R-IV Schools
315 West Ohio Avenue
Mansfield, Mo.  65704
417-924-3236  Ext. 311

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