The use of Learning Resources is probably not the most resourceful method for an online booking system. As mentioned previously it was designed here more as a means of forcing certain members of staff to actually use their computers and have to learn to use LR if they were going to bring a class to the IT suites.
Previously we used booking forms which were stored in files at the front of each of the ICT rooms. A teacher simply had to input their initials, subject and year group into the specific block. Problems, although the file was marked DO NOT REMOVE FROM ROOM certain members of staff were too lazy to walk to the computer room so sent a student to lift the file. Sometimes the file would be missing for days before it turned up again. The files were then chained to a table at the front of the rooms, the file pages would then go missing for days!
V1 of our online booking form wasn’t much better. I created a template which basically matched the paper version and set up a folder with all the weeks in the school calendar. A teacher could open the week they were interested in and add their details to the period they wished to book. Problems, as blondnotstupid said “caught a couple of staff rubbing out other bookings when it suited them”. Well imagine the electronic equivalent, in the privacy of your own room simply overtype another staff members booking as you couldn’t find another suitable time.
V2 therefore had to be a backward step due to the inconsiderate actions of a few and has been running for over a year now. At the root level is a folder called Booking Forms, within that are the folders for each of the ICT suites. In each of these folders are the all the available weeks throughout the year e.g. “February 6-10 Wk1.doc”. We run a two week timetable here hence the Wk1. These folders are read only so a member of staff can only see room availability. I have another folder called Downloadable Booking Forms which contain a template for teachers to fill in with their requests. These file are downloaded by any member of staff wishing to make a booking; it only needs downloading once as they can reuse it. This folder had to be made read only too as some individuals tried to add their data there. Another folder called Requests was created and set up as “handing in point (write only)”. Each morning I check this folder then add the data to the relevant file. Problems, depending on the number of bookings, I can spend up to 10 minutes a day adding this info. On the upside though it has stopped staff trying to book the rooms at weekends and holidays! The fact the files reside in LR also means that the rooms can be booked from home. Why anyone would want to spend their time at home booking computer rooms is just one of those mysteries in life but some do.
