ICT in new school

Lakeland · 23 Jan 2011 at 14:50

I work in a school which will be getting a new building next year and with that comes the ability to have a brand new ICT provision.

I'm afraid management will fill the school with shiny new things that look good but provide little or no benefit to staff or students.

Has anyone been in a similar position, and if so, what new gadgets, software etc have worked and what haven't?

Any info or a general rant is fine

Greg0986 · 23 Jan 2011 at 15:02

Our college has just got a new building and they have bought a bunch of new Computers. It is meant to be an energy development building and because they use CAD for that, all the computers have i5's and 24" monitors

.

I worked with the IT department for the day and set them all up. Apparently all the computers together cost about 1m in the whole building.

Cleeecooo · 23 Jan 2011 at 15:03

ermm... I think it was CS4 (not adobe) but the logon thing. Slowed computers down a LOT. Not sure if that was the name though

shadow_boxer · 23 Jan 2011 at 15:45

Your thread reminded me of Singapore school uses iPads in the classroom.

Back on topic anyway...

Lakeland · 23 Jan 2011 at 15:54

shadow_boxer said:
Your thread reminded me of Singapore school uses iPads in the classroom.

Back on topic anyway...

Not off topic at all, it was exactly what I was getting at, that idea is being thrown around the school...

scrlk · 23 Jan 2011 at 15:57

shadow_boxer said:
Your thread reminded me of Singapore school uses iPads in the classroom.

Back on topic anyway...

Sadly in Britain, the IT equipment in schools is treated quite poorly by the users.

Mr-White · 23 Jan 2011 at 15:57

Lakeland said:
I'm afraid management will fill the school with shiny new things that look good but provide little or no benefit to staff or students.

Avoid macs we had no end of problems with them and staff. We got through 3-4 mac guys in 18 months and each one complained about the mess the previous had left it in lol

MW

m4rkw7 · 23 Jan 2011 at 16:17

An old school i worked at cleared out all of the systems and loaded Vista..

Lakeland · 23 Jan 2011 at 16:23

m4rkw7 said:
An old school i worked at cleared out all of the systems and loaded Vista..

We're jumping straight to Windows 7 and all hardware will be new apart from a small number of new purchases made this year.

I should point out that I am an end user, not network support, so anything basic will be of use too

shadow_boxer · 23 Jan 2011 at 16:35

I think something along the lines of Athlon Tri-core or i3's would be a pretty good start, with 22" monitors, Windows 7. Should offer best bang for buck in a school setup.

As above, IT equipment exactly well respected or treated. Certainly wouldn't be heading anywhere near iPads.

Audigex · 23 Jan 2011 at 16:40

22" or 24" monitors.

At uni they just upgraded the monitors on the same computers from 19"->24", but it FEELS like a performance increase. I found the same thing when I upgraded my own monitor. The computer can be slightly slower because of it, but it feels faster.

Other than that you just want a fast network, and pre-configured network shares for the user. Nothing more annoying than having to fiddle with netshares. You don't need anything fancy, just plenty of reasonably quick windows boxes with big monitors.

I'd maybe consider having quick-access ubuntu boxes, which just boot straight into firefox. Faster login for internet access for when people just need to check something. Probably better in more public areas.

Lakeland · 23 Jan 2011 at 16:45

I think the above specs are just right.

Are desktops preferable over thin clients? I can see a lot of positives for thin clients but not a lot of people raving about using them? I'd have thought they were perfect for a school as the PC can't be damaged, it's cheaper and lasts for longer?