One of the latest PC Pro articles.
Schools confused by governments it policy
One of the latest PC Pro articles.
Schools confused by governments it policy
north-ict (21st September 2011)
"Almost half the surveyed educators said they didnt have enough - or good enough laptops and PC's of high enough quality".
That one sentence can sum up a lot, exactly who was surveyed? teaching/support staff? laptops on wireless?
If we did a survey on "Is your laptop/desktop good enough" I can bet my right arm that 85% of them will always vote no because their kit is not under 6 months old and if it doesn't load up within 3 seconds it is classed as slow.
Not surprised that Schools are not too sure though, they spent months/years telling us we needed VLE's, decent IT Equipment and managed services etc then pulled the plug on everything.

I like the comments. In 6 posts it goes from constructive to Mac bashing.
I ve always done whats best for the school IT people dont need hand holding in education its a folly of how things were years ago


To be fair, the article makes some good points.
1. ICT leadership in some schools is lacking. Many schools have lived happily with the hand-holding ways of the past, and are now stumped as they no longer have Becta to turn to, and in many cases LEA IT bods are disappearing too. Add in academy status and it can easily get away from a school.
2. Many schools do have inadequate provision. Sure, some teachers have perceptions that don't match reality because their home PC they bought for £300 seems faster than the school ones, but there are a constant stream of posters on here complaining of a lack of investment and a lack of machines. Hearing people saying they are using Pentium 4 machines still is not uncommon.
However, it is also incorrect on a few points.
1. Schools were actively discouraged from upgrading to Vista + Office 2007 by Becta, partly because of the whole 'Microsoft licensing' discussions that were going on at the time, and partly because Vista was pants. Due to this, schools have become a bit more nervous about upgrading to new releases. Why move away from XP when everything they need to do on their systems works, to a potential quagmire of problems with a new system?
2. The article doesn't touch on the lack of training and rolling investment in many schools. So, those voting that they don't have the right provision need not be blaming central government policy, but local decision making.
Plus, we all know that iPads are the answer.

Yes, but what is the question?Plus, we all know that iPads are the answer.



I think they should just keep buying netbooks.
You can never have enough netbooks.
You can do tons of stuff on them.
They are great.
Let's buy more netbooks.
I hate these netbooks, the screens are too small.
I hate these netbooks, they are too slow.
What do you mean I can't access my network files on a netbook?
Can we order some more netbooks? We had 40 stolen last night. One of the teachers forgot to lock the trolley.
Netbooks are great.
Shall we buy some Ipads?
Time for breakfast. I hate netbooks if you hadn't gathered.
joe90bass (21st September 2011)
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