I have just seen some schematics looking at floorspace in our BSF school. What was interesting was the fact that there are no ICT rooms planned; according to the consulting architects ICT rooms are old-hat, relics of a byegone era.......
Another sobering observation; we have 10sq m allocated for ICT storage, and another 20sq m for switchboard & server room. No space for ICT support staff.
I feel like a dinosaur, looking up into the heavens.... watching the meteor heading my way
Sounds to me like the 'architects' know f all about how people work.
Yep. Sounds about right. Well we never have teachers wanting to teach entire classes ICT at the same time do we? We don't have a national curriculum subject called 'ICT' either...
Have they said how IT classes will be taught then? Or is it all mobile devices and Wi-fi? Be very interested to know.Originally Posted by broc
I have just seen some schematics looking at floorspace in our BSF school. What was interesting was the fact that there are no ICT rooms planned; according to the consulting architects ICT rooms are old-hat, relics of a byegone era.......
Another sobering observation; we have 10sq m allocated for ICT storage, and another 20sq m for switchboard & server room. No space for ICT support staff.
I feel like a dinosaur, looking up into the heavens.... watching the meteor heading my way
Is that 20sqm as in a total across many areas, or all together in one room?
If my memory serves me correctly, I don't think the new Djanogly City Academy in Nottingham had any dedicated ICT suites. They utilised tablet notebooks, and wireless projectors. There are lockers at the back of a few rooms where these tablets are stored and charged. Some rooms have power for the tablets when in use as well. I didn't like the way the techies were kept in two dark windowless rooms below ground, almost as an afterthought.
The dedicated suites they have are for specific tools ... CAD/CAM, Video Editting ... everything else is done on tablets that are located in storage areas in each room (part of an eLearning Foundation - style thing)
Doesn't that increase the amount of time wasted setting up computers each lesson then? Giving them out, turning them on, logging in. Then at the end, logging off, shutting down, collecting them in etc...
Thats a lot of extra overhead per lesson!!
I had a BSF cabling company tell me 4 WAPs would cover a whole school and there not willing to put in extra cables. It was fun watching them run all the extra cable after going over the head to the BSF project manager lol ;-)
IIRC (and I will check on) when the students come in they go pass the storage area. If the door is open then they grab a laptop out and sit down, logging in as they get their other stuff out the bag. It is meant to take not that much more time than going into a science lab, getting your white coat off the rail and picking up safety goggles.
Haha, I would love to see that work properly in practice!
And 4 WAPS per school??? How big is the school? A single classroom?
According to my line-manager (Deputy HT), the architects view was that every child would have a 'computer' and so there would be no need for ICT rooms. This begs a few supplementary questions that I was not able to ask..... as I was not important enough to take part in the meeting .....
Questions like:
What sort of device would the students have? Would it be able to handle the broad spectrum of applications that are in use at school? What sort of battery life would it have? How durable are they likely to be? How affordable? How would they recharge them when the batteries went flat? Where would their personal data be? Would they be used outside of school, and if so how was network security going to be maintained, not to mention where would these 'personal' devices be stored during break, lunchtime, PE etc? My school is a medium sized secondary with falling rolls, but is still likely to be around 800 students by the time we are rebuilt.
800 student 'portables' and 100 staff computers.... how many techicians will the school have by then I wonder? I expect it could be expressed as a single binary digit...... I wonder what BECTA would make of it?
I have tabled these and a few other comments for my Head Teacher to consider asking at the next BSF ICT meeting to make sure that there is adequate provision in school to cope with (and support) all of these devices
god, we have 3 waps per 30 laptops here. im sorry but this whole idea helping your self to a laptop etc does not work. I've tried it here, it caused more problems, than enough.
In my opinion i think they have decided, whats the latest coolest technology that we can use.. oww wireless looks good, we dont have any practical knowledge experience, but hey....Fuck it, lets use it any way!! and then when teachers start complianing, we will be long gone and on to our next school project.
Hope the dont start a hospitals for the future project!
If there are no ICT suites, I assume you mean no wired networks - only wireless. In this case It sounds like the architects view doesn't even come close to Becta's. According to Becta's technical specifications (which IIRC were written to keep BSF schools meeting a minimum standard) the school should be wired with cat5e/6 and wireless only used to support the wired network.I wonder what BECTA would make of it?
I was under the impression that ignoring these minimum specifications wasn't optional for BSF schoolsWired networks have become the industry standard due to their superior data rates, low-cost and high degree of stability, with wired networks ubiquitous in education as the fundamental technology underlying LANs. Wired networks are therefore to be used as the main network in an institution.
Design criteria
• Institutions shall implement an Ethernet based wired solution as their primary network.
whats also interesting is that BECTA are consulting with the University of Bedfordshire's school of education about how an ict suite should be laid out, with BSF in mind
Dean
Ive been to Djanogly and it doesnt work. the batterys are all shot on the tablets so they have to be pluged in all the time, they can only logon/off 5-10 at a time or the network crashes, the kids don't know how to use the tablets correctly, i.e i saw one kid using the stylus on the screen whist the notebook was in its conventional open position. and last but not least the teachers dont use the wireless projectors to there full potential, they allways dock to use them.
we are a one school pathfinder for bsf and have had to fight tooth and nail for addaquate space for support staff and computer suites. luckly the smt's respect our knowledge and guidence so back us up with what we have to say. good news is that there will be no managed services
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